[Last Chapter: Coming home the long way around]
Chapter 111, Episode 111
[Voriath hadn't moved from his throne in five days]
[The Infinite Glass rotated above his palm. Slow. Patient]
[Each shard catching the light of the Invictus World's cold, infinite sky and throwing it back differently]
[His seven subordinates stood in formation before him]
[Behind them, the Null Collapse group. Behind them, ten Hyper Gods]
[Above them all, somewhere in the infinite layers of the Invictus World, twenty Justice Hyper Guardians waited]
[Further out, across the many realms Voriath had built into his world, two thousand Hyper Beings stirred like a tide waiting to be released]
[Voriath looked at all of it and felt nothing but clarity]
Voriath: It's time..
[he said]
[The room responded the way it always did]
[Everything in it became more alert. More real]
[The Null Collapse members who had been maintaining practiced expressions of composure quietly abandoned that effort and replaced it with something more honest]
[Mephisto stood in his position and kept his face arranged into its usual careful stillness]
[The throne room smelled of the Invictus World's particular cold — the cold of infinite space built from the ground up by one person — and every breath reminded him of what he was standing near]
[The Solstice Sisters stood mirrored and quiet]
[Euros had his hands still at his sides]
[Callista was looking at the floor]
[Voriath closed his hand around the Infinite Glass]
Voriath: The Nexus is moving, I can feel the current of it. It hasn't been claimed yet, but it's aware that I'm looking for it. It will come to where the power is greatest. That's its nature.
Mercurius: Excellent my Lord
[He looked at Mercurius]
Voriath: The foundation of every universe in the Primus World needs to be tested before I move. Not destroyed. Tested.
Mercurius: So we shake them?
[Mercurius said]
Voriath: We remind them that the seal was a delay. Not a defeat.
[He stood]
[The room adjusted. Everything in it moved slightly away from him without being told to]
[He looked at the ten Hyper Gods lined at the back of the room]
[They were named]
[Vorath-Kel. Draemis. Sunaketh. Paellor. Vrixas. Omneth. Zarvain. Huldrath. Calix. Serethos]
[Ten beings born from the same fundamental energy that had built the Invictus World]
[Ten beings that the Primus World had never encountered in full capacity because two hundred years ago they had still been forming]
[They were finished now]
Voriath: Empire of the Sun and Warriors of Hope, Together they are formidable. I want them tested against something they haven't faced before.
Vorath-Kel: Yes my Lord
[He responded]
[He looked at the Hyper Gods]
Voriath: Vorath-Kel. Take the others. Don't destroy the universes. Make them understand the difference between what they are and what we are.
[Vorath-Kel, the tallest of the ten, bowed once]
[Voriath turned to the twenty Hyper Guardians above]
Voriath: The Primus World, Zagan leads the Hyper Beings. He knows what to do. Every ruler that exists there will respond. Let them. That's the point.
[He turned to Mephisto]
Voriath: As for the Null Collapse, The Zealots Division has been preparing for something like this since two hundred years ago. They know how to read patterns and find weaknesses. Don't let them use that
[His eyes were calm]
[Mephisto nodded once]
[Voriath looked at Lily]
Voriath: The other four Empire States, You five take them. Don't rush.
[Lily said nothing. She was already thinking about it]
[Voriath looked at the Terra Celestial World above all of this on his mental map]
Voriath: The Hyper Guardians go to the Celestial World, I want the Infinite Book, but carefully,The God of Lunar is old. She will fight with everything she has. We don't need to destroy her. We just need the Book.
[Voriath said as he looked at the ceiling]
Voriath: Then, Everything else will come to me.
[He turned and walked back toward his throne]
Voriath: Move..
[he said]
[In the thirty seconds between Voriath's command and the first rifts opening, Mercurius stood beside Xuantian and looked at the view from the throne room's open edge]
[Infinite universes below. Infinite space above. A world built to contain the uncontainable]
Xuantian: He's patient today..
[Xuantian said. He was spinning his scythe slowly in one hand. The blade caught the cold light and split it into colors that didn't exist in normal spectrums]
Mercurius: He is always patient..That's what makes it worse
[Mercurius said]
[Xuantian looked at him sideways]
Xuantian: You feel it too
Mercurius: The two who just came back from the Afterlife
[Mercurius said]
Xuantian: Yes.
Mercurius: Their energy is different.
Very different. Five weeks under Ereshkigal. Whatever she did to them in there.They're going to come here.
[Mercurius looked at the space below the Invictus World where the Primus World's distant light was visible]
Xuantian: I know... We should greet them properly
[Xuantian said]
Mercurius: Agreed..
