---
I kicked open the door to my apartment.
Literally.
There's no point using keys when your lock resets with every timeline shift.
A cool breeze swirled through the entryway—though I had no windows. The door slammed shut behind me with a mechanical hiss, then whispered itself back into place like reality politely folding in on itself.
Home.
If you could call a floating cube in shattered reality "home."
The view was... hard to describe. Think: starlight bleeding in reverse, half-dead dimensions stitched together with gravitational duct tape, and clouds that screamed silently every Tuesday. The fridge was a 1950s model, humming contentedly next to an espresso machine I stole from a collapsed café in Timeline 7-B.
"Lights, mood: I just killed a cult leader," I said lazily, tossing my coat onto the couch. The room responded—dim blues, a slow jazz beat, and a gentle smell of coffee and ozone.
Routine mattered. Even when you kill gods and monsters for a living.
Especially then.
I flopped down on the couch. Shoes still on. Blood still drying under my fingernails. The System hadn't cleaned me yet. That was rare.
"System," I muttered, eyes half-closed. "Sanitize. I smell like a dead religion."
> [System Protocol: HygieneSweep. Executing.]
Warmth bloomed across my skin—like nanofabric rain. A soft hum. My clothes were still on, but any blood, sweat, and evidence of last dimension's sin faded into pixelated dust and blew away.
I sighed. Pulled up a bottle of—well, I call it soda, but it's from a planet that never discovered water. The label read BL!XKR and tasted like licorice had a baby with battery acid.
The woman I'd just killed had smiled while telling me what she did.
Fed forty-eight orphans into a dimensionless entity in exchange for "clarity of vision."
Said it let her see past morality.
I showed her what morality felt like.
She died screaming.
That wasn't even personal. Just... business.
People think I'm some cold-blooded psycho.
They're wrong.
I'm just very good at my job.
There was a beeping sound. Familiar. Subtle. Like the click of a god cocking a finger at your chest.
> [Mission Notification Incoming.]
[Target: Ikaru Dorn. Planet: Nhexis-Prime.]
[Objective: Eliminate before Absorption Event.]
[Rationale: Intent to sacrifice 93% of native population for Power Ritual. Global Despotism flagged. Threat Level: 7.]
A flicker of interest tickled my spine.
I sat up.
"Despotism flagged, huh? That's new," I said. "Usually they're just lunatics with daddy issues and a wand."
The screen materialized before me—a three-dimensional render of a man. Tall. Black robes. Eyes like molten void. The kind of guy who monologues before stepping on your spine.
"System, summary?"
> [Subject Ikaru Dorn: Local high chancellor turned messianic warlord. Estimated IQ: 180. Power Index: 12.9.
Threat: Planetary scale. Intent to absorb 'The Deep Root'—a planet-bound dark god sealed beneath the crust. Mass ritual begins in 76 hours.
Sacrifice Count: Estimated 7.9 billion lives.]
I whistled.
"Seven point nine billion? That's some Bond villain energy."
The System didn't respond. It never laughed. I always hated that.
My gaze drifted to the sideboard—there was a half-eaten bag of temporal chips and a journal I hadn't written in since I killed the monk who invented laughter. Not much left to document these days. I already knew who I was.
...Actually, I didn't. Not really.
But I didn't care.
I sipped the rest of my drink, tossed the bottle into a rift, and leaned back again. The couch tried to massage me, but I disabled it. Too distracting.
Ikaru Dorn, huh?
You see, most people don't want to be evil. They slip, they break, they spiral. That's when I show up—24 hours to repent. Most don't.
But some? Some wake up and choose it.
This guy wanted to be a god.
He wanted to sacrifice the world to climb the food chain of cosmic power.
I could respect the ambition.
Didn't mean I'd let him live.
"System," I muttered, stretching like a cat. "Give me five hours downtime. Then brief me on Ikaru's psyche, known weaknesses, and preferred drink."
> [Approved.]
I smirked.
I always found it funny how people drank wine when trying to rule the world. I bet he was a Merlot guy.
---
Five hours passed in silence.
I spent them cooking eggs that didn't exist in this reality, listening to a podcast about extinct comedians from Earth-9, and flipping through a scrapbook of people I didn't remember killing—but whose names were logged anyway.
The final hour I just... stared at the void outside my window.
It pulsed sometimes.
I didn't blink.
> [Mission Briefing Re-initiated.]
I stood, cracked my neck, and walked toward the mission room. Every wall shifted as I passed—showing Ikaru's world.
It was beautiful. Mountains floating above crystal cities. Rivers that sang lullabies. Children playing with light-formed animals.
He was going to destroy that?
For what—power?
Control?
So he could be remembered?
"Everyone wants to be a god until they meet one," I muttered.
My coat formed on my shoulders like smoke. A blade shimmered into my hand—then vanished again. It wouldn't be needed until the final moment.
One phrase echoed in my mind.
My ritual. My catchphrase.
It always came before the kill.
I smirked.
