[ February 13th, 2088 (Thursday, Evening) ] - [ The Witch's Pocket Dimension(?) > BDV Iron Convoy #015 (Cargo Ship) > North-East Pacific Ocean > Earth ]
-
The world did not feel like it had paused.
It felt like it had been skipped—as if reality itself had lost interest in continuing the scene.
Everything outside Niero's awareness was locked in a perfect, suffocating stillness.
The ocean is mid-surge.
The collapsing pocket-dimension sky.
The shattered spray of blood and sand was suspended like glass beads in the air.
Even Amaryllis—no, what remained of her—stood motionless in a posture too violent to belong to anything human.
A nightmare frozen mid-breath.
And at the center of it all—
Niero Ripley hung in the air like a discarded puppet.
Coral spikes had driven through him from multiple angles, pinning him in a grotesque crucifixion of jagged bone and saltstone growths. His body was suspended several meters above the beach, not falling, not rising—just held.
Like the world had decided this was where his story stopped.
His vision flickered.
Not darkness—worse.
A clear, clinical overlay.
-
> [HP: 017 / 200]
> [CRITICAL CONDITION]
> [SEVERE INTERNAL TRAUMA DETECTED]
> [BLEEDING STABILIZED (TEMPORARY)]
> [VITAL SYSTEMS FAILING]
-
Niero blinked slowly.
"…Yeah."
His voice came out oddly calm in the silence.
"…I'm totally fucked if I don't figure something out quick, am I?"
No answer.
Not even Vuldyr at first.
Because in this place, silence wasn't absence—it was compression. Like sound itself had been folded away.
From that moment, Niero himself...witnessing his potential demise in front of his very eyes. The feeling was uncomfortable.
Then—
a presence.
Vuldyr stepped into existence beside him.
Not a hologram.
Not a projection.
A full, physical manifestation, her digital halo rotating faintly above her head, polygonal wings hovering in fractured geometry behind her like a broken cathedral of code.
She looked around once.
Then at him.
Then at the suspended corpse-like version of him hanging in the air.
Arms crossed.
Expression flat in a way that was almost carefully controlled concern.
> ["Kiddo...."]
Niero gave a weak grin.
"…Good news?"
> ["Well...technically, you're not dead...yet."]
"Oh."
A pause.
"...and the bad news?"
Her eyes shifted toward Amaryllis.
Or what had become of her.
> ["Your survival probability severly dropped at approximately... 7.5%."]
Niero coughed lightly.
"That feels generous."
> ["In this situation...it sort of is."]
Another pause.
Vuldyr continued, quieter now.
> ["Even with your current regeneration parameters along with the Astra Force output at its Ember Stage, your state can handle conventional injury vectors and minor anomalous injuries. Not at this monstrous state."]
Her gaze sharpened.
> ["This is anomalous interference layered on top of anomalous biology. With the Ego-Space Acceleration, we are able to to buy some time to think but your body is being held in a state of enforced conclusion."]
Niero glanced down at the coral spikes in his torso.
"…So I'm like a bookmark."
> ["More like a pinned page."]
"Cool. Hate that."
Vuldyr didn't respond to the joke.
That alone made it feel worse.
Her attention returned fully to Amaryllis.
The Sea Witch was still frozen—but not entirely stable. Subtle cracks of black light pulsed through the rhombus-shaped object embedded where her shattered "black heart" should have been. Each pulse sent faint distortions through the frozen air, like reality was trying to flinch.
> ["That...thing...,"] Vuldyr said.
Niero squinted.
"The rock?"
> ["It is not a rock."]
A beat.
> ["It is possibly some sort of a Hollow artifact, a catalyst I assumed. External. Non-biological. And it did not originate from the Black Tide, the Witch, or any known Dark Script classification."]
Niero's expression tightened slightly.
"…So what is it?"
Vuldyr hesitated.
For her, that was rare.
> ["Honestly, I don't know. This was not recorded even in the Queendom's Codex."]
That landed heavier than anything else so far.
She continued.
> ["What I do know is this: this Sea Witch's Black Heart was her true core and it was destroyed by your hand...but when you destroyed it, she somehow have this on her and activated it by itself, most likely a 'second wind' so to speak."]
Niero looked at the frozen, grotesquely mutated body again.
A beat of silence.
Then Niero exhaled slowly through his nose.
"…That's a second phase boss."
> ["Definately a second phase boss type stuff."]
"Yeah, yeah," Niero muttered.
Vuldyr's eyes narrowed slightly.
> ["This entity is now actively destabilizing the pocket dimension. That means we have limited time before Ego-Space Acceleration collapses."]
Niero frowned.
"How... long do I have??"
Vuldyr looked away for a fraction of a second.
> ["…Six hours, five minutes at best."]
"…That's bad."
> ["Extremely bad."]
She stepped closer, her tone dropping into something more precise.
> ["When Ego-Space collapses, you will re-enter real-time exactly where you left off."]
Niero blinked.
"...back to being impaled like a steak on a fork...."
> ["Yes."]
"How fast?"
> ["One minute of real-time delay. During which your body will resume full physiological consequence of trauma."]
Niero stared at his suspended self.
"…So I have one minute to not die."
> ["Excatly."]
A pause.
He tilted his head slightly.
Then sighed.
His gaze drifted back to Amaryllis.
To the pulsing black rhombus.
To the thing that had rewritten the rules of the fight.
"…So that thing is the problem."
> ["Yeah."]
"And if I break it?"
Vuldyr didn't answer immediately.
That hesitation answered enough.
> ["…We don't know what happens,"] she admitted. ["But it is currently the only identified anchor maintaining both her mutation and the network interference. Based on the data I gathered from the [Golden Eye] limited appraisal scan, if we destroy it, we can reasonably believe it will kill her and seize the interference for backup. At least we can hope that she don't pull out any other surprises that could make things even more difficult."]
Niero let out a quiet breath.
Then looked at his impaled body again.
"…Alright."
He rolled his shoulders slightly—an absurd gesture in a frozen world.
Pacing back and forth, figuring things out with his super-genius brain of his on how to solve this absurd situation that his life and the rest of the survivors of this ship are on the line.
"Let's assume I've got six hours to figure out how to punch a glowing evil space rock inside a mutant sea witch in a frozen death painting while I'm also actively dying."
His brain is racing, thinking of multiple possible scenarios and tactics, trying to figure things out to escape a very death-defying moment
Then he stopped pacing.
Not because he had calmed down—
but because his mind had finally latched onto something that wasn't just survival instinct or brute reaction.
A structure.
A process.
He stared at the suspended version of himself again—impaled, bleeding, locked in a paused moment of catastrophic failure—and then exhaled slowly.
"…Okay."
Vuldyr watched him.
Niero lifted a hand and opened his Stargod interface.
It flickered in the air like a half-broken HUD projected onto frozen reality.
No instant recovery items.
No emergency consumables.
No emergency escape plans.
No hidden "get-out-of-death free" function quietly waiting in a sub-menu.
Not even the karambit blade, the Swiss Army knife, or the anti-bear pepper spray that his mother, aunt, and sisters have can save him right now.
Just systems.
Rules.
Limits.
He clicked his tongue softly.
"Yeah. Of course I don't have a 'don't die' button."
He closed the inventory.
Opened his status window instead.
Level 30. Capped.
Ascension points partially unspent.
Regeneration is not fast enough.
Stargod's immortality function won't work due to a stronger anomalous force.
Stellarion Core synchronization warnings are still quietly pulsing underneath everything like a persistent medical alarm.
At that point, Niero only knows there is only one way to get out of this situation.
Vuldyr's voice cut in carefully.
> ["This is still inadvisable. Your previous breakthrough attempts resulted in severe backlash. In one case, your cardiovascular system—"]
"I remember," Niero said.
His tone was flat.
Not dismissive.
Just… aware.
He looked down at his pinned body again.
"…I've only got six hours of thinking space."
A beat.
"And about one minute of dying space after that."
He rolled his shoulders once.
Then exhaled.
"So we stop treating it like a fight stat problem."
Vuldyr narrowed her eyes slightly.
Niero continued.
"It's not strength. Not agility. Not endurance."
He tapped his own temple lightly.
"...it's tuning."
His gaze drifted into nothing—into the frozen overlay of Ego-Space Acceleration, where even the concept of time felt artificially held together.
"Like you said before. Kinda like radio frequency."
He slowly clenched his fist.
"…Every time I tried to break through before, I was forcing it."
A pause.
"Pushing three things that don't want to sync into alignment by pressure."
He glanced at Vuldyr.
"That's why it backfired."
Vuldyr didn't answer immediately.
Then:
> ["…Correct. Your mind-body-spirit vector coherence was unstable. You attempted forceful convergence instead of harmonic alignment."]
