5th Day of 1st Fire Cycle[1], 2000 g.c.
The magick hit me before I even realized I was the one creating it. My aura swelled without warning, pulling the air into cyclones that roared around me. The pressure alone sent grit and stone flying, my surroundings warping in the heat of the eldritch inferno that consumed me. The hiss of Anti Mana tore through the air as two vast wings—ultramarine at the edges, indigo at their core—unfurled from my back. Every flap scattered the choking dust, revealing fragments of the arena floor beneath. My horns elongated, sheathed in that same corrosive Anti Mana until they seemed carved from midnight itself. Vermilion lightning licked my skin, snapping and crackling in arcs, a chaotic drumbeat against the inferno raging in my veins.
But I wasn't truly there. My mind had fallen somewhere deep—adrift in the nihility spilling from my Soul Core. It gnawed at me, its hunger constant, tearing at my spirit and my body in unison. My [Auto-Infinite Regeneration] fought back in a desperate, ceaseless loop, knitting flesh and repairing nerve while the void sought to unmake them again. The push and pull left me drowning in raw, primal chaos—every impulse louder, every violent urge sharper, until I was no more than instinct and fractured thought.
The ground itself could not withstand it. Cracks split across the arena floor, thin at first, then webbing out like lightning scars. Segments of the platform broke free entirely, rising in lazy defiance of gravity. Even Zero Tàiyáng, unflinching predator that he was, began to sweat. Droplets traced the base of his horns, catching the dim light as they fell. He knew the look of an advantage slipping away, and his gaze burned with equal parts calculation and desire.
"It's beautiful..." Zero thought. "So that's the legendary [Trance]? A shame I never achieved this during my time. I must take this power for myself."
From the sidelines, the Wolfpak broke their silence.
"Hell fucking yeah!! Kick his fucking ass, my nigga!!" Alex's shout rattled the stillness, his relief wrapped in a cocky grin.
"I knew Lord Xi had a trump card," Nicole said, her tone holding the calm of certainty.
"Finally, we get to see the True Devil of Velonica," Dream added, voice tinged with a thrill she couldn't mask.
Ameera, less impressed and more concerned, murmured, "Shit... if he can do that, so can the phantom, right?"
Alex shook his head. "I don't know. His mirror phantom isn't a 1:1 copy, as Zero said it himself. He's more so fighting a version of himself from a different time and world."
Headtrip's fear rolled off him like a bitter scent. His hands trembled against his will, the dagger in his grip quivering. His thoughts crawled out in stuttering disbelief.
"This… no. No. No. This shouldn't—I... I... I don't get it. I'm an SS-Class Assassin. Yet, looking at this lost son of the Mayonaka has me shaking. I can't even sense his mana, yet my hands and legs won't stop trembling. Dude, this is so wrong. All of this is wrong. There is no record of any Oni stronger than me. This is all wrong!"
Zawa's reaction, however, was something entirely different. Her lips parted, eyes locked on the shape of my wings, the lethal elegance of my horns, the terrible radiance that rolled off me in steady waves.
"Hot damn, Zaddy! Where were you hiding this power at?" she purred, half a breath away from moaning the words.
But I heard none of it. The Trance had seized my mind while [Midnight Star: Belial]'s hand guided my body. My movements were feral yet fluid, and the Death's Mask erased any view or hint of humanity from my face. I was no longer a fighter in an arena—I was a faceless beast born to end things.
Zero noticed. He mistook my detachment for vulnerability and lunged, Red Empress ready in his grip. "Hahahaha. I knew power born of pure chaos was too much for the final Xero imitation to drink from. You could never be the Abraxas, dipshit. You're just a mindless weapon used by a bitch to get revenge."
"RRAAAOAAUUURRRR!!" The sound tore from my throat like the breaking of the world, vibrating through the arena walls.
Magick swelled in response, burning brighter, heavier. Zero's smirk faltered for a heartbeat, but he pressed forward, ripping open a portal and firing five Divinity Rounds into it.
The wormhole's exit flared to my right, the projectiles tumbling out in slow arcs—too slow. They crashed into my spatial barrier, Anti Mana wreathing the shield in hungry violet light. Explosions rang sharp and hot, the shockwaves rippling against me without sting. Beneath the chaos, I felt something else brush the barrier, too faint to reach me.