[Mercurius said]
Xuantian: But not yet, let the board fill first
[Xuantian said as the scythe stopped spinning]
[Mercurius nodded]
[The first rift opened]
[Then another]
[Then twenty at once]
[The Calamity had begun]
[The Scene switched to the Empire States Empire of the Sun and Warriors of Hope]
[The sky over the Solar Citadel cracked at noon]
[From the crack came light that was not sunlight. Colder. More complete]
[Then they came through]
[Vorath-Kel descended first]
[The leader of the ten Hyper Gods moved through the opening rift the way a stone moves through water — slowly and with total confidence in its own density]
[His armor was not metal]
[Behind him came the other nine]
[Draemis, whose body shed reality distortions the way a wet cloth sheds water, leaving bent space in his wake]
[Sunaketh, surrounded by a field of absolute silence that swallowed sound within thirty meters of her]
[Paellor, moving on four legs and four arms, each limb capable of independent action, whose ability to exist in multiple spatial coordinates simultaneously made him look like a smear of presence rather than a being]
[Vrixas, the smallest of them. The most dangerous. He could reach into the logic of an ability and remove a single load-bearing assumption, collapsing the whole structure from the inside]
[Omneth, wrapped in something that looked like a cloak but was actually a fold of a different dimension draped over his form]
[Zarvain, who hadn't spoken once since they left the Invictus World and whose silence felt deliberate in the way that very large weapons feel deliberate just sitting in a room]
[Huldrath, whose Hyper God physiology meant that the simple act of stepping into the Primus World had caused three nearby star systems to wobble in their orbits from proximity to his mass]
[Calix, who was looking at the Solar Citadel with an expression of mild interest, the way a person looks at something they intend to study rather than something they intend to fear]
[And Serethos, last through the rift, who sealed it behind her with one hand and turned to look at the defending forces assembling below]
[The ten Hyper Gods stood in the sky above the Solar Citadel and said nothing]
[They didn't need to say anything yet]
[Lucis had been on the roof of the Citadel's primary tower when the rift appeared]
[She had watched all ten come through. He had not moved]
[Benimaru appeared beside him in under a second, Speed Force leaving yellow sparks fading in the air]
Benimaru: Ten??
[Benimaru said]
Lucis: Ten
[Lucis confirmed]
Benimaru: Hyper Gods...
Lucis: Yes.
Benimaru: We've never fought one.
Lucis: No, We fought their distant relatives two hundred years ago. These are different. Two hundred years of development different.
[She said as she looked at Vorath-Kel]
Benimaru: So we're outmatched
[Benimaru said]
Lucis: Potentially, But that's not the question, The question is how long we can hold and what we learn while we do it.
[She turned away from the ten figures above and looked at his guild.]
[She raised his voice]
Benimaru: Empire of the Sun. Full deployment...
[From the Warriors of Hope fortress drifting above the Solar Citadel's airspace, Thanatos had already been watching since the first rift appeared]
[He looked at his guild]
[Ikki. Nathaniel. Lilim. Zino. Karnak. Kianna. Zenobia]
[All of them looking back at him]
Zenobia: They sent ten...
[Zenobia said]
Thanatos: Ten... of course
[Thanatos confirmed]
Zenobia: Together we have fifteen fighters between us and the Empire of the Sun's eight, Twenty-three against ten..
[Zenobia said]
Nathaniel: Numbers won't be the limiting factor..
[Nathaniel said. He was running physics readings on the Hyper Gods above]
Zenobia: Ohh... I see
[His expression got progressively quieter as the numbers came in]
Nathaniel: These aren't the Hyper Beings from two hundred years ago. Their energy output is — it's not following any scale I recognize.
Zino: Then we make a new scale.. We've been preparing for two hundred years.
[Zino said. His hand was on his sword. The infinite mastered sword techniques running through his muscle memory like a language he never stopped speaking]
Ikki: Good thing...
[Ikki said. Fire was already climbing his arms]
[Thanatos looked at the ten figures above]
[Then at the Solar Citadel below where Lucis and Benimaru and the rest of the Empire of the Sun were deploying]
Thanatos: Full coordination, We fight as one unit. Not two guilds. One unit. Nothing gets through to the civilian sectors. Whatever comes at us, you redirect it.
[He said as he looked at kianna]
Kianna: Understood, Zino
[Kianna said]
Zino: I know, I'll find the one that fights like a swordsman.
Nathaniel: That would be the small one, Vrixas. His energy signature is the most controlled. Precision-type.
[Nathaniel said. He was still looking at his readings]
[Zino looked at Vrixas hovering in the sky]
Zino: Good...
[he said]
[Thanatos raised his hand]
Space Magic — Domain Expansion.
[The space around the Warriors of Hope fortress folded outward, creating an enhanced combat zone where spatial laws bent slightly in their favor. Distance became negotiable. Directions became optional]
Thanatos: Now!!
[Thanatos said]
[Vorath-Kel descended]
[He didn't signal the others. He simply moved, and the nine moved with him the way a tide moves]
[Lucis rose to meet him]
Primordial Chaos Magic — Grand Manifestation.
[The sky around Lucis turned colors it had never been before. Her magic was not just powerful, it was foundational — the kind of magic that existed before specific types had been categorized]
[Pure chaos given a direction and a purpose]
[The blast he released covered the entire sky]
[Vorath-Kel raised one hand]
Hyper God — Absolute Nullification Field.
[The field expanded from his palm and the chaos blast hit it and dissolved]
[The constituent parts of Lucis's magic finding themselves unable to remain coherent in the presence of the field and simply... stopping being magic]
[Lucis stared]
Lucis: So that's what it is
[She said quietly]
[He didn't stop. He shifted]
Primordial Chaos Magic — Paradox State
[Instead of attacking, he changed the local laws. Made it so that nullification nullified itself in a three-hundred-meter radius]
[Vorath-Kel's field flickered]
[For one second]
[Then it reasserted]
Hyper God — Law Override.