Niero gave a faint, humorless smile.
"Yeah. That."
He turned back toward the frozen battlefield.
Toward Amaryllis.
Toward the pulsing black rhombus embedded in her corrupted core.
"…So I stop forcing it."
Silence.
Even in Ego-Space, silence felt heavier now—like the world leaning in slightly.
Niero lowered his hand.
"I don't push the frequency into alignment."
His eyes sharpened.
"Maybe I should... match it."
Vuldyr's expression tightened.
> ["…That is extremely dangerous phrasing."]
Niero shrugged faintly.
"At this point, everything here is extremely dangerous."
He lifted his gaze again.
Not at the enemy.
Not at his own dying body.
But through the situation—like he was trying to see the pattern behind it.
"…If my core is a transmitter," he said slowly, "then I've been trying to output power."
A pause.
"What if I stop outputting…"
His voice lowered slightly.
"…and start receiving?"
=
Niero sat cross-legged upon the sand of the endless frozen beach.
Eyes closed.
Hands resting upon his knees.
Breathing slowly.
Measured.
Controlled.
Far away, suspended in the motionless world beyond Ego-Space, his real body remained impaled upon coral spikes.
Dying.
But here—
inside the accelerated space between moments—
he had one final chance.
Darkness greeted him.
Then came light.
A single star.
Massive.
Brilliant.
Burning orange-gold.
His Stellarion Core.
The center of everything.
The place where his soul resided.
The place every breakthrough began.
Around it drifted three smaller stars.
Body.
Mind.
Spirit.
Three celestial fragments endlessly orbiting the central star.
Normally they remained separate.
Close.
Connected.
Yet never truly unified.
Niero focused.
Breathing steadily.
Slowly.
Carefully.
He extended his will.
The three smaller stars began accelerating.
One orbit.
Two.
Ten.
A hundred.
Faster.
Faster.
FASTER.
Their trails became rings of light.
The entire stellar system spun like a miniature galaxy.
The orange star at the center brightened.
Reacting.
Responding.
For the first time in months—
something moved.
Something clicked.
A spark.
The stars touched.
Body against Mind.
Mind against Spirit.
Spirit against Body.
Each contact sent showers of brilliant energy scattering through the void.
Like spinning tops colliding.
Like gears finally finding matching teeth.
Like radio frequencies drifting closer to alignment.
Niero pushed deeper.
Not with force.
Not this time.
With understanding.
With acceptance.
With purpose.
Faces emerged within the starlight.
His mother.
Emmy.
The woman who had beaten him bloody in training, all while teaching him how to survive.
The woman who drilled into him that strength meant nothing without the will to rise after every fall.
A woman who could smother him with unbearable affection one moment... and terrify even seasoned veterans the next.
His aunt.
Alura.
Patient. Sharp. Reliable.
The kind of irresponsible aunt who taught him how to gamble, hold his liquor like a champion, and bluff with a straight face—yet somehow remained responsible enough to teach him marksmanship, battlefield tactics, and how to spot a liar before they even finished speaking.
Sophie.
His older sister.
The source of half his headaches—and half of his happiest memories.
A young woman determined to become a responsible adult so she could protect her family, especially her middle brother... who somehow always ended up being the one protecting everyone else.
Every now and then, though, she'd insist on returning the favor by shielding him from "dangerous" girls capable of committing truly "heinous" crimes—like flirting with him, catcalling him, or shamelessly trying to sweep him off his feet.
Daisy.
His little sister.
A tiny bundle of sunshine—a lovable little gremlin who somehow believed every problem in the world could be solved with enough optimism and a determined can-do attitude.
She was always clinging to him, endlessly bragging to her friends about how amazing her big brother was. And whenever life knocked him down, she was always the first to throw her arms around him in a tight hug, as if sheer affection alone could chase every worry away.
Father Creed.
The local district priest.
The old pastor who somehow always seemed to know exactly when someone needed guidance.
A rugged, broad-shouldered old man who looked like he could strangle a demon with his bare hands, yet never hesitated to show compassion to lost souls. Beneath that intimidating exterior was a steadfast mentor—one who could teach military tactics with razor-sharp precision, temper wavering hearts into unbreakable resolve, and remind people that true strength was measured not by the battles one won, but by the burdens one chose to bear.
Then the unexpected face popped in his mind...
Pumpkin.
The family's orange tabby.
Fat. Lazy. Glorious.
Niero almost laughed.
Even here.
Even now.
For some inexplicable reason, the image of Pumpkin shamelessly demanding food with absolute confidence carried more comfort than a dozen profound life philosophies ever could.
Emotion.
Knowledge.
Identity.
Body.
Mind.
Spirit.
They flowed together.
Not as separate things.
But as parts of the same person.
The same existence.
The same self.
The stars accelerated further.
The ring of light thickened.
The synchronization percentage rose.
Thirty percent.
Forty.
Fifty.
Sixty.
Seventy.
Vuldyr's voice echoed distantly.
Almost like hearing someone through water.
> ["Synchronization rising. Alignment improving."]
> ["This is the closest you've ever gotten."]
Seventy-five percent.
Eighty.
Eighty-five.
The stars began drawing closer.
Closer.
Closer.
The gap between them is shrinking.
The moment of fusion is approaching.
Niero could feel it.
Like reaching for a door handle after years of searching.
Like standing before a locked gate that was finally beginning to open.
Ninety percent.
His Stellarion Core blazed.
The central orange star erupted into radiant light.
The three orbiting stars began spiraling inward.
The breakthrough was there.
Right there.
Within reach.
Then—
something screamed.
A violent shockwave exploded through the stellar landscape.
The harmony shattered.
The orbit destabilized.
The stars lurched apart.
Niero's eyes snapped open.
Blood exploded from his mouth.
He doubled over.
Violently.
Crimson splattering across the sand beneath him.
"GHK—!"
Pain erupted through every part of him simultaneously.
His chest felt as though someone had driven a spear through his heart.
His skull felt molten.
His nerves felt set on fire.
The stars above fractured.
Their smooth orbits became chaotic.
Collisions became impacts.
Harmony became rejection.
Niero collapsed onto one knee.
One hand planted into the sand.
Blood dripped from his lips.
His entire body trembled.
The breakthrough had rejected him again.
Not completely.
Not like before.
But enough.
Enough to stop the fusion.
Enough to throw him back.
Enough to remind him that something was still wrong.
Vuldyr appeared beside him instantly.
Her expression was serious.
Far more serious than usual.
> ["Synchronization reached 91.3%."]
Niero coughed again.
More blood.
"Damn..."
His voice came out ragged.
Vuldyr stared at the celestial system above them.
The stars continued spinning.
Unstable.
Incomplete.
Refusing to merge.
"You were closer than any previous attempt."
She narrowed her eyes.
"Far closer."
Niero wiped blood from his mouth.
Slowly.
Painfully.
=
=====
=
For a few seconds—
neither of them spoke.
The only sound was Niero's ragged breathing.
Blood dripped from his lips.
From his nose.
From the corners of his eyes.
The beach beneath him had become stained crimson after five failed breakthrough attempts.
Five.
Five times he had almost touched the threshold.
Five times he had felt the synchronization rise.
Ninety-one percent.
Ninety-seven.
Ninety-five.
Ninety-eight point three.
And every single time—
the Stellarion Core rejected him.
Niero slammed his fist into the sand.
BOOM.
The beach cratered.
He slammed it again.
BOOM.
Again.
BOOM.
Again.
BOOM.
Blood splashed across the sand.
His knuckles split open.
He barely noticed.
"WHY?!"
Another punch.
"I WAS RIGHT THERE!"
Another.
"SO WHAT'S MISSING?!"
Another.
"WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING WRONG?!"
The beach trembled.
The sky crackled.
The unstable pocket dimension responded to his emotional outburst.
Finally—
his strength gave out.
Niero collapsed onto his back.
Chest heaving.
Staring at the fake tropical sky.
Laughing.
Not because anything was funny.
Because he had reached that special stage of frustration where his brain simply stopped knowing what emotion it was supposed to feel.
A hollow laugh escaped him.
"Heh..."
Another.
"Hehehe..."
Then louder.
"Ha..."
"Hahaha..."
"HAHAHAHA..."
Vuldyr crouched beside him.
Genuine concern visible on her face.
Something rare for someone who usually hid behind sarcasm and teasing.
> ["Kiddo."]
No response.
> ["Niero."]
Niero covered his eyes with one arm.
Still laughing weakly.
> ["You have approximately four hours remaining."]
Her voice softened.
> ["Let's take a few minutes break."]
> ["Rest. Reset your mental state."]
> ["The breakthrough isn't going anywhere at this moment."]
Niero let out another laugh.
