SON OF THE HERO KING

What did it mean to be a dimensional mage?

In a world filled with mighty beings, having the power of a dimension already made you stand out from the masses.

Dimensional mages were also known as born demigods for the reason that as long as they didn't die early, reaching the level of Demigod was never a question of IF but a question of When.

Normal demigods could only bring their full power when they were in their territory. Outside of it, their power dropped sharply.

This was also why Dimensional mages were so feared.

Because of the existence of one signature skill that all of them could master–

<<Dimension encroachment: Reverse Side>>

—

"How uncanny."

Welsh, who as always was entirely covered in bandages from head to toe, muttered as she watched what was happening through the special screens floating in the stadium.

The fight for the throne should have been an exciting fight full of passion and bloodthirsty moments. But right now, what they were witnessing was completely the opposite.

Sol's dimension encroachment could only bring a small part of the dimension in reality. Only covering about five kilometers in diameter.

Still—the effects were simply devastating.

Wherever he passed, dragons would simply lose the will to fight and surrender as long as he asked. As if they suddenly didn't care at all about winning.

"Just what's this power?"

"This–this is the reason why Sol now will never lose against anyone in this competition as long as he is willing."

Tiamat humored her children by briefly explaining.

"Is there a limit to this power?"

"Of course. The effects are only active on Dukes. Kings are partially affected but are spared from the effects for the most part because they have created their own true self."

Fafnir paled when he caught the key word, "You mean…All Dukes?"

The fact that this passive effect could not affect anyone above the Duke might seem like a weakness but this was far from it.

Sol was not even a Duke now so his encroachment had a low coverage. But once he became a demigod, he would be able to cover hundreds or even thousands of kilometers.

King-ranked beings were extremely rare and even Dragons only had less than ten Kings dragons in all their history. This would mean that everyone else was fair game for Sol.

"You understand, right? Even a King can die if he is swarmed by an army of Duke. But for Sol, number tactics are simply meaningless."

Of course, Sol's dimension didn't simply stop there. It didn't simply reverse emotions.

"Well. It seems like I was right in putting the three of them in three extremities."

Fafnir sighed in relief but also despondence.

Indeed, while Sol was without a doubt impressive, he wasn't the only one.

Wherever Nidhogg passed, Dragons would fall in swarms.

Paralysis, sleep, hallucinations, fear, and other such things would bring down anyone that so much as turned in her zone of action.

The scariest was that she still didn't even use her domain, showing the disparity of power between her and the others.

On Kaiser's side, while he lacked the mysteriousness of the previous two, he made it up with overwhelming brute strength.

Sweeping off anyone who so much as got his way. No matter how many times they attacked him, they were unable to even put a blemish on his skin. Meanwhile, he never needed more than one or two hits to put them down.

Fafnir and Hydra were really satisfied with the display their descendants were putting forth. Sadly they couldn't find themselves feeling happy.

For they knew that as long as Sol willed them, their deep desire to win would become a deep desire to lose.

As if seeing the worry on their face, Tiamat chuckled, "Do not worry. I already talked with Sol and he told me that he would not use this skill for the final fight."

"Haha…"

Fafnir gave an awkward laugh while Hydra snorted.

The fact that Sol wouldn't use his strongest skill meant that he intended to use Nidhogg and Kaiser as a way to display his might.

In short, in his eyes, those two were nothing more than stepping stones.

This was truly an unpleasant feeling.

—-

After looking at two people who were clearly friends and about to team up and tear up each other until they were completely incapacitated, Sol realized how insidious his dimension truly was.

It was the first time he used it on such a large scale and on so many people and the effects were proving to be quite detestable.

'If I could do this during the attack on Lustburg, things would have gone very differently.'

Because this simple passive effect was so potent, Sol didn't even need to use what Tiamat taught him.

Still, the one major weakness of his dimension was that he couldn't use it while being surrounded by his own teammates.

Thankfully,

'Tiamat said that I would obtain greater control of this when I officially become a Duke.'

This would be very important, after all, the greatest desire that got inverted wasn't always in his favor.

'How many, six? Ten?'

He could feel some dragons rushing towards him with an all time high fighting spirit.

Clearly, those dragons initially had no wish to fight him nor even win this contest. But since he inverted their feelings…

"Well, this is also good. Finally time to try what I really wanted.'

Thinking about it, Sol stopped and begin to focus deeply on the power of his dimension.

He tried to stretch it more, increasing the distance it could cover, but it was clear that he had hit a limit. Whenever he tried to do so, he could feel the world around him fighting back and even eroding his dimension.

If Tiamat willed, he wouldn't even be able to open it at all and if he was in the mortal world, the pressure would be so high he would only be able to bring out a tenth of the current coverage. Most likely, even less.

Since increasing the distance was impossible, Sol began to focus inwardly.

It was His dimension.

His will was the will of the world.

His words were the laws.

In his dimension, he didn't only invert feelings. Far from it,

<<Reverse World: Labyrinth.>>

—

On the side of the assailants, they didn't really understand why they were filled with such a deep desire to win. Still, they didn't hesitate to rush toward what they perceived as the greatest problem.

But, suddenly, one of them who had been clearly rushing forward realized that he was somehow back behind him at the edge of the monochrome world.

"Huh…?"

Looking around in a daze, He frowned and decided to rush in again. Trying to run right and left, but no matter what he did, the distance that should have been covered in a short time suddenly seemed like it was never-ending.

It was as if he was in a maze with absolutely no exit in sight no matter what he did.

"Well, it looks like the experiment was a success."

Looking up suddenly, he saw a golden-haired young man he easily recognized as the Black horse of this competition.

"What…What did you do?"

"Hum?"

As if suddenly paying attention to him, Sol smiled and punched him hard on the head, thereby knocking him out before he could get back his bearings and activate his Zone.

Once Sol made sure the dragon was out cold he shrugged and walked away.

What he did was simply inverting the concept of [Direction] in his dimension.

Left became right and forward became backward. As if someone was looking at a mirror.

Once again he was the only one exempted from the nasty effect of his dimension.

Sol knew that he still had yet to unearth the full potential of his dimension.

After all, at the highest level, his other self had been able to invert the time of the entire universe.

'Well, most of the small fry should have been taken care of.'

He closed the encroachment, feeling as if a burden had been lifted from his shoulder.

Keeping the Encroachment for too long did not affect his mana reserve since they were night infinite thanks to his core. But the mental burden could not be easily shrugged off.

He was already satisfied with what he could do with it and was even more so since he knew there was still so much more he could do.

Now though, it was time to deal with the main dishes in this concept.

ROOAAR!!

Looking at the huge red dragon flying in the sky towards him, Sol, who recognized Kaiser's signature energy, smiled.

It was clear that he wasn't the only one who wanted to end this fight.

(AN: This is the first true display of Sol's dimension aside from simply using it to hide. What did you think?)