It had been an hour since Fa Git dragged Paliv back to the Evening Glory Valley, and there was still no sign of Shotaro. No news. No updates. Nothing.
But the world itself told a different story.
The ground trembled. The wooden walls of Fa Git's hut groaned under unseen pressure. The very air in the valley carried a distant, rhythmic pulse—like the slow, deliberate heartbeat of an ancient god stirring in its slumber.
Paliv sat cross-armed, glaring at the ceiling as if it personally offended her. "This is fucking ridiculous," she muttered.
Outside, several dark elves were staring toward the mountain in the distance, their faces pale as they felt the earth quiver beneath them. Fa Git stepped out, his eyes widening at the sheer force of whatever was happening out there.
Something was still fighting. And it was loud enough to remind everyone, even ten kilometers away, that a monster walked among them.
Every dark elf in the Evening Glory Valley had their eyes locked on the distant mountain, their ears straining to catch the echoes of destruction rolling through the land. The ground trembled beneath their feet, shockwaves rippling through the valley like distant war drums. Whatever was happening out there wasn't just a battle—it was a calamity given form.
And yet, despite the sheer chaos unfolding beyond the valley, no one paid attention to the lone imperial elf hidden inside Fa Git's hut.
Not that they should.
Paliv sat with her arms crossed, back pressed against the wall, glaring at the flickering lantern as if it were responsible for everything wrong in her life. Her presence in the valley was already bad enough—an imperial elf among dark elves was like oil floating in water, unwanted, unwelcome. Even if they knew she was here, the most she'd get was some hateful glares and muttered slurs.
Still, she hated this. Hated waiting. Hated sitting in some dimly lit hut while Shotaro was off making the world shake.
Fa Git sat by the doorway, half-hidden in the shadows, his amethyst eyes flicking between the restless crowd outside and the imperial elf brooding in his hut. The entire valley was alive with murmurs—speculation, awe, and a tinge of fear woven into every whispered word. The ground beneath them trembled at uneven intervals, like the heartbeat of some slumbering giant.
The shockwaves hadn't stopped.
The mountain was still roaring.
And for once, the weight of Paliv's presence—an imperial elf among dark elves, a trespasser in enemy territory—was drowned beneath the sheer magnitude of the distant clash. No one cared about her right now. No one had the time to. And for that, Fa Git was grateful.
Somewhere, in the deepest reaches of the Drakastradorn, an old, weathered hut stood among the twisted roots of an ancient tree. Inside, the air was thick with incense, coiling in lazy spirals toward the ceiling. Lattrem, the valley's reclusive witch, sat in silence, her gnarled fingers tracing patterns in the wooden table before her.
Then, she felt it.
A pulse.
A surge of something vast, something crimson, something undeniable.
Her lips curled into a smirk.
"The boy's playing rough," she murmured, tilting her head as if listening to an unseen voice. Her gaze drifted toward the sky, now painted in unnatural hues, torn apart by the sheer force of the battle raging far beyond. The air smelled different. It reeked of raw power—power that did not belong to elves, nor men, but to something far more... disruptive.
Far across the land, inside the towering spires of the Green Tower, Queen Mellirion reclined in her lavish chamber, fingers idly swirling the wine in her glass. The dim candlelight reflected off its surface, deep and crimson like freshly spilled blood.
Then, the vibrations started.
First, a subtle tremor in her fingertips.
Then, the glass itself trembled, ripples distorting the reflection.
Then—
CRACK.
The entire floor quaked.
Her chair tipped backward, and the next thing she knew, the Queen of the Elves was on the ground, her wine splattered across the marble, her breath caught in her throat.
For the first time in a long, long while, Mellirion's magenta eyes widened with something dangerously close to unease.
This… this was not the work of any god.
This was something else entirely.
"Kalki!!!!!"
The mountain itself seemed to bellow as the Penetrator lunged, its lance tearing through the fabric of reality itself, carving through causality as though past, present, and future were nothing but thin veils to be pierced. Shotaro met it in the sky, Alakshmi's edge ringing against the cursed weapon, a shockwave bursting outward from the collision. The impact split the clouds, the sheer force sending ripples through the atmosphere.
Shotaro gritted his teeth, locking blades with the unrelenting force of metal and myth. He barely had a moment to react before the armor surged forward again, its attacks relentless, endless, and inevitable.
"Enough of you," Shotaro growled, eyes igniting.
Twin beams of concentrated heat burst from his crimson irises, slamming into the ancient steel with enough force to melt mountains. The entire peak was bathed in searing light, a roaring explosion swallowing the battlefield in blinding radiance. The air warped, the ground hissed, molten slag dripping from the armor's frame—
Yet it still stood. Unshaken. Unrelenting.
"Haaah..." Shotaro exhaled, rolling his shoulders, feeling the weight settling into his bones. "Dammit... I'm running out of will."
His stance wavered for just a moment. Just enough for realization to hit.
The Penetrator didn't breathe. Didn't tire. Didn't bleed. It wasn't flesh or soul—it was an existence given purpose, a husk driven by something far beyond mortal constraints. It had infinite stamina.
