Ixlongue suddenly lost his smile. His brows furrowed, and his voice snapped through the mist:
"You know… a much heavier threat hangs over us all. So stop playing tough. We need other Ineffables to face it. You should already have resigned yourself!"
Bakuzan hardened his gaze, a sharp gleam passing through his yellow eyes.
"I already know about this threat.
And I need no one's help.
I will end it alone."
He paused, his aura vibrating imperceptibly.
"As far as I know, you might be here to trip me up."
Ixlongue's eyes widened, shocked but mostly offended.
"What? You know… and you still manage to be this stupid?!"
Bakuzan turned his back without hesitation, as if Ixlongue no longer existed.
"This discussion is over. You will only slow me down. And I can't trust you.
What proof do I have that you won't stab me in the back?"
A muffled, metallic voice cut sharply through the air, breaking the tension.
"That won't be the case."
Ixlongue froze and turned his head.
The masked silhouette finally spoke.
Bakuzan slightly turned his head, fixing her out of the corner of his eye.
The woman stepped forward calmly, placing a hand on Ixlongue's shoulder. Her voice filtered through the mask, seeming almost unreal:
"I am Erasa. The apostle of Mü Thanatos."
She paused briefly, her expressionless mask focused on Bakuzan.
"You can believe me. Even I am deeply disturbed by the idea of involving other Ineffables in my mission… But we have no choice."
Bakuzan remained silent.
But this silence was not one of distrust…
It was a silence of astonishment.
He turned fully to her, his eyes shining with a new intensity.
"The apostle… of the goddess Mü Thanatos, is that what you said?"
Erasa nodded slowly, the mask fixed, almost solemn.
"You say you are already aware of the threat hanging over meta-reality, yes? Then tell me… how do you plan to face it alone?"
Bakuzan frowned, genuinely perplexed for the first time.
"Beating Azazel shouldn't be that complicated…"
Erasa gave a slight, almost imperceptible start, enough to betray real shock.
"…Don't tell me you think beating Azazel is the threat?"
Her voice, muffled by the mask, vibrated with a mixture of disbelief and worry.
Bakuzan frowned.
"It's… not?"
Ixlongue burst out with a nervous, almost hysterical laugh.
"Hahaha! I knew it! You're completely crazy!"
"Silence, Ixlongue."
Erasa's voice cut sharply, like a blade.
"It's logical that he doesn't know. He does not follow the path of a deity like me. He is alone. He moves without framework, without doctrine, without landmarks…"
She raised her chin slightly, her invisible eyes fixed on Bakuzan.
"The threat we must face is far, far beyond Azazel."
Bakuzan stood frozen, breath suspended.
Erasa continued:
"We are Ineffables. We have transcended the Dream of the Father God.
But don't forget… we were there before transcending it. We were formed, structured, named… and only then did we have to surpass it all."
The fog-laden wind grew heavier, as if the world itself was listening.
"Now imagine… a place that has nothing to do with the Dream.
A place prior to any possibility of dreaming.
A domain even we… cannot describe, perceive, imagine, or narrate."
Bakuzan felt a shiver run through him.
Erasa pressed on, relentless:
"There live entities unlike us.
They have never had to transcend anything.
Because they exist before the very idea of transcendence. Before the idea of God, of Narration… before the Possible."
She inhaled softly.
"They are called — when one tries, clumsily, to interpret them:
The Anarchétypes.
The Countless.
The Deviants.
The Non-Beings.
The My0x."
Each name seemed to weigh the air down with an irrational heaviness.
"But none of these names is true.
None can be.
They escape all narration, all language, all conceptualization.
If we are Ineffables because we have exceeded the laws of the Dream…
they are because they never needed to exceed anything.
They precede laws.
Precede concepts.
Precede everything."
Bakuzan involuntarily took a half step back.
"…Is this a joke?"
His voice was strangely broken.
Erasa shook her head.
"No. And this is not the worst."
Bakuzan swallowed, the fog seeming to close around him like an invisible maw.
"The worst, Bakuzan…"
She paused.
"…is that something, coming from them, is starting to leave impossible resonances in the Dream."
Ixlongue tensed. Even he looked uncomfortable.
"Not them directly." Erasa resumed.
"But… echoes. Leaks. Remnants. Originless shadows. Phenomena that should not even be able to exist."
The fog vibrated, as if a cosmic shiver passed through the world.
