The clash of blades and the crash of blows made the world of myths vibrate. Sakolomé and Bakuran, side by side, chained calculated assaults. Every movement seemed perfectly synchronized: Bakuran struck low, Sakolomé covered above, their attacks forming a martial dance of lethal beauty.
Isissis retreated slightly, a sneering smile fixed on his lips. His spear traced sparkling arcs, but for the first time, he seemed forced to truly defend himself.
Isissis (smiling but irritated):
"Not bad… really not bad. But… you didn't think you could dominate me in this domain, did you?"
He stepped back. His abyss-colored eyes fell on Salomé, frozen at a distance after enduring the trauma of the Paragraph of the Void. With a lazy gesture, he reached out a hand toward her. A strange, almost conceptual vibration made reality tremble.
Isissis, in a deep, almost theatrical voice:
"Orthinésie: the negation of all identification."
The world seemed to crack like a mirror under an invisible blow. The narrative threads that constituted Salomé's very definition—her warrior instinct, her sharpened reflexes, her close-combat skills forged by a thousand trials—were torn from her like burned pages from a book.
Salomé swayed, dropping to her knees, eyes wide. Her muscles felt present, but her body refused to obey with the same precision. She tried to stand, but her own weight felt foreign.
Isissis (laughing):
"Your martial gifts? They are no longer yours… They belong to me now."
A shiver ran through the air as Isissis incorporated the stolen martial attributes, his body imbued with the lethal efficiency that once was Salomé's pride.
Then, slowly, he turned his gaze to Bakuran. His eyes became contourless abysses.
"As for you… you're a bit too much."
His hand rose, and his voice resounded like a cosmic verdict:
"Zeerât… the cause of causes. Myâtrhe… the presence without being. Arenhâl… that which makes all absolutes cancelable."
Bakuran felt an icy burn invade his being. His memories, his thoughts, even the sensation of his own name… all dissolved into white silence. His strength? His anger? His will to protect Salomé? All vanished in merciless logic: without identity, there is no bond, no action.
His body remained standing, but his eyes lost their luster. He was nothing more than a moving shell, a concept emptied of substance.
Isissis (approaching, with a carnivorous smile):
"That's better. One without skills… the other without existence. A perfect tragedy."
He spun his spear with elegance, his aura now amplified by Salomé's talents, while Bakuran staggered, trapped in an internal void impossible to fill.
Sakolomé observed the scene, his fists clenched, a cold rage flooding his veins. His brown hair flew in an absent wind, his shadowy cloak stirring like a heralding veil.
Sakolomé (in a dark voice):
"You just crossed the one line that must never be touched…"
The ground cracked beneath his feet. The air distorted, as if reality itself held its breath.
Sakolomé stepped forward, eyes fixed on Isissis. His black cloak rippled in a nonexistent breeze, while a chilling smile stretched his lips. Then he stretched out his hand toward the ground.
Sakolomé (in a low, resonant voice):
"Chao Invocation!!!"
The world split. A gaping fracture opened beneath his feet, unleashing a torrent of living darkness. A tide of impossible colors poured into reality, ripping apart the fabric of laws. The sky twisted like torn canvas, and a soundless gust swept the area.
A moment later… they were there.
Deviants of chaos.
Entities resembling nothing conceivable. Broken silhouettes, made of angles and shapes that did not belong to space. Bodies of pseudo meta-concepts, equations, living contradictions. They advanced without walking, without moving: their presence alone twisted the logic of everything around them. The ground began to breathe, the sky fractured into prisms of torn axioms.
Each one was an embodied abyss. And Sakolomé had summoned them.
Sakolomé (roaring):
"Devour him!!!"
A polyphonic roar tore reality apart, and the Deviants rushed Isissis in absolute chaos. The air vibrated under assaults that were no mere blows but rewrites of existential conditions. One creature erased the notion of gravity on contact. Another reversed causality, attacking Isissis from a future not yet come.
But Isissis… did not move.
His smile grew almost tender. He raised a finger.
Isissis (calm but with overwhelming power):
"Pathetic."
His gaze clouded with an abyssal glow, and his voice echoed like a cosmic verdict:
"I am the Meta-Concept. The one who denies the very root of what you believe to be."
In a breath, everything changed.
The Deviants, those monsters beyond laws, convulsed silently. Their fractal forms shattered like glass beneath a black tide. Their axioms disintegrated, their paradoxes dissolved into dust of nonexistence. For a moment, they roared without mouths, screaming through a thousand strata of reality. The next moment… nothing remained.
Chaos itself cracked, absorbed by an invisible hand. The fracture in reality sealed as if it had never existed.
Isissis sighed, almost amused, and slowly advanced toward Sakolomé.
Isissis (with a carnivorous smile):
"Do you think your summons can touch me? I embody what makes their existence possible… and what can nullify it. You call Chaos? I am the root that allows Chaos to be chaos. I am the law behind lawlessness."
He raised his spear, glowing with an absolute radiance.
"And you, Sakolomé… you just bored me."
The ground shook. The world of myths bent under a wave of pure negation, ready to swallow everything still daring to breathe.
