The pressure changed.
Not increased.
Changed.
Void Kuda stopped laughing.
The grin tore itself apart into something wider, uglier, more unstable. The black distortion around his body thickened, folding inward like layers of dead space collapsing into a single point. The dead zone around them began to fail. Floating stone vaporized. Distance stopped behaving correctly.
Void Kuda tilted his head.
Void Kuda: Zero is contradiction.
Void Kuda: One is intent.
His voice fractured. Multiple tones bled into each other. One low and crawling. One sharp and screaming. One calm, almost thoughtful.
Void Kuda: Let me show you what happens when void decides.
The captains felt it before it manifested.
Not fear.
Insignificance.
Reality itself pulled back.
Void Kuda raised his hand slowly.
Symbols ignited around his arm again, but this time they were different. Cleaner. Heavier. Written in something that looked like void pressure forced into language.
Void Kuda: Gyuro One.
The symbols locked.
Void Kuda: Kokū Kōtai.
Void Dominion.
The universe inverted.
Not exploded.
Not erased.
Overwritten.
The dead zone ceased to exist as a place. Space collapsed into layered black strata, each layer representing a rejected version of reality. Hyperversal planes folded on top of each other like discarded drafts. Time did not stop. Time lost relevance.
The Eight Captains were slammed outward instantly.
Not thrown.
Displaced.
Raith vanished across six collapsed layers and reappeared coughing blood, his armor shredded, bones audibly cracking as gravity reasserted itself wrong.
Raith: GH—!!
Iora screamed as her preservation fields were stripped apart and inverted, her own safeguards turning inward and crushing her organs.
Iora: MY DOMAIN IS EATING ME—!!
Keth hit nothing.
There was no ground.
His body spun through collapsed dimensions, each rotation tearing skin from muscle as void friction flayed him alive.
Keth: AAAAARGH—!!
Serex tried to anchor causality.
It snapped.
Serex: NO NO NO NO—
His records detonated inside his mind. Memory bled from his eyes as past, present, and future refused to stay ordered.
Nahl fell to her knees instantly.
Her eyes were already gone.
Nahl: I CAN'T SEE— THERE IS NO OUTCOME—!!
Halvere barely stayed standing, blade buried deep into a collapsing layer of space that screamed as it failed.
Halvere: This is not combat.
Halvere: This is erasure by authority.
The clan moved.
Instant.
Skirgash reappeared behind Void, blood running freely from his dislocated shoulder as he forced his body to obey.
Skirgash: You're enjoying this.
Void Kuda laughed.
Void Kuda: Of course I am.
Lyra layered belief control across the collapsing strata, forcing reality to briefly accept a version where Void was vulnerable.
Lyra: Accept this.
Void Kuda turned and backhanded the belief itself.
The concept shattered.
Lyra was launched backward, her own narrative folding inward and rupturing her mind. Blood poured from her nose and ears as she screamed.
Lyra: NGHH—!!
Aurel forced logic into existence anyway.
Aurel: Gyuro Sixty Nine.
Aurel: Ketsuron Saigo.
Final Conclusion.
Void Kuda stopped.
Looked down.
At the logic wrapping around him.
Void Kuda: Wrong answer.
He clenched his fist.
Logic imploded.
Aurel's chest detonated outward as the backlash crushed him again, organs rupturing, spine snapping as he hit the void layer and slid, coughing up chunks of blood.
Rhel moved.
No flash.
No sound.
Probability twisted.
Void Kuda turned.
Void Kuda: You're still trying.
Void Kuda stepped forward and bit into probability itself, tearing the guaranteed outcome apart.
Rhel froze.
Blood sprayed from his mouth as fate snapped back violently and punished him for existing.
Eshren stepped in.
The air screamed.
Confession pressure slammed into Void.
Regret. Self awareness. Corruption awareness.
Void Kuda staggered one step.
One.
Then he laughed harder.
Void Kuda: That's it.
Void Kuda: That's the good part.