[He rewrote Lucis's paradox state out of local existence]
[Lucis flew back from the shockwave of a reality that had just been forcibly edited around him]
[He hit the citadel wall and caught himself]
Lucis: That's new
[She said]
[Benimaru was already moving]
[At Speed Force maximum, Benimaru moved not through space but through the concept of being-somewhere-else]
[He crossed the three hundred meters between himself and Vorath-Kel in less time than it took light to travel an inch]
[His fist connected]
Speed Force — Impact of the Infinite Velocity
[The collision cracked the sky in a ring. The shockwave flattened the outer market districts before Kianna caught it]
Attack Reflection — Complete Redirect.
[She turned the shockwave upward, sending it into the clouds, where it detonated harmlessly above the city]
[Vorath-Kel had moved two feet from where he'd been standing]
[Two feet]
[From a blow delivered at infinite speed by someone who had spent a hundred years mastering martial arts on top of Speed Force]
[He looked at Benimaru]
Vorath-Kel: You hit me
[Vorath-Kel said]
Benimaru: Yeah..
[Benimaru said, shaking out his fist. He hadn't broken it]
[That was either good news or a sign that Vorath-Kel had absorbed most of the impact without effort]
[He suspected the second]
Benimaru: Does that mean something?
Vorath-Kel: It means this will be more interesting than I expected
[Vorath-Kel said]
[He moved]
[On the other side of the sky, the other nine Hyper Gods spread out and found their opponents]
[Sunaketh descended toward Karnak, whose Necromancy Magic rose to meet her in a wave of spectral force]
[The silence field swallowed the wave]
[In the absence of sound, the magic had no carrier. It dissipated]
[Karnak stared at the quiet]
Sunaketh — Concept of Sound: Deleted.
[She hadn't just nullified his magic. She had removed the medium it traveled through]
Karnak: Interesting
[Karnak said.To no one, since no one could hear him]
[He switched tactics. Necromancy through the spiritual substrate instead of the auditory one]
[Summoning armies from the dead that didn't need sound to move]
Army of the Fallen — Rise.
[Hundreds of spectral warriors materialized around Sunaketh]
[She looked at them]
Hyper God — Existence Negation: Localized
[They simply stopped having the property of existence within her immediate radius]
[Karnak watched his army vanish]
[Then he straightened up and started again]
[That was the thing about Karnak. He always started again]
Meanwhile Zino found Vrixas
[Zino had found Vrixas]
[They were circling each other a hundred meters above the citadel, not yet striking, each one reading the other]
Vrixas: You use a sword..
[Vrixas said. It was the first thing any of the Hyper Gods had said that wasn't a technique declaration]
Zino: Infinite Mastered Sword Techniques, Every style. Every form. Every approach that has ever existed or will exist.
[Zino said]
[Vrixas looked at the sword]
Vrixas: I know, I can see the techniques layered in your muscle memory. You've spent two hundred years adding to them. I've spent two hundred years studying what makes techniques fail.
[Vrixas said confidently]
Zino: Then let's find out whose two hundred years was worth more..
[Zino said]
[Vrixas drew]
[His weapon was not a sword]
[A blade the length of a forearm that hummed with the particular quality of something that had been designed to interact with other weapons rather than bypass them entirely]
Hyper God — Technique Deconstruction.
[The ability activated passively the moment the weapon was drawn. Any technique directed at Vrixas would be analyzed in real-time and have its foundational logic removed]
[Zino moved]
Infinite Mastered Sword Techniques — The First and Last.
[A swing that contained every sword technique simultaneously, layered so densely that analyzing one would take longer than the swing itself]
[Vrixas moved to counter]
[Their blades met]
[The clash was quiet. Surprisingly quiet]
[The sound of two extraordinarily refined things meeting and testing each other rather than trying to end each other immediately]
[Vrixas's Technique Deconstruction reached into Zino's swing and began pulling threads]
[Zino felt it. Felt the logic of his technique being examined]
[He let it be examined]
[And swung again with a completely different technique before the deconstruction finished]
[Vrixas blocked it and started deconstructing the new one]
[Zino switched again]
[Vrixas's eyes narrowed]
Vrixas: You're cycling...
[he said]
Zino: Faster than you can analyze..
[Zino said]
Vrixas: We'll see
[Vrixas said]
[The duel began properly. And it was, genuinely, the most technically interesting fight happening in the sky above the Solar Citadel that day]
[The Scene switched to the Primus World]
[The rifts appeared everywhere at once]
[Above every city. Above every major gathering point. Above the spaces between universes where the six ruling groups had been stationed since the first warning went out]
[Two thousand Hyper Beings poured through]
[They were not organized in the way an army is organized]
[And leading them, descending from the largest rift at the center, was Zagan]
[He was large. Not physically large in the way Vrakthos had been large. Conceptually large]
[The space around him understood that he was the most significant thing in it and behaved accordingly. Light bent toward him]
[He looked at the assembled rulers of the six universes gathered in the Primus World and said nothing for a moment]
Zagan: Then, Which of you is the strongest?
