★130
MAGOS POV
"Everything below me is gone. Even the world barrier."
I bit back the urge to laugh. But victory meant nothing if the mission remained unfinished.
"I'll deal with those hiding above as well."
My sword collapsed into an orb, mirroring the one resting atop my staff. It drifted beside me, the spare following in silent orbit.
Below, the main world came into view, fragile and exposed. The spare orb pulsed, glowing with a hungry, nullifying light.
We returned to civilisation—where concepts still upheld life. I hovered above them, watching as the fragile beings carried on with their life, ignorant of what's about to happen.
'I wonder what made Antares and Veldanava develop feelings for these fragile creatures. To push aside one's self worth to live for something, to fight for a cause, to protect someone and to build a relationship.'
I pounder, but a nihilistic being like me can't begin to comprehend what mortals possess to be able to change a god. After all, Dark Stars are ment for destruction alone.
"I can't begin to comprehend what it is."
I'd like to experience what they fell but my nature is a cage. My role as the strongest Nebula is pre-assigned. I'll be at the top and conquer anyone.
'I must destroy them. For it's part of who I am.'
"I'll start by adjusting a few conceptual forces."
I said under my breath, more to myself than to anything that might still be listening. It was meant to be quick. A small, cruel experiment.
"Let there be total absence. Let the world wander in endless shadow—blind even at noon. No identity, no sense of self, no choice and free will."
They words sank into the structure of existence and rewrote it from within.
Light did not go out; it lost the right to exist. Change forgot how to occur. Identity unravelled like thread pulled from a tapestry that had never been woven.
Archetypes collapsed one after another, fading as though they had never been authored in the first place. What remained was a dim, drifting imitation of a world, stumbling forward without knowing it moved.
Still not enough.
I stripped away silence and belief, throwing them into endless despair. Lastly, I attacked the law, the fundamental script of a reality.
The structure didn't hold for even a second.
Without law, nothing followed anything anymore. Actions happened, but results never came. Without belief, everything people clung to just… thinned out, like it had never meant much in the first place. And without silence, the void wouldn't shut up. It filled with this low, constant noise that had no direction, no source—just there, pressing in from all sides.
The world started to buckle. Not in some grand, dramatic way. Shapes warped, space folded in places it shouldn't, and everything felt wrong, unfinished. Like something trying to exist without knowing how. A Chaos World, half-formed and already falling apart.
Their screams spilled outward, stretching into space like fractures in glass. They should have reached me, regret, maybe. Or at least some dull sense of satisfaction.
But nothing came. I wasn't satisfied, we never was. That's the nature of Stars—fallen or not.
A thin, hollow exhaustion settled in instead. The scene had already lost whatever novelty it had. It was just noise now. So I reached deeper and removed the archetype of world and livingbeings to just end it.
No grand finale followed. With the void spear present, the ideas simply stopped existing, and everything tied to them stopped with it. Land, sky, matter, breath—gone without resistance, like they'd never been more than a thought.
In the next instant, there was nothing left to look at. Just a Dark Star in a half destroy world system.
Since 'laws' defines worlds. The destruction of 'world' removes the paintings/worlds. Without the law, the hierarchy order, fundamental constants, and Concepts will all perish. No worlds, no living beings, just me and him in this anti-world.
(Him? Yeah, Him.)
I smirked, the orbs reacting to the threat behind me as they took their respective forms. The weapons were ready, but I wasn't. I took a deep breath.
"I don't need to get close to know you're the one, Antares. You came back, but at what cost? You might be able to recreate what's lost but the low lives are all gone."
I said and waited for a response that never came.
I turned, and there he was, suspended in space like a corpse drifting in a black sea. His limbs floated loosely, back arched just enough to suggest he'd been thrown there... yet he hadn't moved at all. A translucent orb was hovering next to him, glowing faintly.
"You were thrown out of the barrier. You should've lost to Sub Space... no.. I'm no longer surprised. I just don't know how to kill you."
"But I do know how to kill YOU."
He snapped his fingers. Countless weapons filled the space and fell toward me in a relentless rain, yet my own blades rose to meet them, shattering each one before they could reach me.
"It's all meaningless!"
The words tore out of me, edged with frustration as I charged straight at him.
