Namaska was falling.
Time itself seemed to freeze in that moment, like the concept of momentum had been leeched from the world.
But that voice—it shocked him, and a faint, impossible flicker of joy sparked in his chest.
He smiled slightly.
Just as the churning water was about to claim him, his descent halted. He was suspended, flowing just above the surface like a leaf on an unseen current.
Namaska slowly opened his eyes.
"So you finally came."
His gaze lifted to the sky, to a human-shaped blot of absolute darkness hovering there.
"Pathetic, Dad!" The voice was a distortion, dripping with genuine disappointment. "Did you really almost get killed by this weak thing?"
Namaska's smile didn't fade. "Weak thing? Huh. I assumed you'd call it that… Void."
"Do not call me by that pathetic name."
He chuckled, a low, tired sound. "Call it pathetic, but it's yours."
Silence held for a breath. Then, the mundane creature growled.
"How dare you make noise in my presence?"
Void turned its shadowy attention downward.
"What are you… a Duman? An idiot? Or just a lowly creature I'll destroy like all the rest?"
The creature roared, waving its massive arms. The horns, sharp as mountain peaks, shot toward the Void.
Void didn't move a single inch.
"Is that all?" it spoke, arrogance woven into every syllable.
"How amusing. To think mere physical things could harm me."
Void waved a hand—a shadow passing through air. The leviathan was cut in two. This time, its body didn't regenerate. It simply began to dissolve into dark mist.
"Weak."
"Are you guys done yet?" , A familiar voice. From the ship.
Namaska's head snapped toward the sound. "Marcus? You're alive?"
But it wasn't Marcus. The posture was all wrong—too fluid, too casual. And the eyes glowed with an unnatural, icy blue.
"Oh my," the being said, tilting its head at the Void. "So, you really came, huh?"
"And who are you?" Void's form rippled.
"Just a person who was waiting for you to stand in front of me." It smiled, a weird, stretching thing.
"Marcus… is that really you?" Namaska asked, voice tight.
"Why do you ask, Captain?" it replied, tone a teasing singsong. "Ara~, you're not attacking?" It mocked, turning back to Void. "I thought you were going to kill me for opening my damn mouth in front of you."
"Do not dare call me by that name again!"
"Come on, 'Void'. Isn't that your name? Or…" The being tapped its chin in mock thought. "…is 'Void' just a scaredy-cat? Void?"
Void's shadowy hand slashed through the air in a silent, rage-fueled arc.
"Ahhhhh, you're being rage-baited," the being whispered to itself, gleeful.
The attack that had bisected the leviathan passed through the possessed Marcus without leaving a mark.
"Oh my," it mocked, looking at its own unharmed chest. "Is that what you got, Mr. Weakling?"
"I do not know who you are," Void intoned, its voice colder. "But I sense you are not a weakling like the rest."
"Oh my! How wonderful of you to consider me a worthy opponent!"
"Could you two shut up?" Namaska's voice cut through, heavy with exhaustion. "We just fought a battle against that leviathan."
He looked at the blue-eyed thing wearing his soldier's face. "I don't know who you are, 'Marcus'. And I'm not going to ask why you're mocking him like your life depends on it.... Just stop.... At least for now."
"Dad!"
A tendril of shadow snapped out, wrapping around Namaska and tossing him gently onto the one remaining ship's deck.
"Stay there, Dad!"
Void focused on the impostor.
"The previous ship was destroyed… by your power?"
Marcus closed his eyes. A whisper, almost too soft to hear. "Void… you're so weak."
Then he opened them.
They were no longer blue, but a bright, burning yellow—like the heart of a sun at midday.
He vanished.
He reappeared behind Void.
He grabbed the entity and hurled it into the endless ocean. The force was so immense it didn't just displace water—it removed it, carving a miles-wide canyon of nothingness straight down into the deep. Anything caught in that touch would have been unmade.
Marcus didn't wait. He flew into the trench, caught the reeling shadow, and began to pummel it.
Thud. Thud. THUD.
Each punch landed with a sound like a thunderclap. The shockwaves radiating out and churning the sea into a frenzy, vaporizing the water near their impact.
"Oh my," Marcus smirked between blows. "Your durability is kinda good!"
Void tried to block, to counter, but can't.
"Infinite Shift."
Void muttered the words, and the world… un-made itself.
An empty space erupted around them. A dimension of pure nothingness. No Concept of Motion, Air , Light and Gravity.
The punches stopped. Not by choice, but because the very concept of 'punching' had lost all meaning.
"I… can't sense anything here," Marcus muttered, his voice the only sound in the absolute silence.
"It is because there is nothing here," Void's voice echoed from everywhere and nowhere. "The space is not large. But from the inside… it is infinite for you."
"An infinite space? New information for me," Marcus said, that infuriating smirk still there , "I didn't know my intel was limited inside the Ve—" He stopped. Looked at his hand. It was fading, turning translucent at the edges. "Something's happening to my body."
"It is eating you, dumbass."
"Aren't you too cold, using these words on a lady?" Marcus said playfully, puffing out his cheeks in a pout.
"Lady? Who here is a lady? I do not see one."
"Come on, idiot. Just chill."
"As I thought… you're weak," Marcus sighed, his form continuing to fray. "If I compare you to those I know… yes, you're indeed weak."
