Date: Monday, February 27, 2025.
Time: 1:25 AM.
Null stood frozen by the door to Room 417, the chilling conceptual lock on Vane's room wrapping around them. Before Fang could explain the nature of the trap, the hallway behind them filled with an unnerving, synthesized click.
They turned. The once-sterile hallway was now packed shoulder-to-shoulder with roughlyone hundred figures. They wore identical black, high-density armor and carried weapons that hummed with Kinetic Code suppression technology. They were low-sequence enforcers, but the sheer conceptual density of their numbers was the threat. The King of Stone had sealed the exit with meat.
"A simple barrier of mass and fear," Fang noted, his voice flat.
Null felt a surge of cold dread, not just at the enemy, but at the idea of the slaughter required to get through. He could use Shadow, but a hundred deaths would flood the local conceptual plane, drawing every high-level operative in the region.
"We can't," Null muttered, taking a protective step forward. "We can't kill them all. The conceptual footprint—"
"This is war, Null," Fang interrupted, his eyes blazing blue for a final, fleeting second. "You accepted your purpose. Now act like it. The war for the Space Stone is happening right now. Every second you hesitate, the King of Stone consolidates his position. They chose this battlefield, not us."
As if responding to Fang's dark command, a terrifying shift occurred. From the conceptual depths of Null's consciousness, a crown of crystallized darkness formed instantly on his head: the vold King's Crown. It was not a decoration, but a direct conceptual tether to Umbros, enhancing his new Shadow Mastery. Null's cross-eyes flared gold, reflecting the cold necessity of the moment.
The hundred enforcers raised their weapons, their orders absolute.
The Boss Form: The Golden Genesis
Fang didn't move. Instead, his human form shattered. The black robe and blue eyes were replaced by a chaotic, surging pillar of pure conceptual darkness—the primordial shadow Null had seen in the Blood Sea. But this time, it was different. The formless shadow was violently unstable, fighting against itself.
The shadow pillar began to solidify, twisting against the laws of their dimension. Fang was manifesting his true, uncontained power, forcing the universe into a conceptual chokehold.
Then came the shift. As the dark pillar reached its peak, a blinding light erupted from within it. It was the purest manifestation of a conceptual paradox. The darkness was violently overwritten by the concept of brilliance.
Fang's human form was reconstructed, but terrifyingly different: his hair was now completely gold, a radiant, flowing mane that looked like captured sunlight. His skin had patches of the dark scales Null remembered, but his face was serene, his eyes still covered by the thick, dark conceptual blindfold.
Null stared, his focus ripped away from the enforcers by the profound conceptual anomaly. "Fang? Your hair—it's pure light. You're... changing."
Fang smiled, an impossible sight on the face of a conceptual god. He manifested a massive, impossibly long Shadow Blade—pure crystalline darkness—in his hand. It wasn't kinetic; it was a conceptual sword designed to cut through Code.
"The explanation is simple, Null," Fang said, his voice now layered, carrying the depth of multiple dimensions. He didn't even look at the hundred men. "Every time I use my true Dark Shadow Form, I force the local dimensional reality into aconceptual chokehold. This reality is fragile; it is written on thin Code. To prevent an immediate collapse, the universe retaliates. It forces a conceptual shift, transforming me into this weaker, more localized form."
Fang's golden eyes—hidden beneath the blindfold—felt like they were looking through time. "I am not a God, nor fully human. I am merely a Boss Form—a localized anomaly designed to protect the fragile Code, to help you level up. One day, when your power is absolute, my purpose will be fulfilled... and I shall die."
The truth hammered Null harder than any Shadow strike. He wasn't being protected by a powerful mentor; he was being shielded by an unstable, self-destructing anomaly that was literally the conceptual byproduct of his own chaos.
Massacre of the Hundred
Fang didn't wait for Null to process. The hundred enforcers charged.
Fang moved with a casual, devastating grace. The Shadow Blade was an extension of theVoid itself. It didn't need to cut; it only needed to touch. In a blur of golden light and conceptual darkness, Fang swept the blade once.