"A breakthrough isn't going anywhere? I WAS AT IT FOR FIVE TIMES! Getting my lungs and body paint in red and pain for 5 times!!!"
He shook his head.
Silence.
Then his laughter slowly faded.
His breathing steadied.
His arm lowered.
And his eyes drifted toward the distant shoreline.
His expression froze.
"...Oh."
Vuldyr blinked.
> ["What?"]
Niero pointed lazily.
"There he is."
Vuldyr frowned.
> ["There who is?"]
"The creepy bastard."
A pause.
"The black figure."
Immediately—
Vuldyr's expression changed.
She had heard about it before.
Many times.
The recurring nightmare.
The matte-black humanoid.
The thing Niero occasionally saw in dreams.
The thing that always stood far away.
Watching.
Never speaking.
Never moving.
Sometimes...it would attack him.
Until now.
Vuldyr sighed.
> ["Kiddo. I know you are very upset, and you're have every rights to be."]
Her tone suggested she already knew where this was going.
> ["You are physically dying. You have suffered repeated synchronization backlash. You are under immense stress."]
> ["Hallucinations are not unexpected—"]
Then she turned.
And stopped.
Every word died in her throat.
Because something was there.
Far away across the beach.
Standing among mountains of corpses.
Scuba-Scums.
Mutant sea creatures.
Undead thralls.
Thousands of dead things littering the shoreline like the aftermath of an apocalypse.
And standing in the center of it all—
was a figure.
Matte black.
Featureless.
Humanoid.
Seemingly masculine frame.
Not darkness.
Not shadow.
Something worse.
Something that looked like darkness had taken physical form.
It stood motionless.
Arms at its sides.
Watching.
Vuldyr felt something she had never experienced before.
Not fear.
Not exactly.
But a cold sensation.
A primitive instinct.
A warning.
The same feeling prey animals felt when staring into the eyes of something that existed higher on the food chain.
"..."
For once—
Vuldyr had absolutely nothing sassy to say.
But then her voice emerged several seconds later.
Unusually quiet.
Unusually serious.
> ["...Kiddo."]
"Yeah?"
> ["...I don't think that's a hallucination."]
Noticing her reaction.
"...Oh."
A pause.
"...You can see him too?"
Vuldyr did not answer immediately.
Her gaze remained fixed on the distant figure.
The figure hadn't moved.
Hadn't spoken.
Hadn't breathed.
At that moment, something inside Niero snapped.
Not fear.
Not caution.
Not wisdom.
Pure, unfiltered irritation.
Niero shot to his feet.
"OH, HELL NO."
Vuldyr immediately recognized that tone.
Unfortunately.
It was the same tone Niero used whenever he was about to do something spectacularly stupid.
> ["Kiddo—"]
"No."
> ["Niero—"]
"NO."
He pointed directly at the distant black figure.
The mysterious entity.
The nightmare.
The thing that had stalked his dreams for nearly two years.
The thing that appeared every few weeks.
Never explained itself.
Never helped.
Usually beat the absolute crap out of him.
Then vanished.
Niero began marching across the beach.
Angrily.
Like a man about to file a complaint directly to reality itself.
"YOU!"
He pointed accusingly.
"YOU AGAIN!"
The figure remained motionless.
"DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW SICK I AM OF YOUR EDGY SHADOW BULLSHIT?!"
Vuldyr rubbed her forehead.
> ["Kiddo..."]
"No."
Niero continued walking.
Faster now.
"For TWO YEARS."
Point.
"TWO."
Point.
"YEARS."
Point.
"You've been showing up in my dreams."
Point.
"Once every month."
Point.
"Standing around looking mysterious."
Point.
"Then beating my ass."
Point.
"Then leaving."
Point.
"Like some cheap, bargain-bin horror movie jumpscare."
He jabbed a finger at the figure.
"WHO ARE YOU?!"
Silence.
"WHAT ARE YOU?!"
Silence.
"WHAT THE FUCK YOU WANT FROM ME?!"
Silence.
"WHY ARE YOU HAUNTING ME?!"
Silence.
Niero threw his hands upward.
"AND WHY DO YOU LOOK LIKE SOMEONE NAMED DREAM STALKER MCEDGELORD?!"
For a moment—
nothing happened.
The black figure stood completely still.
Then—
it moved.
There was no wind-up.
No warning.
No transition.
One moment it stood several hundred meters away.
The next—
it was directly in front of him.
Niero's eyes widened.
"Oh."
A black hand closed around his throat.
"...shit."
BOOOOOM—!
The uppercut launched him into the sky.
The beach disappeared beneath him.
The clouds exploded apart.
The entire Ego-Space shook.
Niero rocketed upward like a human missile.
Several seconds later—
the black figure appeared above him.
And kicked him.
CRAAAASH—!!
The impact sent Niero spiraling downward.
Before he could recover—
a fist struck his abdomen.
Then his jaw.
Then his ribs.
Then his spine.
Each hit carried impossible force.
Not flashy.
Not explosive.
Just devastatingly efficient.
The kind of punches that suggested violence had been perfected into an art form.
Niero was getting folded.
Again.
Just like every nightmare.
"YOU—!"
BAM
"COULD AT LEAST—!"
BAM
"INTRODUCE—!"
BAM
"YOURSELF—!"
A punch sent him flying across the sky.
Several kilometers.
Before he finally stabilized.
His boots skidded across empty air.
Nova-Spark Energy erupted around him.
Blue-white plasma exploded outward.
Lightning crackled.
The sky trembled.
His aura ignited.
The black figure watched.
Still expressionless.
Still silent.
Niero wiped blood from his mouth.
Then grinned.
"Okay."
The grin widened.
"You wanna do it the usual way."
Nova-Spark surged.
"Let's do it the usual way."
BOOOOM—!
Niero vanished.
A sonic shockwave exploded behind him.
The black figure moved simultaneously.
The two collided in mid-air.
CRAAAAAAACK—!!
Their fists met.
The impact shattered clouds across the sky.
For the first time—
the black figure did not instantly overpower him.
Niero's strength had grown.
Massively.
Since their first encounter.
Another punch.
Another clash.
Another shockwave.
The distorted heavens cracked like glass.
Blue-white energy collided against endless blackness.
Niero drove forward.
Left hook.
Blocked.
Right cross.
Blocked.
Knee strike.
Countered.
Elbow.
Parried.
Neither is giving ground.
Neither retreating.
Only Vuldyr stared from the beach below.
The overlayed Ego-Space quaking again.
Not from Nova-Spark.
Not from the black figure.
But from the sheer force of two monsters exchanging blows.
BOOOOM!!
Niero's fist collided against the black figure's guard.
The impact split clouds apart.
A second punch followed.
Then a third.
Then a spinning kick.
The black figure blocked all of it.
Effortlessly.
Niero gritted his teeth.
It wasn't fair.
He had gotten stronger.
Far stronger.
He could kill Rank-E monsters with ease.
He could fight Rank-D enemies.
He had just slain a Rank-C Witch.
Yet every time he met this thing—
he felt weak.
The black figure stepped forward.
A single punch.
Niero crossed both arms.
CRACK!
The impact launched him backward several hundred meters.
Pain shot through his arms.
"...Ghk!"
The bastard hit harder than him.
Way harder.
Not quite as terrifying as Emmy Ripley, his own mother.
Nothing in existence should be as terrifying as his mother.
But close enough that Niero immediately hated the comparison.
The black figure moved.
Gone.
Then appeared behind him.
A kick struck his side.
Niero twisted.
Caught himself.
Created distance.
Then clapped both hands together.
BOOOOOOM!!
A compressed shockwave detonated outward.
The atmosphere folded.
The ocean beneath the Sea Witch's beach exploded into massive walls of water.
The black figure disappeared inside the blast.
"HA!"
Niero thrust both hands forward.
Dozens of Nova-Spark bolts erupted from his palms.
Blue-white plasma screamed across the sky.
Each shot was hot enough to melt steel.
They flooded the heavens.
Turning the sky into a storm of destruction.
Then—
the black figure walked through it.
Not tanked.
Not blocked.
Walked.
One sidestep.
Another.
Another.
Every movement was impossibly precise.
The plasma bolts missed by centimeters.
Then the figure began swatting them aside.
One hand.
Two hands.
A bolt capable of vaporizing armor was casually redirected into the horizon.
Another into the sea.
Another into the sky.
It looked less like combat.
More like a teacher correcting a student's stance.
Or a predator displaying their overwhelming strength as their prey's attacks barely affected
Niero felt it then.
That familiar feeling.
The one he hated.
The same feeling he got during sparring.
The same feeling he got whenever Mom decided he had gotten "too confident."
A creeping dread.
A realization.
The gap.
There was still a gap.