Shotaro clicked his tongue, a sharp, annoyed sound lost beneath the deafening echoes of their battle. The earth beneath them had long since crumbled, reduced to dust from the sheer magnitude of their exchange. Shockwaves from their clashes had reshaped the landscape itself—mountains trembled, trees were ripped from their roots, and the sky darkened with the aftershocks of something beyond mortal comprehension.
"This is some bullshit," he muttered under his breath.
Across from him, the Penetrator stood unmoving, its monstrous frame radiating an oppressive, suffocating aura. The ancient armor, long since abandoned by any mortal soul, pulsed with something deeper than mere hostility. Its rusted metal, covered in scars of countless battles, gleamed under the fractured sky. Its lance—a twisted, jagged weapon that defied all natural design—seemed to breathe, shifting slightly as if eager for blood.
Then, it moved.
"KALKI!!!"
The voice erupted from within the armor, a guttural, otherworldly cry that didn't belong in this world. It wasn't speech. It was a decree. A truth woven into the very fabric of the universe, calling out a name that shouldn't be known.
Shotaro's crimson eyes narrowed, his grip tightening around Alakshmi. His muscles coiled, his stance solid despite the crumbling battlefield beneath him. He had already parried this thing's attacks before—barely. And every time, he had felt it. That eerie sensation of his opponent's strikes arriving before they were even thrown, before the intention to swing had even formed.
"Your attacks…" he exhaled, steadying his breath. "They don't just ignore distance. They arrive before they exist."
A realization had begun to dawn on him as they fought. The Penetrator wasn't simply fast—it transcended causality & the very concept of speed. It didn't just swing its weapon and watch the blow connect. No, its strikes were written into reality before it even moved, as if the world itself conspired to ensure every attack would land.
A monster that rewrote fate in real time.
Shotaro exhaled sharply, his heart pounding against his ribs. Even for him, this was a problem. He was used to dealing with the absurd, the impossible—but this was on another level.
The Penetrator lunged again.
Shotaro barely managed to raise his blade before the lance struck, the impact sending a seismic explosion across the battlefield. The sheer force shattered the sound barrier, sending shockwaves cascading for miles in every direction. Trees bent backward from the sheer pressure. The very air seemed to scream as it was forced aside.
And then—the sky cracked open.
A rift.
A jagged, twisting gash in reality itself, stretching across the heavens like an open wound. It wasn't just a tear in space—it was something deeper. An opening into the null space, the void beyond existence where time, matter, and logic collapsed into absolute nothingness.
Shotaro felt it instantly. That pull. That raw, hungry emptiness was dragging at his body.
A void where nothing returns.
The Penetrator lunged again, its lance cutting through the air like a falling star. Shotaro's instincts screamed at him—move.
But instead, he did the opposite.
He reached out.
With a burst of speed that shattered the ground beneath him, he grabbed hold of the Penetrator's massive, armored frame. His fingers clenched into the cold, unyielding metal as his muscles flexed, locking in place.
And then—he leapt.
Straight into the abyss.
The null space was a non-orientable, non-Hausdorff manifold beyond the grasp of any mathematical structure—an entity with no definable topology, no describable cardinality, and no coherent set-theoretic representation. It was a singularity in the fabric of conceptual thought, a construct that existed outside the expressive power of formal systems. No function mapped onto it, no differential geometry could chart its structure, and no logical framework could provide an axiom schema for its properties. It was not merely undefined—it was undefinable.
If True Infinity in set theory was the absolute totality of all possible magnitudes, a hierarchy of ever-ascending cardinalities that surpassed any finite or even transfinite enumeration, then the null space was its perfect antithesis—a hypernegative manifold where cardinality collapsed, where the very notion of "quantity" disintegrated into meaninglessness. It did not represent zero, nor did it imply negation, for even those were mathematical descriptors. Instead, it was the complete rejection of any describable state—a topological abyss whose fundamental group could not be computed because it had no intrinsic points of reference.
It was neither a vacuum nor a mere absence but an excision from existence itself. In standard topology, every space has a boundary, even at infinity. But null space had no boundary, no interior, no exterior—it was a completely disjoint entity from all conceivable mathematical spaces. It was a manifold that violated every assumption of smoothness, compactness, and differentiability, existing as a pathological construct where no metric could be defined, no vector space could be embedded, and no field could extend.
Even the most exotic manifolds in standard physics—Calabi-Yau spaces, Lorentzian wormholes, exotic spheres—still adhered to some form of mathematical rigor, whether Riemannian, pseudo-Riemannian, or even symplectic structures. But null space rejected even these. It was a dimensionless, contextless topological singularity where causality and locality ceased to have operational meaning. Here, past and future were not merely intertwined—they were annihilated, rendered meaningless by the sheer negation of temporal order. Distance was not compressed or stretched—it had never existed to begin with. Motion, defined as a change in position over time, became a paradox in a space where neither "position" nor "time" could be assigned any value.
