Aron turned at the faint sound behind him, but he didn't realize what was about to happen next.
Snap!
Before he could even process the noise, a cold force violently seized his throat from behind.
His feet were instantly ripped off the ground. The immense power didn't just strangle him; it suspended his entire body weight in mid-air. Inhuman, crushing strength squeezed the air straight out of his lungs.
"Ack—!"
The brutal grip pulverized his voice box before his brain could register the assault.
The entity didn't step toward him; it violently pulled him toward itself. Even though its arm remained still, Aron felt his body forcefully dragged closer. Distance had already been dictated by the system. The space between them didn't shrink—Aron was simply already repositioned.
He thrashed wildly, his fingers clawing desperately at the constriction. His hands passed clean through the entity's arm like cutting through a thick fog. He couldn't touch anything solid.
The moment his eyes locked onto his captor, his entire body froze in primal horror.
This wasn't a human. It wasn't even something he could classify as a monster.
It was a humanoid shape forged entirely from pure, abyssal darkness—a living void carved out of shadow itself. But its eyes were pure, blinding white. Its hollow mouth was a matching, unnatural void of white light. It loomed over him like a corrupted, distorted reaper that defied the laws of physics.
Flicker!
A glowing blue system interface violently broke the air.
[ TRIGGER EVENT : UNKNOWN ]
[ ENTITY IDENTIFIED — SOULREAVER ]
A Soulreaver.
The ambient air around the entity didn't ripple or react. It felt as though it had always existed in that exact coordinate, only now allowing itself to be perceived by a human mind.
'What... what the hell is this thing...? Where did it materialize from...?'
Aron's panicked eyes darted across the floor, searching for the King Knight. The armored monster lay completely collapsed and motionless, its life force entirely extinguished. The loop had been broken.
'The knight is dead... Then why... why isn't the retry screen triggering?!'
The horrifying realization hit his brain too late. This entity wasn't part of the trial's loop. It was the absolute consequence that came after it.
[ NEW CONDITION APPLIED ]
Loop Protection: Removed
[ NOTICE ]
Future Termination = Permanent
'Then who the hell summoned this nightmare?!'
Aron forced his muscles to override the terror. Even if victory was impossible, his soul refused to surrender without a fight.
Aron shoved against the Soulreaver's arm with everything he had.
His hand never found anything solid.
Yet something responded.
The fallen sword lying across the ruined floor suddenly trembled.
Scrrrrk—
Metal scraped against stone.
The blade shot upward as if dragged by an invisible force.
Aron instinctively caught it.
He didn't know whether it was his power or pure desperation.
He swung immediately.
Swish!
The heavy steel blade sliced straight through the Soulreaver's torso like cutting smoke. Zero resistance. Zero damage.
"What...?"
Before he could swing again, the Soulreaver's grip tightened around his windpipe. The greatsword slipped from his numb fingers, clattering loudly against the stone.
The shadow creature tilted its head slightly, its hollow white eyes drilling into Aron's soul. Then, it spoke.
Where is it...?
The words weren't delivered as a question. It already possessed the answer. The voice didn't travel through the air; it pressed directly into Aron's mind.
Aron's body went completely rigid. "What... what the hell are you talking about...?" he choked out.
The entity's white gaze flared with a chilling intensity.
"Your kind... caused this!."
A heavy, suffocating pause.
"Return it."
It wasn't a random interrogation. The Soulreaver was hunting with absolute precision. It didn't expand on its demand, but its gaze never left Aron—as if it could sense the exact signature of the artifact it had come to reclaim. It knew Aron was the one holding the trigger.
The Soulreaver hoisted Aron higher into the air, its fingers sinking deeper into his throat.
"...I... I can't breathe..."
Aron's vision began to blur. Suddenly, the creature raised its left hand, hovering its open palm inches away from the boy's face.
The exact moment the hand aligned with his eyes, a violent mutation occurred inside Aron's chest.
It wasn't a physical injury. Something infinitely deeper inside his core responded to the proximity. A sharp, unbearable pressure built behind his ribs, before violently imploding. It wasn't heat—it was the sensation of his very life force being crushed inward and dragged out of his flesh simultaneously.
"—Ah...!"
A thin, smoke-like iridescent essence tore free from Aron's chest, stretching unnaturally toward the Soulreaver's open palm. His torso arched violently, his baseline spiritual resistance failing instantly against the entity's high-tier authority.
Aron's pupils trembled to the size of needles.
'No... stop... that's my...'
His fingers clawed frantically at the shadow arm around his neck, but his motor functions were rapidly deteriorating. His chest tightened to the point of agony, his existence itself being systematically unraveled and harvested.