A huge one.
The black figure wasn't even trying.
And that terrified him.
For a brief moment.
Then frustration crushed the fear.
Niero's face twisted.
"YOU KNOW WHAT?!"
The black figure stopped.
Niero pointed at it.
"SCREW YOU!"
Silence.
"DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW EXHAUSTING YOU ARE?!"
The figure remained motionless.
"EVER SINCE YOU SHOWED UP TWO YEARS AGO—"
Niero launched forward again.
Fist first.
"YOU KEEP SHOWING UP IN MY DREAMS!"
BOOM!
Their fists collided.
"YOU NEVER EXPLAIN ANYTHING!"
BOOM!
Another clash.
"YOU NEVER ANSWER QUESTIONS!"
BOOM!
A knee.
Blocked.
"YOU JUST APPEAR!"
BOOM!
A punch.
Countered.
"BEAT THE ABSOLUTE SHIT OUT OF ME!"
BOOM!
A kick.
Parried.
"AND THEN LEAVE!"
Another collision.
The sky cracked.
The stars within his Stellarion Core spun faster.
"DO YOU KNOW HOW TERRIFYING THAT WAS THE FIRST TIME?!"
Niero threw another punch.
"I THOUGHT I WAS GOING INSANE!"
Another.
"I THOUGHT I WAS CURSED!"
Another.
"I THOUGHT SOME ELDRITCH NIGHTMARE HAD DECIDED TO SCREW ME OVER!"
The black figure caught his fist.
Stopped it completely.
Niero froze.
The figure's grip tightened.
For the first time—
the black figure actually seemed to look at him.
Not through him.
At him.
Niero growled.
"WHAT ARE YOU?!"
No answer.
"WHO ARE YOU?!"
No answer.
"WHY DO YOU KEEP HAUNTING ME?!"
The entity still didn't answer except with fists and pain.
At that point, Niero was done talking.
Done thinking.
Done trying to understand whatever cosmic nonsense this thing represented.
If words weren't working—
violence would.
It had worked on goblins.
It had worked on orks.
It had worked on Scuba-Scums.
It had somewhat worked on a Sea Witch.
Red energy erupted around his arms.
Not Nova-Spark.
Not Psionic force.
Something deeper.
Something intrinsic.
> [Trait (Origin) – Trinity of Self-Supremacy: Spirit Aspect (Tier 01)]
> [Spirit Manifestation Constructs (Tier 01)]
Crimson force flowed across his forearms like liquid fire.
The energy wrapped around his fists.
Condensed.
Solidified.
Strengthened.
The sand beneath him exploded.
Niero vanished.
BOOOOOOM!!
The black figure remained motionless.
Niero appeared directly in front of it.
Then unleashed hell.
BAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAM—!!
A thousand punches.
Not metaphorically.
Not exaggerated.
A literal torrent of strikes.
Each blow carried Spirit force.
Each strike cracked the air.
Each impact detonated like artillery.
The [Spirit Manifestation Construct] gave him a boost in damage output, which gave Niero some sense of anticipation when he made the black entity stagger even for a little.
The sky disappeared beneath the barrage.
Shockwaves rippled outward.
The ocean split.
The beach shattered.
Niero became a blur.
Left.
Right.
Left.
Right.
Elbows.
Hooks.
Uppercuts.
Palm strikes.
Knees.
A machine gun made of fists.
For several glorious seconds—
it worked.
The black figure was driven backward.
Its body shook from the impacts.
Chunks of darkness peeled away.
Niero's eyes widened.
"HA!"
Another hundred punches.
"TAKE THAT!"
Another hundred.
"HOW DO YOU LIKE THAT?!"
Another hundred.
For the first time since this nightmare began—
he felt like he was winning.
Then—
the black figure moved.
A single hand emerged from the barrage.
And grabbed his right wrist.
Niero froze.
"...what?"
A second hand emerged.
And grabbed his left wrist.
His eyes widened.
The punches stopped.
Instantly.
As though someone had hit a pause button.
The black figure stood there.
Holding both of Niero's arms.
Completely unharmed.
For the first time—
Niero felt genuine alarm.
"Oh."
The figure twisted.
CRACK.
Niero's arms were forced downward.
His balance vanished.
Then came the knee.
BOOOOM!!
The strike hit his abdomen.
Everything inside him lurched.
His lungs emptied instantly.
"GHHHK—!!"
Before he could recover—
the black figure leaned forward.
And headbutted him.
CRACK!!
The world flashed white.
Stars exploded across his vision.
His thoughts scattered.
His concentration broke.
Spirit force dimming.
Nova-Spark flickered.
For half a second—
Niero became vulnerable.
The black figure released one wrist.
Pulled its arm back.
And punched.
Not at his face.
Not at his head.
At his chest.
Very.
Hard.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!
The impact felt like being hit by a freight train.
A battleship.
And an angry Mom simultaneously.
Niero felt ribs crack.
One.
Two.
Three.
Maybe more.
The sound echoed through his entire body.
Then he was flying.
Downward.
Fast.
Very fast.
The sky became a blur.
The beach rushed upward.
Vuldyr looked up.
> ["...Oh dear."]
CRAAAAAAAAAASH—!!!
Niero hit the ground like a meteor.
The beach exploded.
Sand vaporized.
A shockwave raced across the coastline.
A crater hundreds of meters wide appeared instantly.
For several moments—
nothing moved.
Only drifting sand.
Only smoke.
Only silence.
Then—
from the center of the crater—
came a groan.
"...I..."
Cough.
"...really..."
Cough.
"...hate..."
Cough.
Blood.
More blood.
"...that guy..."
Above him—
the black figure slowly descended from the sky.
Not triumphant.
Not arrogant.
Not mocking.
Merely waiting.
Like a teacher standing over a student who had just made the same mistake again.
Niero forced himself onto one elbow.
Breathing hard.
The moment Niero tried to push himself up—
the world disappeared under impact.
BAM.
The black figure was on him again.
Not standing.
Not circling.
Not observing.
Straddling him.
Pinning him down like a verdict that had already been decided.
And then—
it started punching.
BAM.
Niero's head snapped sideways.
Blood sprayed into the sand.
BAM.
His guard tried to rise.
Too slow.
Too weak.
BAM.
His arms folded inward under the pressure.
Bone-deep impact rippled through his skull.
Blue-black bruises bloomed across his face like ink spreading through water.
"Ghk—!"
He tried to block.
Failed.
Tried again.
Failed harder.
Each punch landed cleaner than the last.
Not wild.
Not emotional.
Controlled.
Efficient.
Absolute.
The kind of violence that didn't need anger anymore.
Only certainty.
Niero's thoughts blurred.
This is worse than Mom holding back…
Another hit.
His vision flashed white.
Somewhere behind him—
Vuldyr moved.
> ["KIDDO—!"]
She materialized fully, her digital halo flaring violently.
Blue-purple chains erupted from her hands like cascading code made physical.
They snapped around the black figure.
One.
Two.
Five.
Ten.
> ["Containment sequence—!"]
The chains tightened.
Reality itself groaned.
For half a second—
hope flickered.
Niero coughed through blood.
"…Vuldyr… now's a good time…"
Then—
the chains stopped tightening.
Not because they failed.
Because they were being ignored.
The black figure didn't even look up.
It simply lifted one hand.
And pulled.
CRRRRRK—!
The chains shattered like glass.
Vuldyr's eyes widened.
> ["…Impossible—"]
Before she could react—
the black figure moved again.
It grabbed her.
Not violently.
Not dramatically.
Just… inevitability made motion.
And threw her.
WHOOOOOM—!!
Vuldyr flew across the beach, skidding through sand, her digital wings flickering violently before stabilizing.
> ["Ugh—!"]
She crashed into the ground, systems glitching for a fraction of a second.
> ["Okay,"] she muttered, voice strained. ["That. HURTS. ASSHOLE!!!"]
Back at the crater—
the punches resumed.
BAM. BAM. BAM.
Niero's body bounced slightly with each impact, pinned beneath the black figure like a nail being driven deeper into reality.
His resistance was still there.
Barely.
Instinctively.
But it was collapsing.
Niero spat blood.
"…Tch… you're really—"
BAM.
"—starting to piss me off…"
BAM.
The black figure's strikes didn't change pace.
But something about them sharpened.
Not stronger.
Not faster.
Heavier.
More personal.
Each punch came down like judgment.
Vuldyr was able to jump back on the entity's back again, able to lock around the entity's neck with her manifested chains, screaming and sparking under impossible strain.
> ["Hold—still—damn it—!"]
Niero saw it coming.
Barely.
Through swollen vision and fractured focus.
And still—
he laughed.
Blood spilled from his mouth as his lips curled.
"...You know what?"