"That's strange," Zero muttered. "I didn't feel [Separation Anxiety] hit that time."
When the dust cleared, I didn't answer him. Instead, I exhaled. Mana-heavy air hissed through the slits of my mask, curling into the world like smoke from a deep drag.
Then I moved.
Zero didn't even register the first hit before he was airborne, ricocheting across the arena like a ragdoll in a hurricane. I was on him again before his body could fully bend from the last impact—fist, kick, elbow, knee, each blow wrapped in stable Anti Mana. The speed of [Trance: Neutrino Devil] froze time around us, photons themselves struggling to capture the moment.
Punch, punch, punch, kick—over and over, my strikes blurred into each other.
In the stretch of a single second, I struck him 10,151,985 times. The final roundhouse snapped into place, launching him into the spatial barrier in front of Headtrip. Time caught up all at once, and the arena detonated from the kinetic backlash. The wall shattered, Zero flying through the dimensional veil and colliding with Headtrip before both slammed into the chamber wall with a concussive BOOM.
What remained of Zero was a ruin. The Anti Mana had eaten deep, tearing away flesh until muscle and bone stared through gaping holes. Half his face was gone, his Death's Mask clinging on like cracked porcelain. In his one remaining eye, the smugness was gone. At last, I saw the truth—he was feeling the pressure.
Alex was having a hard time keeping up with my movements, only really catching two of the hits. The rest were barely blurs—light streaks tearing through the battlefield in erratic, predatory arcs. Even so, his instincts carried him through. He didn't waste time asking questions. The moment he realized the arena's integrity was about to give way, he snatched all three women at once—Nicole, Dream, and Ameera—his mana flaring as he relocated them out of harm's reach. The air popped from displacement, leaving only the echo of his departure before the explosion consumed the arena.
The women landed roughly in a rocky hollow just outside the shattered perimeter. The crash of the explosion followed an instant later, deep and resonant like the Sycamore Tree itself had groaned. Dust and debris rippled outward in a rolling wave. The air stank of burning ozone and scorched stone.
Nicole spun toward him, wide-eyed.
"What the hell was that?!"
Dream coughed, fanning away smoke. "All I know is Xiro vanished, and then Alex is saving us from an explosion. I thought their fight was in a different dimension?"
Alex kept scanning the chamber, jaw tight. "Yeah, but Xiro just brought it back to this one."
Ameera's voice was smaller, but cutting through the chaos. "Did he win? Is it over?"
"I don't know... but that energy of Xiro's is insane." Alex's voice carried an undercurrent of awe. "Do y'all feel it?"
Nicole blinked, shook her head. "I can't. I can't sense him at all."
Dream grinned faintly despite herself. "Me neither. Oh, that's so cool. He's gotta teach me that transformation."
Even with me temporarily out of my mind, [Moon Sage: Tsukuyomi] covered for my lapses. The Omnis Mana woven on their bodies as clothes earlier let my V-Skill wrap each of them in a personal barrier, invisible but absolute, shielding them from the violent side effects of my mana flood. The space around me was saturated with converted magitons—alien particles in such concentration that any weaker creature would be poisoned & suffocated instantly. It was a slow death by invasion, as if the air itself had teeth.
The Gem Witch wasn't given that mercy.
The explosion had already staggered her, but it was my mana's arrival that broke her posture. The flood of my signature's pressure slammed into the chamber like a sudden ocean, dense and crushing. Zawa's magickal senses weren't built to withstand that magnitude of converted magiton. Her breath hitched, her pupils dilated, and her knees buckled. The overstimulation was far worse than pain. My presence triggered a raw, overwhelming euphoria, an aphrodisiac effect born of her inability to parse what she was feeling. Her body betrayed her with a feverish rhythm, wracked in waves of involuntary release. She was teetering on the edge of death and unconsciousness.
"I-I... I—I can't… can't… stop cumming," she gasped, voice breaking into trembling fragments. "Oh my Devil, I-I'm about to—"
I barely registered her collapse.
Her scream blurred into nothing as my awareness fractured. One moment I was there, the next… nowhere at all.
Consciously, I was gone—cast beyond the battlefield, beyond motion, beyond anything physical. I floated in a void without entropy. No light, no sound, no temperature. Just me suspended in absolute black, as if all of creation had been erased except for my thoughts.
