Date: Monday, February 27, 2025.
Time: 9:00 PM.
The exhaustion wasn't physical; it was conceptual. Null had been fighting his own memories, his own Code, and his own conscience since the Void King Emergence. After the sparring match and the tense planning for the Vane extraction, the weight of the Shadow Prime Stone felt like a gravitational anchor, pinning him to the floor.
He lay down on his bed in the quiet safehouse, closing his eyes. He didn't drift to sleep so much as he allowed his fractured consciousness to slip the tether of his body.
He woke instantly, not to a room, but to the familiar, terrible conceptual plane: the Blood Sea.
Null stood alone on the viscous, crimson surface. His physical body was safe, but his consciousness was screaming. His cross-eyes initially glowed bright gold, radiating the overwhelming, immediate power of the Void King Code—the chaotic energy of Umbros asserting dominance. But that light was quickly, painfully, extinguished. The golden glow darkened, becoming a dull, inert amber—a sign of profound conceptual sorrow.
Null curled up on the surface of the Blood Sea, tears leaking from his eyes, the conceptual manifestation of his grief.
"Why?" Null whispered into the vast, red emptiness. "Why me? Why was I given this Code, this power, this terrible, heavy life? I don't know them. I don't remember them. I share no memories with Kai or Ashley or maya. Why must I protect ghosts from a past I never lived?"
He ran a hand over his chest, feeling the phantom echo of the crack in his Shadow Prime Stone—the fissure that allowed his existence as Null to begin.
"Why did the stone crack?" he choked out. "What did I do to deserve this existence?"
The Unwritten Lore
A ripple, not of water, but of pure Conceptual Darkness, appeared beside him. The shadow did not solidify into a body; it remained formless, a pillar of perfect night. Within the shape, a defined, haunting mouth and two rows of impossibly white, sharp teeth materialized, floating in the center of the void. This was Fang's truest form, the primordial shadow detached from any physical law.
"You question your purpose, little King?" Fang's voice was the sound of bedrock grating, deep and unnerving, yet laced with ancient compassion.
"It is a simple truth, yet it is the most difficult to accept," Fang said, the floating mouth twisting into an expression of grim focus. "Before you, there was Soren. A boy with exceptional, unified power—the Five-Element Kid or shadow prince you saw in the memory. But Soren was not the hero you imagine."
The Blood Sea churned slightly, reflecting the disturbing conceptual history Fang was about to reveal.
"Soren was a weapon. By the age of eight, his power was too great, too volatile. He began to kill. Not in defense, but in fits of conceptual chaos he could not control. He was a danger to the very foundation of the dimensional plane."
Fang paused, the pure shadow form slightly expanding. "He was picked up by an old man—a true man of the Light—who tried to temper the growing darkness. But the reputation of a killer is not easily erased. Soren's crimes were conceptual; the world felt the imbalance."
"The people—your enemies, the progenitors of the King of Stone—murdered that old man simply because he harbored Soren. The Code of the universe demanded retribution for the chaos Soren caused."
Null curled tighter, burying his face in his knees, the horror of his past self a raw, sickening realization.
"After the man died, Soren and his natural brother ran," Fang continued, his voice relentless, delivering the history like a conceptual surgery. "They ran through dimensions, through hiding spots, until Soren finally met Yoguri—the greatest conceptual mind known to man, now missing from this plane. Yoguri showed Soren the truth: that the five elements, when combined in a single adolescent body, would eventually cause a Universal Collapse—a destructive singularity."
Fang lowered his shadow form, until the luminous teeth were inches from Null's ear.
"Soren did not want to die. But more importantly, he did not want his friends—the very people you are questioning now—to be destroyed by his necessary end. He knew the King of Stone was hunting him. He heard Umbros—the God of the Shadow Stone—tell him the only way to save the dimension was to split his power, fragment his memory, and hide his Five-Element Code behind the conceptual trauma of a cracked stone."
"The crack in your stone? It is the sound of Soren's sacrifice. He did not break it through weakness; he broke it through an act of impossible, selfless will. He gave his body to Null—an empty slate, a clean conceptual consciousness—to protect those friends, those connections, and that Code."
Fang concluded, the shadow form stabilizing slightly. "Your entire purpose, Null, is simple: to protect the people who were kind to Soren and whom Soren, the killer, felt he could no longer protect without destroying the world. You protect them because Soren gave up his life so that you could do it for him."
Acceptance and Rebirth[1]
The pain of the truth was physical, overwhelming the immediate power of the Void King Code. Null let out a conceptual scream that shook the surface of the Blood Sea. He finally understood the crippling conceptual static that always followed Kai and Sooji—it wasn't just fear, it was the echo of Soren's protective promise.
He lifted his head. The tears stopped. The dull amber light in his eyes vanished completely, replaced by a cold, hard gold that held no mercy, only purpose. He was no longer Null questioning his existence; he was Null, the purpose-driven shield of Soren's memory.
"So my Code," Null stated, his voice now strong and steady. "My Regeneration, my Shadow Mastery... it's all just a shield."
"It is a shield that is quickly becoming a sword," Fang corrected. "The Sovereign Code Discharge you achieved against your clone? That is the sound of the Five-Element Code fighting its way out of the conceptual prison Soren built. The more you protect those friends, the more you heal Soren's internal trauma, and the closer you get to the truth."
"I accept," Null said, standing up on the Blood Sea. "Tell me the final coordinates. We secure Vane tonight. For Soren's sake."
The conceptual plane dissolved. Null woke up in his bed, the light of early morning filtering through his window. Fang, restored to his human form, was already by the door.
"The extraction begins in ten minutes," Fang said, his eyes sharp. "The Space Stone awaits, and the King of Stone has set a snare. Prepare for conflict, Null. You now know who you are fighting for."
End of chapter 58
See you next time
[1] He shall return. A dark rebirth fueled by a consuming, crystalline rage. Gone is his past self, replaced by a being reset, forged anew, his head wreathed in inexorable black strands. With eyes like sighting runes, locked in a permanent cross, his sole imperative is to execute all who stand against his kin. When the Lying Snake faces him, it will meet the end carried on a wing of unstoppable, hungry shadows. They will come to him, the weak and the damned, clinging to that lethal embrace like a moth drawn to a burning, final dawn