His voice was wrecked.
Half drowned in pain.
Half dragged out of sheer spite.
"FUCK YOU TOO, FREDDY KRUGER—!!"
The black figure didn't react.
It never really did.
Until now.
Niero forced his arms up.
Trembling.
Broken.
Still moving.
He caught the incoming punch.
Barely.
The impact detonated through his bones anyway.
CRACK—!!
His arms buckled.
His knees sank deeper into the sand.
But he didn't go down.
Not fully.
His eyes burned open through swelling.
And something inside him snapped—not into despair—
but into refusal.
"I don't care—!"
He coughed blood.
"If you jump into my dreams every month—!"
His grip tightened.
"If you want to break my spirit—!"
His aura flickered.
Nova-Spark surged back through cracked channels.
Spirit force ignited across his body in unstable bursts.
"—then you're just wasting your damn time!!"
The black figure finally paused.
Just slightly.
That was all.
But it was enough.
Niero dragged himself upward through sheer force of will.
Every inch felt like tearing his own body apart.
"I'll get up—no matter how many times I fall—!"
A pulse.
Inside his Stellarion Core.
99.9%.
Still not 100.
Still resisting.
Still fractured.
"I'll fight back—no matter how powerless I am—!"
Another pulse.
The four stars inside him trembled harder.
Unity was close.
But something in him still refused to submit.
"I'LL RISE—!"
The black figure's fist hovered inches from his face.
Vuldyr's chains tightened—
and snapped again.
She gasped.
> ["Kiddo—this thing is—"]
Niero screamed through blood.
"—AND I'LL GROW STRONGER! EVEN IF I HAVE TO REBEL AGAINST FATE ITSELF!!"
Silence.
The beach froze.
Even the wind stopped.
Even the ocean beyond the Ego-Space boundary stilled.
The black figure's fist—
stopped.
Not deflected.
Not resisted.
Just… halted.
Hovering.
A hair's breadth from Niero's face.
Niero's breath hitched.
His eyes widened slightly through the swelling.
"…Hah…"
The world held its breath.
The black figure did not move.
For the first time since it had appeared—
it wasn't acting.
It wasn't correct.
It wasn't attacking.
It was listening.
Not to noise.
Not to anger.
To intend.
To the raw declaration buried underneath all of it.
Rebellion.
A long silence stretched between them.
Vuldyr froze mid-motion, sensing the shift.
> ["…It stopped…"]
The black figure slowly lowered its fist.
Not surrendering.
Not yielding.
Acknowledging.
99.9%…
The number hung there.
His Stellarion Core's synchronization percentage...
Frozen.
Waiting.
Then—
the black figure released him.
Not with force.
Not with violence.
It simply rose.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
The pressure crushing Niero into the sand vanished as the entity stepped away.
For a brief moment, nobody moved.
Then instinct took over.
Niero exploded backward.
Sand erupted beneath his feet as he launched himself across the beach, putting distance between them.
His lungs burned.
His entire body screamed in protest.
But he stayed standing.
Barely.
He raised both arms into a tight guard, forearms shielding his face like a boxer preparing for the next round.
Blood dripped from his face and knuckles.
His hands shook.
Yet his stance held.
The black figure remained where it stood.
Silent.
Motionless.
Watching.
Niero spat a mouthful of blood onto the sand.
A crooked grin spread across his battered face.
"Hah..."
His chest rose and fell heavily.
"What happened?"
He laughed.
Harsh.
Breathless.
Almost delirious.
"You finally run out of ways to beat the hell out of me?"
The black figure didn't answer.
Niero's grin widened.
"Or what?"
He pointed at it.
Directly.
Defiantly.
"Are you scared?"
The beach remained silent.
"Intimidated?"
His voice echoed across the frozen shoreline.
"Did my little speech hit a nerve?"
Nova-Spark crackled weakly around his body.
Blue-white arcs danced across torn flesh and shattered armor.
Despite everything—
he took a step forward.
Then another.
And another.
Every movement hurt.
He didn't care.
"YOU HEAR ME?!"
His voice rose into a challenge.
"You can knock me down."
A step.
"You can break every bone in my body."
Another step.
"You can drag me into this nightmare over and over again."
The distance between them shrank.
The black figure remained still.
Unmoving.
Listening.
"But if you're waiting for me to quit—"
Niero stopped.
His guard remained raised.
His burning gaze locked onto the entity's featureless face.
"Then you're going to be waiting forever."
Silence.
The ocean remained frozen.
The wind remained absent.
Even Vuldyr held her breath.
The black figure stared at him.
Motionless.
As though weighing something beyond words.
As though measuring something far more important than strength.
Vuldyr appeared behind him mid-recovery, stabilizing his body with a soft healing pulse.
> ["Hey! Don't provoke it,"] she said flatly. ["Your face already got the puching bag treatement."]
"I wasn't provoking it," Niero rasped, still staring forward.
"…I was asserting dominance."
> ["Well at this moment, you suck at it."]
"Semantics."
The black figure stood still.
No attack.
No movement.
Just presence.
Then it looked directly at him.
Those two white pinhole eyes locked in.
Not scanning.
Not analyzing.
Recognizing.
Niero instinctively raised his guard again.
Vuldyr mirrored him immediately.
> ["…brace yourself, Kiddo. I don't think we are done yet...."]
The entity's head tilted slightly.
And then—
it spoke.
Its voice is deep.
Heavier.
In a voice that could be only described as deep bass, yet with audio static...
One word.
"Rebel."
The air twitched.
Not like sound.
Not like energy.
Like reality briefly forgot what it was supposed to be doing.
Niero froze.
"…It talks."
It made both Niero and Vuldyr's eyes confused.
But something shifted inside Niero's chest.
Not pain.
Not force.
Resonance.
As if that word somehow echoed through Niero's soul.
The four stars in his Stellarion Core stuttered.
Then aligned—
for half a heartbeat.
99.9%… almost.
Almost.
Then...
Something happens...
A faint blue mark flickered across the entity's chest.
A sharp V shape.
Like a mirror.
Like a reflection.
Like something deliberately chosen.
Niero blinked.
"…Is that—"
Vuldyr cut in immediately.
> ["That blue V... it looks familiar...."]
The entity turned its back.
Casually.
As if the conversation had ended.
Then—
it began to walk away.
No portal.
No explosion.
No dimensional collapse.
Just… fading.
From feet upward.
Like smoke forgetting its humanoid shape.
Niero took one step forward instinctively.
"HEY! WAIT—!"
Too late.
The black figure dissolved completely.
Gone.
Silence returned to the Ego-Space beach.
Even the ocean felt uncertain now.
Niero stood there.
Bloodied.
Breathing unevenly.
Arms still half-raised in guard.
"…It just… left?"
Vuldyr slowly lowered her chains, scanning the residual space.
> ["…It just disappears... leaving nothing behind to scan at...."]
"That's worse," Niero muttered.
Vuldyr glanced at him.
> ["For once, I agree."]
A pause.
Niero wiped blood from his mouth, still staring at where it vanished.
"…It said 'rebel'...like it meant something...."
Vuldyr's expression tightened slightly.
> ["…Yeah."]
Another silence.
Then she added, quieter:
> ["…you mentioned it first, and yet it looked like it as if it resonate with that word...."]
Niero didn't answer immediately.
He just stood there on the cracked sand of Ego-Space, bruised, half-dead, and increasingly aware that whatever had been haunting him for years—
wasn't finished.
It had simply… stepped back.
Like a test paused.
Not ended.
=
=====
=
Niero limped back through the frozen shoreline of Ego-Space like a man dragging a broken argument behind him.
Each step kicked up sand that still remembered explosions.
Each breath felt like it had to be negotiated with his ribs.
Behind him, Vuldyr hovered closer, arms folded, still visibly unsettled by what she had seen.
> ["You are aware,"] she said, ["that resting for at least sixty seconds would increase survival probability by—"]
"I don't have sixty seconds," Niero cut in.
He didn't even look back.
"I only have three hours of dying slowly if I mess this up."
> ["…Fair."]
He reached the original crater of his impalement.
The place where everything had stopped.
Where time itself had folded into a photograph of his worst possible outcome.
His body was still there.
Frozen mid-impalement.
Pinned in suspended catastrophe.
Seeing it again made his stomach tighten.
Not fear.
Not shock.
Focus.
"…Alright," he muttered. "…Let's do this...one more time...."
He lowered himself into a lotus position directly beneath his own suspended body.
The symbolism wasn't lost on Vuldyr.
Niero closed his eyes.
Breathing in.
Breathing out.
The world quieted again.
But this time—
he didn't try to force alignment.
Didn't try to wrestle his Stellarion Core into obedience.
Didn't try to "win" against himself.
Instead—
he listened.