"And if these resonances keep infiltrating… if their fragments reach a lower level like ours…
…the catastrophe will become inevitable.
They could annihilate everything. The Dream. The gods. The Ineffables. The narrations. The anti-narrations. The Outer Zones.
Everything."
An overwhelming silence fell.
A silence in which even shadows seemed to hold their breath.
Bakuzan stood frozen, breath short, gaze lost in the fog.
"How… how do you plan to face such entities?" he murmured, voice trembling.
"Basically… it's already over.
No creature of the Dream can even touch a Deviant.
No attack can reach them. Everything bounces off them… everything.
They would find it hilarious."
Ixlongue lowered his head, his face marked by helplessness.
Bakuzan seemed truly lost in fear.
"It's over…" Ixlongue whispered.
"Better just give up.
You can't do anything against something that breaks hostility itself, that destroys everything definable within the Dream…
It's suicide… pure and simple."
Erasa gently placed her hand on Bakuzan's arm, her metallic voice filtered through the mask, firm but calm:
"Calm down… Black Grief.
When I was told about you, I was told you had incredible composure…
Are you really going to tell me that was a lie?"
Bakuzan turned his eyes toward her, his bright yellow pupils in the fog.
"I don't care what you say about me," he answered, his voice deep but slightly wavering.
"But… with what weighs on meta-reality…
I don't even see what you plan to do against such things."
Erasa slowly lowered her head. She could understand this worry.
That is why this matter was kept secret: if the truth were to spread, panic would be total, and the Dream world could already be lost.
Bakuzan feared the Deviants, and he had every reason to.
No one in the Dream wished to face these entities.
These forces were not only powerful, they were cataclysmic, totally transcending the Dream, causality, time, dimensions, and everything that could exist within the Possible framework.
For beings of the Possible, the Deviants represented an overwhelming threat.
They could strike before the target could even react.
They could reach someone in any category of narration or conceptualization.
They could even touch entities protected by the most absolute forms of magic or reality.
Sometimes, their mere existence was enough to crush worlds.
These creatures did not even need to approach.
Their shadows alone caused a cataclysm.
Their breaths could rewrite the laws of the Possible.
The mere fact that they appeared could provoke world fusions, illusions becoming real, and corruption of beings and entities around them.
Bakuzan felt a shiver run down his back.
He was not just facing a powerful enemy.
He was facing a supreme force, a danger that even the Ineffables had never learned to anticipate.
Erasa stared at Bakuzan through her mask, motionless like an obsidian statue.
Her voice, muffled but sure, resonated:
"There is nothing… absolutely nothing… without a solution."
Bakuzan squinted, brows furrowed in disbelief.
"You're telling me there is something that could help us?
Against entities that transcend the Possible itself, that abolish all distinction between dilemma and solution?
Erasa… really? Are you mocking me?"
But Erasa did not flinch.
"The Dream is the domain of the narratable.
Anything that enters it—even if it breaks Narration—finds itself, even if only for an instant, caught within this framework.
As brief as this capture is, as impossible as the entity is, it will be… narrated.
Not for long.
Maybe for an infinitesimal lapse of time…
…before everything collapses."
Bakuzan inhaled slowly.
"So during that lapse of time… that's when we have to act?"
Erasa shook her head.
"No.
If the Deviants are interested in the Dream, it's not for us.
It's because something exists here.
Something that should never be in the narratable.
A presence belonging to a domain of pure impossibility.
It is its presence that attracts the Anarchétypes."
She paused shortly.
"If we manage to find this thing…
…and guide it out of the Dream, to its true domain…
then the Deviants will have no reason to leave their resonances here.
And silence… will return."
Bakuzan's eyes widened.
"There really is… such a thing in the Dream?"
Erasa nodded slowly.
"Yes.
And the situation is even more complex than you imagine.
I will explain the rest later."
She then extended her hand to him, a rare, almost solemn gesture:
"Black Grief…
do you accept to team up with us?
To find this impossible entity…
and bring it back to the domain where it belongs?"
Bakuzan looked long at the outstretched hand.
Then he raised his eyes to Erasa's mask, hesitating.
"I admit the threat is immense…
…but I still have something to accomplish before all this.
A goal I must finish.
Then maybe…"
"No."
Erasa cut him off, her voice striking like a death knell.
"I will help you reach this goal immediately.
Time is pressing.
Every second counts.
I understand that you want to settle your affairs… but it's clear we need you.
You are Black Grief."