[Nobody answered immediately]
[Nebula Liam of the Nova Universe looked at him with Cosmic Awareness eyes that were already reading everything about Zagan that could be read]
[What he found made her expression carefully neutral]
[Stella Rose of the Phueno Universe had her Law Manipulation already active]
[Cyra Silver of the Zen Universe had both hands raised, her Hyper Space Cube already forming in the air between them, a box of total controlled space where she could generate anything she thought of]
[Apollo Starlight of the Astra Universe said nothing and moved nothing]
[Kai of the Cosmos Universe stood at the edge of the gathering and looked at Zagan with that expression that gave away nothing and took everything in]
[Sagris of the Chaos Universe stood beside Kai]
Sagris: Interesting question, What do you need to know for
[Sagris said]
[Zagan looked at him]
Zagan: Because I'm going to fight the strongest one first, It's more efficient.
[Zagan said]
Sagris: More efficient for who
[Sagris said]
Zagan: For me, If I defeat the strongest, the others follow more smoothly.
[Zagan said simply]
[Sagris looked at Kai]
[Kai looked back]
Kai: He's not wrong, That is efficient.
[Kai said]
Sagris: it's also arrogant
[Sagris said]
Kai: The two aren't mutually exclusive
[Kai said]
[Sagris looked at Zagan]
Sagris: You came here with two thousand Hyper Beings and opened with a question. Most people who come to invade don't ask questions.
Zagan: Most people who invade don't need to, I have enough force to destroy everything here twice over. The question is about preference. I prefer interesting fights over efficient ones, when I can have both.
[He looked at each ruler]
[Nebula Liam raised his hand]
Nebula: Me
[He said. Cosmic Awareness giving his complete knowledge of every being present and their relative capabilities. She'd done the math in the first three seconds]
[Zagan looked at him]
Zagan: No
[he said]
[Nebula Liam blinked]
Nebula: No?
Zagan: You're not the strongest in this group, You just know the most. That one
[He looked past him]
[He pointed at Kai]
[Kai looked at the finger pointing at him]
Kai: Me??
[he said]
Zagan: Yes
[Zagan said]
Kai: I'm not here to fight you first, I'm here to make sure my universe survives what's happening right now.
[Kai responded intelligently]
Zagan: Those are compatible goals, Fight me, I stay occupied. Your universe survives the time it takes for us to finish.
[Kai looked at him for a long moment]
Kai: You're remarkably sensible for someone who just invaded the Primus World with two thousand beings.
Zagan: I've been planning this for a long time, Sensibility is how you plan well.
[Zagan said]
[Around them the two thousand Hyper Beings had spread and were engaging with the combined guild forces of the Chaos Universe, the Nova Universe's champions, the Phueno Universe's defenders, all of them clashing in a landscape of overlapping dimensions that the Primus World's geography was barely containing]
[Sagris looked at the chaos spreading behind Zagan]
[He felt it then. Two very specific presences]
[Entering the Primus World not through a rift but through something quieter. A portal. Small. Precise]
[He looked to his left]
[Two figures in black coats stood at the edge of the battlefield]
[Sagris looked at them for exactly long enough to confirm what his instincts had already said]
[Then he looked away and back at Zagan]
Sagris: I'll fight him..
[Sagris said to Kai]
[Kai looked at him]
Kai: You sure?
Sagris: I need to deal with something, Keep the other rulers coordinated while I'm occupied.
[Sagris said, his voice completely even]
[Kai looked at him for a moment]
[Then looked at the two figures in black coats at the edge of the battlefield]
[His expression didn't change. But his eyes moved in a way that said he had already known]
Kai: Understood
[Kai said]
[The two figures were Leo and Issac as they have finally arrived]
[Leo and Isaac stood in the chaos]
[All around them the Primus World was erupting. Hyper Beings clashing with guild members from six universes, reality bending under the strain of too many high-level conflicts happening in proximity, the sky cycling through colors that had no names]
Issac: We walked into a war
[Isaac said]
Leo: We walked into our war, Specifically
[Leo said]
Issac: Same thing.
Leo: Not the same thing.
Issac: They're fighting two thousand Hyper Beings, That's a lot.
Leo: The rulers are here, Kai. Sagris. Stella Rose. Nebula Liam.
[He was watching through the hood of his coat, his Cosmic Awareness reading the battlefield with the particular efficiency it had developed in five weeks of Afterlife training]
Issac: They can handle the volume. For now.
Leo: And us?
[Leo looked at the scope of it. The scale. The particular quality of the Hyper Beings' power]
[Which was multiversal in a way that explained why every guild member engaging them was working at maximum output just to keep pace]
Leo: We stay back
[He said]
[Isaac looked at him]
Issac: We stay back.
Leo: Identity hidden, Ereshkigal's instruction. We watch. We learn the layout. We don't reveal ourselves until—
Sagris: Leo
[The voice came from behind them]
[Both of them turned]
[Sagris stood there]
[Just Sagris. Looking at them with an expression that was completely calm and completely certain]
[He looked at the hoods. At the black coats. At the particular way they were standing]
Sagris: When did you get back??
[He said]
[Leo and Isaac looked at each other]
Leo: This morning
[Leo said carefully]
Sagris: How long have you been in the Afterlife.