Even the act of conceptualizing null space risked unraveling cognition itself. Thoughts, which relied on neural structures existing within a bounded causal framework, found no purchase in this void. There were no cognitive landmarks, no underlying structures upon which to base an internal model of reality. Here, the very process of thinking became a contradiction, swallowed whole by a silence that was deeper than absence—a silence that was not silence because even the potential for sound had been negated.
To an outside observer, null space could not be perceived—it did not reflect light, nor did it absorb it. It did not distort gravity, nor did it possess any measurable energy density. It was a gaping flaw in the fabric of conceptual reality, a non-orientable non-manifold that existed as a shadow not of darkness, but of the absence of light itself.
The null space remained a paradox, neither rejecting nor accepting the battle that should not have existed within it. An immaterial abyss where nothing could be defined, where neither time nor distance held meaning, where logic itself failed to take root—yet two beings stood their ground, locked in a contest of absolute persistence.
Shotaro's breath was slow, controlled, yet he could feel the weight pressing on his very being. The Penetrator's lance had already landed, was landing, and would always be landing in every conceivable moment. It was an attack that did not rely on motion, force, or speed—it simply declared that it had struck. And because that reality existed somewhere, the rest of existence had no choice but to comply.
Shotaro gritted his teeth. If he had been bound by fate, by sequence, by causality itself, he would have been struck down before he even knew the battle had begun. His body would have already split in two, the moment of death written into reality itself, immutable and inevitable.
But he wasn't bound by those things.
He had never been.
Even before he had entered this world, even before he had taken his first breath, his existence had been singular—unaffected by time travel, impervious to erasure, standing outside the branching paths of possibility. No alternate versions, no parallel selves. Shotaro Mugiwara was a constant in a multiverse that should have demanded variations.
And that singularity was the only thing keeping him alive.
The Penetrator stepped forward, raising its lance, and the attack was already in motion before Shotaro even registered it. The clash had already been decided. The strike had already connected. The knight's will had already spread into the framework of reality, rewriting it so that the blow had always landed.
Shotaro moved.
Or rather, he refused to be written into that outcome.
His katana, Alakshmi, screeched against the lance, intercepting a blow that had already happened. It was a paradox—a contest of wills between two absolute forces, each rejecting the other's existence in that moment. The Penetrator's lance dictated that the attack had landed. Shotaro's mantra dictated that it had not.
The null space convulsed, as if rejecting both outcomes.
Shotaro clicked his tongue. "This is some bullshit."
His stance shifted, and he moved—not through space, not through time, but through something deeper. A rejection of outcomes, a denial of conclusions. He seized the armor by the wrist, fingers digging into the cold, unyielding metal, and yanked it into the abyss with him.
The rift in space-time that had led them here still lingered, its edges flickering, threatening to expand. Shotaro's crimson gaze flickered toward it. If this thing was allowed to spread into the main reality, it would consume everything, erasing the very foundation of existence.
Shotaro exhaled sharply.
And then, without hesitation, he heat-visioned the rift itself to close it before the null space devoures Drakastradorn.
His burning gaze crashed against the unstable fabric of space-time, not as an attack, not as destruction, but as an absolute act of will. The laws of the world did not dictate this action. The structure of reality did not accept it.
But Shotaro did not care.
If existence wanted to collapse, then it could deal with him first.
The rift shuddered, resisting, before finally sealing itself shut.
And so, the battle continued.
Shotaro narrowed his crimson eyes, the sheer absurdity of the situation pressing against his mind like a bad headache. His katana, Alakshmi, still vibrated from the last impact, the force of the Penetrator's will sending shudders through even the nothingness surrounding them.
The null space should have erased everything.
That was its fundamental truth.
Causality, time, sequence—all of these concepts should have collapsed the moment they entered this place. There was no past, no future, no action leading to reaction. A strike should not be able to land because the very notion of "landing" did not exist. An attack should not be able to be initiated because the "before" and "after" required for it did not exist.
And yet, the Penetrator ignored all of that.
It swung its lance as if space-time had never been erased. The attack had a beginning and an end, a sequence of movement that should not be possible here.
Shotaro exhaled sharply. "So you're bringing causality and time into a space like this," he said, his voice carrying through the void. "Where they should've been erased the moment you stepped in." His grip on his katana tightened. "That's some crazy-ass willpower."
The Penetrator did not hesitate.
"KALKI!!!!"
Shotaro flinched. "OKAY, I GET IT, YOU LIKE MY NAME," he snapped, his patience fraying. "NOW DON'T GO AROUND CHANTING IT LIKE SOME MANTRA!"
The armor did not respond. Or rather, it did. Just not in words.
It lunged.
Back in the Evening Glory Valley, far removed from the impossible battle raging beyond the mountains, Paliv sat cross-legged inside Fa Git's modest hut, her expression caught somewhere between irritation and reluctant acceptance. The wooden walls creaked slightly with the murmurs of the wind outside, a reminder of how much darker and more humid the valley air was compared to the pristine, crisp atmosphere of the imperial elven lands. She didn't like it here. She would never like it here. But at the moment, she had little choice.