It should have been peaceful. It wasn't. There was an itch under my skin, an irrational panic gnawing at me, tangled with a strange… serenity.
"Funny," I muttered into the silence. "It was like this when I died on Earth. I remember meeting Omnia right after that… I wonder what she's up to?"
"I love how you're having an existential crisis, and I'm the first thing you think about."
Her voice landed like a spark in the darkness.
"Omnia?"
I turned in place, searching, and then felt her hand warm against my chest and fingers brushing my neck. She appeared in my arms as if she had always been there. Jasmine and vanilla filled my lungs, wrapping around my senses like a balm. Her deep ocean-blue skin radiated heat against mine, and her violet-traced lips carried that familiar smirk. Both of her sleek tails curled and uncurled behind her, lazy but charged with energy.
"I take a quick nap," she teased, pressing closer until her breasts brushed my chest, "and you're already spiraling into madness without me? I knew the sex was mind-blowing, but… hehehe."
I rolled my eyes but couldn't stop the smile. "Stop playing, you know I laid pipe down. Still, I'm happy to see your silly ass. Where the hell are we?"
"The core of your metaphysical existence."
"Inside me? How many locations am I housing? Damn."
"You're the silly one. Sonata Core: Zero can house the literal multiverse of the Prime Realm System."
"Well, how did I end up here? How did you end up here?"
"I'm your Guardian Armament. I can go anywhere you exist. As for how you got here…"
"Am I dead again?"
"No, Master. Stop being silly. You're just currently drowning in your own fear."
"Fear? The hell? I don't understand. I haven't been scared since my Sonata Skill activated."
"Instead of releasing the fear you were supposed to feel—or still secretly held—it was relocated here. You've been carrying it all along. It resurfaces in moments where you're forced to face immediate death."
"So you're saying I created this void?"
"Do you see it as a negative? That unresolved trauma has been poisoning your spirit's willpower. You should truly accept all of yourself, not just joke about it to sound cool. That includes your life as Jean Vinson."
I went quiet.
"Even if you no longer go by that name," she said softly, "the terrian human aspect of Jean will always be a part of you. It's what separated your path from the others."
"That's just it," I finally said. "I joke and talk shit 'cause if I slow down… I remember I'm just some dead nigga tryna figure out who the hell I'm supposed to be now. Jean, Xiro, Xero, or hell, even Zero? Shit has never been easy understanding who I am when it's so many damn I's."
"You just said Xiro three times," she chuckled.
"Omnia, focus. It feels like every month-cycle I get some new lore about who I used to be. How I failed, died, and became someone new over and over again. Now, I don't wanna die again because I don't wanna be anyone new. I like who I am. I don't want to lose myself."
"It's that self-pride that makes you different—and stronger—than the previous twelve versions. I wonder if the Noetic Operational Virtual Architect is to blame for the balance in your growth?"
"The Noetic Operational? I'mma call it the NOVA Brain. But you're talking about the thing Tsukuyomi is made from, right?"
"Correct. Thanks to your spirit's strength and willpower, your soul was the only one able to handle both Tsukuyomi and Belial without self-destructing from the nihility buildup they can produce when together."
"All that given to me, and I'm still pushed to the edge of death. How am I still failing?"
She laughed softly. "You can't get stronger without adversity. But you shouldn't be so concerned and fearful of death, for you are already more intimate with it than you believe."
"What do you mean—because I died already?"
"That… and I'm the Aeon of Death. You can say you fucked the embodiment of the concept. Hehehe."
"You're the Inner Goddess of Death? Guess I understand why your title is Twilight Goddess now."
"Your unique humanity will give you an understanding of life that many sociovores and humans on Gaia won't grasp at first, because you can see both sides. But it will also remind you that you are mortal in mind and heart."
Her eyes softened. "Rid yourself of this inner prison you've created, and you will be unbeatable. For death bends to the whim of her husband… to you, my little Grim Reaper."
She kissed me then—slow, deliberate, and grounding. The void hummed faintly under her touch.
She had centered me with almost no effort. Her words had peeled back something I didn't even know I'd been clinging to. I realized then that my terror wasn't about the fight, or even death itself—it was the fear of losing everything I had built since my rebirth. I was happy for once. Close to my own version of peace. And that made me afraid of it being stolen.
