Bakuzan remained frozen, still shaken by the cold determination emanating from Erasa.
She seemed to want to resolve everything... immediately.
As if every second stolen from the present was one step closer to the end of the Dream.
"In principle," she resumed calmly, "I should be in a universe already conquered by Zar'Khan..."
Bakuzan raised an eyebrow.
"Zar'Khan? Who is that?"
Erasa slowly turned her masked face toward him, as if the very name pulled behind it an ancient shadow.
"Zar'Khan was the first Ineffable.
The very first to have transcended the Dream.
A pioneer... a monster... a miracle.
Then he lost that transcendence, collapsed out of his own concept.
But recently, signs indicate he has regained it.
Maybe partially...
Maybe entirely...
Or only in the Out-Zones.
I don't have the answer yet.
That's why I wanted to find him.
Talk to him.
Understand what brought him back beyond the impossible.
And pursue some side investigations."
Bakuzan observed Erasa for a long moment. Her words sounded true. Too true.
"Alright," he finally said. "I accept your help.
If you truly are Mü Thanatos's Apostle, you have no reason to lie to me."
Erasa nodded, then slowly raised a hand to her mask.
With a fluid movement, she removed it.
Her face appeared.
Blood-red eyes, deep, almost calm despite their intensity.
White hair falling along her shoulders, like a veil of eternal winter.
And a smile... discreet, but sincere.
"For trust to begin somewhere...
you had to see who I really am.
Without veil.
Without echo."
She then turned to Ixlongue.
"We will have to separate for some time."
Ixlongue nodded, his expression serious for once.
"I'm leaving for the World of Myths.
I will gather the Dragon Heirs.
All of them.
Don't waste time, above all."
With a gesture, he dissipated, swallowed by an indigo flash that closed like a whisper.
Silence fell again.
Erasa then turned to Bakuzan, now the only other being present in the mist.
"So, Black Grief...
do you have a plan?"
Her red gaze circled him, patient but impatient.
As if she expected more from him than words.
As if time itself was holding its breath.
Bakuzan opened his mouth to answer—but Erasa raised a hand, cutting his words short.
"Before you talk about Azazel again... listen to me carefully."
Her voice, now unmasked, vibrated with sober gravity.
"If you truly want to end his existence... you will need to act quickly. Very quickly.
But above all..."
She paused, her red gaze darkening.
"You will have to prepare for the worst."
Bakuzan turned to her, perplexed.
"Prepare for the worst? What do you—"
A dull tremor made the ground vibrate.
Not an earthquake.
A shiver.
As if the earth itself was afraid.
The two Ineffables turned their heads toward the mist.
A dreadful, heavy, thick smell came with the wind.
Rotten flesh.
The humidity of graves.
The scent of silence after death.
Bakuzan squinted.
In the fog's opacity, something stirred.
Then several things.
Silhouettes.
Hundreds.
No... thousands of bodies.
Men, women, beasts.
All in advanced decomposition.
Some bent at impossible angles, others dragging their skin like rags of fabric.
All walking toward them, animated by a foreign will.
"Corpses..." Bakuzan whispered.
Erasa slowly put her mask back on, as if preparing to take on a role she wished to avoid.
"He controls them."
Her muffled voice rang calm as a scalpel.
"Azazel.
He sensed my presence.
And that... worries him."
Bakuzan turned to her, surprised.
"Why would he be worried about you?"
He got no answer.
Because at that moment—
BOOM.
The entire armada of corpses charged in a single movement, like a wave of flesh slamming against reality.
Bakuzan, already in position, materialized a dark mana sword, his aura crackling around him.
But Erasa had already left the ground.
She rose into the air, her immense black wings spread, tearing the mist clouds with a beat.
"Don't waste time with meaningless bodies!" she shouted.
"Retreat!"
Bakuzan obeyed without arguing.
Erasa stretched her arm toward the sky, and instantly the light vanished.
As if space was swallowed.
Two immense eyes appeared in the celestial vault.
Eyes made of dark mana, cyclopean, inhuman, carved with moving runes and abyssal pulsations.
Eyes that did not contemplate reality...
but denied it.
"Ōculus Voragō!"
The cry vibrated the world.
The eyes dilated, and the air itself was sucked in by their impossible gravity.
The corpses had no chance.
They were torn apart, crushed, dislocated, pulverized into dust of existence before even realizing they had been seen.
Erasa's Ōculus had the same nature as those of the Dragon Heirs...
but these were not those of a simple lineage.
Hers were those
of an Ineffable.
Each energy beat surged with an intensity that would have erased an ordinary world.
Each blink rewrote the law of possibility.
Each pulse vibrated through the entire Dream.
From below, Bakuzan watched silently.
Erasa's power was incomprehensible.
A raw reminder of what a transcendence born to look into the abyss without blinking was.
And yet...
if Azazel feared this power...
Then how monstrous must he be?
Bakuzan slowly lifted his head toward Erasa, still in shock.
— You pulverized them in one shot...
Erasa did not flinch.
— It's not over.
The tone was neutral, almost cold. As if what she had just destroyed was only a trivial warm-up.
Bakuzan then felt something. A pressure in the air. An invisible weight that made the ground vibrate beneath their feet. He raised his eyes.
A silhouette advanced, slow, assured. Curly hair, polished golden mask reflecting a nonexistent light. In the eyes of the mask, a profound blackness, bottomless, like two wells of absolute darkness. At his waist, a spotless white loincloth contrasting with the darkness emanating from him.
— Could it be... a god? Bakuzan asked tensely.
But it was not over.
A second presence appeared, emerging from the blur, as if from an ancient nightmare. Long, pale hair. Body marked with forgotten symbols. And above all... those eyes. Or rather the lack of eyes. Two black hollows, yawning, where a void seemed to reign even deeper than that of the golden mask.
Bakuzan felt his blood freeze.
— Father...?
Erasa hung suspended, surprised for a brief moment.
— He brought... the two most powerful deviants of ancient times...
She turned a serious, heavy-warning look toward Bakuzan.
— What you see may only be your father's body. But don't be fooled. It's Azazel who pulls the strings behind.
Bakuzan clenched his teeth and nodded.
— Don't worry. I know...
His gaze lost itself for a moment in the empty expression of the body before him. It was no longer a man. No longer a parent. Just a shell animated by a foreign will. Memories surfaced: a hand on his shoulder, a deep voice teaching, guiding... and no longer existing.
— Father...
Erasa gestured to the second silhouette.
— And next to your father... stands the father of all humanity. Adam. The primordial man.
The weight of the revelation crushed silence for a moment. Two incarnate myths. Two monsters brought back to life by an impious manipulation.
— Azazel clearly wants to slow us down, she resumed. He knows it won't change anything... but he insists. I suppose he wants you. I guess you want to face your father?
Bakuzan took a deep breath, his aura thickening around him like a storm ready to burst.
— Of course. What do you think?!
Without waiting, he propelled himself forward. His feet left the ground in a breath. He charged straight at his father's body, launching a first attack—simple, direct—just to test the reaction of what stood before him.