Issac: Five weeks
[Isaac said]
[Sagris was quiet for a moment]
[Then he looked at Leo specifically with the kind of look that a ruler who had watched someone grow up from nothing gives when they realize the growing up has continued well past what they were tracking]
Sagris: You fought those Hyper Beings in Valtrex?
[he said]
[It wasn't a question]
Leo: Yes
[Leo said]
Sagris: With one sword.
Leo: I had other options, The sword felt appropriate for the context.
[Leo said]
[Sagris looked at him for a long moment]
Sagris: How much stronger
[he said]
Leo: Enough
[Leo said]
Sagris: Enough for what?
[Leo looked at the battlefield. At the two thousand Hyper Beings spreading across the Primus World]
[At the rifts still open above them, the Invictus World's cold light pouring through]
Leo: For what comes next
[he said]
[Sagris absorbed this]
Sagris: Your guild members don't know you're here
[he said]
Leo: No.
Sagris: Luna doesn't know.
Leo: No.
Sagris: The Eastern World doesn't know.
Leo: No. Ereshkigal's instruction was to stay hidden. Identity concealed. We're not ready to announce yet.
Sagris: Why
[Sagris said]
Issac: Because Voriath would adjust, He's had two hundred years to plan. If he knows Leo is back and changed, he recalibrates. We lose the one advantage we have.
Sagris: Which is what
[Sagris said]
Leo: He doesn't know what we became in the Afterlife, He sent Hyper Beings to test us in Valtrex. They reported back something anomalous. He's curious. He'll be cautious. Cautious Voriath is better than fully informed Voriath
[Sagris looked at both of them]
[Then looked at the battlefield where Kai was facing Zagan and the rulers were managing the Hyper Being assault]
Sagris: I was going to fight him
[Sagris said]
Leo: I know
[Leo said]
Sagris: You could fight him better.
Leo: Yes, But not yet.
[Sagris was quiet]
Sagris: You went into the Afterlife a very strong young man, You're coming back as something different.
Leo: Still the same person
[Leo said]
Sagris: I know, That's the part that matters, where are you going now
[He looked at them both]
Issac: The Invictus World
[Isaac said]
[Sagris stared at him]
Sagris: You're going into Voriath's home
[Sagris said]
Leo: Yes
[Leo said]
Sagris: With two people.
Issac: We're enough
[Isaac said]
Sagris: For what?
Leo: For a conversation, And whatever comes after it.
[Leo said]
[Kai had appeared beside Sagris without sound, his fight with Zagan apparently having been delayed while Zagan dealt with Nebula Liam's Cosmic Awareness scan]
[He looked at Leo and Isaac]
Kai: You're going to the Invictus World
[Kai said]
Leo: Yes
[Leo said]
Kai: His strongest subordinates are there, Xuantian and Mercurius.
Leo: I know
[Leo said]
Kai: And Voriath himself.
Leo: I know.
[Kai looked at them both for a moment]
Kai: Your identity, Keep it hidden from everyone except who you choose to reveal it to.
Leo: I know
[Leo said]
Kai: I'm serious, Not even your guild members. Not until the right moment.
[Leo looked at Kai]
Leo: Did Ereshkigal contact you?
[he said]
Kai: We are old friends
[Kai said simply]
[Leo almost smiled]
Leo: Then you know what I know
Kai: More or less, come back
[Kai said. He looked at the Invictus World's rifts above]
Isssc: We will
[Isaac said]
[The portal opened. Small. Precise. Quiet.
Leo and Isaac stepped through]
[The portal closed]
[Sagris looked at the empty space where they'd been]
Sagris: How strong..
[he said quietly]
Kai: Strong enough that I chose not to finish fighting Zagan while they were standing there..
[Kai said]
[Sagris looked at him]
Sagris: Why.
Kai: Because I didn't want them to see everything I have yet, The same reason they're keeping their hoods up.
[He turned back to the battlefield]
Sagris: We have a war to manage
[he said]
Meanwhile at the Invictus World at the Outer Perimeter
[The portal opened in the cold space just outside the Invictus World's outermost boundary]
[Leo and Isaac stood in the void between universes and looked at it]
[The Invictus World was visible as a shape in the dark. Not a planet. Not a universe the way other universes were. Something between the two]
[A construction that obeyed its own internal logic rather than the logic of the space it occupied. Light leaked from it that wasn't quite light. The boundary of it shimmered with the residual energy of the Hyper Gods that had just departed]
Issac: It's bigger than I expected
[Isaac said]
Leo: It contains infinite universes
[Leo said]
Issac: I know what it contains, I just expected it to feel smaller from the outside.
[Around the perimeter, Hyper Beings stood guard. Not the ones that had been sent to the Primus World]
[These were a different cohort. Stationed. Watching]
[There were hundreds of them]
Leo: Ready??
[Leo said]
Issac: Born ready..
[Isaac said. He was already pulling his fire to the surface]
[Leo had the Shatter Nebula in his hand without deciding to draw it]
[The blade glowed light blue in the dark of the void]
[The nearest Hyper Being turned toward them]
"Hyper Beings"
"Intruders in the outer—"
[Leo moved]
Satanael Genesis Flash Step.
[He deleted the distance between himself and the first cluster of Hyper Beings, appearing in their center in zero time, the Shatter Nebula already moving]
Shatter Nebula — Spatial Cut — Wide Formation.