Before her was a simple wooden plate, upon which rested food that Fa Git had painstakingly gathered for her—edibles suitable for an imperial elf's metabolism. It was a crucial distinction, one she had never needed to think about before. Imperial elves and dark elves might share distant ancestry, but their biological needs had long diverged. Dark elven food was richer, denser, adapted for bodies that functioned differently in environments untouched by the radiant blessings of the higher lands. Their kind could metabolize roots, fungi, and certain meats that would make an imperial elf violently ill. Meanwhile, the food of her people, lighter yet brimming with energy from sun-nurtured plants, was nearly useless to them.
Fa Git had done well. Somehow, despite the limited resources of the valley, he had managed to scavenge together ingredients that wouldn't upset her system. She stared at the meal—a mixture of fruits, grains, and some kind of lightly cooked plant-based protein, arranged neatly in an attempt to make it more palatable.
She hesitated.
Fa Git sat across from her, feigning nonchalance, though she could tell he was watching her out of the corner of his eye. He was probably waiting to see if she would complain.
Tch. Like she'd give him the satisfaction.
With a flick of her short golden brown hair, she picked up a piece of food and took a small, careful bite. It wasn't bad.
Not that she'd say it aloud.
Before she could take another bite, the sound of hurried footsteps approached the hut. The door was pushed open with unnecessary force, rattling slightly on its hinges.
"Hey, Fa! Where the hell were you last night? I got so worried! Have you seen—"
The voice, shrill with urgency, cut off mid-sentence.
Standing at the entrance, eyes locked onto Paliv like a predator spotting its most hated prey, was Kum Slet.
Her entire body tensed, her hands curled into claws at her sides, her breathing instantly turning ragged. A single tremor ran through her frame before her expression twisted into something that could only be described as unfiltered, rabid disgust.
Kum Slet's entire body convulsed as if her very soul was rejecting the reality before her. She staggered back like she had been hit with a divine smite, her lips trembling, her fists shaking, her breath coming in sharp, erratic gasps.
"FA GIT," she hissed, her voice dripping with a rage so ancient it might as well have been passed down from her ancestors directly into her bloodstream. "FA. GIT. WHAT. THE. FUCK. IS. THAT."
Fa Git sighed, rubbing his temples. "Mother, calm down—"
"CALM DOWN?! CALM DOWN?!" Kum Slet screamed so loudly that some dark elves outside actually paused their conversations to glance toward the hut. "I HAVE LIVED THROUGH FAMINE! THROUGH CONFLICT! THROUGH THE SUN'S OPPRESSIVE, MERCILESS BLAZE UPON MY DARK ELVEN SKIN! BUT NEVER, NEVER DID I THINK I WOULD SEE THE DAY THAT MY OWN BLOOD WOULD BRING AN IMPERIAL ELF INTO MY HOME!"
Paliv took another slow bite of food, staring at her with an expression of mild amusement. "You're being a little dramatic."
Kum Slet physically recoiled like she had just been stabbed. "OH NIGHT-GODS ABOVE, IT SPEAKS!" She gripped her head, her eyes wide with sheer existential horror. "FA GIT, THIS THING HAS A VOICE! WHY DOES IT HAVE A VOICE?!"
"Because I have a throat and vocal cords?" Paliv responded dryly.
"NO. NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!" Kum Slet screamed, pointing a shaking finger at her. "IMPERIAL ELVES DO NOT SPEAK. THEY HISS. THEY ORDER. THEY SPIT COMMANDS LIKE VENOMOUS SNAKES! AND NOW—NOW IT'S IN MY HOME! EATING MY FOOD!"
She wheezed, her knees buckling. "I can't do this… I CAN'T DO THIS… I'M GETTING SUN POISONING JUST LOOKING AT HER!"
Fa Git pinched the bridge of his nose. "Mother, that's not a real thing."
"OH, IT IS NOW! YOU THINK I DON'T FEEL IT?! MY MELANIN IS WITHERING! MY BEAUTIFUL DARK ELVEN SKIN IS DYING! I CAN SMELL THE RACIAL OPPRESSION IN THE AIR!"
Paliv, now visibly annoyed, set her plate down and leaned back. "Lady, I've literally done nothing to you."
"EXACTLY!" Kum Slet pointed an accusing finger at her. "YOU EXIST! THAT'S BAD ENOUGH! DO YOU EVEN KNOW THE HISTORY OF YOUR PEOPLE?!"
Paliv sighed. "Yeah, yeah. My people oppressed your people. My ancestors were assholes. Blah, blah, blah—"
"BLAAAAAH?! BLAAAAAAH?!" Kum Slet's mouth foamed so aggressively she had to wipe it with her sleeve. "YOU THINK GENOCIDE IS JUST BLAH?! OH, NIGHT-GODS, TAKE ME NOW! STRIKE ME DOWN WHERE I STAND!"
She dramatically threw herself onto the floor, writhing like she was going through the five stages of grief at once.