But now I understood. No one could take it from me. Only I could give it away. Death wasn't an end—it was a weapon. It would be mine to control.
I grinned. "Let's get it. My shawty's watching."
This vital refreshing of my mental psyche was all my Soul Core needed to kick-start whatever survival instinct it had left. My [Strong Spirit] skill roared to life once again, and I felt it—tiny, gleaming particles peeling away from my ethereal being like flecks of ash that refused to fall. They floated upward, shimmered faintly, and evaporated into the darkness around me. At first, the sensation was unnerving, as if something alive inside me was unraveling thread by thread. But then... I saw it from a different angle. It was beautiful. A slow, dignified shedding of weakness.
I was being pulled out of the void. My brief vacation in the world of self-pity was over. It was time to get back to the fight.
Omnia stood there, her expression subtly different from before. No shadow of sorrow lingered in her smile now—only a quiet pride and something that might've been admiration. The last half of me was unraveling into motes, and as it did, her voice reached me, soft and warm, riding the air like a silver thread.
"You mean a lot to me, Moonlight—more than you know," she whispered, her breath carrying that strange reverence that made my chest feel heavier than battle ever could. "You were the only one who chose me back. I could never leave the man I love alone when he's down."
I wanted to say something back—maybe even throw in a quip so she wouldn't think I was going soft—but my void exit didn't give me the luxury of extra time. Darkness swept away, replaced by a brutal splash of reality.
The battlefield was chaos and ruin. Zero Tàiyáng stood ahead, his body mangled and missing chunks of himself like a half-finished statue. Even through the cracked porcelain mask, I could see the rage twisting his aura. His anger had a smell—burnt ozone and scorched metal. His magickal pressure was weakened, noticeably so, and the difference between our strengths widened like a canyon. The Anti Mana attacks had done more than just tear flesh; they'd shredded him at a spiritual level, down to the spiritons and magitons themselves.
Waking from the void felt like surfacing from a deep, luxurious sleep, only to realize I was already in motion. My mind was sharp, and my body buzzed with power thanks to the [Neutrino Devil] transformation. The oppressive weight of the Death's Mask pressing into my temples? Gone. The suffocating squeeze of Nihility on my Soul Core? Gone. Breathing felt like breathing for the first time all night.
I blinked, and my [Heaven's Kaleidoscope] unfolded. Tri-colored gankyril swam across my vision, the hues shifting and refracting into impossible spectrums. That Ultra Skill was the crown jewel of ocular mastery—vision without limits, infinite speed perception that slowed the world to a crawl, blindness immunity, and the keys to every other eye-based ability in existence. And yet… I'd never turned it inward before. Never looked at myself with it. Until now.
"It's time to wrap up this self-reflection moment," I said, my voice deeper and layered with a gravelly distortion, like two echoes speaking in sync. "I've learned a lot about myself in just this short glimpse."
Zero's form stitched itself whole at last, and instead of snarling, he grinned. It was a sharp, unbalanced grin—a mix of malice and something unsettlingly close to joy. He'd braced himself mid-impact using an unconscious Headtrip, keeping his feet under him. His eyes locked on me like I was the answer to a prayer he'd been afraid to speak aloud.
"Finally, you impress me," he said. "The power of the Trance ability is everything I heard it was. Now that you've shown me we can achieve it, I'll take that power for myself… and use it to destroy this world and kill every last copy of Omnia."
That was it. The final nail.
Red lightning exploded across my aura, bolts cracking and snapping wildly as my anger bled into my energy. My hands twitched with the urge to erase him.
He didn't wait for me to react—he thought he was being clever. In a blink, he teleported, trying to appear in my blind spot. Unfortunately for him, my Ultra Skill meant there were no blind spots. His swing of the Blue Empress was halted mid-motion, the blade locked in place by my magnetic grip, his whole body caught in an electromagnetic bubble.
"I see it now," I said. "The small constant shifts in the structure of your mana signature. It made you hard to counter… but I see your little gimmick."
"Lit-tle… Gimmick?! As if you could—"
I yanked him forward like he weighed nothing and smashed my right fist—wrapped in dense Anti Mana—across his jaw. There was a faint prickle against my barrier just before impact, some weak spell trying to slip through, but it was crushed before it had a chance. Zero sailed across the chamber, slammed into a wall, and the shockwave rattled the Sycamore Tree itself.