Four stars.
Orbiting.
Colliding.
Rejecting.
Resisting.
Until—
he remembered the word.
Rebel.
Not as defiance.
Not as anger.
Not as a survival instinct.
But as a principle.
A refusal not just against fate—
but against fragmentation itself.
Against being divided into pieces that could be broken separately.
His breath slowed.
And then—
he spoke inside his mind.
Not aloud.
Not emotionally.
Clearly.
"I stop trying to control you."
The four stars flickered.
"I stop treating you like separate things."
A pulse.
"I stop trying to force perfection."
Another pulse.
"And I stop obeying the idea that I have to be anything other than whole."
The air shifted.
Not violently.
Not explosively.
Correctively.
Like a system finally accepting the right key after years of wrong attempts.
Vuldyr's eyes widened slightly.
> ["…Oh."]
The Stellarion Core reacted.
The four orbiting stars stopped fighting.
Stopped colliding.
Stopped resisting alignment.
And instead—
they tilted inward.
Like they had been waiting for permission to become one thing.
The world inside Niero's perception dimmed.
Not fading—
compressing.
A singular point formed at the center of his being.
Then expanded.
A ring of light.
Spinning.
Stabilizing.
Perfectly imperfect.
His body jerked once.
Then went still.
Outside—
Vuldyr instinctively stepped back.
> ["…Synchronization is exceeding predicted thresholds."]
The frozen beach trembled.
Ego-Space itself began to respond.
Niero's voice came out low.
Not strained.
Not confused.
Certain.
"…So that's it."
The four stars collapsed fully into one Stellarion Core.
No separation.
No conflict.
No fragmentation.
Just unity.
A single burning construct of mind, body, spirit—will and rebellion.
The breakthrough was completed.
And reality paid the price.
Inside the Ego-Space, the newly unified Stellarion Core ignited.
Not as an explosion.
As a star.
A brilliant orange-white celestial sphere formed within Niero's soul.
The four fragmented Stellarion stars that once represented Mind, Body, Spirit, and Will had become one.
No longer orbiting.
No longer conflicting.
Unified.
Then it pulsed.
Once.
The pulse crossed the boundary between Ego-Space and reality.
The frozen world shattered.
=
=====
=
Reality resumed as the Ego-Sapce Acceleration has dropped.
To Amaryllis—
less than a fraction of a second had passed.
One moment—
her mutated coral arm had pierced through Niero's torso.
The next—
something impossible happened.
A blinding pillar of light erupted from Niero's body.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM—!!
The shockwave detonated across the beach.
Sand vaporized.
Water exploded outward.
The collapsing pocket dimension trembled violently.
Amaryllis screamed.
The force blasted her backward.
Her gigantic mutated coral arm shattered across its surface.
Jagged coral spikes broke apart and scattered like artillery fragments.
"W-WHAT—?!"
For the first time since this fight began—
the Witch sounded genuinely shocked.
Agent Armitage wasn't doing much better.
The one-armed agent raised his remaining arm over his eyes.
"SON OF A—!"
The flash blinded him.
The shockwave nearly knocked him off his feet.
His M.A.R.S. suit began screaming alerts.
> WARNING.
> UNKNOWN ENERGY SIGNATURE DETECTED.
"...What the hell did the kid do now?!"
The light intensified.
Then slowly—
began to fade.
The beach fell silent.
The ocean stilled.
Even the monsters seemed frozen.
Standing where the impaled Niero should have been—
was someone else.
Or perhaps—
the next version of him.
Niero Ripley stood upright.
Uninjured.
Restored.
But his clothes were gone.
Replaced by something entirely new.
A sleek black armored suit covered his body from neck to toe.
Not bulky.
Not mechanical.
Sleek.
Elegant.
Tactical.
Predatory.
The armor hugged his frame like a second skin.
Its surface looked a mix of fabric and metalic and yet strangely organic.
As if forged from living starlight and obsidian.
A brilliant pearlescent white V-shaped emblem stretched across his chest.
The same symbol he had seen on the black figure.
A full helmet concealed his face.
No mouth.
No visible eyes.
Only a glowing V-shaped visor where his eyes should have been.
His gloves looked capable of crushing steel.
His boots appeared capable of stomping through tank armor.
A tactical belt wrapped around his waist, integrated seamlessly into the suit's design.
The entire thing radiated power.
Not loud.
Not explosive.
Contained.
Controlled.
Like a star compressed into human form.
Niero slowly looked down at himself.
"...Okay."
He flexed his fingers.
The suit responded instantly.
Like moving his own skin.
No delay.
No stiffness.
"That is definitely new."
A status window exploded into existence.
-
<<<[ STARGOD SYSTEM: ASCENSION REVIEW ]>>>
> [BREAKTHROUGH SUCCESSFUL]
> [Realm Advancement Complete]
> [Realm 01: Student -> Realm 2: Disciple Achieved]
> [Level 30 → Level 31]
> + [Stargod Authority Expanded]
> + [Trait (Origin): Trinity of Self-Supemacy - Aspect 01: Body (Tier 02)]
> + [New Function Unlocked: Stargod Equipment - Astra Kavacha MK-01 (Active)]
-
Vuldyr appeared beside him.
Unlike before—
she looked genuinely excited.
> ["Kiddo."]
Her eyes were practically glowing.
> ["New Astra Codex entries just downloaded."]
-
<[ ASTRA KAVACHA MK-01 ]>
> Classification: Stargod Combat Suit
> Designation: Personal Armor System
> Unlock Requirement: Ascesion Realm 2 (Disciple)
> Capabilities:
> + Enhanced Strength
> + Enhanced Durability
> + Enhanced Mobility
> + Environmental Protection
> + Astral Energy Conduction
> + Nova-Spark Amplification
> + Psionic Conduit Network
> + Emergency Survival Functions
-
Niero blinked.
"...A powersuit."
> ["Technically."]
Vuldyr grinned.
> ["It's a powersuit that is closer to cultivation armor, working in tandem with your body like a second layer of skin and muscles. Made from an unknown programable material that is similar to the Omnia Matter. Even in its MK 01 model, it provides incredible enhancements, feats, and abilities beyond regular armor humanity ever wields."]
"That's awesome. This Starrgod System is really something."
He himself can only smirk with excitement.
He has finally broken through his ascension into the second realm, from Student to Disciple.
After many months of trial and error, and somehow being "hinted" at by the mysterious black figure in his visions, he is now able to grow stronger.
He knows his path to growing stronger won't be easy, but if he got to survive in this dangerous world and protect his family, he has to walk through hell to do so.
"You."
A voice caught Niero's attention. It was Agent Armitage, still on the sandy ground with a missing right arm and a missing left leg.
Niero looked at him.
The agent pointed.
"That armor..."
Pointed even harder.
"The dramatic glowing transformation..."
A pause.
Then he asked the obvious question.
"...Are you absolutely sure you're not secretly a Sororitae?"
Niero immediately answered.
"YES...sort of...kinda...but only girls who..."
Armitage narrowed his eyes.
"You don't sound convincing yourself...."
"...Shut up."
Far away—
Amaryllis slowly climbed from the crater she had been blasted into.
Her mutated body trembled.
The black rhombus artifact embedded within her chest cavity pulsed violently.
But now—
for the first time—
she wasn't looking at Niero with amusement.
Or obsession.
Or sadistic delight.
She was looking at him with distress.
The mutant sea witch immediately grew multiple razor-sharp corals from her body like a mutant porcupine and then shot a barrage of them towards the resurrected boy like a storm front.
Dozens—no, hundreds—of jagged projectiles, each one saturated with Dark Script energy, tearing through the air in distorted arcs as if the ocean itself had turned hostile.
Amaryllis didn't wait to see the result.
She just threw everything.
Niero moved.
Not consciously.
Not strategically.
Instinctively.
A single step forward.
One hand raised.
SMACK.
The first coral spike was swatted aside.
Then another.
Then a dozen more in a rapid chain of motion so clean it looked like the air itself was being edited out of existence.
Niero blinked.
"…Huh?"
A final spike came in from the blind angle.
He flicked it away without turning his head.
The spike shattered in mid-air.
Only then did he pause.
"…I didn't think I moved that fast."
His voice sounded different to his own ears.
Lighter.
Stronger.
More present.
He lifted a hand toward his helmet instinctively—
And the Astra Kavacha responded.
The visor dissolved into particles of light.
The armor remained.
But the mask was gone.
Wind hit his face immediately.
And that was when he felt it.
The energy inside him wasn't just circulating anymore.
It was flowing.
Like a river that had finally found its proper channel.
His hair shifted in the wind.
Niero froze slightly.
"…My hair—"
It wasn't black anymore.
Deep red.
Burning red.
