The frozen remains of the Pacific fleet stood like a jagged graveyard under a starless sky. At the center of the ruins, the Monarch of Frost—the man who once ruled the frozen wastes of Russia—lay broken. His soul had been stripped of its ice, leaving him a hollow shell.
Kaito Arisawa stood over him, his silver hair reflecting the cold glow of the black ice.
[Warning: 1/12 Monarch Souls ready for 'Extraction'.][Target: SSS-Rank 'Frost King' Vladimir.]
"You lived as a King because the System allowed it," Kaito said, his voice echoing with the resonance of the Void. "Now, you will serve as a shadow because I command it."
Kaito raised his hand. The ocean beneath them didn't just ripple; it deleted itself, forming a pit of absolute darkness.
"VOID."
The command was a tectonic blast. The Monarch of Frost didn't scream; his physical body simply dissolved into silver-black particles. Unlike the blue shadows of the past, Kaito's reconstruction was Fantastic. The sky above them fractured into obsidian glass, and the soul of the King was pulled through the cracks, being re-forged in the Void.
[Reconstruction Complete.][General Grade: 'Monarch Shadow' Unlocked.][Name: Moroz, the Frost-Wraith.]
Out of the ink-black sea rose a figure seven feet tall. It wore armor made of frozen shadow and carried a scythe that trailed mist colder than space. Moroz didn't just stand there; he knelt, the ice beneath him shattering as a sign of absolute submission.
The Terror of the Iron Monarch
Across the frozen deck, the Monarch of Iron watched his comrade be turned into a puppet. He didn't scream; he couldn't. Kaito's Passive Aura was now at 15%, a weight so heavy that the Iron Monarch's liquid-metal skin was physically vibrating, trying to shed its own weight to escape the pressure.
"What... what are you?" the Iron Monarch choked out.
Kaito turned his head. His eyes were no longer human. They were swirling galaxies of obsidian ink.
"I am the Zero," Kaito replied. "The part of the equation you forgot to count."
In a flash of Space Deletion, Kaito was gone. He appeared back in the center of Tokyo, atop the ruins of the Aegis Tower. He didn't need a boat or a plane. He had simply deleted the miles between the ocean and the city.
The World's Last Warning
Kaito looked at the cameras still broadcasted by the "Glitched" drones in the sky. He held up the broken crown of the Frost Monarch for the whole world to see.
"To the remaining ten," Kaito said, his face appearing on every screen from Times Square to the Great Wall. "Do not send your armies. Do not send your 'Heroes'. If you want to stop the Deletion, come yourselves. If you do not... I will delete the borders of your nations next."
[Evolution Progress: 99.99%][System Note: The 'Azael' Anti-Virus has been triggered by the World Council.]
Kaito felt a tingle in the back of his neck. Far above the atmosphere, a golden light was beginning to pierce the black clouds of his Shadow Domain. The "System" was finally sending its strongest guardian.
Kaito looked at Fenris and Moroz, his two generals.
"The hunt is over," Kaito whispered. "The war has begun."