> "Let's go remind someone why we invented morality."
---
When I stepped into the target reality, I landed on black glass.
Literally.
Nhexis-Prime had a continent made entirely from cooled obsidian. Below my boots, the cracks pulsed with violet light—the heartbeat of the ritual already beginning. Ikaru's influence stretched wide. His voice echoed through the sky like prayer and thunder.
I walked through it all, hands in my pockets, the wind whipping my coat around me like a cape.
The battlefield came into view like a twisted canvas of chaos. Soldiers, mystics, and planetary guardians were already clashing with shadow-clad horrors. Explosions of cursed flame and lightless energy crackled in the distance, warriors vaporized in an instant. And there—at the eye of the storm—stood the lunatic responsible.
Ikaru.
Crowned in arcane steel, skin marked by ancient glyphs, his body levitated inches above the ground. His arms outstretched like a deity expecting worship. Dark tendrils coiled behind him, dragging across the obsidian plain like the cloaks of forgotten gods. He was absorbing something... no, everything. Siphoning planetary energy, warping the boundaries between life and void.
The defenders threw everything at him—spears of time, missiles infused with paradox, even a sonic prayer. None of it mattered.
Then I stepped in.
The ground trembled. Not from Ikaru's ritual—but me.
I don't say that to brag. That's just how it works when the System boots my presence into a reality. A pulse of nullity spreads out, like a ripple in existence, and every living thing feels it. No sound, no flash—just the primal instinct that something that shouldn't exist... just did.
Every eye turned.
The madman stopped mid-incantation, floating down to meet me. Even the winds stilled. His eyes flickered, studying me—then widened with sudden, manic joy.
"You…" he whispered, lips parting in recognition. "You're real…"
I smirked. "Most days."
"You're the Null Reaper," he said reverently. "The phantom death. The anomaly killer. I read fragments about you in forbidden archives. I've dreamed of meeting you."
I kept walking, the crackling energy parting around my feet like respectful tides. "Well, dreams suck."
He tilted his head. "Why are you here? Jealous of my ascension? Or did the gods finally send someone worthy?"
I stopped a few feet from him. "I don't do gods."
Then I whispered it.
"Shen'en."
The word echoed like a blade slicing through thunder.
My palm flicked upward. "Voidren."
It wasn't a beam. Not a blast. Just… a collapse.
The man who stood like a higher being suddenly shattered from the inside out—folding into himself like paper devoured by fire. No scream. No final word. Just implosion. Gone.
The ritual stopped.
The planet gasped.
And I turned to walk away.
Then the shouting started.
The defenders—those poor fools—still didn't get it. They rushed toward me, yelling things like "Who are you to judge?" and "He was our last hope!" and my favorite—"We could've saved him!"
That one almost made me laugh.
I didn't respond. Just floated a little higher above the field. Their accusations fell away, meaningless echoes in a fading world.
And then… I saw her.
A girl.
Tiny. No more than Seven. Blood on her cheek, her dress torn, hiding behind the shattered wing of a downed mecha unit. Eyes wide. Not with fear.
With understanding.
She wasn't crying. She just looked at me like she knew. Like somehow, even through all this, she could see the part of me that wasn't just a killer. The part that used to be human.
I sighed.
The System pinged.
> [ASSISTANT SUGGESTED: Emotional Anchor Detected.]
> [RECOMMENDATION: Preserve Subject.]
I muttered, "Finally being subtle, huh?"
No reply. Just the usual silent pressure of data in my skull.
Fine. One kid. One thread of hope.
That's all this universe gets.
I raised my hand slowly. "Shen'en…"
A black orb appeared above my two fingers—no bigger than a marble. It spun slowly, devouring even light around it. My other hand clenched behind me, fingers twitching.
"Vortex Zero… open."
The orb expanded with a low hum, twisting into a spiraling black hole. The sky cracked open like a mirror hit with a hammer. Mountains split. Oceans lifted into the air and collapsed into nothing. The cities—the screaming ones—folded into pinpricks of absence.
I held the girl in my aura, keeping her untouched in the eye of destruction. She didn't scream. Just stared, hand curled around the hem of my coat.
Maybe she understood this wasn't cruelty.
This was mercy.
When the planet was gone, the Vortex snapped shut.
The universe sighed. Lighter.
I floated down and landed softly on black glass again. Still holding her hand. Still hearing the last echoes of a broken world.
"Your name?" I asked.
She blinked. "Ziva."
"Cool name," I said. "I'm… I guess I'm still figuring that out."
She nodded, leaning her head against my coat. "Okay."
The System chimed softly.
> [New Mission Available in 12 Hours.]
> [Reality Transfer Cooldown: 6 Hours.]
Good. I needed that time.
I needed to go home. Watch some trash TV. Microwave something that probably shouldn't be microwaved. Let this kid sleep on my couch and pretend for a moment that the universe wasn't always screaming.
Because I'm not some cold-blooded psycho.
I'm just another guy… who's really good at killing monsters.
---