★39
Asteri's eyes snapped open, and an oppressive, almost tangible darkness poured from him. The void energy expanded rapidly, saturating the entire cube, writhing and devouring everything in its path.
The very causal walls of the prison trembled as his aura gnawed at the structure, dissolving rules and void that had been thought absolute.
[Individual Antares has bypassed the world's restrictions… proceeding to exterminate.]
Without hesitation, he released another surge of energy. The intensity was staggering, accelerating the collapse of the cube and consuming the void prison entirely.
The Voice of the World, the omnipotent enforcer of the Base World, faltered under the pressure. Its usual authority glitched; commands became fragmented, incoherent. For a fleeting moment, it seemed as if the World itself hesitated.
Asteri's voice cut through the silence, low and deliberate.
"Shut it."
[Notice… Unique… Unique Skill: Formulator acquisition successful.]
Even as the Voice of the World attempted to respond, Asteri paid it no mind. In less than ten seconds, the cube had been obliterated, the void prison devoured down to nothingness.
The oppressive aura lingered briefly, a reminder of the power that had just erased what was once unassailable.
Atlas and Elaine, momentarily trapped, immediately seized the opportunity. Using their portals, they returned to Star Island, only to find Asteri already present. There was no hint of his arrival, no warp in the air, no residual energy signature. Elaine's eyes widened in disbelief.
<
The sheer otherworldly speed was undeniable; every instinct screamed that he was operating on a level beyond comprehension.
Atlas arrived almost simultaneously, his movements a blur. He cut through the enemies on sight with ruthless precision, leaving bodies in decaying death aura before his hand fell upon one of the clown leaders, Bel, knocking him unconscious with a single, effortless strike.
Meanwhile, Pel, poised to strike Tokito with his charged attack, suddenly found himself surrounded.
Small black holes, void singularities erupted around him, each one twisting reality itself. Gravity, space, and matter tore at his body from all sides, obliterating him in an instant.
Zel and several others nearby shared the same fate, shredded by the unseen, omnipresent force.
Asteri had not moved an inch. His gaze hadn't shifted, yet the devastation was absolute, his presence felt everywhere at once.
Tokito sank to his knees, disbelief and fear overtaking him.
"The… their back."
From his vantage point, Azel immediately sensed the sheer danger radiating from Asteri and his allies. The calculated annihilation of his forces left him no choice.
<
Mimon was supposed to trap them. Why are they here?
"Retreat!"
He ordered, his voice tight with urgency.
Soldiers scrambled, magic-users attempted portals, and even the more powerful clowns and Demons faltered under the weight of the unseen threat. The battlefield had shifted in an instant, the scales of power irreversibly tipping toward Asteri and his companions.
The entire scene exuded a terrifying clarity: Asteri's return was not just an arrival, it was a reckoning.
Azel's fingers clenched as he tore open a portal, desperate for escape, but Asteri's preparation had already sealed their fate.
Two mirrors materialized beside him, perfectly aligned with the noon sun. Light refracted off their surfaces, forming two lethal beams that moved at the exact speed of light itself.
The beams were no ordinary light, they ignored density, matter, and resistance. Armor, earth, flesh, or even magical barriers offered no protection. The deadly rays tore through everything in their path with clinical precision, spreading across the island in an instant.
Azel hastily summoned walls of earth to shield himself and his remaining soldiers, but the beams bypassed even solid rock as if it were nothing, brushing past previous positions faster than he could calculate.
His portal accelerated, shimmering with frantic energy, and he barely made it through the dimensional escape. Shaken to the core.
Within three seconds, the massacre was complete. The island, once serene and bathed in the sun, was now a landscape of carnage bloodied earth, shattered structures, and the remnants of a fallen army littered every corner.
Atlas and Elaine hovered above, their eyes wide with horror. The paradise they had known had built has been utterly destroyed, replaced by a battlefield etched in red.
Asteri moved silently, his presence ghostlike as he circled the island. The carnage was measured, deliberate. Less than two percent of the enemy had survived, Raiden, Natsu, Tokito, and Masashi, each grievously wounded, barely clinging to life.
Every step he took was meticulous, his gaze sweeping over the remains, assessing, confirming.
And then he stopped. His eyes fell upon the pinned figure on the wall. Hinamatsuri's corpse, still impaled, blood dark against the pale stone. The sight froze him for a heartbeat, a rare crack in his otherwise unflinching demeanor.
The air around him grew heavy, the weight of the massacre still echoing, but all Asteri did was observe, silent, his aura simmering with the cold, unyielding authority of absolute power.
"I...I'm so... sorry."
Annie, who's about to let go of her soul, expresses her apology. However, Asteri will not let her die because she has seen far too many deaths.
This was a repetitive cycle that hunted the Eleanor bloodline. He promised to save Annie, he can't let her die not here. He healed instantly without moving.
Using telekinesis, Asteri slowly pulled the rods free from Hinata's flesh one by one. A sickening squelch followed each as they slipped out, steaming slightly with the last remnants of internal fire.
Her lifeless body dropped, but he caught her gently, as if she were something precious. He sat down with her in his arms, cradling her like a broken doll.
