Ava and Nullius clashed in open space, their fists and kicks colliding with enough force to crack universes apart. Each exchange sent shockwaves rippling through existence, stars shuddering as reality folded under the impact of their blows.
Ava twisted mid-strike, blocking a kick and driving a counterpunch forward hard enough to split the void itself.
I need to end this fast, he thought. I need to find my team.
Star could get hurt.
I couldn't live with myself if I wasn't strong enough to protect her.
Nullius laughed wildly as he surged back in, his attacks reckless and overwhelming, each motion fueled by spite rather than control.
"It's over for you!" Nullius screamed, unleashing a flurry of punches. "Give us the Hypercube. But either way, I'm erasing you! You tried to embarrass me in front of my own father. You went against my authority when I made it clear I'm the leader. When no generals are around, I'm the one in charge. Not you."
"You're not erasing anybody," Ava shot back. "And you're no leader. You're just a bully."
He thrust his hand forward.
"Chaos Thunder!"
Purple lightning laced with chaos energy tore through space, roaring toward Nullius and shredding reality in its wake.
Nullius vanished.
With impossible speed, he reappeared at Ava's side and seized his arm. White eraser energy flared violently around his hand as it made contact with Ava's Black Lotus armor. The air screamed as existence itself began to peel away.
Nullius froze, eyes widening.
"Why isn't it erasing?" he snarled. "Your armor!"
Ava clenched his jaw. "My armor is made of the Black Lotus. Same as my wings. Emptiness. Nonexistence. An eraser itself."
Then the armor began to sizzle.
Ava felt it immediately.
The eraser energy was working.
"No… my armor," Ava panicked, straining to pull free. "The Black Lotus armor can resist erasure, but only temporarily. It suppresses it, not permanently. Unlike my wings."
Narration
The Black Lotus was not power, nor energy, nor even a concept that language could fully contain. It existed as emptiness, nonexistence, and erasure layered together, not as actions, but as states. Calling it a force was inaccurate, yet no better word existed. It did not act upon reality.
It marked the place where reality failed to exist at all.
But not every manifestation of the Black Lotus carried that truth equally.
Ava's wings embodied the Black Lotus in its purest state. Complete. Untouchable. Absolute. They were not subject to erasure because they already existed as its endpoint.
The armor was different.
It was an imperfect manifestation. A constructed form. An imitation shaped to protect rather than to embody. While it carried the Black Lotus's properties, it lacked its totality. The armor did not exist fully as nonexistence.
Because of that, it could be erased.
The Black Lotus armor did not negate erasure. It only delayed it, slowing the process as long as it could endure.
And now, it was reaching its limit.
End of Narration.
Nullius smiled.
The Black Lotus glove on Ava's arm vanished from reality.
Nullius reached for his exposed skin.
Before his fingers could close around Ava's hand, a golden symbol ignited beneath Nullius's feet.
A glowing card snapped into place.
A trap card.
Golden chains erupted upward, wrapping tightly around Nullius's body, locking his limbs in place.
Ava ripped himself free, stumbling back just as he watched the remains of his armor dissolve into nothing.
"That was too close," Ava muttered.
Nullius snarled, straining against the golden chains as white eraser energy surged violently from his body. The bindings hissed and warped, their forms thinning as existence itself began to peel away.
The trap card flickered.
Then Nullius erased it.
The chains followed, severed from reality strand by strand until nothing remained, as if they had never existed at all.
Nullius lifted his hand, eraser energy compressing into a blinding sphere that distorted the space around it.
"Enough of the tricks," Nullius sneered. "You call yourself a general? A true leader doesn't rely on traps. We fight face to face. Game over."
He fired.
Ava roared, thrusting his arm forward once more.
"Chaos Thunder!"
The attacks collided.
Space warped violently. Reality screamed as the clash distorted everything around them.
Then the eraser blast punched straight through.
Ava's eyes widened in panic.
His Black Lotus wings snapped shut around him, wrapping his body in a cocoon of nonexistence just as the eraser energy struck.
The blast couldn't erase the wings.
But it carried him with it.
Ava was hurled across space, crashing through planets and suns in rapid succession. Each world the blast touched vanished, erased into white nothingness. He slammed through star after star, the force never relenting, until he was driven into a distant planet.
Even within the cocoon, he felt it.
The energy wave continued to tear through reality.
Through his golden eyes, Ava saw the devastation unfolding. The planet beneath him panicked. People ran, screaming, only to dissolve into white dust before his eyes. Cities vanished. Continents erased. Life strings screamed through his mind as countless existences were severed at once.
The chaos fed the void in his stomach.
Planets and suns detonated into nothingness.
Then, suddenly, the blast stopped.
Ava unfolded his wings, rising from the wreckage.
Nullius was already there.
Moving at immeasurable speed, Nullius rushed toward him, fist drawn back, eraser energy coating his knuckles.
Ava planted his feet in the air, settling into his fighting stance.
Ready.
Ava's Tenshi no Me ignited.
His golden eyes flared brighter than before, piercing through existence itself. Infinite parallel futures unfolded before him, branching endlessly. At the same time, new ones formed, artificial timelines born solely within his mind through Parallel Simulation. Futures that did not exist.
Life strings stretched outward from his vision.
They pierced straight through Nullius.
Ava saw his parallel worlds. His movements.
Nullius attacked.
Punches came at immeasurable speed, each one coated in eraser energy that shredded time and space around it. Reality peeled away wherever his fists passed.
Ava moved.
He slipped between blows by instinct alone, countering with his own strikes. A punch crushed into Nullius's ribs. A spinning heel kick followed, sending him flying across the void.
Ava thrust his hand forward.
Golden life strings latched onto Nullius mid-flight, snapping taut as Ava yanked him back like a weapon on a chain. He slammed him back and forth through space, each impact warping reality further.
The life strings surged.
They wrapped around Nullius from every direction, binding him in a cocoon of gold.
