The area had been reduced to ruins.
No, ruins was too gentle a word.
Billions of kilometers of land had been erased outright, as if reality itself had been torn away. What remained was a vast, devastated expanse, carpeted with mangled bodies and scorched remnants of existence.
Xandrel was an incomprehensibly vast world. It was sustained by world energy and Noevar, forces so abundant that they allowed the planet to reach an extreme, almost absurd scale. Only a world like this could endure destruction on such a level and still persist.
And yet, even here, the damage was catastrophic.
The Nullspawn that had invaded were not insignificant entities. Each one ranked at least Voidbound. A Nullspawn of that rank, if left unchecked, could annihilate entire galaxies with ease.
And his mother had faced hundreds of thousands of them.
Alone.
She had done so without sustaining a single life-threatening injury.
The creature Axiros had killed, the one that had nearly taken his life, was nothing more than a Flicker Nullspawn. A weak, pathetic existence by comparison. Even so, it could slaughter mortals effortlessly, like a child crushing insects without thought.
Yet Axiros had killed it.
Injured, yes, but alive.
Then realization settled heavily in his mind.
He finally understood the true extent of his mother's power.
She wasn't merely strong.
She was overwhelmingly so.
By the time reinforcements arrived, it was already over. The battlefield had gone silent, the outcome decided long before help could intervene.
Every single Nullspawn had been erased.
There were no survivors.
'Wait…
The residual energy released by this many Nullspawn would be absurd', Axiros realized, a slow smirk forming in his mind.
'I can absorb it. Use it to fuel the construction of my new eye.'
'That's… extremely convenient. Let's fucking go!' He thought excited.
---
The reinforcements finally arrived.
They halted the moment they took in the scene before them.
A wasteland stretched endlessly in every direction, space itself scarred, the land erased so thoroughly it felt as though reality had been scooped out. Mangled corpses littered the remains, Nullspawn bodies piled atop one another like discarded debris.
"What the actual fuck happened here?" one of them muttered, his jaw hanging open in disbelief.
"We search, we conclude then." the leader said calmly.
John closed his eyes and spread his senses outward. Almost immediately, something stood out, an anomaly amidst the devastation.
A structure.
"…There," he said, eyes snapping open. "Follow me."
Fifty figures surged forward at once, streaking across the ruined terrain until the house came into view.
They slowed.
Silence followed.
"…Who lives here?" one of them whispered. "And how the hell is the house untouched?"
"We're about to find out," John replied.
He stepped forward and knocked.
The instant his knuckles brushed the surface, a chill ran down his spine. The material felt wrong, not hostile, not aggressive, but unmistakably dangerous. As if it existed beyond the rules he understood.
The door opened.
Rachel stood there.
The reaction was immediate.
"…It's her."
"No way."
"The Concept Breaker, what is she doing here?"
John exhaled sharply, then smiled faintly. "Rachel… is that you?"
She raised an eyebrow. "John?"
"Yeah. It's me. How've you been?" He hesitated, then asked, "Where's Aetheris?"
Rachel shrugged. "Oh life's been fine. About Aetheris, I have no idea. Last I heard, he was still in the Ancient Boundary, fighting Nullspawn under the banner of the Celestial Emperor. That son of a bitch, missed his own son's birth."
She stressed on the last line a bit more than the others, clearly signalling her displeasure.
"Oh." John nodded, hesitantly. "That tracks."
He paused, then smiled wider. "I heard you recently gave birth. Congratulations."
"Thanks," she replied calmly. "Now, why are you here?"
The rest of the unit stood frozen, exchanging glances, waiting for the conversation to end.
"The Intergalactic Union detected a massive Nullspawn influx in this region," John explained. "Most of them above Voidbound. We rushed here immediately."
"I already dealt with it," Rachel said simply. "No need to worry."
A heavy silence followed.
"…Then why are you here?" John asked carefully. "Weren't you stationed in the Aetherion Empire?"
She sighed softly. "I wanted a change of scenery. It was getting suffocating."
John nodded slowly. "Fair enough. We'll take our leave then. A lot of paperwork is waiting for us."
"Oh," Rachel added casually. "Say hi to Rob for me. It's been a while."
John chuckled. "Will do."
He reached into his storage ring and pulled out several vials filled with shimmering liquid. "Here. Healing elixirs. I know you don't need them, but it never hurts. And say hi to the little guy back there."
She nodded and accepted them without ceremony.
The unit turned and departed.
Inside the house, unseen and unheard,.
Axiros watched everything.
And smiled.
"Axiros, come here." His mother called.
"What is it ma?" He said.
He was still clutching his mangled hand.
It hadn't gotten any better.
Pain wasn't the problem, he had endured far worse across countless lives. What troubled him was the usability. The bones hadn't aligned properly, the tendons were torn, and energy flow through the limb was uneven and unstable. In its current state, the hand was little more than dead weight.