He grabbed Eshren by the face and smashed his head through three collapsed layers, skull cracking, blood misting the void as he slammed him into nothing and let him fall.
Sereon had not moved.
He watched.
Calm.
Evaluating.
Then he spoke.
Sereon: You're burning energy inefficiently.
Void Kuda turned slowly.
Void Kuda: You haven't moved once.
Sereon: Because I'm not impressed yet.
That did it.
Void Kuda's pressure spiked.
Void Kuda: You think you're above this.
Sereon: No.
Sereon: I think you're beneath what comes next.
The space behind Sereon shifted.
Something activated.
Not a technique.
A condition.
Sereon: You see, Void.
Sereon: This hunt was never about killing me.
Vaize felt it.
That wrongness.
That same feeling from the Hall.
Vaize: What did you do.
Sereon turned his head slightly toward his father.
Sereon: I made you move exactly when I needed you to.
The realization hit Vaize like a blade.
Sereon: Every registry purge.
Sereon: Every influence burn.
Sereon: Every sealed verse.
Sereon: You compressed the world.
Sereon: You simplified it.
Sereon: You made it easier to overwrite.
Vaize snapped.
Vaize moved.
Instant.
Authority erupted.
Vaize appeared in front of Sereon and struck.
Not a technique.
Not Gyuro.
A pure Arbiter strike.
Law condensed into impact.
It landed.
The void screamed.
Sereon slid backward for the first time, boots carving through collapsed space as blood sprayed from his mouth.
Sereon coughed once.
Blood.
He smiled.
Sereon: There it is.
Void Kuda froze.
His head snapped toward Vaize.
Void Kuda: I told you.
Void Kuda: Do not interrupt me.
Vaize turned.
Vaize: He is my son.
Void Kuda vanished.
Reappeared.
His fist was already inside Vaize's abdomen.
Not piercing.
Detonating.
Void Kuda: I warned you.
The impact folded Vaize's torso inward. Blood exploded from his mouth in a violent spray, chunks of tissue ejecting as the void pressure tore through him from the inside.
Vaize: HURK—!!
He was launched backward, smashing through multiple collapsed layers, coughing blood uncontrollably, ribs shattered, stomach ruptured.
Void Kuda stood there, arm dripping black and red.
Void Kuda: Do not touch my prey.
Void Kuda looked down at his blood soaked hand and laughed.
Void Kuda: You Arbiter types always think authority protects you.
Void Kuda: Authority is just noise to the void.
He turned back toward Sereon.
Void Kuda: Now.
Void Kuda: Let's continue.
The pressure rose again.
Higher.
Meaner.
More personal.
Sereon wiped blood from his mouth with his thumb.
Still calm.
Still thinking.
Sereon: Good.
Sereon: Now everyone is angry.
Sereon: Which means no one is thinking clearly.
Sereon: Which means we're exactly where I wanted us.
Sereon smiled softly.
Sereon: And everything is..
Sereon raised a hand and ran it across his hair.
Sereon: (thinking) Going exactly as I planned.
Sereon's smile didn't widen.
It settled.
Like a lock clicking into place.
The pressure around him changed again. Not higher. Not lower.
Sharper.
The kind of shift only beings at absurd scales noticed, when hyperversal layers stopped colliding and instead aligned. Void Kuda felt it immediately. Vaize felt it through the pain, coughing thick blood onto fractured nothing. The captains felt it as a wrongness crawling up their spines.
Sereon lowered his hand.
Sereon: And everything is...
He paused.
Not for drama.
For synchronization.
Sereon: ...complete.
The space behind him opened.
Not a tear. Not a rift.
A correction.
The dead zone twisted and reassembled into something new. Infinite strata snapped into a circular structure, each layer rotating at a different metaphysical frequency. Hyperversal constants folded inward, compressing into a single stage.
A battlefield designed in advance.
Skirgash dragged himself upright, blood pouring from his shoulder, eyes burning.
Skirgash: ...I knew it.
Lyra laughed weakly through blood, wiping her mouth.
Lyra: He let us get hit.
