“You want to borrow my golems?” Lucas stared at Samira who had visited him at his company.

  She nodded. “Yes. The empire is planning a counterattack against severium with the goal to do as much damage as possible,” Samira explained. “Since there is a high chance that this mission is going to be a one-way trip, we plan to send as many golems instead of people as possible.”

  Lucas crossed his arm as he considered it. For all his monster lord golems, Lucas didn’t have to worry about them getting left behind in another dimension since upon getting destroyed, they would return to his spatial core thanks to their soul connection.

  He did owe Samira one for telling him about the dimensional rift opening near his sister’s school, so he decided to agree.

  “Alright,” Lucas went towards one of the workbenches and grabbed a cylindrical case and carried it back towards Samira. “Here.”

  “What’s this?” Samari asked.

  Lucas pressed a button on the case, causing it to open and reveal a dozen rows of golems in marble form. Each row had five golems, putting a total of sixty golems inside the case.

  “All of them are the Iris: Infantry with each row equipped with different weapons,” Lucas answered. “Bring these too,” Lucas grabbed a bucket filled with more golems in the shape of marbles.

  “What are these?” Samira asked in confusion after seeing them in a bucket.

  “I tried making golems out of those snakes, but their scales become corrosive when mixed to other materials,” Lucas explained. “Since they won’t be able to function as working golems, I turned them into bombs.”

  Samira looked at him in concern.

  “Once they turn into their golem form, they’ll blindly charge at the enemy and explode with corrosive acid,” Lucas stated.

  “...” Samira just stared at the bucket filled with the kamikaze golems. “Are you alright?”

  “Allegedly,” Lucas replied. “Bring this one too,” Lucas handed Percival to Samira.

  Samira examined the marble. “Isn’t this one of your strongest ones?”

  Lucas nodded. “Send it as well.”

  “Thank you for your help.”

  Rose flew over the city, keeping above the clouds to avoid attracting too much attention to herself. After crossing between universes, Rose began searching for her family. Hopefully, they still lived in the same place, which was likely considering her mother’s sentimentality to such things.

  When she arrived at the house, she was surprised to see it in such a good condition, along with a tall fence that covered a wider area around the house. There was even a pool in the yard.

  Rose hesitated to land, not knowing how Valeri would react to her arrival. But she pushed back her anxiety and landed at the front door. She raised her hand to knock but quickly hesitated.

  As she took a step back, the door suddenly opened to reveal Valeri holding a trash bag. “Hmm?” Valeri looked up to see Rose. “Dear? Why are you wearing spandex?”

  Rose looked down to see that she was still wearing her combat uniform from her home universe. It was primarily yellow with black sleeves and pants that were all very fit. “Uh...”

  Rose didn’t know what to say, so she just stood there. But her body had other plans as she leaned forwards and embraced Valeri into a tight hug.

  “Oh?” Valeri was surprised by the hug but returned it. “Is everything alright dear?”

  Rose shook his head. “I’ve got a lot to tell you mom.”

  “This is Maxwell Arden, the head of artifact manufacturing in the CDA,” Samira stated as she brought Lucas to the CDA headquarters to discuss the details of the plan to send golems into the rift.

  “Nice to meet you Mr. Atican,” Maxwell shook hands with Lucas.

  “Likewise,” Lucas replied.

  “Maxwell will be the one controlling the golems heading into the rift,” Samira explained. “Additionally, a total of two mages and seven soldiers volunteered to enter the rift.”

  Lucas raised an eyebrow. “Don’t they realize that they may never return?”

  Samira let out a deep breath before nodding. “They’re aware, but they still want to do it. These are people that lost people they care about during the invasion.”

  Lucas nodded in understanding and decided to not question it anymore. He was certain he would the same thing if his mother had died during the war.

  “When does the mission happen?” Lucas asked.

  “Two days,” Maxwell answered. “Three rifts opened in the central sector, and two have already been closed. We plan on sending the counterattack in the remaining one.”

  They gave Lucas a brief explanation on how the mission would go. The suicide golems he made would be carried by Percival. Once they enter the rift, Percival would rush in and scatter them around the area to maximize their use.

  The rest would do as much damage as possible in the area they would arrive in. Since the dimensional rifts were forced open, they would likely arrive in a lab that was used to make the rift, which gave them a good starting point to do some damage.

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  After discussing the plan and meeting some of the people involved, Lucas headed home for the day. When he arrived, he noticed something odd coming from within the house. It felt familiar, yet he couldn’t recognize what it was.

  When he entered the house, a very odd sight that had him questioning if he was drugged on the way home from the CDA.

  A woman that looked like a slightly older version of Rose was sitting in the living room, wearing a yellow and black spandex suit. It was at that moment that Lucas recognized the feeling he sensed from outside.

  It was aura.

  Upon seeing him, Rose turned into yellow and black blur that shot towards him. The air was knocked out of him as Rose slammed into his chest, putting him in a tight hug.

  “What’s going on?” Lucas managed to groan out.

  “It’s a long story,” his mother said as she came out of the kitchen.

  The other Rose came from another universe where aura was more well-known and apparently, he was a villain. She was a Viscount-ranked mage and aura user with two attributes, her own attribute, wind and the one he got from Lucas, speed.

