Zar'Khan, still under his illusionary president mask, adjusted the wide dark jacket, a way to imitate the habits of the man he had replaced. The scientists, lined up like clumsy soldiers, waited for the first official questions.
"Gentlemen..." he began, taking the deep voice of the president. "I heard that this body represented a unique chance for scientific progress. Where do you stand?"
One of the researchers, a thin man with rectangular glasses, cleared his throat:
"Mr. President, we have observed several inexplicable phenomena. The body regenerated itself, the tissues show no necrosis, and rigor mortis didn't even occur. We are... perplexed."
Another, younger, added:
"No acid, no diamond saw, no mechanical pressure can affect this skin. It's as if this corpse entered a state of indestructibility... post-mortem. It defies all biological knowledge."
Zar'Khan nodded with a perfect imitation of political reflection.
"Interesting... very interesting."
He let a silence hang like a deliberate weight.
Then, with perfectly feigned seriousness:
"How do you plan to open this indestructible body? If we want to revolutionize science, we have to start somewhere, right?"
The scientists exchanged hesitant looks. Their discomfort had a scent.
"Well..." began the man with glasses, "we have considered several options. Using experimental energy, attempting ionic bombardment, testing pulsed waves — but all of this remains theoretical. Without written authorization, we cannot attempt anything too risky. And above all... we don't even know if any method would be effective."
"That's true," added the younger one. "This body defies logic. It seems something actively protects its structure... or the cells have reached a state we don't yet understand."
Zar'Khan pretended to think deeply, then raised a hand.
"May I come closer?" he asked with controlled presidential calm.
"Of course, sir," replied the elder immediately, stepping aside.
Zar'Khan advanced slowly, like a man respectful in front of a scientific miracle… but inside, his heart beat with a dark shiver.
Mayohi lay there, cold, inert, half her body covered by the white sheet.
And yet…
Under the skin, under the flesh, beneath death… something vibrated.
A shadow.
A familiar essence.
The Shadow of Lucifer's Elevation.
He placed his hand on the corpse's arm.
A shiver of energy passed through him.
He smiled.
Discreetly at first.
Then more widely.
"Perfect..." he whispered mentally.
And then, silently, without a visible gesture…
Time stopped.
The scientists froze where they were, mouths half-open, eyes fixed, like wax statues.
The air itself lost its temperature.
The world became a motionless painting.
Zar'Khan dropped the president illusion.
His body regained its dark and moving shadows, reptilian eyes, and his nightmare-thin silhouette.
He raised his hand, letting black energy accumulate on it, crackling like living matter.
A mad smile stretched his face:
"Finally... finally! I will become again the monster of absolute power. The one I was. The one I must be!"
The energy engulfed his hand.
He plunged it into Mayohi's belly as if into water.
The flesh opened without resistance.
No blood.
No pain.
Just... the Shadow.
He rummaged.
And felt the stone.
A gem of pure shadow, pulsating, almost alive.
He ripped it out.
Brought it to his mouth.
Swallowed it.
A silent roar of power exploded inside him, crashing like a cosmic storm.
He closed his eyes, savoring.
Breathing.
Becoming.
But suddenly…
A female voice, calm.
Almost mocking.
Almost too close.
"I hope you're proud now..."
Zar'Khan reopened his eyes violently.
The temperature dropped.
Someone was speaking.
In frozen time.
In HIS frozen time.
Impossible.
Zar'Khan slowly turned his head, his reptilian pupils narrowing.
There, just a few meters away, stood a slender figure.
A girl.
Dressed entirely in black.
A long coat slid down to her ankles like liquid shadow.
And on her face:
a black mask, perfectly smooth, expressionless.
No mouth.
Eyes as black as the void.
Just that obsessive void.
Time was frozen.
No one could move.
No one, except him.
And her.
Zar'Khan felt cold sweat run down his neck.
"Wh... who are you?" he whispered strangled.
The girl did not answer immediately.
Her movements were calculated slow, almost ceremonial.
She raised a pale, delicate hand, grabbed the edges of the mask…
…and removed it.
The face appeared.
A face he knew too well.
Zar'Khan jerked, as if struck in the heart.
"Erasa..."
She stared at him with white eyes, without anger.
Just a calm sharp as a knife.
"I see that to evolve," she said in an icy voice, "you're still forced to cling to my father..."
Zar'Khan clenched his teeth.
Then a wicked smile distorted his lips.
"So what? You'd better shut up, you who turned your back on your own father..."
A silence.
Heavy.
Almost sacred.
Erasa did not even blink.
Then she resumed in a calm, almost analytical tone:
"My father is just an idiot. He is the evil weighing on the world. So if you still cling to him, two things are possible:"
She raised two fingers.
"Either you follow him just to become powerful, without even understanding what he's preparing — and in that case, you're just a complete fool."
She lowered a finger.
"Or you exist only to lick his boots, incapable of existing by yourself. And then... you're no better than him."
Zar'Khan burst into a loud, nervous, almost hysterical laugh.
The kind of laugh that hides fear.
"You'll be the first victim of the—"
He didn't have time to finish.