[One swing]
[The cut went not through the beings but through the space connecting their abilities to their bodies]
[A conceptual cut that stripped their power from them in a ring without dealing lethal damage]
[They couldn't move]
[Couldn't fight]
[Stood frozen while their abilities tried to find the severed connection and failed]
[Isaac was already on the right flank]
Knowledge Hellfire — Maximum Output.
[His body hit a hundred million degrees and the fire that came off him was conceptual as much as physical]
Issac: Hell Yeah!!!
[It didn't just burn. It touched the foundations of the Hyper Beings' defenses and burned the concept of those defenses being applicable]
[The right flank collapsed]
[Unable to process what had hit them quickly enough to counter it]
[Leo moved through the left flank with the same precise efficiency]
[The Shatter Nebula at its base capability, guided by five weeks of Afterlife-refined precision, was sufficient]
[The center held out for thirty seconds]
[The strongest of the perimeter Hyper Beings — old ones, stationed here precisely because they were old and powerful — gathered themselves and launched their abilities simultaneously]
Hyper Perimeter — Absolute Erasure Field.
[The field expanded from the center of the cluster, reaching for Leo and Isaac simultaneously]
[Leo raised one hand]
Venikulanino.
[He reversed the field's direction. The Absolute Erasure turned inward on the beings that had generated it]
[They dove out of their own ability's range]
[Isaac was already there]
Crimson Hell Punch — Engulfed — Thirty Percent.
[The punch hit the center of the cluster and the universe in the immediate vicinity of the Invictus World's outer boundary registered a force that had not been felt in two hundred years]
[The perimeter cleared]
[Leo and Isaac stood in the quiet void surrounded by several hundred Hyper Beings who were alive but comprehensively unable to continue fighting]
Leo: Thirty percent??
[Leo said to Isaac]
Issac: We're trying not to destroy his house
[Isaac said]
Leo: Good thought...
[Leo said]
[They walked toward the Invictus World's boundary]
[The boundary opened for them]
[The boundary was built from Voriath's own energy, which recognized the Hyper Soul signature inside Leo the way a lock recognizes a key — not to grant access willingly, but because the nature of the thing could not be helped]
[The Invictus World inside was exactly what it had been described as. Infinite. Each layer a different universe folded into the architecture. Impossible to navigate without either knowing the structure in advance or having something that understood it at an instinctual level]
[Leo's Cosmic Awareness did the second]
[He walked through it without hesitation. Turning in the right directions. Ascending the right layers]
[The Invictus World's internal geometry tried to confuse twice and twice found itself rerouted by a presence that simply knew where it was going]
[Isaac walked beside him]
Issac: This place is unsettling
[Isaac said]
Leo: Which part?
[Leo said]
Issac: All of it, The infinite layers. The cold. The feeling that everything is watching.
[Issac said as he was a bit scared]
Leo: Everything is watching, We've been tracked since we entered the boundary.
[Leo answered]
Issac: And they're not stopping us??
[Isaac said]
Leo: No, because they're letting us through or because they want to see where we're going..
[Leo said]
Issac: Where are we going??
[Isaac said]
Leo: The throne room...
[Leo said]
Issac: Of course we are
[Isaac said]
-The Antechamber-
[As both walked they met Xuantian and Mercurius in the antechamber before the throne room]
[The antechamber was a space between spaces]
[A hall built from compressed void-material that hummed with the sound of infinite realities pressing against its walls from every side]
[The ceiling was the underside of several layered universes simultaneously]
[The floor was dark and smooth and reflected nothing]
[Xuantian stood in the center]
[His scythe rested across his shoulders, both hands hanging loose over the blade and handle]
[His eyes were open]
[Mercurius stood to the left. Hands clasped behind his back]
[Leo and Isaac stopped ten meters away]
[Four of the most powerful beings under the age of gods, standing in an antechamber inside the home of the being that had brought the entire cosmology to its knees, looking at each other]
[Nobody moved]
[Xuantian spoke first]
Xuantian: You came from the Afterlife..
[he said]
Leo: Yes
[Leo said]
Mercurius: Five weeks under Ereshkigal..
[Mercurius said]
Issac: Yes..
[Isaac said]
Xuantian: The perimeter guards outside, You went through them without killing anyone
[Xuantian said]
Leo: They're not our enemies, They're following orders.
[Leo said]
[Mercurius tilted his head slightly]
Mercurius: That's an interesting distinction to make while invading our world.
Issac: You invaded ours first
[Isaac said]
Mercurius: Fair..
[Mercurius said]
[Silence]
[Xuantian turned the scythe slowly]
Xuantian: You know why you're here..
Leo: We know why we're here...
[Leo said]
Xuantian: Say it..
[Xuantian said. Not hostile. Just particular. He wanted to hear it said]
Leo: We're here because Voriath is the only thing that matters right now, Every other fight happening across the cosmology is a distraction from this one conversation and because eventually I'm going to have to stand in front of him. I'd rather walk there myself than have him come to me.
[Leo said]
[Mercurius looked at him for a long time]
Mercurius: You're not here to fight us..
[Mercurius said]
Leo: Not today..
[Leo said]
Xuantian: Interesting qualifier..
[Xuantian said]
Leo: It's an honest one..