"Wait. How can you even speak in my domain?"
"Your two men? Are you gay by any chance?"
"I said DOMAIN, not 'two men', you son of a—"
"Hey, hey, hey! Void! Calm down… idiot." Marcus's body was visibly being consumed, particles drifting away into the void. "As you can see, it's eating my body, my energy, and I'm still...talking like an idiot."
"You are pissing me off again."
Void's form darkened. "MACKSEL."
As the ancient name was spoken, points of absolute darkness swirled into existence within the infinite white—black holes, born in a realm of nothingness, hungering even for the void itself.
"Are you creating black holes or what?"
"Indeed. You do have a brain cell."
"I haven't breathed for five freaking minutes. Although thanks for the technique, Void!"
Marcus paused. The black holes were drifting closer, their gravitational pull beginning to twist his fading form.
"Hey, Void. I have something for your dear father."
"I have no father."
"Weren't you calling our captain 'Dad'?"
"He is my dad. Not my father."
"EH."
The silence was deafening. The two of them stood there, one fading, one shadowed, as apocalyptic singularities drifted toward them.
"You idiot. Both are the same thing."
Marcus took a deep, impossible breath even though there's no concept of breathable air . He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, rectangular shaped card made of a dull, tough metal.
"Could you give this to your father?"
"Why would I care about a lowly creature like you?"
"You don't have to care about me," Marcus said, his smile softening, becoming almost real. "Just give it to him."
Void was silent. The seriousness in the air shifted, just a degree.
"…Fine. I will take it as your last wish."
A tendril of shadow extended, plucking the card from Marcus's dissolving hand.
The atmosphere was silent. The black holes made no sound as they closed in.
"I'm coming to you soon, my cutie pie," Marcus whispered, his voice fading. "Got a new technique to show you…"
The black holes converged. There was no dramatic crunch, no final scream. One moment he was there, smiling. The next, he was simply… gone. Devoured by the absolute dark.
"What a weirdo," Void muttered to the infinite emptiness. "Who smiles when they are about to die?"
A whisper, not its own, echoed in its mind: "That was probably us, G&:*+#;#-# ."
An image flashed behind its eyes. A female figure, made of the same shifting void-stuff as itself, crying… yet smiling. She was holding something small, something warm and glowing faintly… like a baby.
"Who… was that?" Void recoiled, the memory a shock to its system. "Why was she smiling? Why was she crying? Who are they?"
The figures in the memory… "They… look like me."
" What were these visuals? An implanted trick? That bastard's final joke? "
The two eye-like lights in its shadowy form blazed a bright, agitated blue.
It sighed. The infinite pocket dimension began to contract, growing smaller with each passing moment.
" Looks like 'Infinite Shift' has reached its limit "
The void-space vanished.
The ocean rushed back in with a world-ending roar, crashing into Void from all sides. It ignored the tumult, flying up and over the chaotic surface, heading toward the lone ship where Namaska waited.
The sky was clearing, the sea calming. The supernatural storm was over .
"So, it's over, huh?" Namaska whispered to the wind. A single, bitter thought followed "Why couldn't you have come a moment earlier, Void?"
A blur of darkness shot toward the deck and solidified. Void landed before him.
"Dad! Another weakling died " , Void sounds proud.
"Weaklings, huh?" Namaska's voice was heavy, his eyes sweeping over the deck littered with the fallen. "The only weakling here is you, Void."
"Dad!"
"You don't know how to connect with other beings...you don't know how they think, what they feel. You just… you just want to crush them." He took a step forward, his weariness giving way to a deep, paternal frustration. "Come on, Void. This is so… freaking childish. If you ask for my point of view? Then the only weakling is going to be you. Only you."
Void's form shuddered, rippling with frustration. It threw the metal card; it clinked and skidded to a stop at Namaska's feet.
"Now you are on your own! I do not care if you die in this sea or not!"
In a streak of shadow, it was gone.
Namaska looked down.
"Huh? Void, what is this?" But the entity was gone like it never existed in first place .
He bent and picked up the card. It was cold and heavy. A single word was etched into its surface: [HI]
"That idiot is gone, huh," he said, a slight, tired smile touching his lips. His gaze fell to the deck, to the silent forms of his soldiers. The smile died. "I'm literally standing on their corpses."
He lifted his head, looking out at the vast, uncaring ocean. A final, haunting question settled in his mind, one he had no answer for.
"Come to think of it… what really happened in Nams's 87th mission?"
[Location Unknown | Current Time]
"FUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!"
A woman screamed, then immediately burst into wild, breathless laughter. She spun, dancing with chaotic grace in front of a full-length mirror.
"Fighting with that Void was FUN!"
Her long white hair was a glorious mess, flying around her. Her bright blue eyes sparkled with pure, manic joy as she admired her reflection—not out of vanity, but out of thrill.
"Thanks, Mundane Creature!" she giggled, speaking to the empty room. "What a perfect chance you gave me!"
Her smile widened, turning sharp and knowing, her eyes glowing with a faint, supernatural light.
"It's been seven years, huh?" she said, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, though no one was there to hear. "I'm finally back, you idiots."
She shouted the last part to the ceiling, a declaration to a world—or perhaps to specific someones—that didn't yet know she was here.