A massive, crescent wave of Pure Shadow detached from the blade, slicing through the tight ranks of the enforcers. It didn't leave blood; it left aconceptual vacuum. The hundred men dissolved into dust and flickering, inert Code fragments, absorbed back into the Void from which they came. The silence returned instantly, broken only by the echo of the massive Shadow Blade being sheathed.
Null stared at the clear, empty hallway, the Shadow King's Crown heavy on his head. "You just... erased them."
"Collateral damage," Fang replied simply. "Now, focus. The Code footprint is still high, but contained. The threat is in Room 417."
Confrontation: The Space Stone User
Fang negated the conceptual lock on the door using a focused pulse of his new, stable Code. The door slid open silently.
Inside, the room was dimly lit, dominated by the conceptual presence of Vane, the Space Stone user, who sat cross-legged on the hospital bed. He was awake, alert, and radiating a powerful, controlled energy. The air around him shimmered, constantly micro-shifting reality.
Vane looked directly at Null, ignoring Fang.
"Soren," Vane said, his voice calm, yet resonating with the subtle power of spacetime. "I knew you would come. The moment the Void King emerged, I knew."
Vane stood, a casual yet powerful gesture. "You want me to join you. You want the Space Stone to complete your fragmented Code and prepare for the true war. I am ready to join."
He paused, a faint smile on his lips. "But I need to know if you are worth dying for. To make me join you, you must fight me and win."
Vane snapped his fingers. The small hospital room instantly expanded, stretching the walls and ceiling into an infinite, shifting conceptual arena—a pocket dimension of pure Space Code. The floor became an impossibly reflective surface, mirroring the Blood Sea they had just left.
"Let's see if that regeneration can keep up with the laws of spacetime, Null," Vane challenged.
The Duel: Shadow vs. Space
The fight began instantly, moving at a conceptual speed that transcended physical time.
Vane didn't need to move. He used pure Space Code to attack. He began generating dozens of portals—not large ones, but small, disc-like voids of pure spatial distortion that appeared directly against Null's body. A portal would snap into existence a millimeter from Null's heart, designed to shear away a part of his Code, not just his flesh.
Null activated his Shadow Mastery, the vold King's Crown stabilizing his thought process. He met Vane's spatial attacks with conceptual negation. He didn't dodge the portals; he plunged them into his own Shadow. The portals, being defined by space, were swallowed by the Shadow's concept of Absence, collapsing instantly into non-existence.
Vane laughed, delighted. "Better! But Shadow is slow! I control the field!"
Vane shifted the conceptual field. He made the distance between himself and Null an infinite chasm, forcing Null's attacks to stretch across non-existent time. Then, he instantly compressed the space, forcing Null to defend against his own momentum.
Null fought defensively, learning the spatial patterns. He realized Vane was manipulating the distance between concepts, not just objects. He had to stop Vane from changing the rules of the arena.
Null's Counter: The Sovereign Code Discharge
Null stopped reacting. He planted his feet, ignoring the infinite-stretch and the constant threat of a shearing portal. He focused all 20% of his Void King Code, and crucially, he forced the Light Stone fragment and the Shadow Stone into conceptual union.
The resulting power was the terrifying fusion: the Sovereign Code Discharge.
A dark, volatile purple lightning erupted from Null's hands, not aimed at Vane, but aimed at the Code of the arena itself.
The lightning struck the compressed space Vane had created.
Shocks (Air/Lightning): The purple energy violently overloaded Vane's control of the conceptual field.
Freezes (Water/Earth): The discharge instantly locked the spatial distortions, momentarily freezing the concept of distance and preventing any further portals from opening.
Burns (Fire/Shadow): The residual energy inflicted conceptual pain, burning Vane's energy reserves at the source.
Vane screamed, the conceptual field around him fracturing. He reappeared instantly a few feet away, clutching his head, sweat pouring down his face. The Infinite Arena collapsed, reverting the room back to the small hospital space.
"The Five-Element Code," Vane gasped, recognizing the power. "You found the source! You are ready!"
Vane dropped to one knee, offering no resistance. "I join you, Null. You have proven that Soren's sacrifice was not in vain. The Space Stone Code is yours to command, King of the Five Elements. We run now."
Fang, who had watched the duel with serene intensity, stepped forward. "The extraction is complete. We move."
End of chapter 59
See you next time