The silence of the Quiet Woods was now broken, replaced by a different silence within the throne hall of Silverwood Spire. A silence thick with tension, pregnant with unspoken questions. Nihil stood in the center of the polished marble floor, flanked by Lyraelle on one side and Elara on the other. Across from them, Lord Elarion stood with his supporters, his face a mask of cold hatred. Above them all, seated upon her Living Wood Throne, Queen Aerwyna watched, her ancient eyes weighing the burden of a decision that would shape her people's future.

The journey back from the forest felt long. No one spoke. The elven rangers escorting them moved with tense efficiency, maintaining a safe distance from Nihil as if he were an unstable artifact that might explode at any moment. They had witnessed his judgment. They had seen him not only survive but dismantle an Ancient Forest Guardian, an entity they revered and feared, with cold, brutal logic. The outcome brought no relief; it only replaced one kind of fear with another, far deeper one.

"The trial is concluded," Queen Aerwyna's voice finally shattered the silence, echoing through the hall. "The Quiet Woods did not reject you. But it did not accept you either. It merely... observed you. As it observes a storm or an earthquake. A natural phenomenon to be wary of."

Lord Elarion stepped forward. "Your Majesty, with all due respect, that is proof enough! This 'natural phenomenon' you speak of possesses *will*! The will to survive by any means necessary! It is a recipe for disaster. He must be permanently sealed. Now."

"And I repeat, Lord Elarion," Lyraelle countered, her voice sharp, "that action would violate our most ancient laws. He faced our trial and prevailed. He is a victor. We do not seal victors."

"He did not *win*!" Elarion roared. "He merely proved he is a more efficient predator than our Guardian! That is not victory, it is a demonstration of threat!"

"Enough," the Queen said again, her tone firmer this time. The argument ceased instantly. The Queen shifted her full attention to Nihil. "You have shown us you are not pure chaos. You are logical. You are calculating. And that, in many ways, is far more disquieting."

"You have earned the right not to be treated as an enemy," she continued. "But you have not earned our trust. Therefore, this is my judgment: You shall remain within Silverwood Spire as a... ward of war. You will be provided quarters and resources, but you will not be permitted to leave. In return, you shall aid us in the war against the demons, lending your unique strength under Princess Lyraelle's command as required."

It was a gilded cage. Constrained freedom. A forced alliance.

Elarion looked dissatisfied but could not openly defy the Queen's decree. Lyraelle looked relieved, seeing this as an opportunity to study and utilize Nihil's power.

Nihil, silent until now, finally spoke. His voice was calm, but each word held weight. "I accept your terms. With one condition of my own."

Queen Aerwyna raised an eyebrow. "You are in a position to set conditions?"

"I am the asset you need for your war," Nihil replied flatly. "That grants me leverage. My condition is simple. I want unrestricted access to your deepest archives. The Grand Library. I want all texts, all scrolls, all records pertaining to the Dawn War, the Abyss, and any other anomalies like myself that may have existed."

Silence fell upon the hall once more. The request was startling. Elarion looked ready to protest vehemently, calling it espionage, but Queen Aerwyna gazed at Nihil with new understanding. He wasn't asking for gold or power. He was asking for knowledge. It was a purpose she could comprehend.

"Knowledge is a double-edged sword," the Queen said slowly. "But ignorance is a sure poison. Very well. Access shall be granted. Lord Elarion, *you* shall personally oversee it. Ensure he touches nothing irrelevant to his request."

The order was a subtle slap to Elarion—tasking him as the librarian guard for the anomaly he despised most. His face hardened, but he could only bow. "As you command, Your Majesty."

Hours later, Nihil was in his new "quarters." It was a room high in one of the smaller spires, with a balcony overlooking the entire shimmering forest city. Its walls were woven from living wood, and the furniture seemed to grow from the floor. It was beautiful, elegant, and an impregnable prison. He could feel an invisible net of magic enveloping the entire spire, ready to constrict at any sign of aggression.

Elara entered without knocking, her data tablet already active in her hand. She wasted no time on pleasantries.

"I've analyzed the data from your fight against Kael'tharr," she said, getting straight to the point. "There's a disturbing inconsistency."

Nihil waited for her to continue.

"When you fought the Abyssal Kraken, you created a Singularity Shield. A gravitational distortion capable of withstanding physical pressure equivalent to an entire fleet of ships. That was an immense expenditure of energy," she explained, her eyes sharp. "My question is, why didn't you use it against Kael'tharr? You let yourself be beaten nearly to death. You were forced to create the Zero State that destroyed your body. Why? When you had a sledgehammer in your arsenal, why did you fight with a knife instead?"