  As for her story, Rose was an agent from the CDA in her universe before it was disbanded after the empire was reduced to ruins after a large-scale war.

  As for how his counterpart became a villain. After their mother was killed by a member of a great house related to the royal family and they tried covering it up, Lucas went on a rampage and slaughtered every member of that great house and everyone else that tried to stop him.

  With the empire at war at the time and Lucas turning against them, the Vulcan empire quickly fell. Rose didn’t know what happened to his counterpart after the fall of the empire, nor did she have the leisure to do so with that universe in chaos.

  “What happened to Shina?” Lucas asked.

  Rose just shook her head.

  “Which great house was the cause of this?” Lucas followed up.

  Rose shook her head again. “I’m not going to tell you.”

  “Can you at least tell me who the empire was at war with?”

  Rose sighed. “They called themselves the void. They looked like corrupted purple monsters,” Rose described.

  “Never heard of them,” Lucas grumbled. “Did anyone else come with you?”

  Rose shook her head once again. “Just me. Not like there were many survivors after the empire fell.”

  “And this?” Lucas gestured to her clothes.

  “We kind of had a thing in my universe about dressing up as superheroes.”

  “...” Lucas decided to not question that part. “How strong was the other me?”

  “During his last known battle, he was around level of the top fifty in the continental rankings,” Rose answered. “He had five aura circles and powerful attributes,” Rose mentioned. “You also had some strange ability that nobody seemed to figure out.”

  Lucas raised an eyebrow. The first thing that came to his mind was his ability to see mana circuits, but that wasn’t exactly useful in combat. “Can you describe it?”

  “I’m not sure either. It was like you never ran out of energy while fighting.”

  Lucas didn’t recognize the ability either. It was likely unique to his counterpart, or it was something he needed to unlock or learn in the future. “What about golems?”

  Rose looked thoughtful for a moment. “You did use some golems, but there wasn’t something impressive about them.”

  Clearly him and his counterpart had different specialties. “Any chance of him coming here and deciding to get violent?”

  Rose hesitated for a moment before shaking her head. “Very unlikely. The only reason he went on a rampage was because of what the empire did. He has no reason to come here.”

  Lucas shrugged. “I’d consider destroying the empire in every universe a good reason.”

  Rose stared at him in worry.

  Hours passed and Lucas learned more about the other universe and how things worked there.

  They agreed to refer to the Rose from another universe as Maverick, which was her codename back in her universe. It was a necessity after their Rose got home and met the Rose from another universe.

  “Ugh... I look tired in the future,” Rose commented.

  “I don’t think you’ll have the same problem here,” Maverick replied with a chuckle as they sat down for dinner.

  She was now dressed in casual clothes that belonged to their mom. But that didn’t stop Rose from commenting about her hero outfit.

  Another thing to discuss was that Maverick was going to stay in this universe. Even if she had a way to return to her home universe, their mom wouldn’t allow it. They also chose to keep the matter a secret from everyone else.

  Maverick will also be joining Lucas in the company and occasionally train in the mana vein since she was already twenty-four years old, a year older than Shina and five years older than Lucas and Rose.

  “I’m the older sister now,” Maverick smirked.

  The operation was about to begin, and Elise wondered if this was all worth it.

  “Getting cold feet?”

  Elise turned around to see a cybernetic black knight. She didn’t remember seeing anyone wearing such heavy armor during the briefing, nor did they mention someone like him.

  Elise shook her head. “No. I’m just not sure if I’ll be able to do anything. I’m just a normal solider after all.”

  “You’ll do fine,” the man replied.

  “Get ready!” a man standing in front of the rift yelled.

  He was likely one of the two mages that were heading into the rift. Elise tuned him out as she mentally prepared herself for her last mission.

  She felt a tap on her shoulder and saw Akina, the only other female soldier going on this mission. “Are you ready?”

  “Not at all,” Elise admitted.

  “You two know each other?” the armored knight asked.

  Akina nodded. “Yes. We actually used to date the same guy,” she revealed. “Not at the same time. Just to be clear,” she added.

  The knight was silent for a moment. “Seems like a stupid man. But why did you join this mission?”

  “My father was killed during the invasion,” Akina answered. “He was all I had left.”

  The knight turned to Elise. “My parents.”

  The knight nodded. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “And you?” Akina asked.

  The knight pointed to the crate of suicide golems that was mentioned during the briefing. “Someone needs to carry that.”

  “Comfortable?” Maxwell asked.

  “Not really,” Lucas replied.

  His consciousness was currently split between him and his golem. It allowed him to still be functional, while also being able to manually control and see what Percival sees to some extent. But this ability comes at the cost of a massive headache as two different sets of memories were pouring into his head.

  “Being able to impart your consciousness into a golem, you made quite the breakthrough in artifact crafting Mr. Atican.”

  “I’m not sure if it’s worth it yet,” Lucas groaned.

  Turning to the screen, they watched as the mission began. From elemental golems to mechanized golems, they all began marching inside. Percival rushed in, carrying a case filled with the suicide golems.

  Upon rushing through, Lucas was greeted by the sight of an open area with the rift behind them. The sky was orange with the clouds taking the form streams that went across the sky. Around them was severiumites on their computers, looking in shock as the golems ran out and wreaked some havoc.

  “Core break.”