[Leo said]
[Mercurius looked at Isaac]
Mercurius: And you.
Issac: I go where he goes, But if I'm being honest, I also want to see what the inside of this place looks like.
[Xuantian almost smiled]
Xuantian: You're not what I expected
[Xuantian said to Leo]
Leo: What did you expect
[Leo said]
Xuantian: Something angrier, Most Hyper Beings who come to this world for the first time either come with an army or with barely contained rage.
Leo: Well, Am different
[He looked at Leo steadily]
Xuantian: You came with one person and walked through the perimeter like it was a hallway.
Leo: It was a hallway...
[Leo said]
[Xuantian looked at him]
Mercurius: Lord Voriath is waiting, He's been aware of you since you entered the boundary. He wants you to come through.
[Mercurius said]
Leo: I know..
[Leo said]
Issac: Then why are we talking?
[Isaac said]
Leo: Because Xuantian wanted to see us before we went in right
[Leo said. He looked at Xuantian]
[Xuantian looked at him]
Xuantian: Right, Two hundred years ago your source was a seed. A foundation. Whatever it is now, it's different. I wanted to understand the difference before you walked into the same room as my master.
Leo: And do you
[Leo said]
[Xuantian considered]
Xuantian: Not completely, But enough to be concerned about what the next few hours look like.
Leo: Good..
[Leo said]
Mercurius: That's a strange response...
[Mercurius said]
Leo: I'd rather you be concerned than dismissive, Dismissive people make assumptions. Concerned people pay attention.
[Leo said]
[Mercurius looked at him]
[Then looked at Xuantian]
[Something passed between them that Leo and Isaac both caught but neither tried to interpret]
Mercurius: Through the door
[Mercurius said]
Leo: We know..
[Leo said]
[They walked toward the throne room]
Meanwhile The Manipulator and Siriusniyo reached Voriath
[They didn't come through the boundary the way Leo and Isaac did]
[The Manipulator reached into the space between the Invictus World's outermost layer and the void, identified the structural logic Voriath had used to build it, and declared it briefly false]
[For two seconds the boundary existed in a state of technical confusion about whether it was a boundary or not]
[In those two seconds, both of them stepped through]
[The boundary reasserted behind them without detecting that it had been entered]
Siriusniyo: Elegant...
[Siriusniyo said]
The Manipulator: Efficient..
[The Manipulator said]
[They moved through the Invictus World differently from Leo and Isaac]
[Not navigating the geometry]
[Existing above it. The Manipulator's Higher Dimensional Existence meant the layered universes were visible to him as a flat structure rather than a maze]
[He walked through the layout the way you walk through a building when you can see all the floors simultaneously]
[Siriusniyo left small flames where he walked.
Not from carelessness. From intention. Each flame was a marker]
[A coordinate in his personal navigation system]
[In True Flame Hellfire form they would have burned the universe itself, but he wasn't in that form. He was walking quietly]
The Manipulator: They won't like those..
[He said]
Siriusniyo: He will know we're here either way, The flames are for my own reference, not his.
[They passed through three internal realms without incident]
[The Hyper Beings they passed either didn't notice them or noticed them and made decisions about engagement that involved significant self-preservation instinct]
[At the threshold of the inner palace they stopped]
[Siriusniyo looked at the door]
Siriusniyo: He's in there..
[he said]
The Manipulator: He's always been in there, He's been waiting.
Siriusniyo: For us specifically?
The Manipulator: For this conversation specifically, He's had two hundred years to think about what he'd say to us if we came back.
Siriusniyo: And we have?
The Manipulator: More or less, Though I've revised my position several times. He'll have too.
Siriusniyo: You think he's afraid??
[Siriusniyo said]
The Manipulator: No, I think he's curious. Which is different and more dangerous.
[Siriusniyo's hand went to Sutur's End.
Not drawing it. Just touching the handle]
The Manipulator: Don't
[The Manipulator said]
Siriusniyo: I'm not going to, I just like knowing it's there.
The Manipulator: Fair!!
[The Manipulator said]
[He pushed the door open]
[Voriath was sitting on his throne]
[He was alone]
[The room was the same as always. Infinite ceiling. Infinite cold light. The Infinite Glass rotating above his palm, slow and patient]
[His armor dark and undecorated. His eyes open]
[When The Manipulator and Siriusniyo walked through the door, Voriath looked at them without surprise]
Voriath: Two hundred years
[he said]
The Manipulator: Two hundred years
[The Manipulator confirmed]
[He walked to the center of the room and stopped. Siriusniyo stopped beside him. Neither of them bowed]
[Voriath's eyes moved between them]
Voriath: You found each other..
[He said]
The Manipulator: Eventually, We had different starting points.
[The Manipulator]
Voriath: I know, I watched. You went to his continuum.
The Manipulator: I did
[The Manipulator said]
[Voriath looked at Siriusniyo]
Voriath: You let him in.
Siriusniyo: He was polite enough about it..
[Siriusniyo said]
Voriath: You argued for three hours before agreeing to come..
[Voriath said]
Siriusniyo: I said he was polite, I didn't say I was easy to convince.
[He said]
[He moved to the edge of the throne's platform and looked down at them both]
Voriath: You remember the last time we were all in the same space...
