Michael vanished from his spot.
Xekron's breath caught in his throat as the echo of a voice rolled through the hollow stretch of space — calm, cold, and resonant, as though the stars themselves trembled to carry its tone.
"Casted One… you shouldn't have touched my mother. Lest you chased her… do you know what your end will be like?"
The sound rippled through the void like thunder under silk.
Xekron turned, eyes wide, searching.
Nothing — no trace, no vibration, not even the faintest distortion of time. His heart pounded, though he no longer possessed one in any mortal sense. The silence was suffocating.
He exhaled sharply and shut his luminous eyes, his voice steady yet cracking.
"Enough games… show yourself."
He gathered his focus.
Within his mind, the universe folded into patterns of light.
He summoned his Existential Vision — the supreme perception of a Tier 8 being.
Space fractured inside his consciousness, and from the darkness, something began to form — a flickering humanoid silhouette made entirely of shifting data and static light, like a living projection of a system interface.
Its body shimmered in a rhythm that felt almost alive.
The "skin" was not flesh — it was code, shimmering blue-white energy cascading like waterfalls of raw computation.
Xekron's brows furrowed. "There… that's it… that's where he's hiding…"
He focused deeper. The moment he tried to penetrate its structure — agony.
Pain exploded through his being like fire through crystal.
He screamed, clutching his head, his entire body convulsing.
"GAHHHHHHHHHH! Ughhhhhh! Wh-what is this?! I— I ascended beyond this plane… HOW can I feel pain here!?"
His scream echoed across dying constellations.
Stars shuddered. Space itself recoiled from the sound.
He collapsed onto one knee, his radiant form dimming for the first time since his evolution.
Then came a soft laugh.
Michael appeared — calm, hands in pockets, the faint glint of a lollipop between his lips. His hoodie drifted in the stilled wind of eternity.
"Pffff… hahah… you tried to read my Existential Structure, huh?"
He tilted his head slightly, smiling in amusement.
"You're bold. I'll give you that. But…"
His voice dropped, colder now.
"You think a meager Tier 8 can glimpse my Principle of Existence?"
Xekron froze.
His eyes widened in disbelief. "A-above Tier 8? Impossible…"
He looked up slowly. Michael stood midair, calm, ordinary — and yet every molecule around him bent subtly, as if the universe didn't trust itself in his presence.
Headphones dangled over his neck. He shifted the lollipop slightly, smiling faintly.
"Well… your real struggle starts now," Michael murmured. "Because I'm gonna beat you to a pulp… not death — heh — just enough to make it hurt."
Xekron's right arm twitched.
He looked down — and froze.
His arm was gone.
Cleanly detached at the shoulder, vanishing into dust without blood or sound.
For a moment, even the void fell silent.
His voice shook with rage.
"You—! I'll kill you!"
He regenerated instantly, his white essence reforming his arm, and then he lunged.
A burst of light — ten times the speed of light itself — tore through existence.
Reality warped.
Michael didn't move.
He lifted a single finger.
Time slowed. The universe bent around that motion.
The finger touched Xekron's chest — barely.
"This should be enough," Michael whispered.
Then — chaos.
Xekron's form quivered violently. His flawless white skin rippled like liquid glass under unbearable pressure. The trembling deepened, spreading into his body, tearing through his essence.
His internal organs — cosmic in nature — began rupturing one by one, bursting with hollow thuds.
He screamed, blood-like light gushing from his mouth and eyes.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! KUGH!"
But Michael's expression never changed.
He simply watched, cold and calm, before his hand clenched slightly.
He moved — a slow, deliberate punch to Xekron's gut.
It looked soft.
But the impact shattered sound itself.
Xekron convulsed. His luminous veins bulged, threatening to explode as cosmic ichor spilled from his mouth. His voice cracked between gasps.
"Kugh… gahhh! Ughhhh! Kggghhhhhh!"
He couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. Couldn't exist.
Michael stepped closer, eyes indifferent.
He lifted his leg.
A silent kick.
The void erupted.
Xekron's body blurred — shot backward like a comet breaking planets in its wake. He crashed through two gas giants, shattering them into crystal dust, their remains painting the dark like rainbows of despair.
Michael sighed softly, brushing imaginary dust from his hoodie.
"Damn… maybe I used too much force. Looks like I'm bullying him now."
He popped the lollipop from his mouth, watching Xekron vanish into the dark horizon.
Meanwhile, Xekron's mind burned.
"Damn it… damn it damn it damn it! I'll kill him!!"
He came to a stop at last, hovering in the silence between galaxies.
Breathing hard — not from exhaustion, but rage.
Then he muttered through clenched teeth.
"Perfect Void Surface."
A black, circular platform unfolded beneath his feet — pure void essence, diameter forty centimeters, stabilizing his energy flow. The surface hummed, responding to his fury.
He stood straight, summoning the crystalline sphere — the Golsen Sphere.
Michael's eyes tracked it with detached interest, voice quiet.
"Hmm. So he's relying on that toy again. Probably gifted by some fourth-dimensional brat."
His smile curved slightly.
"He thinks no one in this dimension can resist it? …Heh. Let's play along."
Xekron sneered, catching that faint grin.