Nullius smiled.
"You weakling," he sneered. "I will kill you. You think these things can hold me?"
White eraser energy erupted from Nullius's body, flooding the space around him. The golden life strings shriveled and vanished, erased strand by strand as if they had never existed.
Nullius extended his hand.
Oblivion Edge answered the call.
The blade formed in his grasp, humming with the same annihilating power that defined his very being. Its presence peeled at reality itself. With every swing, space split apart, causality severed, and life strings were cut with absolute finality.
Nothing it touched was allowed to remain.
Ava's breath hitched.
He forced more life strings forward, flooding the space between them. They multiplied relentlessly, wrapping around Nullius in a dense, interlocking web like a cosmic spider's snare as he struggled against it.
He's trapped. I can't let him escape.
"Life Strings Web Chaos Thunder Assault!"
Thousands of life strings ignited at once, blazing purple with chaos thunder.
Lightning surged through the web and detonated in a catastrophic explosion. Ava compressed the blast through Gentle Fist, collapsing multiversal- exploring force into a single, devastating point.
The explosion swallowed everything.
When the light finally faded, Nullius stood at its center.
Untouched.
Not a single mark on him.
"That's it?" he said coldly.
Nullius sliced the air.
Distance vanished. Space between them ceased to exist, he erased it.
The blade pierced straight through Ava's stomach.
Blood spilled from Ava's mouth as agony ripped through him, his body jolting from the force.
Nullius laughed.
"Consider yourself erased. Game over."
Ava gathered what strength he had left and summoned the Black Lotus Sword, incomplete and unstable. He swung.
Nullius dodged effortlessly, ripping his blade free from Ava's body.
Ava's vision blurred.
His armor slowed the erasure, but only barely. Black Lotus energy struggled to contain the damage as his stomach began to vanish piece by piece.
"With this blade," Nullius said, amused, "I erase anything. It's already too late for you. You will be gone forever."
He leaned closer, voice dripping with contempt.
"You embarrassed me in front of my father. You disobeyed my orders. And now you've proven me right." His eyes burned with obsession. "I am the future general of this class. The one meant to graduate at the top."
He laughed softly.
"And you?" he sneered. "You never even made it to the final battle. Just a soldier who died along the way. No command. No legacy."
Nullius straightened.
"I am the general."
Panic clawed at Ava's chest.
I can't stop it. I don't have full control of the Black Lotus. Emptiness. Nonexistence. Erasure. Only My wings are immune.
Ava clenched his fists, forcing the panic down.
I have no choice.
"I have to end this now," he whispered. "I have to hurry. I have to find my friends."
Chaos.
Absorption.
Power surged.
Purple, black, and gold energy spiraled around him. Invisible life strings spread outward through time and space, consuming chaos from every shattered planet, every erased sun. The suffering of the dead rushed into him, their severed life strings screaming through his mind.
Chaos and suffering poured into his body.
His wound began to heal.
His energy darkened to red and black as his flesh reformed, draining his physical strength with every heartbeat. He gasped for breath as the damage closed.
Then the scar on his stomach split open.
Teeth emerged.
The Chaos Mouth opened.
Ava's power spiked violently.
"I can't hold this long," he growled. "I have to finish you."
He rushed forward.
Nullius staggered back, eyes wide. "Impossible. You can't heal eraser damage."
Ava roared. "My chaos devours everything. Even erasure."
Their swords collided.
The clash tore through space itself. Each strike carved through suns and galaxies, slicing entire universes apart and hurling them into new ones as the battle spilled across realities.
And the fight was far from over.
Each slice through a world birthed more chaos.
Life strings surged toward Ava in violent torrents, slamming into his mind all at once. Every destroyed planet. Every erased sun. Every scream. The suffering piled on, feeding the hunger inside him.
Ava staggered backward, clutching his head.
"It hurts," he gasped. "All this chaos… all their pain… it's rushing into me."
The Chaos Mouth opened wider.
Red chaos phenomenon energy began to leak from his body in slow, unstable waves, warping the space around him.
Nullius laughed.
"So that's it?" he sneered. "You're already breaking? You can't contain that form, can you? I knew it. You were never strong enough."
He stepped forward, eyes burning with contempt.
"That's what you get for trying to show off in front of my father. Acting like you're a better future general than me."
Ava looked down at the chaos energy spilling from him, his breath ragged.
This body can't handle my demon form, he realized. If I lose control… the chaos phenomenon will leak completely. I won't be able to stop it. It will kill everything. Maybe even me.
Slowly, painfully, he shut it down.
The Chaos Mouth remained, but its teeth withdrew as it began to close. His energy flickered, draining from red back into purple, black, and gold. Chaos demon Mode disengaged.
He stood there breathing hard, weakened, the demonic scar still pulsing faintly on his stomach.
"That form is too dangerous," Ava said quietly. I need another way. "I can't risk losing control. This body can't handle it."
He lifted his gaze to Nullius, eyes steady despite the pain.
"I am a better general than you," Ava said. "You're not a leader. You're just a bully."
His stance lowered, fists tightening.
"And I'm going to break your skull."
Nullius's smile vanished.
"You kill without purpose," Ava continued. "You're a horrible leader."
Nullius laughed again, colder this time.
"Oh? You really think you're better than me?" His eyes gleamed. "Then let's play a game."
Space began to flood with white light.
"Dimension Ascension."
Nullius's essence exploded outward, pouring across the universe, then beyond it. His presence spread into multiple universes at once, overwhelming reality itself.
Ava panicked.
He had almost no energy left, and Demon Mode was no longer an option.
Still, he clenched his fists.
"Dimension Ascension."
Ava pushed back, flooding what little essence he had left into the world. The two ascensions collided.
Everything turned white.
When reality reassembled, Ava felt weight return.
He was massive now.
Before him stretched a vast cosmic chessboard, floating in nothingness. Entire universes had been compressed and arranged into its grid.
