A rift opened behind him with the sound of a ribcage being pulled apart, the edges of the tear glowing with the same violet light that had marked Sion's teleportation.
Nulls turned, his four eyes adjusting to the darkness within the wound in reality, and saw the thing that emerged.
It crouched low on the steps of the church, its body a lattice of jagged ivory spikes and exposed ribs that glowed faintly with a sinister red pulse beneath its translucent skin.
The creature had no face that he could recognize, only a skull-like head crowned with cruel horns that curved backward like the antlers of a demonic stag.
Its eyes were pits of deeper darkness, and they burned with a cold, predatory hunger that reminded him of the abyss beneath the Scylla trench.
A barbed tail curled behind it like a coiled whip, each segment tipped with bone that gleamed wetly in the moonlight. Every inch of it looked sharp enough to wound the world itself.
The creature lunged towards speed that turned the air into plasma. Its jaws opened wide enough to swallow his head, and Nulls reacted without thought, his hands shooting up to catch the upper and lower halves of its mouth before they could close around him.
The impact drove him back a step, his heels digging into the stone steps, and he felt the creature's strength through his arms, through his shoulders, through his spine.
He tried to rip its jaws apart, to tear the creature in half the way he had done to so many others. His muscles strained, his claws dug into its flesh, and the creature's mouth did not yield.
The bones of its jaw flexed but did not break. The tendons that held it together stretched but did not snap. They were matched, evenly, perfectly, locked in a stalemate that neither could break.
The creature's tail whipped around and struck him in the side, the barbed tip tearing through his skin and drawing blood that steamed in the cold night air.
Nulls grunted, he felt the poison in the barb spreading through his veins, a neurotoxin that sought to paralyze him. Nexus burned it away, the power flowing through his channels, neutralizing the threat before it could take hold.
His right hand released the creature's lower jaw, the movement small, barely perceptible, but enough to free his fingers. He wiggled them, traced a sigil in the air between them, and summoned his beasts.
Eros flowed into his right hand. Barbatos flowed into his left. Marky flowed into his chest. The three beasts merged, their forms overlapping, their powers combining, their essences twisting into Qliphoth.
The amalgam erupted from his body like a second skin, its non-Euclidean form pressing against the creature, pushing it back, giving Nulls the space he needed.
Qliphoth's mass collided with the Morbus, and the creature was flung across the village, its body tumbling through the air before it crashed into the mountain he had leaped from hours ago.
The impact shattered the peak, sending boulders rolling down the slopes, and the creature rose from the rubble with its hunger undiminished.
Nulls used the Time Equation, setting the distance between himself, the levyathans, the morbus as well as Qlippoth and the ocean battlefield to zero, and the world blurred as he teleported.
He stood on the water of the crater where he had fought Aaliyah, a thin layer of Nexus spread beneath his feet like a platform of frozen light.
The ocean stretched around him in every direction, its surface still churned by the tsunamis their battle had created, and the stars above were the same stars that had watched him walk through the ruins of the village.
The serpent surfaced behind him, its massive body coiling through the water, its eye fixed on the mountain in the distance. Regie rose beside it, its thousand eyes blinking in sequence, its beams charging for the attack that would come.
The Morbus appeared on the horizon, its body a dark silhouette against the stars, and it crossed the distance between them in a single leap.
Nulls raised his hand and Qliphoth flowed into the shape of a sword.
The blade was segmented, made of multiple metal sections linked along its length like the spine of some mechanical serpent.
Each segment was edged and slightly flexible, allowing the weapon to extend and curve during swings, to reach around defenses, to strike from angles that should have been impossible.
The hilt was reinforced with the fused bone of the amalgam's body, textured for grip and control, designed to handle the shifting weight of the blade as it moved.
The creature landed on the water before him, its claws skidding across the surface, and Nulls swung.
The segmented blade extended as it moved, its sections separating and reconnecting, the edge curving in an arc that should have taken the creature's head from its shoulders.
The Morbus ducked under the strike, its body flowing like liquid around the blade, and its tail whipped toward his legs. He leaped, the sword retracting, and brought it down in a vertical chop that the creature caught on its horns.
The impact sent shockwaves across the water, waves radiating outward in concentric circles, and the creature pushed back, its strength matching his own.
"Faust," Nulls called. "Regie."
The serpent struck from the left, its jaws closing on the creature's torso, its teeth sinking into the lattice of bone and glowing flesh.
Regie's beams fired from the right, a thousand lances of violet light that converged on the Morbus's flank.
The creature screamed, a sound that was more vibration than noise, and threw the serpent off with a twist of its body. The beams struck its hide and scorched it, but the wounds healed almost instantly, the red glow beneath its skin pulsing brighter to repair the damage.
This was an Archon-class Morbus, the same class as his leviathans. It would not die easily. It would not die at all if he did not find a way to overcome its regeneration.
Nulls swung the segmented sword again, the blade extending to wrap around the creature's arm, the edges biting into its flesh.
He pulled, and the segments tightened, the blade acting like a chain rather than a sword, and he yanked the creature off balance. It stumbled, fell to one knee, and he brought the hilt down on its skull. The creature let out a deafening roar as one of its horns shattered upon impact.
Its tail wrapped around his ankle and pulled, dragging him down, and they fell together into the water.