I was moments from erasing him entirely when he looked up. His golden eyes had turned pitch black, fixed on me as if they could see through everything I was.
And I felt this feeling....I've felt it before...this is...fear. He caught every weapon I sent with his bare hands, one after another, as though they weighed nothing. Then he opened his mouth.
"Void Hyper Ray."
It was painless and fast. I only saw a thin black light pass through my body.
I didn't wait to see the damage. I struck back. In a single motion, I drove the spear through him and hoisted his body upward, following with my blade the instant I predicted his wandering core would align at the point of impact.
Inches from the strike, something twisted. I felt my body tearing apart from the inside.
"A delayed cut?'
I forced myself back, putting distance between us, one hand pressed to the hole the black light had left behind.
"H.. how? I took over Anta and made my way back. He's alive and well begging to finish you."
His voice was different. It had authority and presence similar to that of the Emperor.
"Y... you're...Entares?"
That name, I've heard it before. The entity within Antares, our trump card.
"I know. I'm famous."
He grinned, black mist seeping from his body as it surged toward me.
I deflected it effortlessly, parrying the charging darkness with the spear, every strike precise and controlled.
"Just kidding. Nothing can be cured with nothing."
I chanted, fusing both weapons into a single, elongated black rod. Its weight settled naturally in my grasp. I tested its balance with a few measured swings, then struck once—cleaving cleanly through the void itself.
"Let's end this now, Antares!"
I roared as I charged. He didn't budge, but his sword moved on its own, intercepting the strike with perfect precision.
"The name's...En..Antares! I'll be the one to defeat you, Magos!"
My blade shattered through his sword and cleaved him in two.
In the same breath, a dagger buried itself into my side. That shouldn't be possible, but I felt that sudden change. It's almost like the void armour made way for the dagger. He released the hilt as his sundered body drifted apart, the halves falling into the void.
I knelt with my eyes closed. He's also conscious but unable to regenerate faster.
"Heal me, Enta."
In less than a second, as his personality swapped, he was healing his injuries. He got up, and I could see those cold, dark eyes staring at me.
"What am I, an emergency button?"
Entares sighed before Antares took control once more.
"All your weapons were ineffective, and suddenly, this one worked?"
I asked, chuckling.
"Severer—it's a God Class weapon. I don't need to go through its feat but you're going to die."
I chuckled before answering him.
"How was this possible?"
"They're called God Class weapons for a reason. The logic of existence can't harm non-existence can be severed with this blade, rendering your immortality and state of being useless."
"Despite all my efforts. It came down to this."
"You fought splendidly. And I'll admit it, you dealt with me pretty hard despite overclocking 95%. If you somehow manage to survive this, I won't be able to win..."
(How's he able to use that much with his fractions sealed off? His True Body has control over 'his' energy, so if it's sealed, he can get it back. And hey, 100% vessel ≠ True Body. It just means the vessel is almost getting close to its True Body. The higher the %, the stronger the vessel, and the more it can access Arts, it couldn't in the lower %)
"Do you admit we're stronger than you guys, the Originals?"
(Originals = Stars.)
"I do. I'm speaking based on experience. No Mega Art can stand against Dark Art."
He stepped closer, pulling out the dagger, and it vanished as if it never existed.
Then, without a word, he pressed a finger into the open wound. Pain flared, but it lasted only a second. Then he stepped back. And my fatal injury... was gone.
"How? Thought death was certain for me?"
I asked.
"Pick up your weapons."
He gave the order, his back turned to me, one hand resting casually at his waist. I noticed his fingers coated in fine Silver Dust that shimmered faintly in the air.
In that instant, the atmosphere around him shifted entirely. The weight of reality itself seemed to bow in his presence.
I took my weapon and was ready.
'What's this, mockery or overconfidence?'
I couldn't find the answer to his strange gesture.
"I just died, so you're free to think I've tampered with you while healing you."
"What are you trying to prove?"
"More like sending a message. Come at me."
He said.
This was a clear mockery, but I don't have time to be annoyed.
'Don't regret your decision."
I charged my aura and enhanced my body once more. I raised my weapon to attack, but it didn't budge. I applied more force, freeing it and landing a strike.
He raised his hand, two fingers catching the weapon without so much as a glance. It stopped not from force but as if it had simply chosen not to continue, lulled by an unseen stillness that surrounded him.