For a long moment, he said nothing, just staring. His fingers brushed against her face, tracing the blood trailing from the corner of her lips.
With deliberate care, he wiped it away. As if that would undo it. As if she hadn't just died screaming. His expression was unreadable, and in that silence, he held her.
<
He thought.
The Time Barrier dissolved, and the people on the other side rushed out. Coincidentally, Sasha arrived at the scene of Asteri holding her best friend's corpse in his arms.
"Hi...Hinamatsuri?"
"Mama? Where's Mama?"
Issei recalled the last spot he got separated from his mother and came rushing.
Sasha, noticing this, ran and picked him away before he saw the scene. Her eyes filled with tears as she took him away.
Atlas and Elaine arrived at the scene after ensuring the island was clear. They stopped in their tracks, their instincts warning them not to approach any further.
"You can't leave me. Not now, not forever."
Black sparks flickered from Asteri's body as he whispered to himself. Something that shouldn't happen.
<
Atlas gulped, speechless.
The transformation triggered something in him that instant. His short white hair lengthened violently, strands stretching out as if animated by some unseen force.
His bare skin began to fracture like stone under immense pressure, deep cracks forming and spreading across his body, exposing faint, flickering veins of dark energy beneath.
His golden pupils bled into a void-black, absorbing the light around him, and his entire form seemed to warp as if reality itself resisted containing him.
<
"…"
Asteri remained silent. He was no longer fully present in the world outside; his consciousness had sunk inward, standing alone within his own Mind.
His lips were sealed, unmoving, as the warning echoed through him. He neither accepted nor rejected it, only listened, his thoughts drowning beneath a swelling void that pressed against every fragment of restraint he still possessed.
The Queen arrived moments later.
Atlas and Elaine, already sustaining a barrier around the scene, sensed her approach and parted the defense without hesitation, creating a narrow opening for her to pass through. The instant she crossed the threshold, she stopped.
Her breath caught. The Queen's composure shattered. Her body stiffened as if struck by ice, her mind struggling to process what she was seeing.
The silence pressed down on her ears, broken only by the faint, unstable hum of power radiating from Asteri, a presence so raw and violent that even standing near it felt like standing before an unsealed catastrophe.
"Ast..."
In the vast emptiness of his mental realm, Asteri extended his palm toward the Evil Chuld, feeling the raw energy pulse beneath his fingertips. The power throbbed, wild and untamed, a forbidden force that beckoned with both promise and danger.
Streams of darkness and void coiled around his hand as he drew it in, each fragment of those energy bending to his will, refusing to be contained.
<
Entares's voice pierced the void, sharp and alarmed, an anchor of reason amidst the storm. Yet Asteri remained unmoved, eyes fixed, lips silent, and mind closed to all caution.
The warning dissolved against the tide of his intent; he cared not for the risk, only for the insatiable hunger to hunt.
Lately, he had fleed the Star Realm to explore human emotions, not as an observer, but as a participant. To feel how they were born, how they intertwined, and how they feel.
It had begun gently: kindness that warmed without demand, trust that anchored him, love that gave meaning, hope that pointed forward, and peace that kept his existence still and balanced.
But something had just gone wrong.
For the first time, a negative emotion took root within him. Hatred bloomed suddenly, violently, like a parasite tearing through unfamiliar ground.
From it erupted rage, a searing, uncontrollable inferno that surged through his once-still vessel, shaking the very structure of his being.
Then came malice. It was colder than rage but far more terrifying. It did not merely crave release, it desired intent. Not just suffering, but the deliberate act of causing it. It wrapped around his thoughts like frost, sharpening them, guiding the fire rather than extinguishing it.
He had tasted the light of humanity and understood its beauty. Now he stood at the precipice of its darkness.
His aura detonated upward, erupting straight into the heavens like a black star being born.
The air shattered under its pressure, space warping as waves of power expanded outward without restraint. The ground beneath him cracked, unable to endure the weight of his presence.
The expansion did not stop. It pressed outward, threatening Atlas, Elaine, threatening everything. Sea, land, sky, and beyond. Continents trembled under the distant pressure. The very fabric of the Cardinal World strained, as though reality itself feared being torn apart by his uncontrolled ascent.
This was no longer emotion alone. It was catastrophe given form. What an evil being like Entares had feared.
<>
Entares intervened. A black curtain descended without warning, unfurling through the air like a void made manifest.
It swallowed the erupting aura whole, sealing it within an oppressive boundary where light, sound, and even intent seemed to lose meaning.
The outward destruction halted instantly, the world spared only because something equally absolute had stepped in its way.
Inside that sealed space, two forces collided.
Asteri's raging aura crashed against the curtain in violent waves, each surge carrying hatred, rage, and malice sharpened into raw power. In response, Entares' energy pressed back, cold, controlled, and resolute, its purpose not to dominate, but to restrain.
The curtain trembled as the two powers met, its surface rippling like disturbed water under a storm. It became a silent tug of war.
Every time Asteri's will surged, the curtain strained, stretching as if it might tear apart. Every time Entares reinforced it, the darkness thickened, dragging the runaway power back inward.