"Lord Xi is unstoppable. It's as if Zero can't even touch him anymore," Nicole said.
"He just needs to find a way to put him down for good," Dream added.
"Aye, Xi, finish your plate!" Alex shouted.
Little did he know—I was already planning to.
I extended my hand toward Zero, folding the space behind him like crumpling fabric. Omnis Mana spiraled in my palm—dense, infinite, hungry—compressing reality until it screamed. A black void bloomed into being, its event horizon flaring with streaks of pale blue and gold. The pull was immediate.
Zero's leg crossed the threshold.
For the first time, I saw it—desperation.
"Aaggghh! A fucking… space hole? Shhiitt."
The black hole howled like a beast, dragging in shards of the floor, broken glass, and loose fragments of the Sycamore's inner bark. Gravity itself bent around it; even the light wavered, bending toward the spiraling abyss.
Zero fought back hard. His sword stabbed into the ground with a deafening CLANG, sparks flaring where the metal met fractured stone. His fingers dug in so deep his knuckles bled black ichor, but the pull kept dragging him inch by inch toward oblivion. His mask tilted up—eyes wide behind the lenses, breath coming ragged.
One step away from nothingness.
His body strained, muscles distorting under the pressure. The blue of his blade flickered, arcs of energy snapping off like frayed wires. He planted his other foot, twisting his torso to anchor himself against the pull, but the black hole didn't care. It didn't need to win a fight—it just needed him to lose his grip for half a second.
Even the battlefield joined in the chaos—tables, chairs, and chunks of the masquerade hall lifted into the air, spinning in wide arcs before being swallowed whole.
"Hold on, Lord Xi's—" Nicole's voice was lost to the roar.
The event horizon flared, doubling its pull. The strain on Zero's frame was visible—veins bulging, his teeth gritting so hard they almost cracked.
Then his gaze snapped to me—hatred and panic sharing the same space in his eyes. His right hand tore off the Blue Empress's hilt and stretched toward me across the collapsing air.
"Detach with unrequited love—[Separation Anxiety]!"
The world lurched. A violent, surgical sensation ripped through me, like someone unplugging my very soul from its power source. My mana flow cut off. My skills blinked out. Numbness spread, followed by a yawning emptiness. My transformation cracked, then shattered, leaving me in my base form. Anti Mana and my suffocating aura dissipated into the air as tiny azure, indigo, and maroon motes.
The black hole collapsed without my hold, imploding violently—and taking most of Zero's lower half with it. His upper torso hit the glassy floor with a wet splat. Black blood oozed and spread, staining the fractured floor like spilled ink. Within three seconds, his regeneration slowly began, flesh and bone knitting back in grotesque motion. Yet, now it was far slower as damage visibly lingered.
"What the hell?" I muttered. "Ahh... So that's how it works. I think I get it now."
"Damn, what happened? Why'd he stop?" Alex called.
"He doesn't have that form on anymore," Nicole noted.
"And I think Zero's recovering," Ameera added.
"Did he run out of mana?" Dream asked.
"Impossible. Xiro has unlimited mana," Alex said.
All three girls spoke at once—"Unlimited?"—their disbelief almost comical.
My Soul Core sputtered like a dying star—then, with a jolt, surged back to life.
Nine seconds later, my Soul Core clicked back online, my abilities rushing in like air after suffocation. Zero stood, his aura hissed against the floor, eating away at the cracked stone beneath him.
"It won't be over so easily, you dildo-horned mud monkey," he snarled.
"Is that more slurs? I'm starting to think you forgot we look alike," I replied.
"You're mighty arrogant for someone who just had their trump card cancelled."
"You don't know yourself very well if you think that's the only card I've got."
In a blur, the Blue Queen materialized in my hand, cocked and aimed square at his face.
"Besides… I still owe you a traumatic experience as a thank-you for making me stronger."
BANG.
The shot rang out like judgment. Facing the Black Mirror had taught me something crucial—I couldn't keep running from the fear of losing what mattered. Death's inevitability was the truth. The only way to control it was to become Death itself.
And Zero… Zero Tàiyáng would be the first ghost I'd reap for my graveyard.
[End of Chapter]
[1] April on Earth.