Fa Git turned to Paliv, his expression flat. "You see what you've done?"
Paliv crossed her arms. "I sat here and ate food."
"EXACTLY!" Kum Slet screamed from the ground. "YOU ATE OUR DARK ELVEN FOOD! THIS IS THE START OF A NEW WAVE OF COLONIZATION! TODAY IT'S OUR MEALS, TOMORROW IT'S OUR LAND, AND THE DAY AFTER THAT, WE'RE BACK IN CHAINS!"
Fa Git groaned. "Mother, I swear to the night gods—"
"NO, NO, DON'T 'MOTHER' ME! I AM GOING TO HAVE A HEART ATTACK!" Kum Slet gripped her chest, rolling onto her side. "MY HEART CAN'T TAKE THIS!"
"Then just… don't have a heart attack?" Fa Git suggested tiredly.
"I CAN'T CONTROL IT, FA GIT! I'M TOO RACIST TO FUNCTION!"
At this point, the whole hut was shaking from the sheer force of her dramatic thrashing. Fa Git sighed, standing up and rubbing his temples. Paliv simply took another slow bite of food, watching Kum Slet foam at the mouth with mild amusement.
This was going to be the longest, most exhausting day of Fa Git's life.
Until Paliv's own racism activated & it became a racism-off, "SHUT UP FILTHY SOOT SKIN."
For a moment, there was silence. A stillness so thick, so heavy, that even the murmurs outside seemed to fade. Kum Slet, who had been in the middle of her dramatic convulsions, froze. Her fingers twitched. Her breath hitched. Her pupils dilated.
And then—
"WHAT DID YOU JUST CALL ME?" Kum Slet shot up so fast it was as if she had been hit by divine lightning.
Paliv slammed her hands on the table, rising to meet her fury with equal intensity. "I SAID—SHUT UP, FILTHY SOOT-SKIN!"
"OH, OH, OH!" Kum Slet staggered back, placing a hand over her chest like she had been mortally wounded. "OH NIGHT-GODS, I'VE BEEN STRUCK DOWN!" She turned toward Fa Git, clutching his shoulders and shaking him violently. "*FA GIT, THIS—THIS IMPERIAL PIECE OF SHIT JUST RACIAL-SLURRED ME IN MY OWN HOME!"
"Mother, please—" Fa Git tried, but it was already too late.
Kum Slet whipped around, eyes ablaze, mouth still frothing from earlier rage. "YOU DARE, YOU ARROGANT, SUN-BLESSED, FAIR-SKINNED, GENOCIDE-SPAWNED, CUMSKIN?"
Paliv snarled, leaning in with an equal fire in her emerald gaze. "Oh, I dare, soot-rat. What are you gonna do? Have a heart attack on me again?"
Kum Slet slammed her foot down so hard the entire hut trembled. "FA GIT, HOLD ME BACK. HOLD ME BACK RIGHT NOW."
Fa Git did not hold her back.
The dark elves outside began to murmur as the yelling grew louder, some peeking into the hut with intrigue. No one had ever seen an imperial elf and a dark elf go at it like this.
Paliv took a step forward, rolling her shoulders, her posture exuding all the arrogance of a noble who had been told since birth that she was superior to the masses. "*I don't take orders from your kind, shadow-crawler.**"
"YOUR KIND?!" Kum Slet's ears twitched violently, her breathing heavy. "OH, IT'S LIKE THAT, HUH? LIKE I'M SOME DIRTY LITTLE CREATURE WHO LURKS IN THE NIGHT, SCHEMING AGAINST YOUR HOLY, LIGHT-SKINNED PEOPLE?!"
"You said it, not me." Paliv smirked.
"FA GIT, GET ME A WEAPON."
"NO," Fa Git snapped, exasperated beyond belief. "Neither of you are getting a damn weapon!"
"I DON'T NEED A WEAPON, I'LL FIGHT THIS PASTY FUCK WITH MY BARE HANDS!" Kum Slet declared, cracking her knuckles.
Paliv scoffed, flipping her long, silken white hair behind her shoulder. "Oh, please, you'd break your brittle little soot-bones trying."
"SOOT-BONES?" Kum Slet grabbed a nearby chair and threw it across the room. "YOU PRIVILEGED, SUN-KISSED, ARISTOCRATIC, INBRED PIECE OF SHIT—"
"YOU SQUATTING, DARK-DWELLING, FERAL CAVE WOMAN—"
At this point, Fa Git just sat down, buried his face in his hands, and sighed so deeply it felt like his soul was escaping his body.
The crowd outside had gathered fully now, and the argument had turned into something of a public event. Bets were being made. Dark elves were whispering among themselves, some thrilled, some horrified.
Meanwhile, inside the hut, Kum Slet and Paliv had started circling each other like two wild beasts ready to lunge at the throat.
"Say it again, pastel demon."
"Oh, I'll say it again, charcoal gremlin."
Fa Git muttered under his breath. "This is my life now."
And the racism-off continued.
