The dimension held its breath as Null's fury reshaped reality itself. The Nexus heirs, warriors who had faced death countless times, found themselves stepping backward. Not from fear, but from the simple biological imperative to survive what was coming.
The Calamity moved first. It launched a concentrated blast of kinetic force that screamed through the air, reality rippling in its wake.
Null didn't move.
Space bent. The attack curved around him like water around stone, missing by inches before detonating harmlessly against a distant mountainside. His eyes never left the creature.
Sloppy execution, he thought. No understanding of the principles. Just mimicry.
He vanished, his form blurring into a series of glitched afterimages that hurt to perceive. His foot connected with empty air in front of the Calamity, but the kick emerged from a micro-rift behind it, landing squarely between its shoulder blades. The Calamity stumbled forward, its stolen armor cracking.
Strong body, Null noted clinically. But no technique. Just a collection of stolen tricks. Boring.
The Calamity's response was immediate—a barrage of every power it had copied. Ethereal chains erupted from its shoulders while whispers of death magic crawled through the air. It charged, kinetic blades forming around its fists.
Null raised one hand. A shimmering tear in reality opened before him, reflecting not light but probability itself. The death magic entered and emerged at a perpendicular angle, severing the ethereal chains. The kinetic blades met their own reflected force and shattered.
He was making them fight themselves.
"Impossible," Elarion breathed. The other heirs watched as the monster that had pushed them to their limits was being treated like a training dummy.
What the heirs were witnessing was not just a moment of rage, but the sum of a decade of relentless, secret growth. Over the last ten years, Null had used his primordial skill to forge an arsenal of foundational abilities. He had created [Skill Evolution] to ensure every fight made him permanently stronger, and [Infinite Potential] to remove the very concept of a ceiling on his power. To out-think any opponent, he developed [Parallel Thought] and the prescient [Thread of Fate]. To see every weakness, he crafted [Analysis Vision]. To traverse reality, he perfected [Void Walk]. And to combine these tools into something greater, he forged the ultimate catalyst: [Skill Fusion]. These were the engine; the blades were what came next.
Time to end this game.
Space folded. He closed the distance instantly—no travel time, no acceleration—simply existing at point A, then point B. His palm pressed against the Core.
Reality imploded at the point of contact. A sphere of absolute void formed around his hand, space itself collapsing into a singularity before releasing in a devastating pulse. The Calamity's torso caved inward, its Core shattering into a thousand fragments.
The heirs exhaled collectively. It was over.
The Core pulsed. A brilliant, defiant crimson flashed as void-black light erupted from the fragments, pulling them back together. The flesh around the Core rewired itself, glowing with new runes that seemed to drink in space itself.
Oh? Null's interest sparked for the first time.
He struck again with the same palm-heel technique, using the same force and positioning.
Nothing happened.
The attack ceased to exist upon contact. The Calamity had achieved complete negation of a recorded threat.
Can it negate an attack completely after a single exposure? That's actually interesting. Show me more.
The Core flashed a deep, resonant violet, the runes spreading across the Calamity's body like tattoos. The analysis was complete.
The space around the Calamity began to warp passively, bending probability and distance. Attacks would curve around it now, just as they did around him. Null attacked from twelve angles simultaneously, his form a blur of micro-teleports.
The Calamity moved before he did.
It had learned his patterns, predicted his technique. A strike that folded space emerged from its own spatial rift, targeting the position Null would occupy a microsecond later. Only a desperate, last-second barrier of warped space prevented him from being hit by his own technique.
He landed twenty feet away, reassessing.
"It's learning," Marcus said unnecessarily.
"No," Elena corrected, her voice tight. "It's becoming him."
The Calamity took a clumsy step, space compressing around it as it tried to generate its own gravitational field. It was amateur work, but the fact that it could attempt it at all…
Alright, Null admitted internally. You've learned the basics. Almost impressive for a construct. But copies are just copies.
He raised his empty hand.
The air screamed as void-black ether condensed, taking physical form. A katana materialized—not forged but carved from the absence of space itself. Its edge didn't reflect light because light ceased to exist near it. The blade was less a weapon and more a portable horizon where reality stopped.
The Calamity tilted its head, its Core pulsing frantically. New data. New concepts. A physical medium for spatial arts—something it hadn't encountered yet.
Marcus stepped forward. "Null, if it copies that—"
"Then it copies it." Null's voice carried no emotion, but his thoughts sang with dark amusement.
He leveled the blade at the creature, and space itself seemed to hold its breath.
"Let's see you adapt to this."