Nullius stood on the opposite side, equally immense.
"Welcome," Nullius said, spreading his arms, "to my Dimension Ascension Board game."
He laughed as the board finalized its shape.
"I merged multiple universes together to create this world," Nullius said calmly. "A battlefield worthy of us."
He gestured to the board, confidence dripping from every word.
"I've already proven I'm stronger than you. Look at you." His smile widened. "Now I want to defeat you mentally. I want you to see it. To understand who the better strategist is. Who the better general truly is."
His eyes hardened.
"Show me your strategies… before I erase you completely."
Ava's eyes widened.
Every chess piece is a planet.
Every pawn, every knight, every bishop had once been a living world, its inhabitants forcibly reshaped into game pieces against their will. Some of them were students,From the Dark Lord Academy, their own classmates, torn from their own universes they were conquering and trapped within the board as silent figures of war.
Ava's team was not among them.
The Dimension Ascension had not reached the school grounds.
"I don't have time for games," Ava said, voice tight with fury. "My friends are out there. They need my help."
He looked across the board, disgust etched into his expression.
"What is wrong with you? Is everything just a game to you?" His gaze swept over the pieces. "People aren't pawns you get to erase. This isn't a board where you decide the rules just so you can destroy it whenever you feel like it."
Nullius's smile widened.
"Let's see who's the better strategist," Nullius said, laughing softly. "You wanted to embarrass me in front of my father? I'll prove I'm the superior general."
His laughter deepened, echoing across the board.
"Life is a game," he continued. "And I decide the rules. If I don't like how it's going, I erase the game."
His smile sharpened.
"Game over."
His voice hardened.
"Loser dies. Erased from reality. Anyone who tries to quit also dies. The rules are set."
Ava tried to move.
He couldn't.
He was locked in place by the game itself.
I don't want to risk erasure, Ava thought. I might survive… but there's no reason to gamble. I can beat him here.
He exhaled slowly.
Ava and Nullius began to play.
Each move reshaped existence.
With every piece shifted, planets were relocated. Decisions rewritten. Lives displaced. Worlds rose and fell with the slide of a single square.
Nullius moved first.
Monsters from his inner universe surged across the board, descending upon worlds like conquering gods. Planets burned. Civilizations collapsed. His forces carved a brutal path toward Ava's king, erasing resistance as they advanced.
Ava responded.
Higher-Dimensional Cards activated across his side of the board. Seven-dimensional entities manifested, stabilizing fractured realities, reclaiming lost worlds. His warriors countered each assault with precision, undoing destruction where they could and cutting down Nullius's champions where they could not.
At their head stood the Magician Warrior.
Each clash was final.
When a piece fell, it vanished from the board completely. No retreat. No resurrection. Worlds universes that lost their place in the game never returned. Entire planets, people, and even students were erased mid-move, their existences reduced to nothing more than failed strategies.
The game became a race.
Nullius pressed forward aggressively, sacrificing worlds without hesitation. Ava answered with careful positioning, layered traps, and calculated sacrifices. His strategies tightened. His formations closed in.
Slowly, inevitably, the Magician Warrior advanced.
Nullius's confidence cracked.
"No," he muttered, fingers trembling over the board. "Why… why aren't my strategies working?"
He snarled, shoving another wave of soldiers forward. Fleets collided. Entire universes blinked out of existence as pieces vanished one after another.
Still, the Magician Warrior broke through.
With a final move, the blade plunged forward.
The Magician Warrior stabbed through Nullius's king.
Nullius screamed.
"No!"
The board convulsed.
Rules unraveled. The game tried to correct itself, tried to erase the loser, to resolve the outcome as it was designed to do.
But it failed.
Nullius stood untouched, white eraser energy flaring around his body. His own power rejected the erasure. The game could not claim him.
The chessboard shattered into light.
Reality rushed back in.
They returned to their normal sizes as the universe stabilized around them, though not all of it returned. Some worlds were gone forever. Planets. People. Students. Classmates. Teammates. Entire lives erased during the match, never restored.
Nullius staggered back, breathing hard, eyes burning.
"It's not over!" he screamed. "The game's not over! You may have won mentally, but you're still weaker than me!"
He surged forward, eraser energy engulfing his arm as he fired it straight at Ava.
Ava barely stood. His body was bruised, his energy nearly gone.
"Chaos Counter!" he roared.
A warped, chaotic reflection of eraser energy erupted from his hand, colliding head-on with Nullius's attack. The force amplified violently, cascading beyond limits. The counter multiplied endlessly.
The blast tore through Nullius's strike and ripped into his arm.
Four fingers vanished.
Nullius barely pulled back in time, staring at his hand in shock.
"Impossible," he whispered. "My eraser energy… it shouldn't work on me"
Then he smiled.
White light surged, and his fingers regrew as if nothing had happened.
Ava dropped into a fighting stance, breathing hard.
Then the space behind Nullius shifted.
Khepri appeared first, still massive, holding Lilith in his grasp. She was unconscious, battered, barely breathing.
Gula emerged next, her coffin floating beside her. Vesperos lay atop it, motionless.
Rakshasas stepped forward last.
Star hung over his shoulder.
Lifeless.
Ava screamed.
"No!"
Nullius laughed, the sound echoing with cruel satisfaction.
"Looks like your team lost," he said. "And it's all your fault."
He stepped aside, gesturing to them.
"All you had to do was give up the Hypercube. Let us win. Let them live."
Ava's hands shook.
He pulled out the Hypercube.
"Take it," Ava shouted, hurling it forward. "I don't care. Just let them go!"
Nullius caught it effortlessly and handed it off to one of his teammates.
Then he looked back at Ava, smiling.
"It's too late," he said calmly. "I want to watch them disappear."
His eyes locked onto Ava's.
"I want to erase them… and hear you scream."
Nullius turned his gaze to Gula and smiled.