Aurel coughed, ribs visibly failing to regenerate.
Aurel: He always does.
Void Kuda stared.
Not amused now.
Not laughing.
Interested.
Void Kuda: You built this around me.
Sereon met his gaze.
Sereon: Around you?
Sereon shook his head once.
Sereon: No.
Sereon: I built it for you.
The captains tried to move.
They couldn't.
Not Void's pressure.
Not Sereon's.
Something else.
Alignment.
Their bodies were fine.
Their intent wasn't.
Halvere forced words out through blood.
Halvere: ...What did you do.
Sereon answered without looking at him.
Sereon: I removed variance.
Sereon stepped forward.
The world accepted his step before he took it.
Sereon: Every plan you had.
Sereon: Every countermeasure.
Sereon: Every heroic last stand you imagined.
Sereon: They relied on unpredictability.
He stopped between Void Kuda and Vaize.
Sereon: I don't.
Void Kuda's grin crept back, slower this time.
Void Kuda: You think you can control void.
Sereon: No.
Sereon: I think I can frame it.
Sereon lifted two fingers.
Not pointing.
Not threatening.
Just... indicating.
Sereon: You adapt to what touches you.
Void Kuda: I do.
Sereon: You contradict systems.
Void Kuda: I erase them.
Sereon nodded.
Sereon: Exactly.
The structure around them locked.
Every layer froze into a single state where Void Kuda's adaptation had already been accounted for. Not countered.
Anticipated.
Void Kuda's head snapped slightly.
Void Kuda: ...That's new.
Sereon: You're late.
Sereon turned his head slightly toward Vaize, who was on one knee, blood pouring from his mouth, hand shaking as he tried to stand.
Sereon: Father.
Vaize looked up, fury and disbelief twisted together.
Vaize: You planned... this?
Sereon's expression softened.
Just a little.
Sereon: I planned the moment you'd stop thinking like an Arbiter.
Sereon: And start thinking like a father.
Vaize tried to rise.
Void Kuda moved—
—and stopped.
Not by force.
By irrelevance.
Void Kuda frowned.
Void Kuda: ...Why can't I—
Sereon spoke over him.
Sereon: Because this phase isn't about strength.
Sereon: Or authority.
Sereon: Or void.
He finally looked back at Void Kuda.
Sereon: It's about position.
The battlefield reordered.
Without motion.
Without sound.
Suddenly, Void Kuda was no longer at the center.
Sereon was.
Void Kuda's pressure surged instinctively, spiking past forty, then fifty, then something unnamed.
Nothing changed.
Void Kuda laughed again, but it was sharper now.
Void Kuda: Hah... hah...
Void Kuda: You're trying to cage me.
Sereon shook his head.
Sereon: No.
Sereon: I'm letting you burn where you can't escape.
Skirgash finally stood fully, cracking his neck despite the blood loss.
Skirgash: He hates that.
Lyra wiped blood from her chin, eyes bright.
Lyra: Void without freedom.
Lyra: That's torture.
Void Kuda's grin twitched.
Void Kuda: Careful.
Void Kuda: I don't break easy.
Sereon smiled again.
Small.
Cold.
Sereon: I know.
Sereon: That's why I didn't try to break you.
Sereon's eyes darkened.
Sereon: I let you break yourself.
The pressure inverted.
Not exploded.
Not crushed.
Turned inward.
Void Kuda staggered half a step.
For the first time.
Void Kuda: ...Interesting.
The word fractured.
Not the sound.
The space it occupied.
The dead zone warped as Void Kuda straightened fully, his spine cracking into alignment with a sound like collapsing stars being folded into a throat. The black mass that made up his body peeled, layers sliding over one another, revealing deeper absence beneath. Gravity inverted twice. Time stuttered and gave up trying to keep rhythm.
Void Kuda laughed.
It came out wrong.
Multiple voices. Different speeds. One laughing forward, one backward, one screaming without sound.
Void Kuda: You didn't lock me in a cage.
Void Kuda: You dragged the cage inside me.