Alive like embers stretched into strands.
Except—
the white forelock at his forehead remained unchanged, stark against the crimson like a guiding fracture of identity.
Vuldyr stared.
> ["…Oh wow..."]
Niero frowned.
"…What?"
She didn't answer immediately.
She was reading something.
Something deeper than the standard Codex layer.
Then—
-
<<< [ASTRA FORCE STATUS UPDATE] >>>
> [Astra Force Output - Stage 01: Ember State -> Stage 02: Nova State]
> A stabilized combat form where Astra Force becomes usable as a sustained output. The Stargod can actively enhanced abilities with intent, granting high survivability and reliable combat adaptability againt supernatural cosmic forces.
-
Her voice shifted into analysis mode.
> ["Kiddo. You've stabilized into Astra Force output at Stage 02."]
A pause.
> ["…a Nova State."]
The air around Niero subtly tightened.
Not pressure.
Not gravity.
Potential.
Vuldyr continued.
> ["Your output is no longer triggering in burst-based. It's sustained. Now you have greater output that make more resistant to anomalous forces unlike before!!!"]
"It's about goddamn time!"
Niero slowly flexed his fingers.
A faint crimson energy danced between them.
Controlled.
Responsive.
"…That's new."
Vuldyr nodded once.
Then her expression sharpened.
> ["And there's more. For your red hair-"]
She flicked a hologram open.
-
<<<[ NEW TRAIT - ACTIVATED ] >>>
<[TRAIT (ORIGIN): Supernova] ]>>>
> Each form amplifies the user's power exponentially upon going beyond the natural threshold of the usr's Nova-Spark energy. Each stage dramatically multiplies a the user's capabilities, with the higher levels demanding extraordinary discipline, emotional mastery, and biological adaptation. Higher states are increasingly difficult to attain and place immense strain upon the body and spirit.
> Stage: 01 — Crimson Spark
> Effect: ×5 Amplification
> Notes:
> + Exponential scaling with Ascension progression
> + Increased strain on body and spirit channels
> + Higher emotional control required for stability
-
Niero read it once.
Then again.
"So in this form… I got stronger?"
> ["In this form…a lot stronger..."]
"...holy shit..."
Across the crater—
Amaryllis moved again.
But slower this time.
More cautious.
Her mutated coral structures shifted defensively rather than offensively.
Even the black rhombus artifact inside her chest pulsed unevenly now.
She was no longer treating this as a game.
Amaryllis screamed.
Not in fear.
Not in pain.
In rage.
Her mutated body exploded forward.
The grotesque mass of coral and flesh that had once been her right side twisted violently as dozens of coral-spiked tentacles lashed outward.
Each moved like a whip.
No.
Like an executioner's chains.
Filled with Dark Script corruption and the alien energy pulsing from the black rhombus.
"JUST DIE ALREADY!!"
WHOOOOOSH—!!
The attacks came fast enough to shred tanks.
Fast enough to pulverize buildings.
Fast enough that the previous Niero would've struggled to even see them.
But—
The world slowed down.
Not literally.
Not time.
His perception.
The ocean waves seemed sluggish.
The shrieks of the mutated Witch became muffled.
Every whipping tentacle appeared in crystal clarity.
Niero's eyes widened.
"...Whoa."
The incoming attacks looked…
Slow.
Ridiculously slow.
His body moved.
Not with effort.
Not with panic.
Naturally.
One step.
Tilt.
Lean.
Turn.
Coral spikes sliced through empty air.
Tentacles passed harmlessly by his face.
A deadly whip swept toward his neck—
he simply bent backwards.
"Am I…"
Another tentacle.
He casually stepped aside.
"...seeing everything slower?"
Vuldyr grinned.
> ["Correction. You're processing everything. It seems that in this new abilites overlays with each other, greatly enhanced your superhuman conditions, including your senses and reflex."]
Amaryllis' remaining eye widened.
"W-WHAT?!"
She unleashed more.
Dozens.
Hundreds.
A frenzy of tentacles.
A storm of death.
And Niero simply walked through it.
Like rain.
His crimson hair flowed behind him.
His Astra Kavacha glowed softly.
His eyes remained calm.
Each attack missed.
Not by luck.
Not by prediction.
By overwhelming superiority.
Eventually—
he stood directly in front of her.
Amaryllis froze.
"..."
"...Eh?"
Niero looked up at her.
"...My turn."
He threw an uppercut.
Nothing fancy.
No special technique.
No energy blast.
Just—
BOOOOOM—!!
The punch connected.
Reality exploded.
Shockwaves blasted outward.
The air detonated.
The sea beneath them split.
Amaryllis' eyes bulged.
The mutated Witch shot into the sky like she had been hit by an orbital railgun.
Agent Armitage, who was trying to line up a shot with his pistol, lowered the weapon.
"...Holy shit."
Far above—
Amaryllis spun helplessly.
"AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH—!!"
Niero stared upward.
Then looked at his fist.
"..."
"...I barely put anything into that."
Vuldyr suddenly froze.
> ["...Kiddo."]
"Yeah?"
> ["...New data."]
"Oh shit. New powers. What is it now?" Niero cracks a smile at the anticipation of possibly a 3rd new power.
A massive warning screen exploded around her.
Her smile vanished.
> ["Oh...that is...concerning."]
Niero blinked.
"Good kind of concerning?"
> ["That depends. It for the best you cheack it out."]
Multiple Astra Codex windows unfolded.
Unknown entries.
Forbidden entries.
Something ancient.
Something that had never appeared before.
And then—
A title appeared.
-
<<< [TRAIT (Origin) - Ragna-Kha: Reincarnation of the Fallen Star (Ultimate Skill) ]>>>
A transcendent Origin Trait that defies the natural law of death itself. Ragna-Kha grants the user a unlimited number of Revival Charges, allowing them to return from death or otherwise unsurvivable trauma.
Upon each activation, the user is instantly resurrected at peak condition while undergoing an explosive evolutionary surge. Their body rapidly regenerates, their physical parameters increase exponentially, and they temporarily manifest adaptive abilities tailored to the cause of death. These adaptations may take the form of enhanced physiology, conceptual defenses, elemental resistances, regenerative mutations, or entirely new combat capabilities.
Every resurrection permanently records the cause of death, converting it into complete immunity. Any method that has successfully killed the user once can never do so again, forcing future opponents to discover new means of overcoming them.
Each successive revival dramatically amplifies the user's power, with all attributes increasing exponentially—×2 after the first resurrection, ×4 after the second, ×8 after the third, and so on. Every death transforms the battlefield into a forge of evolution, creating a warrior that becomes progressively more difficult to defeat.
> Limitations:
> The Ragna-Kha State can only be maintained while sufficient Energy Points (EP) remain. Due to its exponentially increasing energy consumption, prolonged activation rapidly drains the user's reserves.
> Upon deactivation or EP depletion, all temporary adaptations, resistances, mutations, and manifested abilities immediately disappear, returning the user to their original baseline. However, the user remains fully healed, yet left venerable for a time.
> After deactivation, Ragna-Kha enters a 7-day cooldown before it can be activated again.
> [Ragna-Kha Activated]
> Resurrection #1 Confirmed
> Cause of Death: Anomalous Impalement
> Evolution Sequence Complete
> Permanent Immunity Acquired: Anomalous-empowered Impalement
> Adaptive Manifestation: Reinforced skeletal structure and internal organ displacement.
> Current Attribute Multiplier: ×2
-
Niero and Vuldyr slowly finished reading.
The entire description had already been processed.
Understood.
Registered.
And that was exactly the problem.
Because the more they reread it—
the heavier the silence became.
Vuldyr's expression tightened first.
Then cracked.
> ["... Oh no."]
> ["...No no no."]
> ["...Kiddo."]
> ["You know how most Ultimate Skills are broken?"]
"Yeah?"
> ["This one is down-right criminal."]
She swallowed.
"Listen carefully."
Ragna-Kha: Reincarnation of the Fallen Star
A death-triggered resurrection trait that forces adaptive evolution after every fatal encounter.
Each death grants exponential stat growth, regenerative healing, and growing resistance, if not immunity.
Each death permanently voids the method that killed you as a viable threat.
Each revival produces new resistances, new abilities, and new combat adaptations.
She paused.
> ["First death, double. Second, quadruple.Third, eight times. and so on..."]
Niero blinked.
"...So by getting myself killed—"
> ["DO NOT SAY IT."]
"—is technically a training metho—"
> ["DO NOT FINISH THAT SENTENCE."]
Even as a joke...
Despite the new ability, the implication of death doesn't seem to fade away.
To the massive hole that had been impaled through his body.
To the fatal wound.
To the corpse that should have existed.
And quietly said:
"...I...died..."
