Time passed after the cataclysmic event in Star Sea Gamma-7.

A day after Syl'thessara, the Betrayer of a Lineage, was told to stand down and chose, once again, the comfort of inaction.

In The Void.

Here, in the aggressive absence between Star Seas, Achilles and Rose floated in a silent, shared dominion. The nothingness that would have shredded lesser beings now wrapped around Achilles like a familiar cloak. Surrounding him, like a royal court of anti-stars, were dozens of his Void Servants. They had coalesced from the non-space, their forms shifting between geometric impossibilities and patches of brighter darkness. But it was the power they emanated that was truly shocking.

"Something we did not account for," Achilles said, his voice a calm ripple in the silent expanse, "was how terrifyingly potent The Void is. The Void Servants… are drinking its very nature as they move. They varied in tiers when I first summoned them. Now, they emanate power at the Tier 8 Null Scale. They may just become Tier 9 in a few days."

…!

Rose smiled, her water form shimmering with amusement. She flowed through the non-space, her movement a graceful defiance of physics, and appeared before one of the larger Void Servants. It was a being of pure obsidian shadow, shaped vaguely like a great horned beast, its presence a vortex of negation. She reached out her liquid hand and stroked its obsidian head. Her emerald eyes twinkled as the Void Servant, a being that could likely consume a small moon, seemingly felt embarrassed. It looked down, its form flickering shyly.

Rose laughed, the sound like the chiming of bells in a universe with no air. "They have cleared our next target?"

Achilles nodded, his gaze sweeping across the distant shimmering spheres that were the other Star Seas. "Yes. Star Sea Beta-13. The Void Servants have kept a constant watch around it. The three Tier 9 Nar'Thyss stationed inside have also been told to stop the Scourge Protocol. Nothing else has left or entered this Star Sea. Everything should be good to go." He paused, his expression growing more severe. "Around other Star Seas… the Void Servants sensed Level One Zero Scale Nar'Thyss moving about. It seems their alertness has been raised tremendously. Our target in this Star Sea is the Tier 9 Null Scale Nar'Thyss, is… Xylos, the Seer of Endings."

As Achilles spoke the name, a platinum holographic image of the being appeared between them. It was another magnificent, terrible butterfly-like entity, its wings adorned with patterns that resembled closing chapters and final paragraphs written in silver fire.

Rose nodded before waving her hands. From the space between her watery palms, a weapon materialized. It was a terrifyingly beautiful gold-platinum blade, about the length of a short sword, its edge impossibly sharp. The blade itself was lined with pulsating, poisonous green gems that seemed to weep a faint, sickly light.

Her voice, though still musical, carried the cold precision of a master weaponsmith. "I have condensed my elevated genetic poison against the Nar'Thyss and put it all into this blade. Since they now have you approaching Tier 9 with more power than before, all you need to do is simply nick or scratch a Tier 9 Nar'Thyss with this blade. Right after, they will be affected with a poison meant to devour their Fables from the inside out. They don't even have to outwardly unleash their Authority of Fables in this case."

…!

Achilles nodded, his hand closing around the hilt of the blade. It felt both solid and conceptual, a story of death waiting to be told. "It will be a quick in and out. Since they are on high alert, killing one will alert the other two, and they will alert someone higher. But out of an overabundance of caution…" He turned to Rose, his gaze firm but filled with an unspoken warmth. "Stay here, in The Void. I will complete our second kill."

She nodded, her emerald eyes conveying trust that needed no words.

Achilles took a single step… and disappeared.

WAP!

He reappeared in Star Sea Beta-13. The reality here was different, the space filled with a low, melancholic hum, as if the stars themselves were singing a dirge. Below him, on a floating continent of black crystal, a group of Nar'Thyss were gathered. His target, Xylos, was visible, its form radiating annoyance as it commanded lesser Nar'Thyss to fortify their positions.

Achilles remained veiled, a ghost wrapped in the light of The Void. Without a welcome, without noise, without anything, he descended. He was a whisper of intent, a falling shadow in a sky with no sun. He carried the blade filled with genetic poison, his movements so silent, so utterly absent from reality, that the Tier 9 Null Scale Nar'Thyss did not sense him… could not sense him…

…until the blade clipped the very edge of one of its magnificent wings.

…!

The moment the blade made contact, a shriek of pure, narrative agony tore through the space. The contact was a violation, an attack, and the act of aggression forced Achilles's body to become visible. He was a humanoid mass surrounded by swirling obsidian light, a being of pure shadow and negation. Even his face could not be seen, hidden behind a vortex of void.

The horror was immediate. The torn wing of the Nar'Thyss, Xylos, did not bleed. It began to rot. A sickly green color spread rapidly from the tiny nick, the intricate patterns of its Fable-inscribed wing unraveling like spoiled thread. A feeling of immense weakness began to spread from it, a poison that was not just killing its body but devouring its story. Achilles moved quickly, his obsidian hand reaching out to grasp the corrupted wing, about to Assimilate the weakened Tier 9 entity, when the Nar'Thyss in his grasp bellowed out with a voice filled with primal, desperate fear…

"Sir, save me!"

…!

Sir?

Save me?

Achilles's gaze instantly turned sharp as diamond. Who could a Tier 9 Nar'Thyss, a being that commanded legions and wove the fates of civilizations, possibly refer to as Sir? It couldn't be another Tier 9; they were peers, rivals. This was the cry of a subordinate to a master, a plea to a power so far beyond its own that reverence was the only possible response. Other than…

BOOM!

In the next moment, the universe screamed.

A curtain of profound purple brilliance erupted from nothingness, expanding with impossible speed to cover everything for thousands of light-years. It was not a barrier of energy or matter; it was a wall of pure, absolute authority. The melancholic hum of the Star Sea was silenced, the light of its stars snuffed out, all of it replaced by this overwhelming, imperial purple.

Alongside the descent of this veil, a laughing voice echoed out, a sound that carried across dimensions and made reality itself tremble. The laughter was accompanied by the eruption of power that Achilles's senses, now screaming with alarm, could barely comprehend… the power of multiple Tier 1 Zero Scale entities!

"Haha, The Grand Constellation, Eisenhower, was right again! We have trapped a little mouse in our net!"

…!

BOOM!

A trap.

The laughter, the purple veil, the crushing weight of a higher Scale of Existence pressing down on him.

The sudden realization crashed through Achilles's consciousness.

His eyes flashed coldly!

He had been careful. He had used his Void Servants for reconnaissance. He had chosen an isolated target. He had planned for every contingency within the Null Scale and Zero Scale

But they had planned even more for him on a scale he hadn't yet reached.

The Last Adrastia Emperor King, the Liberating Assimilator who had broken time and assimilated The Void, had fallen into a trap, even when he believed he was being very, very careful!

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