A sudden, violent rupture in space tore through the atmosphere. A cross-shaped portal, dark and fractured like a wound in reality itself, carved open in the air. From its gaping maw, a figure stumbled forward—shirtless, bloodied, and barely holding himself together. Shotaro Mugiwara emerged, his silver hair a tangled mess, his sun-kissed skin marred with fresh wounds and dried crimson streaks. His breathing was ragged, each inhale a struggle, each exhale carrying the weight of exhaustion beyond mortal limits. His bare torso heaved with every breath.
"Hu—huh—hah—huh—"
His fingers trembled as he forced Alakshmi, the jet-black katana he still gripped with white-knuckled intensity, back into its sheath. The blade hummed slightly, the very act of sealing it sending out a ripple through the air as if even the sword had suffered alongside him. His stance faltered, but he remained upright—barely.
"Big brother!!"
The voice that called out to him was both relieved and accusatory. Paliv, who had still been mid-racism-off with Kum Slet, completely abandoned her battle of slurs the moment she saw him. Her emerald eyes widened in shock, her arms instinctively reaching out before she caught herself. "Where the hell have you been for the last half hour?!"
Shotaro blinked. "Half an hour...?" His voice was hoarse, like sandpaper scraping against rock. He let out a breath—half a laugh, half sheer disbelief. "I was there for a whole goddamn week."
Paliv's brow furrowed. "There?"
Shotaro staggered but managed to steady himself. "The null space." His words carried a bitterness so sharp it could cut. "I was stuck in that void, fighting that stupid hunk of metal for seven straight days."
A heavy silence fell over the hut. Even Kum Slet, who just moments ago had been one insult away from lunging at Paliv, stared.
"Seven days..." Fa Git muttered, his amethyst eyes wide.
Shotaro let out a sharp breath, shaking his head. "It wasn't just fighting either." His hand clenched into a trembling fist. "I had to maintain enough willpower just to keep myself from getting erased—just to keep existing inside that godforsaken void. That space is death itself."
His crimson eyes darkened, as if he could still see the endless, suffocating abyss behind his eyelids. "No time. No space. No sound. No reality. Just pure, absolute nothing."
He let out a short, bitter chuckle. "Do you know what happens to people who enter that place unprepared?" He looked up, his expression unreadable. "They stop existing. Not even death—just... gone. Like they never were."
A chill ran through the room.
Shotaro exhaled sharply. "And then, right when I was reaching my limit, I sensed your mantra, Paliv." He placed a hand over his chest, where his heart still pounded erratically. "I sensed it all the way from that void, from across existence itself."
Paliv's breath caught in her throat.
"So I cut my way out," Shotaro continued, gesturing toward the fading cross-shaped scar in reality behind him. "Forced open an emergency exit and trapped that bastard in there—for now."*
His knees buckled, and with a heavy thud, he collapsed onto the wooden floor.
"Shotaro!!"
Paliv was by his side in an instant, her hands hovering over him as if unsure whether to shake him or let him rest. Fa Git hesitated before rushing over, while Kum Slet simply folded her arms, muttering something about "damn imperials getting all dramatic."
Shotaro lay sprawled on his back, his bare chest rising and falling with deep, exhausted breaths. His body felt like lead, his limbs refusing to move. Every muscle ached from the sheer strain of holding himself together inside that impossible void. His crimson eyes fluttered shut as he exhaled, long and slow.
"Fuck..." His voice was hoarse, drained of its usual energy. "I need a nap."
Paliv stared at him, her brows furrowed in a mix of concern and disbelief. She had seen Shotaro fight monsters, warlords, even forces that defied reason itself. She had seen him walk through hell with a grin, laugh in the face of doom, and treat impossible battles like a game.
But she had never seen him this... drained.
"Damn it," she muttered, almost to herself. "I've never seen you this tired. Ever."
Shotaro cracked one eye open, the faintest smirk tugging at the corner of his lips. "Yeah, well, turns out even I have limits." His voice was dry, laced with self-deprecating humor. But then, his smirk faded, replaced by something more contemplative.
"Paliv..." He let out a slow breath before continuing, "My powers don't work the way most people think they do."
She tilted her head slightly. "What do you mean?"
"I don't get stronger just because I trained or because my mantra levels up or whatever." Shotaro shifted slightly, wincing as his sore body protested. "My power increases depending on what exactly I have to fight. If it's something I can talk my way out of, I don't get buffed at all. Doesn't matter if it's some cosmic, world-ending entity—if there's a chance for words to resolve it, then I don't get shit."*
Paliv's eyes widened slightly. "Wait… you mean…"
"Yeah," Shotaro confirmed, staring up at the ceiling. "My power isn't just tied to my mantra levels. It's tied to my willpower. More than anything else, it's about how badly I need to win. My strength comes from necessity, not potential."
His fingers curled slightly against the floorboards. "It's why I don't just go around looking for fights. I don't train for the sake of training. I'm not some battle maniac. At my core… I'm a diplomat who just happens to swing a sword when there's no other choice."
A silence settled over them, heavy with the weight of his words.