"Put them in a cage," he said calmly. "Let's do this one by one. Let's make it a game."
Gula raised her spellbook. Her hands moved in precise, silent signs.
Reality folded.
A cage formed.
One by one, the captured members were sealed inside, Star, Lilith, Vesperos. The moment the bars locked into place, they jolted awake.
Panic erupted.
They slammed against the cage, fists and magic striking the bars again and again, but their powers barely responded. Energy flickered weakly, drained almost to nothing, their voices overlapping in panic.
Vesperos, bruised and bloodied, staggered forward and beat against the cage with everything he had, teeth clenched as he tried to force it open.
Lilith joined him, striking the bars, her strength faltering but her resolve unbroken.
Star pressed her hands against the cage, golden light flaring briefly before sputtering out. Her eyes narrowed as she felt the resistance push back.
"It's reinforced," she said urgently. "This cage… it has magical properties."
Then she saw him.
"Ava!" she screamed.
Her breath caught when she saw his condition, blood streaking his face, his body barely holding itself together.
"Just run!" she shouted, desperation tearing into her voice. "They're too strong! Please just run!"
Ava staggered forward, each step a struggle just to stay upright.
"No!" he roared, forcing his body to obey as he lunged toward the cage. Blood spilled from his mouth as he moved. "Let them go!"
His eyes locked onto Star.
"Star, I'm coming," he shouted hoarsely. "I'm not leaving you!"
Nullius didn't raise his voice. He didn't need to.
He gave a single, subtle nod.
His team moved at once.
Gula caught Ava from the left, her grip locking around him like iron. Rakshasas seized his right side, wrenching him back. Ava struggled, muscles screaming, but his strength was gone. His body was already failing him.
Then Khepri stepped in.
In his colossal, planetary form, Khepri drew back his fist.
The blow landed.
With controlled force, with terrifying precision.
Khepri condensed the power of collapsing universes into a single strike, compressing it through Gentle Fist, forcing devastation inward rather than outward.
Ava's face snapped sideways.
Blood burst from his mouth.
Once.
The second punch drove into him before he could recover, the force imploding through his skull and spine. More blood spilled, splattering the void as his vision fractured.
Again.
The third blow crushed what little strength he had left. Ava's body went limp in their grasp, blood pouring freely from his mouth as if his insides were coming apart.
Inside the cage, his friends screamed.
"STOP!"
"PLEASE!"
"Ava!"
Their voices cut deeper than the blows.
Ava tried to lift his head. Tried to speak. Blood spilled down his chin instead.
Nullius raised a hand.
The violence stopped instantly.
"I want him to watch," Nullius said softly.
The cage began to open.
Nullius reached inside and grabbed Star by the hair, dragging her out as the others clawed desperately at the bars. The cage twisted, reshaping itself to keep them trapped.
Star struggled weakly in his grasp.
"Let me go," she cried. "Please… stop!"
White eraser energy gathered around Nullius's hand as he raised it toward her face, the air thinning as existence began to recoil.
Ava screamed.
"Let her go!"
For a single, unbearable moment, his mind betrayed him.
He saw Star dying.
He felt the same helpless agony tearing through his chest. The same terror. The same rage. The memory crashed into him all at once. The day his sister had almost died. The day his family was attacked. The day he learned what it meant to be too weak to protect the people he loved.
His heart shattered under the weight of it.
Something inside him broke.
The chaos erupted.
No restraint.
No suppression.
The Shinma of Chaos awakened.
The Chaos Beast was free.
Not the controlled purple. Not the tempered gold.
Pure, corrupted chaos exploded outward, red and black, violent and absolute. Black Lotus energy surged with it, tearing through space like a scream made manifest.
Gula and Rakshasas were blasted away. Khepri staggered back under the force.
The Chaos Mouth tore open.
Teeth emerged, Sharp, Endless.
Chaos phenomenon energy poured from it, spreading decay across the battlefield.
Ava's wings expanded, massive and absolute. His muscles swelled as his body stretched beyond human limits. He had stood at six feet three inches, but now his frame surged upward, his presence towering as his height grew to seven feet.
His Black Lotus armor disintegrated.
In its place, cloth formed, woven from raw chaos itself. Red and gold fabric rippling with power.
His body was no longer human.
It was the true form of a Shinma of Chaos.
His golden eyes burned brighter than stars.
The chaos spread.
Not like fire. Not like energy.
The Chaos Phenomenon leaked outward across space and time, seeping into everything that existed nearby. This was not energy in any physical sense. It could not be absorbed, redirected, or interacted with by permission or will. It was only energy in the sense of work the act of undoing, consuming, and corrupting what reality assumed to be stable.
It devoured phenomena themselves.
Magic faltered and died. External power sources collapsed instantly, severed from their users as if they had never existed. Spells unraveled mid-structure. Constructs failed. Only abilities that were truly innate self-owned, born of the being itself remained functional within the spreading field.
Everything else was poisoned.
Not with toxins, but with godly, demonic decay.
It was a metaphysical rot that did not merely corrode matter, but leaked into causality, structure, and meaning themselves. Wherever the Chaos Phenomenon touched, existence began to wither events unraveling, laws forgetting themselves, purposes collapsing into silence.
The decay did not stop at reality.
It seeped into the narrative, erasing cause-and-effect as if scenes had never been written. It bled into the meta, where continuity fractured and outcomes lost the authority to exist. Even beyond that past observation, past description things simply failed to remain true.
What vanished was not destroyed.
It was fed back, stripped of identity, memory, and coherence, returned to the Shinma of Chaos as raw, unanchored existence proof that even the act of telling the story was not immune.
Even the story of the world began to fray.
The cage trembled.
Its enchantments screamed as they were consumed. The magic holding it together dissolved, not dispelled, not broken devoured. The structure disintegrated into nothingness as the Chaos Phenomenon Field swallowed it whole.