Sakolomé stepped forward, breath ragged, the glyphs of Original Appropriation still burning in his eyes. A dark wave erupted from him, spreading like a verdict: all that can be possessed already belongs to me. Chaos trembled, its strata disintegrating under the impact. Even the Deviants had withdrawn.
He stretched his hand toward Isissis.
— Everything you are… I claim it.
The world seemed to collapse silently. Laws gave way. The very principle of "power" bent under this absolute injunction. But Isissis did not flinch. His serene gaze contained cold irony.
He raised a finger, and a word fell like a sentence:
— Orthinésie.
An infinitely pure vibration pierced space. Sakolomé's glyphs cracked like glass. The bond with Zeerât, Myâtrhe, Arenhâl… all was dissolved. Original Appropriation, this magic he had forged at the cost of his being, was reduced to nothingness.
— What…?!
Isissis smiled, amused.
— You thought you could imitate me? I, Sakolomé, am the condition of all appropriation. I am what makes your desire to possess possible. Without me, there is not even having.
Sakolomé staggered. A savage anger burst in his chest. He roared, muscles tensing, and threw himself at Isissis, attacking in close combat with desperate fury. Every blow vibrated with hate, every impact carved craters in the very fabric of the world.
Isissis parried each attack with disconcerting ease, his smile unchanged. He spoke calmly, like a master speaking to a failed pupil:
— Ultimately… this fight was just a bore. You're still too premature for me to enjoy.
A sharp backhand. Isissis's fist struck Sakolomé's ribs with a force beyond matter. He was thrown, his skeleton screaming under the torsion of axioms. Before he could catch his breath, another blow hit his stomach, crushing him against the ground.
Blood spurted, but he got up, gasping, his eyes still burning with pride. Then he saw the spear. Isissis struck it down like lightning. Sakolomé rolled to the side, barely dodging. The earth—or what remained of it—collapsed into a black hole of pure negation.
Isissis sneered, his voice resonating through all strata of the real:
— You were wise to avoid it. My spear… it reverses immortality. It denies even partial healing. If it touches you, not even a shadow of your being will remain.
He dragged his blade along the torn ground, his gaze fixed on Sakolomé, like a patient executioner.
— This fight grows tiresome. I swore not to kill you, but… I might change my mind.
Then he raised his eyes, and everything around him seemed to vanish.
— Understand well, Sakolomé: I am the one who makes all identity possible. Even the word "fight" exists because I allowed it. To stand against me? It is to rebel against what permits your own rebellion.
Sakolomé clenched his fists, trembling. For the first time… he felt what the impossible meant.
Sakolomé charged again, his fists tearing through the air, each loaded with pure, almost animal rage. The blows fell like meteors, distorting space, fracturing the very logic of the world. But Isissis… did not move. He absorbed everything, impassive, his smile widening with each impact.
— Have you not noticed something, Sakolomé?
His voice was soft, almost pedagogical, but each syllable resonated like universal law.
— It is impossible to hurt me. Know why? Because even a wound is an identity. And I am the one who makes identities possible. Without my will, the very concept of "wound" does not exist. So, do you really believe your blows, poor limited artifacts, can reach me?
Sakolomé stepped back, breath short, his face twisted by frustration and helplessness. But he did not yield; he charged again. Then Isissis stepped forward. And in an instant, his hand gripped Sakolomé's throat like a sentence.
— It is time to die, Sakolomé.
The pressure was crushing, neither muscular nor magical: it came from the very axiom that made his body exist. Blood flowed from his lips as he struggled, clawing vainly at this arm that was no longer a limb, but an incarnate law.
— Let me go… you…! he spat, voice broken.
Isissis widened his eyes, the grin becoming carnivorous.
— You will suffer the same fate as your dear sister Salomé. And believe me… her agony will be nothing compared to yours.
Sakolomé grimaced, closed his eyes. A burning shame engulfed him. He, born of chaos, forged for the absolute… reduced to a puppet in these hands. It was more than defeat. It was the negation itself of his being.
— And now… said Isissis, raising the other hand, you will taste Post-Traumatic Narration.
A dark wave surged from him; the pages of reality trembled as if an invisible author rewrote the scene. Sakolomé's thoughts were already unraveling, swallowed by a scriptural void. But then…
SLASH.
A sharp, unclassifiable sound silenced the universe. Isissis's hand… had just fallen to the ground. Torn off cleanly, it was already dissolving into concept fragments, refusing to become matter again.
Sakolomé was thrown backward, gasping with a tearing gasp, his throat marked by scarlet prints. His eyes wavered between astonishment and incomprehension.
— Who… who did that?! he gasped.
Isissis froze. Then he turned his head. Slowly. His pupils opened like two abysses. Before him stood three silhouettes, radiating an authority that made even the primordial domain tremble.
Ñout. Standing, arms crossed, her purplish gaze shining with a gleam recalling the origin of worlds. Beside her, the Protective Goddess, her wings of light spread, helmet lowered, ready to pierce any axiom. And slightly behind… Goth Chancellor. Small, childlike, but carrying in his eyes the irreversible.
Isissis growled, his voice saturated with cosmic rage:
— What are you doing here?! I had restricted you! This is impossible!!!