The warning came without sound.
No alarm. No dramatic declaration.
Just a sudden, absolute stillness.
Mardus stood at the edge of a fractured Martian canyon, silver hair drifting slowly in an air that had forgotten how to move. The planet's faint hum—its gravitational heartbeat—went silent, as if Mars itself were holding its breath.
The Galaxy System pulsed once.
Hard.
COSMIC TRIAL INITIATED.
SOURCE: VOID SOVEREIGN DOMAIN.
DESIGNATION: TRIAL OF UNMAKING.
Mardus exhaled slowly. "That sounds… welcoming."
THIS IS NOT A COMBAT TEST ALONE.
FAILURE CONDITIONS: DEATH, NULLIFICATION, OR CORRUPTION.
His jaw tightened. "And success?"
There was a pause—longer than usual.
SUCCESS CONDITIONS: SURVIVAL AND MAINTENANCE OF SELF.
Mardus frowned. "That's it?"
YES.
That alone told him everything.
This trial wasn't meant to be beaten.
It was meant to erase.
The sky darkened—not with clouds, but with absence. Stars dimmed, then vanished entirely, leaving behind a void so deep it hurt to look at. Space folded inward, compressing the horizon until Mars felt small… fragile.
Then the ground split.
Not cracked.
Split.
A vertical wound opened in reality itself, stretching kilometers into the sky and plunging deep into the planet's crust. From within it poured something that did not belong to any single form.
The Trial made manifest.
It resembled a towering humanoid silhouette at first—only to collapse into shifting geometry the moment Mardus tried to focus on it. Its body was composed of collapsing concepts: half-formed limbs, rotating voids where organs should be, and symbols that rewrote themselves constantly.
Where its face should have been—
Nothing.
Not darkness.
Nothingness.
TRIAL ENTITY DESIGNATION: NULL WARDEN.
FUNCTION: ASSESS HOST'S RESISTANCE TO EXISTENTIAL ERASURE.
Mardus rolled his shoulders. "You Void types really love dramatic names."
The Null Warden moved.
There was no wind-up. No motion to track.
One moment it stood across the canyon.
The next—
Reality jumped.
Mardus barely reacted in time. Gravity inverted around him, snapping his body sideways as a silent wave passed through the space where his chest had been a fraction of a second earlier.
The canyon behind him vanished.
Not exploded.
Vanished.
Erased so cleanly that even dust failed to exist where it once had.
Mardus stared at the empty void where kilometers of stone had been.
"…Okay," he said quietly. "That's new."
WARNING.
NULL WARDEN ATTACK TYPE: CONCEPTUAL DELETION.
"Of course it is," he muttered.
The Null Warden raised one distorted limb.
The idea of gravity collapsed.
Mardus felt his weight disappear—not as lightness, but as loss. His connection to up, down, direction itself flickered violently.
He clenched his teeth.
"Not today."
The Galaxy System surged.
LAW ANCHOR ENGAGED.
HOST TEMPORARILY FIXED TO LOCAL REALITY.
Mardus slammed his foot down.
Gravity returned with brutal force, shattering the ground beneath him and launching him forward like a meteor. He twisted midair, drawing cosmic energy inward instead of outward, compressing it until it screamed against containment.
He struck.
Not the body.
The space around it.
Reality detonated.
A shockwave of warped physics tore outward, bending light, time, and matter into a spiraling distortion. The Null Warden was hurled backward, its form unraveling before reassembling with eerie calm.
It did not roar.
It did not react.
It simply adjusted.
ADAPTATION CONFIRMED.
HOST STRIKE EFFECTIVENESS: LIMITED.
Mardus landed, sliding backward through the dust. Blood trickled from his nose.
"Yeah," he said, wiping it away. "I figured."
The Null Warden extended both arms.
The world forgot Mardus existed.
For half a second—
Mars could not perceive him.
His body flickered, edges blurring, existence thinning like mist in sunlight. Memories tugged at him violently—Caroline's voice, Mayson's steady gaze, the twins' laughter.
Mardus screamed—not in pain, but fury.
"No."
He forced his will inward, wrapping himself in those memories like armor.
"I don't disappear," he growled. "I endure."
The Galaxy System responded instantly.
EMOTIONAL ANCHOR OVERRIDE.
HOST IDENTITY REASSERTED.
Reality snapped back.
Mardus collapsed to one knee, gasping.
The Null Warden paused.
For the first time—
It hesitated.
ANOMALY DETECTED.
HOST RESISTED EXISTENTIAL NULLIFICATION.
Mardus looked up, eyes blazing silver. "You tried to erase me," he said hoarsely. "Now it's my turn."
He stood slowly, raising one hand.
But this time—
He didn't attack.
He listened.
The planet's gravity. The silent pull between particles. The subtle tension in space where the Null Warden existed. He felt the seams—the fractures where its existence had been stitched into reality.
"You're not real," Mardus said softly. "Not like I am."
The Null Warden reacted violently.
A wave of erasure surged outward, stripping color from the world. Mountains blurred into gray nothingness as reality destabilized.
Mardus stepped forward anyway.
Each step was agony.
Each breath felt like inhaling broken glass.
But he did not stop.
"I was born," he said, voice steady despite the strain. "I lived. I loved. I failed. I grew."
He raised his hand and closed his fist.
"I have a history."
The Null Warden screamed—not with sound, but with distortion.
Mardus anchored himself to the concept of continuity.
Not immortality.
Not invincibility.
Continuity.
"I exist," he declared.
The Galaxy System flared brighter than ever before.
NEW LAW TEMPORARILY UNLOCKED: EXISTENTIAL INERTIA.
The world shook.
The Null Warden's form destabilized, its shifting geometry stuttering as Mardus's presence became too heavy to remove.
It lashed out one final time.
A spear of absolute void tore through space, piercing Mardus's shoulder clean through. Pain exploded, white-hot and consuming.
He roared—but did not fall.
Instead, he grabbed the void itself.
Not the weapon.
The absence.
He pulled.
The Null Warden convulsed as its own attack was dragged back toward it, reality screaming in protest as causality reversed.
"This trial," Mardus snarled, blood dripping from his fingers, "is over."
He slammed his hand down.
Existential Inertia detonated.
Not an explosion—
A settling.
The Null Warden collapsed inward, its form compressing until it became a single point of impossible density.
Then—
It vanished.
Silence returned.
The sky slowly brightened as stars flickered back into existence. Gravity stabilized. Mars exhaled.
Mardus fell to one knee, then to both.
His breathing was ragged. His body trembled violently.
But he was alive.
COSMIC TRIAL COMPLETE.
RESULT: SURVIVAL CONFIRMED.
He laughed weakly. "That's… one way to put it."
TRIAL DATA TRANSMITTED TO VOID SOVEREIGN DOMAIN.
Mardus's smile faded.
"So they saw all of that."
YES.
He pushed himself to his feet, staring at the empty space where the Null Warden had been.
"Good," he said quietly. "Let them see."
The Galaxy System pulsed again—different this time.
REWARD GRANTED.
HOST HAS UNLOCKED:
• RESISTANCE TO CONCEPTUAL ERASURE
• ENHANCED LAW ANCHORING
• PARTIAL IMMUNITY TO VOID INFLUENCE
Mardus closed his eyes, feeling the changes settle into his being.
"First trial," he murmured. "And I'm still standing."
Far beyond Mars, across dimensions layered like scars, the Void Sovereigns stirred.
One of them watched in silence.
Another whispered a single thought across the void.
He should not exist.
Mardus opened his eyes and looked toward the stars.
"Then they'd better get used to me," he said.
Because this was only the beginning.