Nullius turned just in time.
Star and the others were free.
She moved on instinct.
Her fist slammed into Nullius's face, the impact sending him flying across the battlefield before he could react.
Star, Lilith, and Vesperos regrouped, barely able to stand. They stared at Ava in a mixture of horror and awe as his transformation stabilized, the chaos still bleeding outward from him.
A tear slid down Star's cheek.
She could feel it now.
The pain running through his body.
The cost of what he had become.
"This… this is what he told me about," she whispered. "The form he didn't want to use. Ava… please. No."
She tried to fly toward him.
Vesperos stood frozen. "He's… a monster."
Lilith's eyes shone.
"Yes," she said quietly. "That's the energy I felt. The potential he's been holding back." A faint smile touched her lips. "He really is inexorable."
Ava's transformation stabilized.
But his mind did not.
The chaos hunger consumed him.
He screamed as power surged again, the Chaos Mouth howling with boundless appetite.
Black and red energy erupted outward, not spreading so much as imposing itself, tearing through realms as if distance no longer applied.
The Hyperverse shook.
Shockwaves rippled through its totality, his presence reaching the outer layers of this hyperverse, where reality thinned and structure gave way to abstraction. The impact did not stop at existence alone.
It bled into the narrative.
It cracked the meta.
The Outer Gods became aware.
Not by sight.
Not by sound.
But by pressure an undeniable disturbance where none should exist. A weight pressing against their domain, announcing the Shinma of Chaos without intention or restraint.
Ava was no longer aware.
Decay spread. Reality warped.
He seized the Black Lotus Sword and drove it straight into the Chaos Mouth.
Black and red energy erupted violently, pouring from the blade and the maw alike. Reality twisted. Space screamed.
Then, with both hands, Ava pulled the weapon free.
It was no longer a sword.
It split into two blades.
Each bled chaos phenomenon energy and chaos hunger. Black metal veined with red lightning. Smoke coiled around them like living breath.
At the center of each blade opened a golden eye, identical to Ava's own.
Watching.
Waiting.
And hungry.
Star flew toward him.
"Ava!" she screamed. "Please I'm coming. Just calm down!"
Reality warped around her as she pushed forward. Space twisted, pressure collapsing inward. She began to cough violently, her body rebelling against the environment. Her skin started to peel, eaten away by the Chaos Phenomenon Field. Even here, in the vacuum of space, it didn't matter. The field wasn't bound by air or matter.
It seeped deeper than that.
It bled into the meta itself.
Ava hovered in place, barely conscious, the Black Lotus Chaos blades hanging limply in his hands.
"Get away from me," he rasped. "Star… please. I can't control myself."
His eyes burned brighter, more fractured. More chaotic.
Lilith felt it immediately.
Her wounds began to heal, strength flooding back into her body as Ava's presence affected her existence directly. Speed surged through her veins. She moved without hesitation, grabbing Star mid-flight.
Lilith coughed hard as red decay crept across her body.
"We need to leave," she said through clenched teeth. "Whatever is coming out of him it's destroying everything. You have to listen to him."
Star shoved against her.
"I'm not leaving him!" she cried. "He told me about this. He told me how hard it is to control himself every day. If he lets loose… he could lose himself forever." Her voice broke. "If this is the last time I see him, I'm not letting it end with us fighting. The last thing I said to him was that I hated him."
She rushed forward again, coughing, her body decaying.
Lilith caught her once more.
"No," Lilith said firmly.
With her rejuvenated strength, she pulled Star away and shot toward Vesperos, who was still bruised and struggling to stand.
"Come on," Lilith said, gripping him. "We wait. We can't be near this field. Not now."
Behind them, Nullius recovered from Star's punch, wiping blood from his face as he stared at Ava.
Floating.
Silent.
Blades dripping chaos.
He smiled.
"So," Nullius said casually, resting a hand on his sword. "Another transformation. A little more dramatic this time. New clothes. New weapons." He chuckled. "Was that supposed to scare me?"
His teammates gathered beside him.
Khepri narrowed his eyes. "Who is that? Is that even the same person?"
Rakshasas cracked his neck, half his body still burned. "I don't care how strong he is. His little girlfriend burned half of me away. I'm punching him through time."
Gula said nothing.
She coughed softly.
Red decay spilled from her lips.
The rest of the crew began coughing as well.
Nullius glanced at them, then back at Ava.
"Let's finish him," he said.
They charged.
The Shinma of Chaos did not move.
He floated there, unconscious, blades hanging at his sides, the Chaos Mouth open as the Chaos Phenomenon continued to leak outward.
Rakshasas reached him first.
All four of his arms struck at once.
The blows hammered into the Shinma of Chaos again and again, each punch condensed with impossible precision. Shockwaves rippled outward, tearing across universes as Ava's body was driven back through space, battered without resistance.
Gula slipped behind him.
She raised her spellbook and began signing.
Nothing happened.
Her eyes widened. The pages lay dead in her hands.
No magic.
She grit her teeth and switched instantly, channeling power directly into her coffin. Innate energy surged from it, unbound by spells, and she fired.
The blast detonated against the Shinma, exploding with catastrophic force. The devastation was compressed inward through Gentle Fist, preventing the blast from spilling outward as it hurled him farther into the void.
Then Khepri arrived.
In his massive form, he spun as he descended, his fists rotating like a living drill. Sand and pressure wrapped around his arms as he struck, punches designed to bore through reality itself.
The blows didn't pierce Ava's skin.
But they launched him away like a projectile, space collapsing behind him.
Nullius hovered near his team, watching coldly.
"Let's finish this with one move," he said. "I want him erased. No dodging. No escape."
He turned to Rakshasas. "Do it. The special move."
Rakshasas nodded.
In a blur of irrelevant speed, he grabbed the Shinma and ran.
He tore through universe after universe, carrying Ava across a thousand realities in moments, then released him, leaving the unconscious form drifting alone at the edge of existence of one of those universes.