[he said]
The Manipulator: Two hundred years ago, The Primus World. You walked through everything everyone had and my parents sealed you.
Voriath: My parents..
[Voriath said. Gently correcting. A small thing. But precise]
The Manipulator: Your parents?
[The Manipulator acknowledged]
Voriath: And you hit me, Both of you. In combination. It was the closest anyone came.
Siriusniyo: We know..
[Siriusniyo said]
Voriath: It moved me, You moved me.
The Manipulator: We remember..
[The Manipulator said]
Voriath: Do you know what I thought in the two seconds between being hit and being sealed?
[Neither of them answered]
Voriath: I thought: these two are the only ones worth talking to, Everyone else fights me out of duty or fear or the mathematics of survival. Those two fought me because they understood what was at stake and chose to stand in front of it anyway. That kind of choice is rare.
[Voriath explained]
Siriusniyo: It's going to happen again, If it comes to it.
[He said]
Voriath: I know, I've always known. You recalculated after the seal. You've been rebuilding. Finding allies.
[He looked at The Manipulator specifically]
[He glanced at the new warmth signatures Siriusniyo had left through the palace from his candle-flames]
The Manipulator: Obviously Yes..
[The Manipulator said]
Voriath: Good..
[Voriath said]
[A beat]
Siriusniyo: Good?
[Siriusniyo said]
Voriath: What's the point of the only conversation worth having if the other side hasn't prepared for it..
[Voriath said. He stepped down from the platform and walked toward them slowly]
Siriusniyo: Interesting, well I didn't come here for chit chat
Voriath: I didn't break a seal that took my parents to close just to talk to things that couldn't match me. I did it because there are things I want that require a certain kind of world. And a certain kind of world requires a certain kind of opposition.
The Manipulator: You need us to make it real...
[The Manipulator said]
Voriath: I need the resistance to be genuine, Otherwise the outcome is meaningless. You know I will win
[He stopped five meters from them]
The Manipulator: We know what you think..
[The Manipulator said]
Voriath: And what do you think..
[Voriath said]
[The Manipulator looked at him]
The Manipulator: I think the version of you that exists right now, two hundred years sealed and just emerged, with the Infinite Glass and the Nexus in your sights — that version might be right, I think the version of you that exists after Leo Sebastián has come back from the Afterlife and found the Infinite Book and stood in front of you — that calculation might look different.
[Voriath's expression didn't change]
[But his eyes moved]
[He looked at the throne room door]
Voriath: He's already in the Invictus World..
[Voriath said]
The Manipulator: Yes.. He came here himself
[The Manipulator said]
Siriusniyo: He came walking, Didn't announce himself. Didn't bring an army. Just him and his best friend
[Voriath was quiet for a moment]
Voriath: That is exactly what I would have done..
[he said quietly]
[He turned and walked back toward his throne]
Voriath: I'll speak to him after I speak to you both properly. Two hundred years ago you told me I was making a mistake.
The Manipulator: Yes..
[The Manipulator said]
Voriath: And now?
[The Manipulator looked at him]
The Manipulator: Now I'm asking you what it is you actually want, Not the Nexus. Not the Book. Not the new order. What do you actually want, Voriath.
[The throne room was quiet]
[The Infinite Glass turned above Voriath's palm]
[Slow. Patient]
[He looked at The Manipulator with the eyes of something that had existed since before most current things had been conceived of and had spent two hundred years sealed with nothing but its own thoughts for company]
Voriath: The same thing I've always wanted, A world that deserves to continue existing.
Siriusniyo: Whose definition of deserves
[Siriusniyo said]
[Voriath looked at him]
Voriath: That is the only question that matters.
[The three most powerful minds in the cosmology stood in the cold throne room of the Invictus World and let that question sit between them]
[Outside, across the cosmology, the calamity was burning]
[But here, for a moment, there was only the conversation]
[Leo and Isaac stood at the inner door]
[They could hear voices on the other side]
[Three of them]
[Leo listened for a moment]
Issac: He's already talking to someone..
[Isaac said quietly]
Leo: The Manipulator, and Siriusniyo.
[Isaac looked at him]
Issac: You know who they are.
Leo: Ereshkigal told me about them, Second strongest in the cosmology. Together the closest thing to a match for Voriath that exists. They came here alone. To talk.
Issac: Like we did
[Isaac said]
Leo: Like we did
[Leo said]
[He looked at the door]
Leo: We wait..
[he said]
Issac: How long..
[Isaac said]
Leo: Until it's our turn..
[Leo said]
[He leaned against the wall of the antechamber in the cold light of the Invictus World, Shatter Nebula at his side glowing faintly light blue, and waited]
[Isaac sat down on the floor beside him]
[Outside the Invictus World, the calamity raged. Hyper Gods testing the two strongest Empire States to their limits)
[The Null Collapse engaging the Zealots Division. Zagan and the Hyper Beings flooding the Primus World while every ruler in the cosmology pushed back]
[The Hyper Guardians on their way to the Terra Celestial World where the Infinite Book waited]
[Where Luna Roseveltie and her mother and the God of Lunar waited]
[The board was full]
[Every piece was in motion]
[And at the center of all of it, in the antechamber of the most dangerous place in existence, two people in black coats sat quietly and waited for their turn]
To be continued...