Paliv looked at him for a long moment before scoffing, arms crossed. "A diplomat?" She raised an eyebrow. "That's rich, coming from the guy who just fought an immortal suit of armor in a void beyond existence."*
Shotaro let out a weak chuckle. "Hey, I tried to talk to him first. He just kept screaming my name like a fangirl."
Fa Git, who had been quietly listening in the corner, finally spoke up. "So what you're saying is… you only get as strong as you need to be?"
Shotaro gave him a tired thumbs-up. "Bingo."
Fa Git frowned, processing that information. "That's a scary way to exist…"
Shotaro exhaled, letting his arm drop limply to his side. "Tell me about it."
It was as if the very fabric of the narrative held him back, shaping his power in accordance with the scale of the threat he faced. If his opponent was an inconvenience, his strength remained stagnant, his abilities unremarkable. But when confronted with a true menace, something that could not be reasoned with, that existed only to destroy, his power surged in response.
Shotaro understood this better than anyone. His strength was not merely a function of mantra levels or physical prowess. It was tied to his will, his defiance, his refusal to submit. Against the inconsequential, he was no different from any other warrior. Against an insurmountable foe, he became something else entirely.
Fa Git's long, ash-colored ears twitched, picking up the subtle shift in the atmosphere. A humidity spike, a faint charge in the air—he didn't need to be a scholar to recognize the biological implications.
"Damn, it's getting moist—ah, shit." His expression darkened as his amethyst eyes flicked toward the one person he did not want reacting to this.
His mother.
Kum Slet, a widow for decades, a woman whose only companions in recent years had been her duties, her son, and her increasingly dusty bed, was staring. And not just any kind of stare. That stare.
And why wouldn't she?
A 7'11" mountain of a man had just entered her house through a glowing cross-shaped portal, shirtless, his silver hair a mess, his sculpted chest rising and falling with each labored breath. The man looked on the verge of collapse, yet somehow, even that was sexy—his wheezing was exactly "struggling for dear life" but it just made him more attractive to her.
It didn't help that every inch of him screamed prime genetics. Wide shoulders, thick forearms, a carved chest, a v-shaped torso that made it abundantly clear that the gods—or whatever cosmic forces existed—had spent extra effort crafting this particular specimen.
And Kum Slet? She was taking it all in.
Fa Git swallowed hard. "No. No, no, no, this is not happening."
She was too still. Her breath had hitched. Her pupils were dilated.
Fa Git could practically hear the gears in her head turning. Years of loneliness, decades of unmet needs, and now, this—a half-dead, impossibly built warrior collapsing onto her floor like some divine gift wrapped in exhaustion and sweat.
This is a bust.
If she started pulling out the herbal teas and offering to "take care of him," Fa Git was going to throw himself out of the nearest window.
No, seriously. There was a window right there. He could do it. He would do it.
But Kum Slet had other plans.
She crossed her arms beneath her rather imposing chest, emphasizing the sheer unfairness of genetics that had blessed her generation but completely skipped Fa Git's. Her dark elven robes, cinched at the waist, draped over wide, childbearing hips—robes that, for some reason, had a slit running dangerously high up her thigh, exposing smooth, dusky skin. Long, silver-streaked purple hair cascaded down her back, accentuating the sharp, mature allure of a woman who had aged like fine wine—and judging by the absolute hunger in her eyes, she was ready to let a certain shirtless warrior be the one to take a sip.
Well, well, she purred, voice dipped in honey and something absolutely devious.
Fa Git tensed.
"Mother... do not—"
Too late.
She turned her gaze downward, right at Shotaro, who was still sprawled out on her floor like a freshly hunted prize. His crimson eyes were half-lidded with exhaustion, his silver hair tousled and damp from the sheer effort of keeping himself from dying in the null space. His entire torso was on display—sculpted abs rising and falling with each ragged breath, broad shoulders slack against the floor, collarbones catching the dim light of the hut just right.
And Kum Slet licked her lips again.
A strong young man... stumbling into my humble home... utterly spent from battle...
Fa Git's stomach plummeted.
"Mother. No."
She ignored him, lowering herself dangerously close to Shotaro's face.
Wounded. Vulnerable. Drifting in and out of consciousness... she murmured, fingers twitching as if physically restraining herself from caressing his cheek. And yet, even now, so incredibly handsome—
Mother, stop. Fa Git's ears flattened, his entire body screaming in protest at the insane levels of secondhand embarrassment assaulting him. You're foaming at the mouth.
"Am I?" she asked breathily, completely unbothered as she daintily wiped at the corner of her lips.
Fa Git let out a strangled sound somewhere between a scream and a primal wail of despair.
Shotaro, still half-dazed, finally managed to blink himself back into awareness just enough to process the absolute chaos happening around him.
He slowly turned his head toward Fa Git.
"What... the fuck is going on?"
Nothing. Nothing is going on, Fa Git hissed through gritted teeth.
Meanwhile, Kum Slet was already reaching for the nearest ceramic tea pot, because of course she was.