Rakshasas returned just as quickly.
They regrouped.
All of them began gathering power.
Nullius drew in eraser energy without restraint, white light flooding his form.
"Use everything," he ordered. "I want him gone."
Khepri spoke evenly, even as his power surged. "We contain it. Gentle Fist only. If this blast spreads, the entire infinite mortal realm collapses. The school will notice." His gaze hardened. "And if we destroy too much, we'll all be in serious trouble. Worse, if eraser energy touches us, we're gone. So contain it, Nullius."
Nullius smirked. "I know."
Their energies aligned.
The blast fired.
The blast tore through countless universes in an instant, converging on the Shinma of Chaos. The explosion bloomed vast enough to annihilate a single infinite multiverse yet folded inward, perfectly contained.
When the light finally faded, they hovered there, breathing heavily.
Nullius stared into the emptiness where Ava had been.
"He's definitely dead now."
Thousands of universes away, something hovered in nothingness.
The blast had struck the Shinma directly.
It left no mark.
No wound.
No damage.
The Chaos Phenomenon continued to leak from his body, absorbing without resistance. Consuming phenomena themselves. The second factor activated fully devourment without distinction.
Slowly, he moved.
The Chaos Mouth screamed.
His mind could barely be called conscious. There were no thoughts. No memories. Only hunger.
Boundless hunger and consumption, Chaos. Searching.
Golden eyes flared brighter than ever, scanning existence itself. In this form, he could see life strings more clearly than before countless threads stretching through existence and nonexistence alike.
Food.
Then he saw them.
The life strings of Team Takeover.
With a single flap of his wings, he vanished.
Time and space collapsed behind him.
In less than a moment, he was there.
He hovered before them, wings spreading, Chaos Mouth growling, twin blades hanging at his sides.
Nullius staggered back.
"Impossible," he breathed. "How did you survive that?"
Rakshasas snarled. "Don't worry, boss. I'll handle this. He's annoying me."
He vanished at irrelevant speed.
His fist slammed into the Shinma's face.
Nothing happened.
No damage.
No reaction.
The Shinma caught his arm.
Rakshasas screamed as his limb bent backward unnaturally. His other arms struck again and again.
Still nothing.
The Shinma moved.
One blade pierced through Rakshasas, Chaos Phenomenon flooding the wound.
Rakshasas screamed, eyes wide as he looked down.
The Chaos Mouth opened wider.
Golden life strings burst outward, wrapping around him, pulling him closer.
Before the Shinma could finish consuming him, Khepri appeared.
One of his massive pyramids launched forward like a celestial projectile, slamming into the Shinma and sending him flying. The force tore Rakshasas free, the last threads of consumption letting go just before he vanished.
Khepri surged forward immediately, compressing the distance with pure momentum.
The Shinma met him head-on, blade raised.
They collided in the same instant.
With the weapon still clenched in his hand, the Shinma twisted his body and drove a savage uppercut into Khepri's face, the impact detonating through space as both forces crashed together. Reality splintered at the point of contact, a visible fracture spreading outward as Khepri was launched back, tumbling through the void.
As he flew, the fusion broke.
Khepri defused from Scarab beetle, the merged form peeling apart into its true components as his massive size collapsed back into his regular body. Power bled off him in sheets, and the transformed bulk shrank away like it had been forcibly canceled.
Khepri kept spinning.
His scarab beetle was right beside him.
The Shinma watched him defuse.
Chaos blades unfolded along his arm, life strings threading through them, binding life strings and phenomenon into a single, living weapon. With a violent motion, he hurled the blade at Khepri.
Life strings surged from the Shinma, extending the weapon mid-flight like a living tether.
Khepri saw the blade coming and panic surged through him. There was no time to dodge. He threw his arms up and braced, preparing to take the strike head-on.
Before the moment could end
Nullius intervened.
The space in front of Khepri was erased outright, forcing him to shift just in time as the Chaos Phenomenon blade passed through the absence where he had been.
It missed.
But the blade reacted.
Guided by the life strings, it twisted mid-motion, correcting itself. The tether wrapped around Khepri, coiling tight.
The Shinma began pulling him in.
Dragging him toward Chaos Mouth.
Khepri screamed as his energy was siphoned away, his form shrinking rapidly. Flesh tightened against bone. His body withered, collapsing inward as he began to resemble a living skeleton, inch by inch.
Nullius roared.
"Get off of him!"
Eraser energy detonated outward, slamming into the Shinma and blasting him away, hurling him toward a distant planet.
Mid-flight, the Shinma stopped himself with a single wingbeat.
He turned.
And slowly flew back toward them.
More Chaos Phenomenon leaked from him.
Red decay spread across their bodies. Chaos poison seeped into flesh and form alike. Strength drained. Structures weakened. Red dust flaked from their skin as existence itself began to fail them.
The Shinma floated in the void, his body rigid as he threw his head back and screamed.
"Devour."
Chaos Phenomenon detonated outward from him in a violent surge, and from the Chaos Mouth on his body, golden life strings erupted in every direction, unfurling like living veins across the darkness of space. They spread faster and farther with each passing instant, forcing Team Game Over to scatter and dodge as the threads carved through the battlefield without slowing.
The team evaded desperately, but the life strings did not stop.
They continued forward, piercing the distance between stars until a single strand reached a distant planet. The moment it made contact, the thread split, branching into two more, then four, then countless others, spreading across the world's surface like an infection.
Cities were touched first. Cars were snatched from roads. Animals were caught mid-motion. People going about ordinary lives looked up in confusion just in time to see golden threads coil around their bodies. The life strings tightened, and one by one they began to dissolve, their forms breaking apart into red dust as their existence was converted into Chaos Phenomenon energy.
They were not erased.
They were devoured.