Void Kuda took a step.
The step did not move him forward.
Instead, the distance between him and Sereon vanished.
Not crossed.
Deleted.
The ground between them ceased to exist, replaced by a collapsing spiral of broken cause and effect. Floating stone slabs detonated into dust, then into nothing, then into concepts that failed to reassemble.
Void Kuda's arm moved.
Not swung.
Arrived.
A black limb tore through layers of reality and slammed into Sereon's chest.
The impact didn't throw Sereon back.
It sent the entire battlefield backward.
The circular structure shattered outward, each rotating layer tearing loose and folding into separate skies. One layer imploded into a silent white void. Another collapsed into an ocean of inverted stars. A third burned into raw color that screamed without sound.
Sereon slid backward through all of it.
Not tumbling.
Standing.
His feet carved trenches through nothingness, sparks of broken logic flaring under each step as he resisted not force, but removal.
Skirgash shouted.
Skirgash: SEREON—!!
Void Kuda followed.
He didn't chase.
He overwrote position.
Void Kuda appeared above Sereon, below him, behind him, all at once. Six arms unfolded from his torso, each one shaped differently, each one carrying a different absence.
Void Kuda: LET'S SEE HOW WELL YOU PLAN DURING IMPACT.
He brought all six down.
The strike did not hit Sereon.
It hit everything that assumed Sereon would still exist.
Entire layers of reality buckled. One collapsed into a flat plane. Another inverted itself and devoured its own horizon. A distant verse screamed as its sky tore open and poured inward like blood into a wound.
Sereon raised one hand.
Not fast.
Precise.
Sereon: Enough.
The word stopped the fall.
Not by force.
By authority.
The descending void froze inches from his face. The pressure twisted inward, folding back on itself like a storm forced to swallow its own wind.
Sereon's eyes met Void Kuda's.
Calm.
Focused.
Sereon: You adapt to pressure.
Sereon: You don't adapt to context.
Void Kuda snarled.
Void Kuda: CONTEXT IS A LIE—!!
He flexed.
The frozen void exploded inward, imploding instead of bursting. The implosion tore a hole straight through Sereon's torso.
Blood sprayed.
Not red.
Black.
It fell upward, downward, sideways, obeying no rule long enough to be named.
Skirgash cursed and vanished, reappearing instantly beside Sereon, grabbing his shoulder.
Skirgash: You good?!
Sereon didn't answer.
Because he was already closing the wound by deciding it was finished bleeding.
The hole stitched itself shut without healing. Without regeneration. The injury simply became irrelevant.
Sereon stepped forward.
The void behind him collapsed.
Sereon: You're strong.
Void Kuda grinned wider, jaw splitting too far.
Void Kuda: SAY IT LOUDER.
Sereon: You're crude.
That landed.
Void Kuda's grin twitched.
Sereon raised both hands.
The space around Void Kuda compressed.
Not like a vice.
Like a thought narrowing.
Void Kuda felt it then.
Not pain.
Placement.
His mass began to slide into a single point. Not shrinking. Condensing meaning. Every contradiction he embodied forced to coexist in the same instant.
Void Kuda roared.
Void Kuda: GY—
He stopped.
Because the word didn't come out.
Sereon had already moved.
He appeared directly in front of Void Kuda, close enough that the void's distortion scraped against his skin.
Sereon drove his fist forward.
No energy.
No glow.
Just impact.
The punch erased the space behind Void Kuda.
His torso bent backward around Sereon's arm as the strike didn't push him away, but pulled everything behind him forward to meet it. Void Kuda was slammed through three collapsing skies, a dead ocean of light, and a verse that had never learned how to exist quietly.
They crashed into a field of floating ruins.
Void Kuda skidded across broken concepts, carving a trench through shattered realities before stopping.
He lay there for half a second.
Then he started laughing again.
Void Kuda: HAHAHA—!!
Void Kuda stood.
Slowly.
Blood—actual blood—dripped from the裂 cracks running across his body, black and thick, steaming where it hit nothing.
