Chapter 488
Theo lowered his hand, his eyes returning to Ilux, whose body had now almost completely dissolved into the black mist.
Only his face could still vaguely be seen, carrying the same expression as before—somewhere between dream and reality, between existence and nonexistence.
"That's why I won't tell you anything more than this," he said, this time with a tone that sounded like a final decision.
"Not because I don't know. Not because I want to hide something from you."
He brushed back his hair, which was being blown by the black wind, with a slow movement.
"But because information about the Nothingness is not something you can simply accept. It's like… a story that can only be read once you've reached the right page. If you read it too early, it won't make sense. If you read it too late, it won't be useful."
In the distance, the fourteen points of light within the shattered sky pulsed simultaneously—like fourteen heartbeats beating in the same rhythm, signaling that something enormous was waiting beyond a boundary that had yet to be breached.
Theo imagined it for a brief moment before turning back toward Ilux.
"Second Arc, Episode Twelve. Or perhaps Third Arc, Episode Twelve. That is when you will know. When all of this—me, this book, this mist, and the fourteen Troublemakers currently on their way—can no longer hide anything from you."
Theo never had the chance to continue his words.
Because at that exact second, the black mist enveloping Ilux's body exploded.
Not an explosion that spread outward like an ordinary wave of destruction—but an explosion that pulled everything inward, like a vortex suddenly reversing the direction of gravity, like a hole opening not in the ground, but in the very center of reality itself.
The already fractured sky transformed into a vertical tunnel, and within that tunnel, Theo saw something that caused even him to slightly furrow his brows.
A presence without form, trying to break through, trying to live within one of the Multiverse Pathways—within one of the countless little boxes called universes.
"There it is," Theo whispered, his eyes narrowing.
"The Nothingness. Not its form awakening. But its desire to possess a form."
He recalled what Xavier XVII had witnessed decades ago, when the old king stood immediately after leaving the Land of the Gods and the void, hearing the voice of Myra Astrielle—long dead—calling his name in a tone far too gentle to be real.
"That voice was fake," Theo said to himself, as though piecing together fragments of a puzzle he had possessed for a very long time.
"A replica. Made so Xavier would continue supplying power. So the Nothingness could truly exist."
Yet behind that conclusion lay something even Xavier XVII himself had never known.
Something never recorded within the memoirs of the Gods, never spoken within the old king's final confession before his consciousness was ultimately inherited by Ilux.
Theo lowered his head briefly, his fingers touching the yellow book in his pocket, before raising his face once more with a different look in his eyes.
"When the Gods—your direct descendants, Xavier—performed the sealing, they believed it would be enough," he said softly, his voice almost inaudible beneath the roaring vortex that continued pulling everything into itself.
"But the Nothingness was smarter than they thought. Or perhaps more desperate. I don't know."
He let out a breath.
"As the seal began to harden, it managed to release fourteen residual fragments of its power. Tiny fragments. Small enough to go undetected. Large enough to someday become anchors."
Those fourteen residuals possessed no form, no names, no purpose other than one.
To exist.
One by one, they infiltrated the Multiverse Pathways, occupying bodies that happened to be empty, filling gaps no one had been watching over.
And someday, when the consciousness of the Nothingness awakened once more—when this black mist finished devouring Ilux and gave birth to something emptier than emptiness itself—those fourteen residuals would come.
"They will meet the Nothingness," Theo continued, his eyes staring far into the distance as though seeing the fourteen points of light growing larger within the shattered sky.
"And they will decide between two things. Whether they will willingly surrender their lives and return to become part of what once released them… or fight."
That was what he had meant when he spoke with Aldraya back then.
Not fourteen enemies.
Not fourteen threats.
But fourteen choices that would one day determine whether the awakening of the Nothingness would proceed smoothly or be forced through bloodshed that had never been planned.
"Fourteen Troublemakers," Theo murmured, repeating the term used by this game's narrative.
Not because they were chaotic.
But because they disrupted the plans.
Both the plans of the Nothingness and the plans of the Gods, who wished to ensure that the Nothingness would never awaken again.
Yet from those fourteen residuals—from the aura of their existence scattered across the Multiverse Pathways—something was born that even the Nothingness itself had never anticipated.
Four races.
Not descendants.
Not creations.
But natures attached to those scattered remnants of power, like a scent lingering on clothes after the fire has already gone out.
Liars. Hypocrites. Rebels. Sinners.
He did not elaborate further.
Not about the hierarchy of those four races.
Not about how many of them were scattered throughout the Multiverse Pathways.
Not about whether they already knew one another… or hunted one another instead.
Because at that exact moment, just as he was about to open his mouth to say something else—the air beside him trembled.
Not a tremor like the black mist.
Not a tremor like the shattered sky.
A different vibration.
Measured.
Intentional.
A spatial fluctuation formed from precise calculations that could only be performed by one entity he had personally trained himself.
Theo did not need to turn around.
He already knew.
The air to his left folded like paper intentionally bent, then unfolded once more into a different form—and within those folds, a figure appeared.
Tall.
Silent.
With an aura that never screamed, yet could never be ignored.
Aldraya.
Aldraya's gaze, upon arriving at the academy grounds, had not yet managed to confront the black mist devouring Ilux—because somewhere far away, among cracks in reality never recorded on any map, time was flowing in a different rhythm.
Several hours before the sky shattered, before Theo opened his yellow book for the very first time, a woman floated within a space that had never truly been whole.
That space was neither a room, nor a hall, nor even a dimension that could be called a "place" in the ordinary sense.
It was a collection of scratched fragments of glass, each carrying its own damage, floating pieces without gravity, without order, without any reason to remain intact.
Each fragment reflected something different—a different sky, unfamiliar faces, moments that had not yet happened or perhaps had already become obsolete.
And in the center of it all, Lilith HaRish'a floated.
Her pitch-black hair drifted slowly like the shadow of a night that never truly touched the bottom, every strand reflecting faint traces of purple light pulsing softly, as though it were not merely hair, but something alive within the breath of that space itself.
She opened one eye—only one—and the gaze emerging from it did not merely see.
It pierced through.
Tracing the fragile layers of reality surrounding her like fingers brushing the surface of water, searching for where the deepest crack lay hidden.
To be continued….