The cold closed over them, the darkness of the ocean swallowing the light of the stars, and they fought beneath the surface where the pressure could crush a normal human into paste.
Nulls's Nexus platform dissolved as he lost contact with the surface, and he sank, the creature's claws raking across his chest, its teeth reaching for his throat.
He brought the segmented sword up between them, the blade extending, the sections separating, and he pushed the weapon through the creature's chest.
The segments spread inside its body, widening the wound, tearing through bone and organ and the red-glowing flesh that pulsed with regeneration. Black blood clouded the water around them, thick and hot, and the creature's scream became a gurgle as its lungs filled with the fluid of its own injury.
Nulls pulled the sword free and kicked away from the creature, surfacing with a gasp, the Nexus reforming beneath his feet as he stood on the water.
The Morbus emerged behind him, its wound already closing, the red glow brighter than before. It had regenerated fully, had healed the damage he had inflicted, and its hunger was undiminished.
"You Archons are persistent," Nulls said. "I respect that."
The creature lunged, and he met it with the segmented sword, the blade extending, curving, striking from angles that should have been impossible.
He aimed for the joints between its ribs, for the spaces where the bone lattice was thinnest, for the places where the red glow was brightest. Each strike drew blood, each wound slowed it for a moment, and each moment gave him time to think.
He needed to overwhelm its regeneration. Needed to damage it faster than it could heal. Needed to find its core, its heart, the source of the red glow that pulsed beneath its skin.
The serpent struck again, its jaws closing on the creature's tail, and it pulled, stretching the Morbus between them like a rope in a tug-of-war. Regie's beams focused on the creature's exposed belly, burning through the bone lattice, charring the flesh beneath.
Nulls leaped, the segmented sword extended to its full length, and drove the blade through the creature's chest.
The segments spread inside it, widening the wound, and he pushed deeper, feeling the blade scrape against something solid, something that resisted the edges. The core. The heart. The source of its power.
He commanded the sword to extend further, to push through the resistance, to pierce the heart and end the creature's existence. The segments strained, the links between them groaning, and the blade inched forward.
The creature's claws closed around his throat. Its grip was iron, and its fingers digging into his flesh, it lifted him his feet off the Nexus platform and into the air where thw moonlight illuminated them.
The sword was still embedded in its chest, the segments still spread inside its body, but the creature did not seem to care.
Nulls felt his windpipe compress as the creature squeezed, the cartilage in his throat crack, and thw darkness closing in at the edges of his vision.
He commanded Qliphoth to change. The segmented sword melted, flowed, reformed into a spear that he drove upward through the creature's jaw and into its skull.
The point emerged from the top of its head, and the creature's grip loosened for a moment, long enough for him to pull free and fall back to the water.
He landed hard, his Nexus platform catching him, and he looked up at the Morbus as it swayed on its feet, the spear still embedded in its head.
The creature pulled the weapon from its skull and threw it aside. The wound closed. The red glow pulsed. The hunger returned.
Nulls raised his hand and called the spear back to him, the segments reforming into the sword. He was running out of options. Running out of time. Running out of energy.
The serpent wrapped its body around the creature, coils of scale and muscle constricting the Morbus, squeezing it until its bones cracked and its flesh bulged between the gaps. Regie's beams fired continuously, a stream of violet light that bored into the creature's flesh, burning away its regeneration faster than it could heal.
Nulls walked toward the trapped Morbus, the segmented sword held in both hands. He swung, and the blade extended, curving around the creature's body, cutting through bone and flesh and the red glow that pulsed beneath.
He swung again, and the blade cut deeper. Again, and the creature's arm fell away, severed at the shoulder. Again, and its leg followed. Again, and its tail was separated from its body.
The creature screamed, a sound that went on and on, a sound that shook the stars in their orbits.
Nulls stepped inside the serpent's coils, stood before the Morbus, and drove the segmented sword into its chest one final time. The blade extended through its body, through its heart, through its core, and he twisted. Shattering its jagged lattice and decaying them with entropy.
The creature's red glow flickered and then slowly faded into nothing. Nulls pulled the sword free and stepped back, and the serpent released its coils.
The Morbus fell to the water, its body disintegrating as it sank, the bone lattice crumbling, the glowing flesh turning to ash. It had died. Finally, completely, irrevocably.
He stood on the water, his chest heaving, his body covered in wounds that were already healing, and watched the last traces of the creature vanish beneath the waves.
The serpent nudged him with its snout, and he placed a hand on its scales.
"Thank you," he said. "Both of you."
Regie's beams dimmed, and the mountain settled into the water, its thousand eyes closing in exhaustion.
Nulls looked up at the stars and wondered if Aaliyah was watching. The stars did not answer. They never did.
He dismissed Qliphoth, the amalgam separating into its component beasts, and felt the strain lift from his body. The sword dissolved, the segments falling away, and the beasts returned to the void from which they had come.
"Come," he said to the serpents. "We have more work to do."
The leviathans turned and swam toward the horizon, and Nulls walked across the water after them, the Nexus platform carrying him forward, the stars wheeling overhead.
He did not look back, never once. But something about the way the stars had watched him in that church, the old woman had called him child, and the way Aaliyah had smiled as she was about to die, lingered in his mind like a splinter that he could not remove.
He ignored it.
He had work to do.