The underground capital shook violently.
Massive chunks of stone crashed from the ceiling as darkness flooded through the opening above the station—not smoke, not shadow.
Something alive.
The colossal eye hovering within the black mass slowly rotated downward, focusing directly on the Old King's Gate.
Everyone felt it instantly.
Not pressure.
Observation.
Like existence itself had paused to stare.
D U's expression lost all humor.
"…That," he said quietly, "is a problem."
Hyung stepped forward immediately, blade drawn.
Eris narrowed her silver eyes.
"I've never seen an Entity like this."
Caelum's face hardened.
"You haven't," he said. "Because this one predates the Doors."
The eye blinked once.
The station lights died again.
A pulse spread through the chamber.
Reality distorted.
Broken rails bent upward. Gravity shifted sideways. The edges of the station flickered like unstable film frames.
Then a voice echoed from the darkness above.
Not spoken.
Transmitted directly into their minds.
"THE HEIR HAS ENTERED THE GATE."
Hyung clenched his teeth, blood running from one ear instantly.
D U grabbed his own head.
"…Yeah," he muttered painfully. "Definitely older than the Doors."
Eris vanished from sight.
A fraction later—
she reappeared above the eye, obsidian blade descending directly toward the pupil.
Her attack phased between layers of space itself.
It should have connected.
The darkness opened.
A mouth formed beneath the eye.
And swallowed the strike whole.
Eris's eyes widened.
The Entity moved.
A tendril of black mass exploded upward, smashing into her midsection and launching her through three support pillars.
The station shook again.
Hyung moved instantly, leaping upward with gravity distortion surrounding his blade.
"Get away from the gate!"
His strike carved through the darkness—
but the wound closed immediately.
The eye rotated slowly toward him.
"INCOMPLETE FRAGMENT."
Hyung froze for half a second.
That was enough.
The darkness struck downward.
BOOM.
Hyung crashed into the station floor hard enough to crater the entire platform beneath him.
D U clicked his tongue.
"Alright," he muttered. "Guess we're doing this."
His aura erupted outward.
Threads of distorted energy wrapped around his arms as he launched himself upward directly at the eye.
For the first time since his injury—
D U stopped holding back.
Reality warped around him as he punched forward.
The impact landed.
The eye actually shifted backward.
The entire chamber trembled.
Caelum's eyes widened slightly.
"He moved it."
The darkness reacted violently.
Dozens of black tendrils erupted outward toward D U simultaneously.
D U twisted through them with impossible movement, slipping between attacks that bent space itself.
But then—
The eye changed focus.
Not on D U.
Not on Hyung.
On the gate.
The voice echoed again.
"THE KING'S RESONANCE MUST NOT RETURN."
Caelum immediately understood.
"It's trying to destroy the gate!"
He raised one hand.
The air folded sharply.
Causality barriers formed around the entrance just as the darkness descended.
The collision shattered half the station instantly.
Caelum was thrown backward violently, coughing blood.
D U landed beside him.
"You good?"
"No."
"Cool. Same."
Inside the gate—
Null felt everything.
The shaking.
The attacks.
The Entity's presence.
The King's expression darkened immediately.
"So it found this place."
Null tightened his grip on the black blade.
"What is that thing?"
The King looked toward the endless light surrounding them.
"It is not an Entity."
Null frowned.
"Then what is it?"
For the first time—
the King hesitated.
Then he answered quietly:
"It is a Watcher."
Outside the gate, the colossal eye began opening wider.
The darkness surrounding it peeled back slowly—
revealing something massive hidden behind the veil.
Arms.
Thousands of them.
Layered endlessly beneath the black mass like buried limbs struggling to emerge.
Eris pulled herself from the rubble, blood running down her chin.
"…That thing shouldn't exist."
The Watcher's eye rotated again.
Then suddenly—
it looked upward.
Not at them.
At something above the station.
A second pressure entered the battlefield.
Cold.
Absolute.
Familiar.
D U stared upward and groaned loudly.
"You have got to be kidding me."
The darkness above split apart.
A figure descended slowly through the shattered ceiling.
Long dark coat.
Silver-black hair.
Calm expression.
Aizeno.
Behind him—
Luxion stepped down beside the collapsing debris.
And further back—
Adrax's shadows filled the skyline above the underground ruins.
Aizeno looked at the Watcher calmly.
Then at the gate.
Finally—
at Null's glowing silhouette visible faintly within the opening light.
"…So," Aizeno said softly.
"The inheritance ceremony has begun."