Neither force yielded easily; they were of the same origin, the same nature, clashing not as enemies but as two halves refusing to give ground.
A chaotic storm of black clouds and jagged lightning raged violently within the curtain, folding in on itself like a collapsing sky. Thunder had no sound there, only pressure so dense that the very notion of atmosphere ceased to exist. Space, distance, and direction were erased, leaving nothing but turbulence and wrath.
Everything else was gone. Only Asteri and Hinata remained, suspended within a hollow void where the curtain stretched to its absolute limit, its surface quivering as it struggled to contain what should never have been released.
His eyes lost all light, the gold drowned beneath spreading shadows that bled outward from his pupils. There was no reflection left in them, only depthless black.
His consciousness was no longer anchored by reason or restraint, intoxicated instead by the sheer liberation of destruction unbound. For the first time, nothing inside him resisted the urge to erase.
[Unique Skill: Blood Lust — acquisition successful.]
The system hesitated.
[Notice — overwrite in progress…]
[Unique Skill: Formulator has evolved into Ultimate Skill: False Administrator.]
<
The realization struck like a wound.
<
Atlas could barely maintain his footing even beyond the curtain, his instincts screaming at him to flee despite knowing there was nowhere left to run.
<
Elaine's voice trembled, not from fear alone, but from disbelief. What they were witnessing wasn't evolution or awakening, it was transgression.
<
Entares, the ever silent asked.
<
He paused, letting the words sink in.
<>
Entares spoke this not to serve as a soothing or because he's afraid of what Asteri might do.
He's afraid of what's going to happen if his good half, Antares, learns from these emotions.
The blind destruction he'll spread amidst his rage, the hatred of those who crossed his path and the desire to harm them. This is what he's looking out for. After all, Antares was supposed to be the good part of the whole.
The relationship between Antares and Entares existed beyond simple dualities of good and evil. It was not a matter of opposites clashing, nor of light endlessly resisting darkness. Where most evil aspects instinctively sought dominance, Entares was already complete.
He had no need to overtake Antares, no hunger to assert control, and no impulse to indulge in meaningless destruction even though destruction and death were Fragments he embodied by nature.
Entares understood them, contained them, and thus had no desire to act them out. What bound the two was not conflict, but equilibrium.
Antares, unlike Entares, was unfinished. His exposure to humanity, its emotions, attachments, and pain, made him volatile.
Where Entares carried darkness as a constant, Antares experienced it as corruption, something that could grow, mutate, and spiral beyond intent. That was the true danger.
For now, Entares maintained the balance. Not by force or domination, but by restraint keeping Antares anchored, preventing him from crossing a threshold he was not yet prepared to face.
Entares did not fear Antares himself; he feared the possibilities Antares represented once tainted by evil. The irreversible paths. The futures where mercy vanished, where annihilation became instinct rather than choice.
These were the "what if" scenarios Entares refused to allow.
(Wú Jí mind.)
Until Antares could confront darkness without being consumed by it, Entares would remain the unseen hand, the silent counterweight, holding the line between control and catastrophe, between wrath and erasure.
Asteri, lost in the haze of wrath, slowly regained awareness. His mind cleared just enough for consciousness to return, yet the intent burning within him did not waver.
Something faint brushed against his senses, a weak but unmistakable signal. His gaze pierced through the raging black storm, past the collapsing lightning and warped void, and settled on the distant star hovering above the palace. He stared at it for a long moment, his cold, dark eyes unblinking.
Gradually, his aura began to recede.
The violent storm weakened as the black curtain tightened. The chaos was compressed, devoured layer by layer, until the storm itself was swallowed whole. When the last trace vanished, the curtain dissolved and merged seamlessly back into Asteri, as though it had never existed.
Without warning, Shinn materialised within the hollowed void where reality had been torn apart. He knelt on one knee as the void around him began repairing itself, fractured laws knitting together, chipped existence restoring its original structure.
"You know what to do."
He whispered. In the same instant, he vanished, taking Hinata's corpse with him.
"Master's orders!"
Shinn's voice cut through the lingering silence, sharp and absolute.
"Elaine, capture all souls of the dead, friend or foe. Atlas, investigate the invaders."
He was issuing commands to Stars far beyond him in existence and authority, despite being nothing more than a clone. Yet neither of them hesitated, nor did they acknowledge the disparity.
"On it."
"Consider it done."
Their replies were calm, unwavering. In the next instant, both vanished, their presences erasing themselves from the air as they moved to carry out their tasks.
Shinn turned to the others.
"The rest of you, bathe the dead and line them up in the second hall!"
The words settled heavily over the survivors.
"You heard him, so get to work!"
Elfaria roared, her voice carrying authority born of necessity.
Everyone moved at once. No one argued. No one questioned. The air was thick with grief and shock, but there was no room for mourning, not yet.
Bodies were lifted, blood was washed away with trembling hands, and the fallen were carried in silence. Beneath the urgency, the weight of what had been lost pressed down on them all, unspoken but undeniable.
To be continued...