In Melokosa's mind, there was nothing but a white, infinite, silent void.
Melokosa knelt there, naked, motionless, his head bowed toward the ground. His closed eyelids seemed sealed by an ancient sleep, a voluntary oblivion.
And over his entire body, chains of pure conceptualization bound him.
Marks of narration, history, imposed identity encircled his chest and arms—a straitjacket preventing him from being himself.
Then, without warning, the white corrupted.
A shadow rose, first like a shiver on the ground, then like a black tide swallowing everything. The void darkened all at once, and the darkness engulfed Melokosa.
The chains cracked. The marks of history screamed without voice.
Then everything gave way.
In that total blackness, something opened its eyes.
Outside.
A muffled but titanic explosion erupted, as if the air itself had just died. Panic spread instantly.
Melokosa opened his eyes—but they were no longer his.
They became incandescent red, almost liquid.
His skin cracked like overly dry earth, revealing black, living, moving lines, snakes winding beneath his flesh like cursed glyphs.
Erasa froze.
— I have to stop him!!!
Even Bakuzan, usually the first to act, remained still. He knew. He understood that Sakolomeh—or what he was becoming again—was no longer something that could be stopped.
Erasa reached out her hand. The next moment, her arm went numb, as if her very existence had frozen.
She leapt back, breathless.
— …It's too late… she whispered through her mask.
And as soon as she spoke those words, it began.
Doom.
An apocalyptic rumble.
The ground trembled.
The air vibrated.
Reality contracted in a spasm of agony.
Even the Abominables ceased all attacks, terrified.
The tremor spread.
From the first zone of the Dream to the fourth.
From material realities to the out-of-dreams.
From internal cosmologies to conceptual spaces.
Everything. Trembled.
The gods understood immediately.
The end.
The true one.
In her domain, Mü Thanatos simply closed her eyes, serene.
— It was predictable… she murmured, calmly accepting the inevitable.
In the Underworld, demons screamed a fear they no longer believed possible.
A danger without name, form, or causality devoured existence.
In Tartarus, Raktabīja Rāvana lost control. His immensity trembled, and in his cosmic panic, he unleashed an infinite rain of scales.
Trillions.
Across myriad realities.
They broke the boundaries of space-time.
Past, present, and future cracked together.
The gods fell silent. All of them.
Because what awoke was not a destructive force, nor a superior concept, nor an absolute being.
It was Impossibility itself, seeking to reduce everything back to the state before being, before laws, before dreams.
Pure Nothingness.
Before this cosmic collapse, Erasa fell to her knees.
Her mask slipped and struck the ground.
Her bare face was ravaged by total despair.
— I... failed...
She lifted her eyes toward Sakolomeh, who no longer had anything human.
— …It's the end.
For Erasa, everything seemed over, the world already reduced to nothingness. But Bakuzan stepped forward firmly and shouted:
— Sakolomeh! Are you done with your bullshit or what?!
Erasa, surprised, looked up at him, confused: What is he... doing?
Bakuzan took another step, eyes shining with determination:
— Sakolomeh, listen to me! It's your big brother talking to you! You're messing around, don't you realize?! It's time you pulled yourself together, damn it! Pull yourself together!
He clenched his fists, his veins bulging with tension:
— Sakolomeh, answer me, damn it!
Salomeh, already in tears before the catastrophe her brother was unleashing, couldn't even say a word. She only saw Bakuzan, the legendary Black Grief, scream at the top of his lungs, a formidable man who, for a rare time, found himself powerless before what he could not control. His cry was not just an order, it was a last resort against the inconceivable.
She then stepped forward, trembling but determined, and stood by Bakuzan's side. Around them, the ground cracked under the pressure of Sakolomeh's chaotic energy. The fissures revealed neither lava nor magma, but sinuous shadows, black as death, that crawled and wrapped around their brother's body, as if he were everywhere at once.
Bakuzan shouted again, his voice ringing through the chaos:
— Damn it, Sakolomeh, damn it! You're going to answer me, yes?!
Salomeh, overwhelmed by emotion, finally burst into tears and screamed in turn:
— Big brother, please! Listen to us! Big brother!
Bakuzan's voice traversed Melokosa, instantly bringing him back into the void of his mind. This time he was no longer chained, floating in an infinite sea of absolute black. His body was motionless, asleep, but his mind caught every sound, every emotion:
— Sakolomeh!!! Bakuzan's voice vibrated with panic and despair.
— Big brother... Salomeh whispered, her voice trembling, full of fear.
Sakolomeh opened his eyes in that formless place, and immediately stood, his head spinning in the vastness of the void:
— Where am I?
Before him stood an impossible mass of shadow, a silhouette of pure nothingness, but it did not seem hostile. Strangely, it seemed... worried. This nothingness was indescribable, beyond even what could be called nothingness. It pulsed with a presence Sakolomeh felt deeply, as if a part of himself was manifesting.
Sakolomeh stepped forward, his gaze fixed on this form.
— I recognize you...
The impossible form did not respond with words. It simply moved, a part of itself slowly approaching Sakolomeh. Without hesitation, he placed his hand on it, and a fleeting smile crossed his face:
— I have always rejected you... I wonder how I ended up here.
The mass of nothingness trembled slightly, as if these words touched it in a way only Sakolomeh could cause.
He continued, his voice gentle but firm:
— You were never a stranger within me. You were never a monster. You were never the problem. The problem... was me. It was us.
Sakolomeh closed his eyes and gently rested his head against the mass of nothingness, as if seeking a warmth long forgotten.
— You and I... we are strangers in this place. We should never have been here... but the worst is that you have always tried to tell me, to make me understand. And I... thought I was something else. When in reality...
He raised his head, eyes fixing the shadow with new clarity:
— In reality, you and I... we are the same person. The evil... is that I always rejected you. So I always rejected myself. I thought I came from here, that I originated from this place... but no. It wasn't true.
Around him, the shadow seemed to stabilize, as if it held its breath, waiting. Sakolomeh swept the void with his gaze, then focused again on this presence:
— I no longer need to flee you. Now... I accept myself. I am what I am. I no longer need to be anything other than myself.
He stepped back slightly, breathed deeply, and extended his hand. When he placed it on the head of the nothingness, he spoke words that transcended all possibility of language or conceptualization, words that escaped any known form of reality. The mass of shadow seemed to vibrate, distort, then merge into Sakolomeh.
The deviating nothingness, his own consciousness, reintegrated into his body. Black marks sprang upon his skin, like cursed tattoos, but strangely alive, pulsing with an energy that seemed to combine his essence with that of the nothingness itself. Sakolomeh regained full possession of his body, and with this fusion, he felt a new clarity, an immeasurable power that was no longer a mere reflection of nothingness... but himself, finally whole.