"There exist something that can tamper with everything. "
"D...don't tell me..he's..."
He lifted his hand and casually swiped his fingers to the left, away from me. The motion was almost lazy. Yet before it even finished, the force hit.
I was flung backwards, sent crashing into the emptiness, until I dropped hard to my knees. For a moment I couldn't breathe, I couldn't thin properly.
When I looked down, a massive claw-like mark had been carved across my chest. It wasn't bleeding, it was… unravelling.
My body began to come apart, particle by particle, as if reality itself had decided I no longer belonged within it. My nothingness regeneration was unable to take action.
'...awakened?'
He turned slowly, then looked down at me.
"Energy."
He said.
Those cold, azure eyes held no anger, no urgency—only a distant, clinical indifference as they settled on what remained of me.
"With this, I'll bring all the cosmic terrors to their knees. You fought marvellously, Magos."
He noted it, then closed the distance without a single step, the void between us folding as if it had never existed.
'Energy? The Emperor often spoke about "it" when talking about Omnis, the Supreme Star specifically. Is this kid capable of influencing that force? He has an anomaly who's awakened earlier than expected. With him, winning is out of the question. Now, the vessel is capable of using both Energy and void? This is bad, completely unprecedented.'
"Rest within me and witness true chaos."
He raised his palm. The Void Eater spilled through his fingers like liquid night, gently wrapping what remained of my body. There was no resistance left to offer.
"Looks like I won't be taking part in the war after all."
I muttered, letting my eyes fall shut. The words came out calm, almost amused.
"What a mess."
They were my last. And yet, I smiled. I didn't know why. There had to be a reason—one I wouldn't live long enough to understand.
My consciousness began to dim, thinning at the edges. I wasn't even sure this was death. Perhaps it was something quieter. A long hibernation before whatever came next. Or nothing at all.
THIRD POV
Asteri remained standing in Subspace, victorious—though only just. His body was beginning to crumble, fissures of light running through his frame from the strain of tampering with those forbidden particles.
"Twice in one week… that's far too much,"
He muttered.
For something never meant to be used more than once in desperation, he'd pushed it well past its limits. This wasn't strain anymore, jt was overdose.
"I've gone past my limits with Energy manipulation. This vessel is no longer needed."
It's best to discard the vessel to prevent any unwanted sorry mistakes.
He closed his eyes and began falling into the endless space as his vessel faded away.
ASTERI'S POV
A new vessel was formed, built with the same data, the same structure. I returned to Paradis and appeared behind Elfaria without a sound.
"Yo."
She stiffened before turning.
"You… are you done?"
"I wouldn't have returned."
"What about it, Magos?"
""The toughest fight I've had in a while," I said.
"But I came out on top. As for Magos… you don't need to worry about him anymore."
Relief spread across her face, the tension in her shoulders finally easing.
"I see,"
She murmured.
"That's… that's good."
"Let's head home before Hinata gets suspicious."
A portal opened to the other side, and she stepped through without waiting, eager to leave the tension behind.
I stayed for a moment.
Raising my palm, I summoned a miniature white sphere—an incomplete world. Its surface flickered, unstable. At its centre, a dark void turned slowly, like an eye of nothingness feeding on the light meant to sustain it.
'"You did well, Magos… but Paradis cannot be destroyed. Not even a void can consume my void."
The battlefield had been wrapped in it from the start—my own void, layered over everything like a silent boundary. His annihilation never reached its mark; it was swallowed before it could touch Paradis.
After that, I moved quickly. I shifted the battlefield into Sub Space, masking it so that to any observer it would appear Paradis had been completely destroyed. He'd come intending to wipe out the ones I'd hidden. I made sure he believed he had.
'The "living beings" caught in his experiment were prisoners from the Chaos Looping Prison. I selected a few and used them as expendable test subjects—bait to sell the illusion. No real losses. No one that mattered. Except Magos himself.'
I allowed myself a small smirk. Everything had gone exactly as planned.
The orb faded, and I stepped through after it, returning to Star Island.
The two made their way home quietly, oblivious to anyone—including Hinata—of what had just occurred. The island's calm returned, the air settling into its usual rhythm.
The world remained undisturbed, with no sign of Michael or Feldway making any move.
To be continued...