Void Kuda: I like you.
Void Kuda: You hurt in interesting ways.
Sereon walked toward him.
Each step rebuilt the ground under his feet, then destroyed it again once he passed.
Sereon: You're not here to win.
Sereon: You're here to test me.
Void Kuda tilted his head.
Void Kuda: Maybe.
Void Kuda: Or maybe—
Void Kuda's body collapsed inward.
Every shadow in existence rushed toward him, spiraling into his core. The void screamed as it compacted, compressing absence into something dense enough to tear meaning apart.
Void Kuda's voice dropped.
Void Kuda: —I'm here to see how far I can push before you finally break character.
The compression finished.
Void Kuda looked smaller now.
Denser.
Sharper.
Every movement bent the world around him.
Skirgash felt it and swore.
Skirgash: He's done playing.
Lyra's voice was tight.
Lyra: Sereon.
Lyra: That thing is about to do something catastrophic.
Sereon stopped walking.
For the first time, his expression sharpened.
Not concern.
Interest.
Sereon: Good.
Sereon: Then stop holding back.
Void Kuda's grin returned.
Void Kuda: With pleasure.
The space between them vanished again.
Not erased.
Overwritten.
Void Kuda was already there.
His hand slammed into Sereon's guard before the thought of blocking finished forming. The impact tore through layers of defensive context like paper soaked in oil. Sereon's arm buckled. Bone did not break.
Meaning did.
Void Kuda drove a knee upward.
It hit Sereon's ribs.
The ribs caved.
Not inward.
Backward through timelines.
Sereon coughed blood mid impact, his body snapping sideways as Void followed without moving, appearing where Sereon would be next and smashing his elbow down across Sereon's spine.
The sound was not a crack.
It was a collapse.
Sereon hit the ground hard enough to fracture the dead zone itself. Entire planes beneath them folded, peeled, and disintegrated as Void planted a foot on Sereon's chest and leaned down.
Void Kuda: Too slow.
Void Kuda: Too composed.
Void Kuda: Too human.
Sereon raised his arm.
Void Kuda crushed it.
The limb twisted at an angle arms were not meant to know. Blood sprayed, hot and violent, staining Void's chest as the pressure pinned Sereon in place.
Skirgash shouted.
Skirgash: MOVE—!!
He tried.
The pressure slammed him back down.
Lyra screamed as she clawed at the ground, nails splitting, blood smearing stone that refused to respond to her will.
Lyra: SEREON—!!
Aurel tried to stand.
Failed.
Rhel didn't move.
Because he could see it.
Eshren's presence flared violently, but it shattered against Void like breath against vacuum.
Void Kuda lifted Sereon by the throat.
One hand.
Sereon's feet left the ground.
Void Kuda leaned close, distorted face inches from his.
Void Kuda: I told you.
Void Kuda: Arrogant things break best.
Sereon's eyes flicked once.
Not fear.
Timing.
Void Kuda tightened his grip.
The sound that followed was soft.
Wet.
Final.
Sereon's neck snapped.
The body went limp instantly.
Silence followed.
Not dramatic.
Absolute.
Void Kuda held the corpse for a moment longer, then laughed.
Void Kuda: HAHAHAHAHA—!!
Void Kuda: THAT'S IT?
Void Kuda: THIS was the mind that wanted to sit on the ceiling?
He let the body fall.
It hit the ground without weight.
Vaize stepped forward slowly.
His face did not twist.
It aged.
Vaize: ...It's over.
The words landed like a burial stone.
Void Kuda straightened, wiping blood from his hand.
Void Kuda: Hah.
Void Kuda: Father of the year.
Behind them, Lyra broke.
She fell forward, hands shaking, voice cracking as tears cut through dust and blood.
Lyra: No— no no no—
Skirgash slammed his fist into the ground, teeth clenched so hard blood ran from his gums.
Skirgash: Get up...
Skirgash: Get UP—
Nothing happened.
Aurel stared at the body, breathing shallow.