It was a question a warrior wouldn't ask. It was the question of a scientist.

Nihil looked out the window, towards the endless forest. "Because you misunderstand what the Singularity Shield is," he answered softly. "It is not a sledgehammer. It is an un-detonated nuclear warhead."

Elara froze, her fingers stopping over her tablet.

"I didn't create a shield that day," Nihil continued, his voice growing graver. "I forced the space around the submarine to collapse in upon itself. It was a barely controlled reality collapse. I used it against a massive, lumbering target that offered only one kind of pressure: physical. Kael'tharr was different. He was fast. Precise. Using power like that against him would be like trying to shoot a fly with a cannon. I would expend all my energy just to block one of his attacks, and miss."

He paused, then added the most crucial part. "And that wasn't even the greatest risk. If I lost control for even a fraction of a second... I wouldn't have obliterated just him. I would have obliterated the entire valley. Including you. Including the elves. Including myself. The Zero State, however painful, was the more controlled option. It only destroyed *me*."

Elara's eyes widened as the puzzle pieces fell into place. She typed rapidly on her tablet, new models forming. "So... it's not a defensive skill. It's a prototype. A prototype of your weapon of mass destruction. You didn't use it not because you couldn't, but because you knew it was too dangerous to unleash in that situation."

"I didn't know *what* it was," Nihil said honestly. "I only knew it was a last resort I didn't want to take."

Elara stared at him with an entirely new expression. Not just scientific curiosity anymore. There was a hint of... fear there. The same fear she saw in Lord Elarion's eyes. She understood now. The greatest threat of Nihil wasn't the power he wielded. His greatest threat was the power he possessed but chose *not* to use.

Elsewhere in the spire, Lord Elarion met with two trusted Archmages in a hidden chamber shielded by silence magic.

"The Queen is too lenient," Elarion said, his voice trembling with suppressed fury. "She lets a viper into our nest because it promises to bite the wolf."

"Her decree is final, My Lord," one Archmage said. "We cannot oppose her openly."

"Openly, no," Elarion said, a cruel smile beginning to form on his face. "But the Queen commanded me to oversee him in the library. That is an opportunity. We don't need to kill him. We just need to... incapacitate him. An ancient containment ritual. If he resists, it will be seen as an act of aggression, and we will be justified in taking more permanent measures. If it works, we will have the perfect specimen to study, without the risk."

"That is dangerous, My Lord," said the second Archmage. "His power doesn't react to our magic in predictable ways."

"Which is why we will not give him time to react," Elarion countered. "We will strike when he is least expecting it. When his mind is engrossed in the knowledge he craves most."

The wheels of betrayal began to turn within the gilded cage.

The Grand Library of Silverwood was not a building. It was an ecosystem. Giant trees, millennia old, soared overhead, their branches interlocking to form a natural canopy. Ancient scrolls were stored within niches of living wood, protected by gentle preservation magic. The air was thick with the scent of old parchment, the ozone of active runes, and the damp earth smell of the forest. It was the heart of all elven knowledge, a place so sacred only scholars and royalty were permitted entry.

Nihil stepped inside, flanked by Lord Elarion wearing a sour expression and two honor guards. Even Nihil, with his cold pragmatism, couldn't help but feel the "weight" of the place. Every tree, every scroll, every mote of dust in the air seemed to whisper with the echoes of history.

"You have six hours each day," Elarion stated curtly. "You are not permitted to remove anything. And do not attempt anything suspicious. I will be watching."

Nihil ignored him. He walked towards the deepest section of the library, an area labeled "Archives of the Dawn War & Cosmic Anomalies." It was the dustiest, least visited section.

He picked up a fragile-looking leather scroll. Instead of reading it word for word, he placed his palm flat upon it.

[Activating: Void Memory]

[Capacity: 50/50 -> 49/50]

His mind flooded with conceptual echoes. Not just words, but the emotion of the scribe, the scent of the ink used, the taste of despair as the war raged. He filtered it all in seconds, searching for keywords: "Void," "Abyss," "Unmaking." Nothing. He put it down and picked up another.

[Activating: Void Memory]

[Capacity: 49/50 -> 48/50]

He repeated the process again and again. It was an immensely efficient way to search. He was like a biological search engine, sifting through millennia of history in minutes. Most texts described demons as entities of pure chaos. There was no analysis of the nature of their power.

After nearly an hour, he finally found something. A fragmented stone tablet, far older than the other scrolls. As he touched it, the echo he felt was different. Colder. More abstract.