Yet. Here he is, alive and empowered.
-
As the mutated Amaryllis was launched screaming into the heavens—
Niero stood motionless.
His right fist remained raised.
His entire body trembled.
Not from fear.
Not from exhaustion.
But from something new.
Something overwhelming.
Pain.
Ecstasy.
Rage.
Triumph.
All of them crashed together inside him.
His chest still remembered the sensation.
The tentacle arms that hit harder than a truck.
The coral spikes.
The horrible feeling of his organs being pierced.
The suffocating terror.
The realization that—
for the first time—
he had truly come close to dying.
Not training.
Not simulations.
Not sparring with Mom.
Not dreams.
Real death.
And somehow—
he had returned.
His red hair danced in the air.
The black armor embraced his body like a second skin.
Red energy flowed across the white V-shaped lines like molten rivers.
And beneath the faceless visor resting around his neck—
his eyes widened.
"...Holy shit."
He slowly opened and closed his hand.
He could feel it.
Everything.
The ocean.
The air.
His own heartbeat.
The circulation of energy through his veins.
The burning star within his soul.
It felt—
alive.
Stronger.
Bigger.
Infinite.
And terrifying.
Because he understood.
This power existed because he had almost died.
Because he had refused to stay down.
Because something inside him—
something ancient—
answered his declaration.
"I will rise victorious."
"I will defy all odds."
"I will grow stronger even if had to rebel against fate itself."
Those words echoed inside his mind.
And with them—
came a feeling.
Not pride.
Not confidence.
Not invincibility.
But something primal.
Something fierce.
Something that frightened even him.
The desire to stand against anything.
Against monsters.
Against despair.
Against destiny.
Against gods.
Against the universe itself.
If something tried to force him down—
then he would rise.
Again.
And again.
And again.
No matter how impossible.
No matter how hopeless.
No matter how many times he had to die.
"...So this..."
Niero stared at his trembling hand.
"...this is what rebellion feels like."
Both excitement and fear coursed through him.
Because this wasn't simply power.
It was madness.
A force that rejected defeat itself.
And somewhere deep inside—
far beyond the Stellarion Core—
far beyond the Astra Force—
something answered.
Not with words.
Not with thoughts.
But with approval.
Vuldyr's voice suddenly shattered the moment.
Her expression had gone from amazement—
to absolute panic.
-
> [WARNING.]
> [WARNING.]
> [WARNING.]
-
"Huh?"
Niero blinked.
Vuldyr's holographic windows exploded around him.
For the first time since he met her—
the Logoi looked genuinely horrified.
> ["Kiddo!"]
She pointed frantically at his status.
> ["STOP ADMIRING YOURSELF!"]
"The hell?"
> ["Your new ability is eating your energy points exponetial rate. Out of the 250 Energy Points, you already lost 48 points already!!!]
Niero froze.
"...What?"
Another warning appeared.
EP: 202 / 250
Then—
EP: 201 / 250
EP: 200 / 250
It was dropping.
Continuously.
Like water draining from a cracked bottle.
Niero's eyes widened.
"Uh..."
Vuldyr pointed toward another newly unlocked entry.
Her voice rose several octaves.
> ["With the [Ragna-Kha: Reincarnation of the Fallen Star] ability still active, the estimated duration remaning for this ability is about 5 minutes. Once your EP is exausted, you will be left venerable again and I don't need to tell you why that is incredibly bad!"]
Silence.
"...Five minutes?"
> ["Approximately."]
"...Five?"
> ["YES, FIVE!"]
Niero stared.
Then slowly turned his head upward.
High above the sky—
the mutated Sea Witch was recovering.
Her grotesque body regenerated.
Tentacles writhing.
Corals growing.
Black energy erupting from the rhombus artifact within her chest.
And judging by Vuldyr's newest appraisal—
she had become something absurd.
"...Seriously?"
Vuldyr nodded.
> ["Congratulations. You have officially achieved what no sane Level 31 Disciple should ever experience."]
"What?"
She smiled weakly.
> ["Your very first Rank-S boss fight."]
Here's a more polished, cinematic light novel revision with improved pacing, stronger imagery, and natural prose while preserving your intended sequence.
Suddenly—
A colossal pillar of seawater erupted from the ocean, towering high enough to swallow an entire fishing vessel.
Then another.
And another.
The roaring columns converged upon the airborne Amaryllis, crashing into her from every direction before wrapping around her in an immense sphere of water. Suspended in the heavens, she appeared like the core of a miniature moon, encased within a swirling celestial ocean.
One of the rising pillars dragged countless corpses along with it.
The mangled remains of the Scuba-Scums.
Mutated sea beasts.
Shattered Horde undead.
Even the butchered carcass of her fallen kraken, Oceanman.
Everything was swept skyward and swallowed into the enormous aquatic sphere, where the dead gathered around their mistress.
Then...
The water changed.
Its vibrant ocean-blue darkened into an abyssal black.
The sphere pulsed.
It throbbed.
Dark waves rippled across its surface as violent splashes erupted from within, as though something unimaginably horrific was struggling to be born.
> ["Kiddo..."]
Vuldyr's voice carried an unfamiliar tension.
> ["My scans are detecting rapid biological restructuring. Extreme anomalous energy output. Multiple mutation events occurring simultaneously."]
> ["...Whatever's inside is undergoing metamorphosis."]
Those words alone sent a chill down Niero's spine.
The pressure in the air grew heavier with every passing second.
Then—
Cracks of brilliant light burst through the black sphere.
The cocoon convulsed.
And exploded.
A deafening roar shook the sea.
What emerged was no longer Amaryllis.
Nor was it merely Oceanman.
A colossal chimeric leviathan descended from the shattered cocoon.
Its grotesque body had been stitched together from the remains of the fallen kraken, writhing masses of newly grown tentacles, jagged skeletal protrusions, and the fused corpses of Scuba-Scums, mutated sea creatures, and Horde undead—all grotesquely woven into a single living abomination.
Atop the creature's monstrous head...
Was Amaryllis.
Or what remained of her.
Her once-beautiful body had mutated beyond recognition, her lower half grotesquely fused into the leviathan's skull as though she had become its living crown. Flesh, bone, and tendrils intertwined seamlessly, making it impossible to tell where the woman ended and the monster began.
The leviathan crashed back onto the ocean.
BOOOOOOM!!
The impact unleashed a tsunami that towered over Niero like a collapsing wall of sea.
He simply stepped forward...
...and threw a single punch.
BOOM!!
The shockwave obliterated the incoming tsunami, splitting the raging ocean apart.
As the cascading water dispersed...
The full silhouette of the grotesque abomination stood revealed.
Gone was the beautiful, human-like Amaryllis.
Standing before him now was something far worse—
A nightmare of flesh and sea.
A monster wearing only the fading memory of the woman she once was.
Amaryllis stabilized herself.
One blue eye.
One abyss-black eye.
Her body was twitching.
Corals growing uncontrollably.
Her voice emerged distorted.
Broken.
Insane.
And utterly hateful.
"Y̸̢̙̰̮͇̜̟̘͙͂̈́͛̾͝O̶̼̺̗͙̬͍̘͓͐̓̄͌̋̀̽͝U̴̖͙̪͈̰̞̍̽̅̇̾̓..."
"WHY..."
"WON'T..."
"YOU..."
""STAY..."
"DEEEEEAAAAAADDDDDDD??????!!!!!!!"
Niero slowly summoned his visor back over his face.
Click.
The V-shaped eyes glowed crimson.
Red lightning crackled across the Astra Kavacha.
He entered a fighting stance.
And despite everything—
the pain.
The terror.
The insanity.
The fact that he had less than five minutes before this miraculous state disappeared—
he grinned beneath the helmet.
Because for the first time—
the fear inside him had transformed into something else.
Something hotter.
Something louder.
Something impossible to suppress.
Excitement.
"Funny."
He cracked his neck, then flared his [Nova-Spark Energy] infused with [Spiritual Energy Construct] on both of his fists while flaring his [Nova-Spark Energy] all over his body, preparing to take flight.
Then pointed at the screaming mutant witch.
"That's exactly what I was about to ask you."
=
=====
=
<<<[ STARGOD SYSTEM: ASCENSION STATUS ]>>>
> Ascension Realm (2nd Realm - Disciple), Phase (Phase 01 - Foundation), and Level (Lv 31)
> Stargod status (+1 for all stats, 1 ascension point added)
> Astra Force's stage - 1st stage (Ember) ---> 2nd stage (Nova)
> New boon: [Trinity of Self-Supremacy - 1st Aspect: Body (Tier 02)], [Supernova], [Ragna-Kha: Reincarnation of the Fallen Star]
=
=====
=
<<<[ Ch 32, Part 5 - END ]>>>