"You're strong. I admit it. But strength alone won't save you. This fight won't be fair — for you, that is!"
He hurled the sphere.
It struck Michael's chest instantly.
The artifact flared — bursting into a swirling black veil of cosmic particles, stretching wide until it swallowed Michael whole. The vacuum trembled as the veil folded inward, shrinking rapidly before condensing back into the sphere.
Silence.
Nothing remained of Michael.
Xekron floated still, waiting.
Seconds passed. Minutes. Ten whole minutes.
Finally, he exhaled, stepping forward. He picked up the now-glowing Golsen Sphere and examined it.
Inside, faint patterns shimmered — life energy sealed within.
He smiled — no, laughed.
"Hahahahahahahaha! You were arrogant, Anomaly! You fool! This artifact is from a higher dimension! And now you're my captive inside it!"
His laughter echoed endlessly, reverberating like cracking glass across galaxies.
But within the sphere —
Michael stood, silent.
The interior was an entire world — an inverted cosmos of black oceans and golden clouds, swirling eternally under a broken sky. He looked around, hands still in pockets, his gaze calm.
And then he saw it — the Guardian.
Bound by celestial chains, the Guardian knelt in the distance. A figure of light and sorrow, wings broken, gaze dim yet unyielding.
Michael walked forward slowly.
Each step rippled through the strange dimension, reality bending to his existence.
The Guardian lifted his head weakly, eyes widening. "You… who are you?". This was the First time Gurdian had talked to anyone.
Michael smiled faintly.
"Just someone who's here to take back what's mine."
The Guardian blinked, confusion etched in his fading light. "You mean… freedom?"
Michael paused — then tilted his head, the soft melancholy returning to his voice.
"No. I meant you."
The air thickened. Golden chains cracked faintly.
A faint pulse shimmered between them — a resonance older than creation itself.
Michael raised his hand. His fingers brushed one of the chains — and it dissolved into dust, vanishing like mist before dawn.
The Guardian gasped, trembling.
"You… how—"
Michael smiled again, gentle, almost wistful.
"You've been in pain long enough. Let's fix that."
One by one, the chains shattered — each burst echoing through the void like a heartbeat.
The Guardian collapsed forward, trembling, his energy weak but free.
Michael crouched, steadying him. "Easy."
The Guardian looked up, voice trembling.
"Who… are you really?"
Michael's gaze softened, his tone distant.
"Just a human who got tired of losing people."
The Guardian stared, silence stretching between them like an eternity. Then his eyes widened as he realized — this wasn't mere power. This was something beyond existence. Something that rewrote the laws themselves.
Michael stood, looking toward the veil surrounding them.
"Time to leave."
He tapped the air once.
The Golsen Sphere cracked.
Outside, Xekron's smirk vanished as he felt a vibration deep within the artifact.
He turned it over in his palm — and saw fissures crawling across its surface like lightning veins.
"Wh-what…?!"
A soft voice drifted through space — calm and cruelly gentle.
"Didn't you say this fight wouldn't be fair?"
The sphere shattered.
A torrent of light exploded outward, illuminating the entire galactic plane. Michael stepped out, brushing his hoodie lightly as the fragments of the artifact fell like ashes around him.
Xekron stared, eyes wide with disbelief.
"You— you broke it?! That's— that's impossible!"
Michael popped another lollipop into his mouth.
"You talk too much."
He raised his right hand.
A faint circle of light appeared behind him — complex, ancient, its glyphs rotating like constellations rewriting themselves.
"Let's finish this."
Xekron roared, unleashing the full extent of his ascended might.
White energy stormed outward, shredding galaxies, bending time. His form expanded, reaching planetary scale, his voice thunderous.
"I AM THE ASCENDED ONE! YOU CANNOT—"
Michael appeared in front of him mid-sentence, eyes half-closed, utterly calm.
"You done?"
He snapped his fingers just in front of his face.
A blinding impact.
Xekron's chest imploded, the shockwave erasing light-years of space in every direction. Reality folded inwards and collapsed before reforming in silence.
Michael stepped through the ruins, voice barely above a whisper.
"For my mother. For her peace."
Xekron's trembling form barely held shape now. His voice cracked, drenched in disbelief.
"Wh… what are you?"
Michael smiled faintly, sorrow brushing the edge of his tone.
"Something you'll never understand."
He raised his hand one last time.
A faint glimmer gathered at his fingertip — a soft light, almost beautiful.
"Rest."
He flicked it forward.
Xekron's body dissolved — not in fire, not in destruction — but in silence. His form scattered into motes of light, drifting away like fireflies.
As the final particle faded, Michael stood alone once more in the endless dark.
He looked down at his palm, expression unreadable. The glow in his eyes dimmed.
"She'd… probably call me reckless again."
A small, almost broken chuckle escaped him.
He put his hands back into his pockets, looking at the distant galaxies rekindling their light — the universe stitching itself slowly back together.
"Let's go, We have many things to talk about.." he whispered.
And then, as silently as he appeared —
Michael vanished.
The stars glimmered faintly in his wake, as if bowing to the man whose smile carried both salvation and sorrow — the calmest, most terrifying existence the cosmos would ever remember.
_____________
To be continued...