Bzzzzt!
[ SOUL STATUS ]
[ Integrity: Decreasing ]
[ Extraction Risk: HIGH ]
'What does the system mean...?' Aron's mind desperately calculated. The words on the interface were foreign, but his dying body understood the stakes perfectly. Something fundamental inside his genetic makeup was loosening—he was physically slipping out of his own identity.
"I... I can feel it... my soul... it's being pulled out..."
'If that essence leaves my chest... there won't even be a corpse left to bury. I will be entirely erased from reality.'
But the extraction didn't slow down. His vision fractured into darkness. His physical strength vanished. It was an agony worse than decapitation. He was being forcefully deleted from the universe.
Aron weakly extended his right arm toward the unresponsive figure beside him, his trembling hand searching for a savior.
"Mr. Zekai... please... save me..."
But Zekai remained completely motionless, a silent stone statue lost deep within the white void of his own awakening. There was no answer.
'Is there... no other way...?'
Then, like a lightning strike illuminating a dark landscape, a single memory clicked in his fading consciousness.
The Greyhaven intersection. The exact microsecond where reality had broken its chains.
The black stone cube.
He had been sprinting through the crowd, desperately trying to return Marcus's tarot box. That was when a careless pedestrian had collided with Zekai—and a heavy object had plummeted out of the coat pocket, hitting the asphalt.
A black stone card. The moment that artifact made contact with the ground, the entire world had glitched and paused.
Aron remembered the sequence with absolute clarity. His chest tightened. 'So this is it...'
It wasn't the dimension. It wasn't the palace. It was the cube. The moment that object manifested, the sky, the rules, and the monsters were unleashed. It was the primary trigger for the entire anomaly.
Zekai had asked him in the courtyard: "Do these look like they're glowing to you?"
Back then, Aron's human eyes had perceived nothing. But now, balanced on the precipice of death, his vision had mutated. He could see it clearly—the exact same faint, pulsing crimson glow radiating from his own pocket. His fingers twitched.
'The rules have shifted...'
Zekai possessed data on this artifact. He might not understand the entire, but he knew enough to manipulate it. And this shadow reaper—it was hunting for a specific target signature.
"Give it back."
Aron's eyes widened in a flash of sudden insight. 'This thing isn't tracking my energy signature. It's hunting the cube. To this monster, I am nothing more than an insect holding the prize.'
There was only one tactical move left on the board.
'If this monstrosity came to reclaim the cube... I would rather rot in hell than let it touch it.'
No matter what happened to his soul, he had to deny the enemy its prize.
Using the absolute last reserve of function left in his dying body, Aron shoved his trembling hand into his pocket. His fingers closed around the cold, heavy artifact.
He pulled the black stone cube out. His entire arm shook violently, the muscles tearing from the strain as he prepared to hurl the cube across the room toward Zekai.
The Soulreaver had already drained eighty percent of his life force. His biological systems were actively collapsing, but his resolve held ironclad.
With a final, desperate roar of intent, Aron threw the cube. His arm barely completed the motion, the kinetic force completely spent.
'...Sorry, Mr. Zekai...'
His fingers snapped closed into a fist. '...I'm leaving the rest to you.'
The black stone card left his hand—and stopped dead mid-fall.
[Tick.]
The exact same mechanical sound from the intersection echoed through the throne hall.
BOOM!
The black stone cube violently detonated with a blinding crimson light. Sharp, blood-red circuits and veins of energy rapidly spread across its carved surface, pulsating like a frantic heartbeat before erupting into the air.
Thick threads of concentrated energy shot outward. They didn't dissipate into the vacuum; they drove directly into Zekai's frozen torso.
Zekai's physical body reacted instantly, a violent tremor passing through his limbs.
"Please... wake up..." Aron whimpered, his consciousness fading into a sliver of light. "...You're my last hope, Mr. Zekai."
The artifact had responded. The black stone cube was never attuned to Aron—it was a bound weapon waiting for its true master.
The Soulreaver froze. For the first time since its manifestation, the shadow entity broke its pattern.
Its pure white gaze tore away from Aron, locking onto the glowing stone cube with an expression of absolute recognition. It had finally found what it had crossed reality itself to find.
—So... the Sovereignty rests within you.
The extraction process halted instantly. It wasn't hesitation; it was a sudden calculation of risk. For the first time, the entity exuded a heavy, suffocating wave of extreme caution.
The Soulreaver raised its left hand, invoking an unseen gravitational force to violently pull the floating stone cube into its shadow palm.
But the exact moment its dark energy touched the artifact—
Something answered.
✦ End of Chapter 17 — The One Who Woke ✦