Ah, but you must be so dehydrated, dear, she said smoothly, flipping into full nurturing caretaker mode—the exact same mode she used whenever trying to rope young, clueless dark elf men into her clutches. Let me make you something warm. Something soothing.
Fa Git turned to Shotaro, desperate. "Don't drink it. Don't. If you drink it, you're done".
Shotaro furrowed his brows. Huh? It's just tea.
It is not just tea, you absolute buffoon.
Kum Slet smiled.
It was a dangerous smile.
And Fa Git?
He knew his mother.
Knew her too well.
Knew that if Shotaro so much as sipped that tea, he might as well start picking out baby names.
Paliv, despite all her arrogance, despite her bratty attitude and lack of basic humility, was not an idiot. She was, in fact, terrifyingly perceptive when the situation called for it.
And the moment she saw that dark elven hag smirking, gently cradling that damned ceramic teapot like it was some ancient artifact of seduction, she knew.
She knew.
Without hesitation, she snatched the pot right out of Kum Slet's hands and yeeted it straight out of the window.
The dark elven woman blinked.
Fa Git blinked.
Shotaro, still sprawled across the floor and clinging to life, tried to blink but was too exhausted to react to whatever the hell was happening.
Paliv, meanwhile, was already shoving an absolutely massive wooden vessel of fresh, clean water into Shotaro's hands. Drink, she commanded.
Kum Slet scowled, crossing her arms beneath her frankly indecent chest. "Now, now, pale rat, that was my best tea—"
Shut up, you dried-up hag, Paliv spat, flipping her long imperial elf hair as she aggressively ignored the way Kum Slet's barely-there dark elven robes clung to her scandalous figure. "His body needs water. Not whatever poisoned trap you were about to serve him."
Poison? Kum Slet gasped, feigning offense. You think I'd such a cosmic delight
"No," Paliv said coldly. "I think you were about two minutes away from trying to ride my brother, you disgusting soot-skinned whore".
Shotaro, still barely processing reality, made a confused sound from deep in his throat.
Meanwhile, Fa Git had gone fully fetal, cradling his head in his hands as he rocked back and forth on the floor, muttering, "I hate it here, I hate it here, I hate it here…"
Ignoring all of them, Shotaro grabbed the water vessel—if "vessel" was even the right word. It was huge. Nearly the size of a fully grown Labrador, carved from thick, aged wood and reinforced with iron bands to keep it from falling apart under the sheer volume of liquid it held.
And then he chugged it.
Like an absolute madman.
The entire room fell silent as he drained the entire thing in mere seconds, his throat working as he gulped down liter after liter of water, not even stopping to breathe. Some of it spilled down his chin, dripping onto his bare chest, trailing down the hard lines of his collarbones, past the ridges of his toned abs, soaking into the floor beneath him.
Kum Slet was vibrating.
"Oh," she whispered, voice absolutely wrecked. "Oh, that's just obscene."
Paliv made a disgusted noise. "You revolting dark-skinned hag—"
Shotaro finished.
With a deep, satisfied exhale, he let the empty vessel roll to the side, collapsing back onto the floor like a man who had just reclaimed his very soul from the clutches of death.
"Fuuuuuuck", he groaned. "That's the best goddamn thing I've ever tasted."
"I could be better," Kum Slet muttered under her breath.
Paliv snapped her head toward her. "What the fuck did you just say?!"
"Nothing, snow-skinned brat," Kum Slet purred, the very picture of innocence, even as her dark elven robes conveniently slid down her shoulder, revealing just a hint more skin.
Fa Git looked ready to commit ritual suicide.
Shotaro, still sprawled out on the floor like a man who had just wrestled with the fabric of existence itself, wiped his mouth and let out a deep, guttural sigh of relief.
"Goddamn," he muttered. "I didn't even get a chance to shit in there."
His crimson eyes flickered toward Fa Git with urgency. "Where the fuck is the toilet?"
Before Fa Git could answer, Paliv, ever the unapologetic racist, scoffed. "You know, Shotaro, these people don't have toilets; they just squat in the woods like animals—"
"Oh, the toilet's in that room," Fa Git interrupted smoothly, pointing toward a wooden door with a casual flick of his wrist. "There's a water jet or toilet paper, whichever you prefer. Just don't waste too much water on the flush."
Shotaro barely heard the rest; he was already dragging his battered body toward salvation. But behind him, Paliv was frozen, her expression locked in sheer, unfiltered disbelief.
"Wait—" she choked out, emerald eyes wide as saucers. "You guys... do have functional toilets?!"
Fa Git rolled his eyes as Shotaro kicked open the door with a desperation that suggested he was about to have a religious experience. The moment he disappeared inside, the faint, muffled sound of a deep sigh—borderline euphoric—could be heard through the walls.
Meanwhile, Kum Slet, still lounging with her dark elven robes scandalously off her shoulder, smirked at Paliv's absolute bewilderment. "What, did you think we wiped with our bare hands, imperial brat?"
Paliv, for once, had no comeback.