The strings absorbed everything and moved on, spreading across oceans and continents, multiplying again as the planet itself began to crumble. Entire worlds collapsed into clouds of red dust, feeding the Shinma as the life strings tore free and surged onward toward the next planet, and the next.
Team Game Over could only watch in horror as planet after planet vanished before their eyes.
"What is this?" one of them shouted. "He's destroying everything!"
Then the life strings snapped back.
They returned faster than thought, converging in an instant as golden threads wrapped around the team, coiling tightly around their bodies. Panic erupted as they struggled against the bindings.
"Get them off!"
"I can't move!"
Nullius unleashed eraser energy in a desperate attempt to sever the life strings, but the attack dissolved on contact. The threads were completely wrapped in Chaos Phenomenon energy, a living sheath that absorbed the effect before any damage could occur, leaving the life strings no damage and unbroken.
Only Rakshasas remained free, weaving desperately through the chaos as the life strings closed in around him.
"This guy's a monster," he gasped. "He doesn't even have consciousness anymore. He just devours."
He looked back at his teammates as the life strings tightened, pulling them closer to the Chaos Mouth as they screamed.
Rakshasas panicked.
"…Damn it."
He clenched his fists.
"I guess I've got no choice."
He vanished, rushing toward the Shinma at impossible speed.
"I'm dragging you through timelines!"
And he charged.
Rakshasas slammed into the Shinma of Chaos and held on.
He accelerated instantly, dragging him through space, faster and faster, until speed lost meaning. Stars stretched into lines. Reality fractured.
They tore through timelines.
Parallel worlds shattered past them as Rakshasas ran, forcing the Shinma through layers of time itself. As they crossed those fractured realities, the golden life strings recoiled, releasing the rest of Team Takeover and the planets that were being devoured.
"You're too chaotic!" Rakshasas shouted as he ran. "You're destroying everything!"
He pushed harder, ripping through timeline after timeline.
"You're not fast enough to catch me or come back. Different timelines. Different parallel worlds. You stay here!"
He let go.
The Shinma of Chaos drifted, suspended in a broken timeline.
Rakshasas vanished.
For a heartbeat, there was silence.
Then the Shinma's golden eyes flared.
They pierced through time and space.
A golden life string burst from the Chaos Mouth, ripping through dimensions themselves, latching onto Rakshasas across timelines.
With a single flap of his wings, the Shinma moved.
He returned.
Rakshasas reappeared in the primary world, stumbling back toward his team, all of them battered, decaying, barely recovering.
"Don't worry," Rakshasas said, breathless. "He's not coming back. I sent him to a completely different"
Golden life strings wrapped around his body.
Rakshasas froze.
Slowly, he turned.
The Shinma of Chaos hovered behind him.
Team Game Over fired desperately, energy blasts tearing into the Shinma. The explosions freed Rakshasas momentarily, knocking the Shinma back.
He smiled.
A wave of chaos erupted outward, striking each of them. The blast was devastating, folded inward through Gentle Fist. Not to destroy.
To consume.
They hung in space, unable to move, bodies decaying as chaos poison ate through them. Planets around them withered and collapsed.
Rakshasas was the only one still standing.
He dodged instinctively, panic gripping him.
"I need to get out of here," he gasped. "There's no beating this thing"
The Shinma raised his blade.
"Chaos Phenomenon… Thunder."
Red and black lightning tore forward.
Rakshasas dodged.
Instantly, the strike returned.
It reappeared directly in front of him and punched through his chest, leaving a hollow cavity as he collapsed.
Chaos Phenomenon Thunder was an infinity attack. A full 360 causality break. Dodging it once was meaningless. It returned through time and space to the point of evasion.
Golden life strings wrapped around Rakshasas's body.
They tightened.
They dragged him toward the Chaos Mouth.
Rakshasas screamed as his heels scraped against nothing, his body resisting while the strings pulled with patient inevitability. He clawed at them, fingers slipping, blood smearing across the glowing strands as his skin split under the pressure.
Team Takeover watched.
Frozen.
Helpless.
Eyes wide with terror.
"STOP!" someone screamed.
"No, please!" Rakshasas begged as the life strings dragged him closer, his voice cracking under the strain. "Please… stop!"
The Chaos Mouth opened.
Its teeth ignited with Dimension Ascension, each fang layered with transcendence beyond dimensional limits. To the eye, the mouth appeared to contain only a finite number of jagged teeth, but that perception was a lie. Through Dimension Ascension, every visible tooth unfolded into an infinite cascade of higher-dimensional fangs, overlapping, multiplying, and biting across all layers of existence at once, each one driven by boundless hunger.
When it bit down, it did not simply tear flesh.
It devoured through dimensions.
Rakshasas's legs were taken first. The bite erased them from below the waist in a violent rupture, blood exploding outward and scattering into the void as his scream spiked into raw agony. The life strings never slowed, never loosened, dragging the rest of his body forward without mercy.
The mouth opened again.
Another bite descended, and his torso vanished in an instant, flesh and bone crushed, consumed, and converted into Chaos Phenomenon. His scream collapsed into a wet, choking sound before cutting off entirely.
Only his head remained.
His eyes locked onto his friends, wide and shaking with terror, silently begging as the life strings pulled him the final distance.
The Chaos Mouth closed once more.
Rakshasas was swallowed completely.
He vanished.
The golden life strings surged again, snapping outward through space as they turned toward the rest of Team Game Over, tightening and advancing without pause.
They screamed.
"No. Please. Stop."
From far beyond the Chaos Phenomenon Field, Star, Lilith, and Vesperos watched in horror.
"We can't just stand here," Star said, voice breaking. "He's losing himself. He's in pain. That's not Ava. He needs help."
Vesperos shook his head. "Just being near him feels like death. I can't believe that's your teammate. He's a monster."
Lilith watched, eyes gleaming. "His power is beautiful. Inexorable. We shouldn't interfere. This form won't last forever."
"We don't know that!" Star shouted. "That's why we have to stop him now!"