Rhel closed his eyes.
Eshren turned away.
Void Kuda laughed again, louder now.
Void Kuda: Pathetic.
Void Kuda: All of you built a myth around—
Crack.
A sound like glass under pressure.
Void Kuda paused.
Crack.
The corpse twitched.
Void Kuda frowned.
Void Kuda: ...What.
The body fractured.
Not the flesh.
The image.
Hairline fractures raced across Sereon's form like a reflection shattering in a mirror. Light leaked through the cracks, white and cold and wrong.
Skirgash's head snapped up.
Skirgash: ...No way.
Crack.
The body shattered completely.
Not into flesh.
Into fragments of misdirection.
Illusions peeled apart, falling away like broken panels, dissolving before they hit the ground.
Void Kuda spun.
Too late.
A sound rang out behind him.
A single step.
Measured.
Sereon stood there.
Alive.
Unmarked.
Calm.
He held a katana in one hand.
Its blade was clear.
Not reflective.
Like it cut reflections instead.
Void Kuda's grin vanished.
Void Kuda: ...You—
Sereon stepped past him and let the katana fall.
It struck the ground perfectly upright.
No bounce.
No sound.
Sereon: Shatter.
The word did not echo.
It finalized.
The world broke.
Not explosively.
Elegantly.
Sereon: Kodakiru, Jadonokyu.
Every perception, every assumption, every recorded moment since the battle began split apart, revealing overlapping layers beneath. Void Kuda felt it instantly.
Not illusion.
Perfect induction.
Sereon's voice carried, calm and conversational.
Sereon: This blade does not create falsehoods.
Sereon: It selects which truths you are allowed to perceive.
Void Kuda staggered.
His senses screamed as the battlefield duplicated, triplicated, folded into itself. Every attack he remembered landing existed in three versions.
Only one was real.
And it wasn't the one he chose.
Sereon stepped closer, eyes shadowed.
Sereon: From the moment you arrived...
Sereon: You were fighting the version of me I needed you to kill.
Vaize's breath caught.
Vaize: ...No.
Lyra stared, tears still falling, mouth trembling into a smile she didn't understand.
Lyra: Sereon...
Skirgash laughed.
Soft.
Broken.
Skirgash: You manipulative bastard...
Void Kuda turned slowly, rage and confusion tearing through his distorted form.
Void Kuda: WHEN.
Sereon stopped directly behind him.
Close enough to whisper.
Sereon: Before you decided this was real.
He raised two fingers.
Sereon: You never noticed.
Sereon: Because you enjoyed winning too much.
Void Kuda roared, pressure surging violently—
—and nothing happened.
The pressure failed to propagate.
Void Kuda froze.
Sereon: You're still inside it.
Sereon: You just don't know which layer anymore.
The katana hummed.
Not with energy.
With certainty.
Sereon: Now.
Sereon: Let me show you what manipulation actually looks like.
The blade rang.
Once.
Not sound.
Decision.
The space around Sereon did not bend.
It rearranged its loyalties.
Void Kuda felt it first, not as pressure, not as pain, but as a sudden loss of orientation. His sense of front and back inverted. Cause no longer preceded effect. Thought lagged behind outcome. The void within him twisted, confused, trying to anchor itself to something real.
Nothing answered.
Sereon lifted his hand slowly.
Not toward Void.
Toward everything else.
Sereon: Manipulation isn't control.
Sereon: Control resists.
Sereon: Manipulation convinces reality to cooperate.
The katana vibrated again, a clean hum that sliced through layers of perception like silk.
The battlefield split.
Not into copies.
Into interpretations.
Vaize saw one version.
In it, Sereon stood alone, bleeding, barely upright, desperately pushing his power beyond reason.
Lyra saw another.
Sereon standing above Void Kuda's corpse, expression empty, victory hollow, the cost already poisoning the future.
Skirgash saw a third.
A world where Sereon never existed, where Kōseikan collapsed slowly over centuries, safe but meaningless.
Void Kuda saw all of them.
At once.
