Everyone on that wasteland — even Moriarty himself — knew the truth.
No matter how hard they fought, no matter how much blood or mana they burned, they couldn't kill the demon. Even if they banished him into the void, he'd claw his way back to Earth eventually.
The only way to sever his existence completely was to drag him out of the voidspawn and cast him back into hell.
And for that, they needed far more firepower than they currently possessed.
Moriarty, having just ascended to B rank, hadn't yet crafted a true killer move befitting that level — something uniquely his own. But Timeless, his most trusted ability, offered him what he needed most.
Time.
Even as the ground burned beneath his feet and the sky screamed above him, Moriarty was already building something — shaping it with his thoughts, testing it through countless failed outcomes that existed only for a fraction of a second before being erased by Timeless.
But then, without warning, everything went dark.
The battlefield, the burning wasteland — all of it vanished into a suffocating void.
Pure darkness swallowed us whole.
"Foooools~!"
The hiss slithered through the blackness, echoing inside our skulls. The moment I heard it, realization struck — and judging by the look on Moriarty's face, he understood it too.
"Oh, hell…" Moriarty muttered, voice trembling. "He wanted us to weaken the voidspawn. Even an A-rank demon can't fully control a young one… that's why he never used its abilities!"
"Ray!" Tom shouted into the dark, firing blind toward the movement of a tentacle. "Whatever you're doing, do it fast! We don't have much time!"
"You think I don't know that?!" Moriarty snapped back, his voice laced with panic and strain.
Then the air itself began to warp. It bent and twisted around our bodies, pressing in on our skin — a crushing pull, dragging from every direction.
We could feel it — the void tearing at us, trying to rip us apart molecule by molecule. Flesh peeled like ash in a storm as the darkness consumed us, pulling us deeper into its endless maw.
We could hear voices — not speaking, but bleeding into our minds.
Whispers of things we were never meant to understand.
Screams and laughter intertwined, forming a grotesque harmony that clawed at the edges of reason. It was as if madness itself had found a melody.
But even in the deepest pits of the void, a single star can outshine all darkness.
"Full Moon."
Johnathan's voice cut through the void like a blade of light, and a brilliant glow erupted around us, forcing the shadows to recoil.
The wasteland returned — scorched earth and flickering embers — as moonlight poured over it like liquid silver.
"The Moon Path might not be that effective under sunlight," Johnathan said, his voice calm yet resonant, "but in places like this, it's the perfect countermeasure."
The tentacles surrounding us turned toward him, lunging from every direction. Yet each strike glanced off harmlessly, their momentum redirected as though the light itself rejected their existence.
The glow wrapped around Johnathan like an armor woven from celestial silk.
Due to the redirection property of Moon Path mana, they're nearly impossible to kill without sunlight... and since the voidspawn lacks any light-based abilities, he won't be able to touch him anytime soon. Moriarty glanced at him, eyes narrowing thoughtfully.
His gaze shifted toward Reinhardt, who was still tracing sigils into the ground, the ritual was almost complete.
"It's done! I can separate him from the vessel!" Reinhardt shouted — the strain in his voice cracking through the chaos like lightning.
Moriarty exhaled, tension bleeding from his shoulders. Relief — fleeting, dangerous — washed over him as he turned his gaze toward the voidspawn one final time.
Throughout this battle, he had tried — and failed — to forge a strike capable of harming the demon's soul. But now, at last, that moment had come.
The ink-like portal convulsed, shrinking upon itself. Black smoke poured from its depths, hissing and writhing as if the void itself were being strangled. The tentacles thrashed violently, desperate to cling to the mortal plane, but their forms flickered — half fading, half screaming.
"No… no, no, NO! I refuse to be banished by a bunch of low-ranked mortals!" the demon's voice bellowed from within the churning darkness, its rage echoing like a collapsing star.
"But you will be," Moriarty whispered.
He appeared before the cloud of black smoke, eyes burning like twin suns. "And if you truly hail from a place called Hell… then tell them — tell all of your masters — that this universe is protected by the last of the Guardians of Time."
The chainsaw saber roared to life, its teeth shrieking like a chorus of dying gods as he swung. In that instant, both Moriarty and the smoke vanished — severed from the fabric of existence itself.
"Dawn of Time."
Everything froze.
The battlefield, the screams, the world itself dissolved into stillness.
Only dust remained — silent motes adrift in a cosmic womb, untouched by creation or destruction.
Here, there were no stars. No gravity. No sound.
Only the whisper of what would be — the faint, unborn hum of existence waiting to take form.
Light had not yet learned to shine. Darkness had not yet learned to hide.
And at the heart of it all stood Moriarty — a lone figure suspended in the primordial expanse — his saber dimming as the concept of time itself curled around him like a sleeping serpent.
And then, we were back in the wasteland—falling through the smoke-choked sky toward the burning earth below. Our strength was gone, every last drop of stamina drained during the final strike.
"Wally…" I muttered weakly, taking control of the vessel just before impact.
In an instant, Wally reacted—his metallic body unraveling from the chainsaw saber and handgun, wrapping around me to form a full suit of armor.
SPLASH!
But instead of crashing into scorched ground or molten rock, I plunged into cool, clear water. A small pond shimmered beneath the dying light of the wasteland.
"You're welcome," Tom said, sitting by the pond's edge before collapsing backward in exhaustion, his breath coming out in ragged laughs.
"Young master, shall I carry all of you?" Johnathan asked, hefting Reinhardt's unconscious body over his left shoulder.
"Hell no. Just wait for the rescue team…" I said with a tired grin, peeling off my helmet. "And get a bloody shower—you smell."
"No, I—" Johnathan began, then stopped as he sniffed himself and made a face. "…Actually, yeah. I might need a shower."