A liability.
Axiros flexed his fingers slightly. A dull resistance answered him, followed by an unpleasant grinding sensation beneath the skin. The limb obeyed, barely.
'Tch… this won't do.' he thought coldly.
"Here, take one." Rachel handed him a single elixir.
"Oh, alright." He said, as he clutched the elixir in his other hand.
With a single motion, he tipped the vial back and swallowed its contents whole.
Warmth bloomed through his body almost instantly, spreading from his core to the furthest edges of his limbs. It flowed like liquid sunlight, precise and deliberate, seeking out damage.
Within seconds, flesh knit itself back together. Bones realigned. Torn tendons fused seamlessly, as if they had never been damaged in the first place.
Axiros flexed his hand.
Perfect.
They sat together on the couch afterward, the house wrapped in an uneasy silence. Neither of them spoke. The echoes of what had happened still lingered, heavy and unresolved.
Questions remained.
Why did it happen?
Axiros knew better than to dismiss it as chance. The Nullspawn had moved with intent. Their coordination was far too clean, their timing far too precise.
That wasn't a random incursion.
It had been orchestrated. Planned.
Which left only one question that truly mattered,
Who had sent them?
Finally, the silence was broken.
"Congrats on your first nullspawn kill, Axiros." She spoke with a wide grin on her face.
She was unsettled by his behavior.
He hadn't cried out. He hadn't screamed. He hadn't even flinched when his arm had been mangled beyond recognition. His expression had remained composed, too composed.
Then he had counterattacked.
Not wildly. Not in panic.
Carefully.
He executed the Nullspawn with precision, as if he were following a rehearsed sequence. She had sensed the brief emergence of a weapon, something sharp, something wrong, but she hadn't focused on the details at the time.
What stayed with her was the manner of it.
The technique.
The decisiveness.
The utter lack of hesitation.
It was ruthless. Efficient. Clean.
And that was what disturbed her most.
That kind of composure… that kind of killing intent…
It was unthinkable for a five-year-old child.
And yet, she had seen it with her own eyes. She didn't pay it much mind. Axiros was her own son after all.
"And don't you dare put yourself in such danger again!" She said, meaning very syllable.
She was furious.
Not the calm, restrained kind of anger, but the kind that burned hot and sharp beneath the surface. He had almost lost an arm. The realization struck her all at once, and the fear she had suppressed twisted instantly into rage.
Axiros felt chills run down his spine.
It wasn't directed at him, not truly, but her fury flooded the space regardless, heavy and suffocating. The air itself seemed to tense, as if responding to her emotion.
For a brief moment, he felt very small.
He turned towards his mom and spoke-
"Sorry. I will not put myself in such danger again." He said, shivering.
"Good." She replied.
Minutes passed by as Axiros finally decided to speak-
"Ma, can I get the nullspawn cores?" He asked, putting on the cutest face he could make.
"Why?" She asked, puzzled.
"Nothing, I just want to experiment on them." He said.
"Alriight." She agreed, hesitantly.
She wasn't keen on the idea.
Giving a five-year-old Nullspawn cores, especially ones above the Voidbound rank, went against every instinct she had. No matter how extraordinary Axiros was, the thought alone made her uneasy.
But in the end… she agreed.
The cores were of no real use to her anymore. To most beings, they were priceless treasures, objects worth wars and massacres. To her, however, they were little more than remnants of a level she had long since surpassed.
She no longer needed such low-rank cores.
What mattered more was intent.
And Axiros's eyes, too calm, too aware, told her that he knew exactly what he was asking for.
"Thank you ma!" He said as he hugged her.
Over the next few days, Axiros devoted himself entirely to scanning every single body scattered near their residence.
His mother had already informed him that they would be moving soon. This was his only window, his last chance to extract whatever information he could from the aftermath of the invasion.
So he worked relentlessly.
A special layer of Noevar enveloped his body, carefully applied by his mother herself. It insulated him from the lingering auras seeping out of the corpses. Without it, he knew the truth plainly,
He would die.
Even in death, these beings radiated power. Their residual presence gnawed at reality, poisonous and oppressive. The faintest prolonged exposure would shred his body and soul alike. And while the System protected his information, it offered no direct defense against raw, external forces.
These were beings of immense rank.
Axiros proceeded cautiously, expanding his senses inch by inch, dissecting each corpse with surgical precision. He analyzed their cores, their remains, the distortions left behind in the fabric of space itself.
And then,
He found it.
Something deeply wrong.
Every single Nullspawn, without exception, bore the same mark.
An identical energy signature, subtle yet unmistakable, etched into their existence like a brand. It wasn't natural. It wasn't a byproduct of their species.
It was deliberate.
Axiros's expression hardened.