Void Kuda: GHH—!!
He staggered, clutching his head as black fractures ran across his form, the void inside him screaming as it tried to adapt.
Void Kuda: WHAT IS THIS—?!
Sereon stepped forward.
Each step deleted a possibility.
Sereon: These are not illusions.
Sereon: They are outcomes you are being politely asked to accept.
He rotated the katana in his grip.
The blade did not gleam.
It corrected the light.
Sereon: You adapt to force.
Sereon: You adapt to darkness.
Sereon: You adapt to contradiction.
Sereon: But you cannot adapt to inevitability.
Void Kuda roared, void pressure detonating outward, tearing chunks of dead verse into spirals of nothingness.
Stone erased.
Space shredded.
Entire strata of existence collapsed into black foam.
And then—
They stopped.
Mid collapse.
Frozen.
Void Kuda's pressure hung in the air like a paused execution.
His eyes widened.
Void Kuda: ...No.
Sereon raised two fingers.
Sereon: Gyuro.
The word did not crush sound this time.
It removed permission for sound to exist.
Symbols ignited everywhere.
Not just in the air.
On memories.
On causality.
On the concept of resistance itself.
Sereon: One Hundred.
Vaize's heart dropped.
Nahl screamed silently, blood running freely as her future sight imploded inward.
Skirgash's knees hit the ground without him realizing he'd fallen.
Lyra couldn't breathe.
Sereon: Shūen Kōsō.
The name did not land.
It finalized.
The world did not bow.
It concluded.
Void Kuda felt it like a verdict passing through his core. Not crushing him. Not erasing him.
Explaining him.
His void adapted.
Instantly.
And failed instantly after.
Because there was nothing left to adapt to.
Shūen Kōsō did not attack Void Kuda.
It informed reality that Void Kuda's resistance was inefficient.
Void Kuda's limbs locked.
Not paralyzed.
Agreed into stillness.
Blood poured from cracks along his body, black and thick, spilling upward and downward at the same time as gravity lost relevance around him.
Void Kuda: N—NO—
His voice glitched violently, overlapping screams tearing through each other.
Void Kuda: I— I CONSUME SYSTEMS—
Sereon appeared directly in front of him.
No transition.
Just presence.
Sereon: You consume rules.
Sereon: I decide which rules exist.
He leaned in slightly.
Sereon: You were never fighting me.
Sereon: You were fighting the version of reality that allowed you to matter.
Void Kuda convulsed.
His void core collapsed inward, compressing into a dense, screaming singularity in his chest.
Blood exploded from his mouth and stomach in a violent spray, his body folding around the force as if punched by something that did not need momentum.
Void Kuda: AAAAAAGH—!!
Vaize stepped forward instinctively.
Vaize: Sereon—!
Too late.
Void Kuda's head snapped up, eyes blazing with corrupted fury even as his body failed.
Void Kuda: YOU THINK THIS ENDS ME?!
Void Kuda: I AM VOID—
Sereon cut him off calmly.
Sereon: You are a reaction.
Sereon: I am the cause.
He lowered the katana.
The blade touched Void Kuda's chest.
Not piercing.
Aligning.
Sereon: Shūen Kōsō doesn't kill.
Sereon: It chooses.
The pressure spiked once.
Then vanished.
Void Kuda dropped.
Not slammed.
Placed.
On his knees.
Blood poured freely from every seam of his form, void leaking like oil from shattered machinery.
He laughed weakly.
Broken.
Void Kuda: ...Heh...
Void Kuda: So this is manipulation...
Sereon straightened.
Sereon: No.
Sereon: This is me removing the illusion that you were ever free.
Behind them, the captains could not move.
Not because of pressure.
Because the concept of acting had not yet been returned to them.
Sereon turned slightly, eyes flicking to Vaize.
Cold.
Measured.
Sereon: Now, Father.
Sereon: Decide carefully.
The katana hummed softly.
Then all of a sudden the Supreme Black Hole Appeared.
To be continued.
End Of Chapter 7.