In a fraction of a second, Erasa disappeared from her place.
A breath.
A vibration in the air.
And her hand slapped against Zar'Khan's face.
BAM!!!
The laboratory floor cracked under the impact.
Zar'Khan was thrown against the frozen-time floor, unable to move for a quarter of a second as the force knocked him out.
Erasa's voice fell like a verdict:
"I am my father's enemy. And if you cling to him... then you are also my enemy."
Zar'Khan was momentarily speechless, his head still spinning from the shock.
Then he began... to laugh.
No fear this time.
Madness.
"But go ahead! How do you plan to kill an Ineffable? Like you?"
He looked up at her.
"You simply don't have the power!"
Erasa didn't move.
Her gaze did not change.
It was that absolute calm that worried more than anything.
"The goddess Mü Thanatos already made you lose your transcendence once, if I remember correctly..."
She tilted her head, as if observing a wounded beast.
"And since I am her apostle, it will not be difficult to make you taste degradation again."
Zar'Khan felt his breath stop.
His irises dilated.
"What?"
Erasa brought her face close to his, very slowly.
Her breath was icy, almost unreal.
"Did you mishear?"
She squeezed her face a little more.
"I possess the same divine authority that already tore your Ineffable status away from you once before. And I can do it again. Here. Now."
A shiver ran throughout Zar'Khan's body.
Not a shiver of fear.
No.
Something worse:
Certainty.
The certainty that she was telling the truth.
The certainty that she could really destroy him.
The certainty that he might have just made the gravest mistake of his life.
Zar'Khan remained nailed to the ground, his face pressed under Erasa's hand.
His mind raced — a whirlwind of panic and disbelief.
It made no sense.
No Ineffable could harm another Ineffable.
It was an absolute rule.
Ineffables no longer lived in Narration.
They lived above it. Outside of laws, concepts, everything that could be broken, destroyed, or altered.
Ineffables were shadows in a space where even "ideas" no longer existed.
How could something formless be destroyed?
Zar'Khan knew this truth better than anyone.
But there was... an exception.
A unique one.
The Original Gods.
Entities so ancient, so profound, so prior that even Ineffability was not a refuge against them.
Their power was not a "force," but a primordial determination.
An archaic, raw will capable of rewriting the existence state of what believed to have none.
And Erasa was the apostle of Mü Thanatos.
An Original Goddess.
Zar'Khan felt panic climb his throat.
"Impossible... you... you can't—"
Erasa's hand pressed harder on his skull.
"I don't need to kill you," she said calmly.
"I just have to remind you that even your 'Transcendence' rests on a foundation. And my master can break any foundation."
Zar'Khan felt fear seize him like an icy hand.
He hadn't felt that in eons.
He reacted instinctively.
A mental snap.
A silent scream.
Time exploded.
Like a shattered window, the temporal dimension broke into luminous fragments.
Everything began to vibrate, deform, fold onto itself.
Zar'Khan activated his ultimate defense:
a reflux of all local temporality, a retreat of nonexistent narrative layers to protect himself from a divine attack.
But at the exact moment his power deployed, something incomprehensible happened.
FWOOOSH.
All the scientists present in the room — frozen a few seconds earlier — disintegrated.
Not into blood nor even ashes.
But into narrative dust, instantly absorbed by Zar'Khan. He hadn't wanted that.
But the effect triggered under panic.
An involuntary absorption.
A conceptual devouring.
Erasa didn't flinch.
She simply watched, like a teacher watching a student make a classic mistake.
Then another effect occurred.
Mayohi's body.
Until then motionless, intact, frozen in a strange paradoxical beauty.
It vibrated.
Its aura disappeared.
The Shadow of Lucifer's Elevation — its protector — had just been ripped away by Zar'Khan, the protection extinguished like a flame deprived of oxygen.
And then…
The body instantly returned to its true state.
Three weeks of death, decomposition, brutal rotting compressed into a second.
A crack.
A vile smell.
The flesh falling apart, the tissues collapsing, eyes hollowing until becoming two dark cavities.
Mayohi was nothing but a damaged, frail corpse, caught up by the death she had miraculously delayed.
Zar'Khan grimaced, stepping back.
No regret.
Just an irritated observation.
"Tch... damn useless vessel..."
Erasa clenched her fists.
Then came the explosion.
A titanic roar crossed the laboratory.
The structure — though buried and sealed under government protocols — literally shattered.
The ceiling tore.
Walls burst like wet paper.
Black and purple lightning snakes wriggled around the destroyed machines.
Zar'Khan took advantage of the blast.
He used the breach, his form liquefying, distorting, becoming a shadowy mass fast as a scream.
He burst out of the laboratory, tracing a fissure in the air.
He escaped.
The light fell.
The dust too.
And in the charred ruins, only Erasa remained standing.
Calm.
Motionless.
Her black coat lightly floating under the divine energy residues.
She didn't pursue him, at least not today because she knew it was only postponed.
"Next time," she whispered, "I will truly annihilate you... but you're not my priority."
Her gaze turned to the collapsed corpse, now unrecognizable.
"Someone else counts on me before you."