[...and from the tear in the Veil, came the First Anomaly. Not demon, not celestial. It did not create. It did not destroy. It only... unmade. The great sorcerers of old tried to fight it with their strongest creation magics, but it was like trying to fill a bottomless pit. Every ounce of mana they threw only made the nothingness larger...]

Nihil felt a flicker of understanding. Void power didn't just resist mana. It *consumed* it.

He was so engrossed in his discovery that he didn't notice the subtle shift in the air around him. On hidden balconies above, Elarion signaled to his Archmages.

"Now," he whispered into a communication crystal.

Instantly, Nihil felt it. Not a physical attack. It was an overwhelming conceptual pressure. The air around him thickened. Intricate ancient runes began to glow on the floor around him, forming a complex containment matrix. It was the Chronos Cage, a ritual designed to lock an entity not just in space, but in time, freezing it forever.

[WARNING: HIGH-GRADE CONTAINMENT RITUAL DETECTED. EXTERNAL PRESSURE TARGETING SPATIAL AND TEMPORAL EXISTENCE.]

His passive Void Shift reflex activated, his body flickering erratically, but it wasn't enough. The cage wasn't targeting his body; it was targeting the point where he stood. Physically dodging was useless. He needed to *move*. Not just shift. He needed to completely relocate his existence from these coordinates.

He felt inescapable death approaching. Not physical death, but the death of freedom. His existence would be frozen, an eternal specimen. The emergency Rescue Jump protocol surged, wanting to tear him away to a random location. But that was too uncontrolled. He could end up in the middle of an ocean or atop a volcano. He needed precision.

In that split second, Heze's mind took over. He didn't panic. He analyzed.

[Analysis: Passive Void Shift is reflex. Rescue Jump is a panic button. Both are uncontrolled. But the core principle is the same: temporary erasure from spatial coordinates. Can I consciously replicate that principle?]

[Hypothesis: Instead of letting the system do it automatically, I will manually and deliberately 'erase' my existence from Point A and 'write' it back at Point B.]

It was an insane conceptual leap. Taking manual control over the operating system of his own power.

"Do it," he thought, pouring his entire concentration into the single act.

[INITIATING CONCEPTUAL FORGING AT META LEVEL...]

[New Skill Unlocked: Phase Step (Rank F)]

[Description: User instantly erases their existence from one point in reality and manifests themselves at another point within line of sight (max. 10 meters). Process takes exactly 1.5 seconds. Each use leaves a Void Echo.]

As the final rune of the Chronos Cage flared and the containment energy collapsed inward, Nihil activated his new skill.

[Using: Phase Step]

[Capacity: 40/50 -> 39/50]

He vanished.

Not invisible. Not teleported. He utterly vanished from existence.

The containment ritual slammed into empty space, its vast energies colliding and imploding, leaving a scorch mark on the ancient marble floor.

On the balcony, the Archmages stared in total shock. "Impossible! He should be locked!"

Exactly 1.5 seconds later, Nihil reappeared. Ten meters to the left of his original position, outside the perimeter of the failed cage. He stood calmly, as if nothing had happened.

"It seems," Nihil said, his cold voice breaking the stunned silence, "your surveillance is somewhat... excessive, Lord Elarion."

Before Elarion could reply, the library doors burst open. Princess Lyraelle and a dozen honor guards rushed in, swords drawn, drawn by the energy surge from the failed ritual.

"Elarion! What have you done?!" Lyraelle roared, her eyes blazing with fury as she took in the scorch mark and the guilty expressions of the Archmages.

"I merely took precautions, Princess!" Elarion retorted, trying to regain his composure. "This anomaly is too dangerous to be left unsupervised!"

"You attacked a ward of war under the Queen's protection within our most sacred place!" Lyraelle shot back. "This is treachery!"

A tense standoff unfolded amidst the ancient library. Elarion's plan had failed utterly and was now exposed.

That night, back in his tower prison, Nihil stood in the center of the room. He looked at his hand, then to a corner of the room.

[Using: Phase Step]

[Capacity: 39/50 -> 38/50]

He vanished, then reappeared in the corner. An invisible Void Echo lingered at his starting position.

[Using: Phase Step]

[Capacity: 38/50 -> 37/50]

He returned to the center. The second echo interacted with the first, creating a small ripple that felt like static electricity inside his body. He felt the Residual Echo the system warned about.

He stopped. He had confirmed the mechanism. He looked out the window, towards the soaring spires of Silverwood.

This cage might be gilded. But now, he held the key to open its door whenever he wished.

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