She flew forward.
Vesperos tried to grab her, but Lilith stopped him. "Let her go."
Star coughed violently as she entered the field, chaos decay tearing at her body.
"Ava!" she screamed. "Please stop! I know you don't want to do this!"
The Shinma turned.
A life string lashed out, wrapping around Star, draining her essence and dragging her toward the Chaos Mouth.
Tears streamed down her face.
"Stop," she whispered. "I know you're in there. Wake up."
The Shinma hesitated.
"Ava," she said softly. "I know you can hear me. You don't want to be a monster."
His hand trembled.
"I'm sorry," Star cried. "For everything. For the fights. For the words I said. The time we had together meant everything to me."
A tear slipped from the Shinma's eye.
"Star…"
He clutched his head, screaming.
"Stop. Stop!"
His chaos form flickered. The Chaos Phenomenon Field weakened. Life strings vanished. The decay halted.
Star fell free.
Team Takeover drifted helplessly, alive but broken.
The Chaos Phenomenon subsided.
The surge of energy cut off abruptly.
The Chaos Mouth, however, remained.
Black Lotus armor reformed around Ava's body, plates knitting together as the corruption withdrew. The moment it finished, his strength gave out. He collapsed forward.
"I'm sorry," Ava whispered, tears falling freely. "When I saw you almost die… I lost control."
Star caught him before he hit the void, holding him tightly.
"It's okay," she said softly. "I'm just glad you're alive. You're back. You're yourself again."
Lilith and Vesperos descended beside them.
"I didn't think that would work," Vesperos admitted.
"Lilith said flatly. "You ruined the fun Star. He was about to kill them all for us. We need to move. We still have teammates missing."
She glanced around at the devastation. there hypercube drifted amid the wreckage. Lilith reached out, seized it, and turned.
"Come on."
Ava staggered, bruised and barely standing. "We have to find Dallas and Demeter. If something happened to him… that's on me."
Star supported his weight. "You need medical attention." She looked to Lilith and Vesperos. "You two search for the others. I'll take Ava back to the school. Team Game Over too. I won't let them die out here."
"I'm coming," Ava said immediately. "No matter what. Who's going to control the chaos if I'm not there? Who protects you if something goes wrong?"
Lilith nodded slowly. "Leave Team Game Over. I don't care what happens to them." Her eyes shifted back to Ava. "But you need a doctor. Take him back to school. We'll hunt for the others."
They turned to leave.
Behind them, Team Takeover floated in space. Broken. Injured. Helpless.
"Don't leave us here…" one of them begged.
Star turned back. "I won't. Everyone will be safe. I can heal you."
Before anyone could move
Space trembled.
Something began to open.
Multiple portals tore into existence at once. High-ranking teachers and generals emerged, voices raised, movements sharp, formations instinctively forming as they took in the destruction.
One portal flared brighter than the rest.
General Caecus stepped through.
He moved immediately, rushing to his students, eyes scanning injuries, surroundings, energy residue.
"Report," he barked. "Who caused this event?"
The space fell silent.
Ava, barely standing in Star's arms, spoke first. "It was me, sir. If there's punishment, punish me."
Caecus turned slowly.
"No one is under disciplinary action," he said firmly. "Not yet."
He gestured broadly at the ruined universes.
"However, this level of destruction is unacceptable. We have issued standing orders. Avoid uncontrolled universal-scale engagements. You conquer targets. You do not annihilate battlefields."
His voice hardened.
"Do you understand the scale of what you jeopardized?"
"Students under our command. Fellow soldiers. Your own classmates."
"You had no intelligence on how many viable worlds were present, how many were worth conquering, or which of them could have supplied forces."
"Entire populations. Assets. Resources. Potential labor."
"All erased because of reckless, uncontrolled force.
He exhaled sharply.
"This is why we train the Gentle Fist. Controlled output. Precision. Discipline."
His gaze shifted.
"The academy is now on high alert."
"This operation was compromised by reckless conduct and a complete lack of discipline."
"You released an energy signature of catastrophic magnitude during this engagement. That signal has been detected."
"The Outer Gods of this hyperverse are now aware of our presence."
He paused, letting the weight settle.
"At any moment, we could face retaliation. A full-scale incursion. An extinction-level response."
"That risk exists because of you."
"Because you abandoned control, protocol, and mission parameters."
Then he noticed Team Game Over.
"What happened to them?"
No one answered.
After a moment, Ava spoke again. "Sir. You can reprimand us later. Our teammates are missing. We intercepted a distress signal through the hypercube."
Caecus narrowed his eyes. "You believe they've been captured?"
"Yes, sir."
"We need to retrieve them. Now."
"No," Caecus said immediately. "Negative."
He folded his hands behind his back.
"We are on full alert status, the Outer Gods now aware of us. Plus twenty-four hours have elapsed. All units return to school grounds for regroup and reassessment."
Ava pushed himself away from Star. "I'm not leaving them. I'm not abandoning my friends."
Vesperos stepped forward. "I agree. My brother is still out there." His voice cracked. "I promised my mother I'd protect him."
Caecus turned on him.
"If you disobey direct orders, you will die. And your world will die with you."
The silence was absolute.
He faced Ava again.
"You are the sole representative of your planet. Are you prepared to accept the consequences of insubordination?"
He raised his arm and pointed.
"All personnel. Enter the portals. Immediate return to school grounds."
Ava stood frozen, biting his lip. His thoughts raced to his human parents. To what could happen to them at any moment.
Star took his hand.
"It's okay," she said quietly. "Just follow orders. For now. We'll find them later. Please. Calm down."
Her voice grounded him.
Lilith looked at her, anger flickering in his eyes, then fading.
One by one, they entered the portals.
Generals and teachers secured Team Game Over, administering advanced healing. Magic, technology, and medical systems activated simultaneously as the group vanished.
The battlefield was left behind.