Ren Kai stepped into a place that had no name, no light, no time, and no matter. A void where the concept of end itself resided, a place that had been untouched by existence, untouched by thought, untouched by beings. The Nothingness.
All that should have crushed, broken, or erased him stood here—finality, cessation, collapse, the absolute end of all things. Yet not a hair of his prism-gray head moved. Not a heartbeat skipped. Not a fraction of his sealed power faltered.
The void reached for him, concepts of impossibility bending toward his presence, but Ren Kai remained untouched. He walked calmly, observing the infinite emptiness, the layers of annihilation, the frameworks that defined cessation itself.
It was a place no being should ever enter. No force should withstand it. Yet here he was—whole, serene, and smiling faintly. He did not crack, he did not falter, he did not collapse. The Nothingness, the ultimate end, the void of all potential, recoiled in silent awe, recognizing a presence beyond even its own authority.
Then, as silently as he had arrived, Ren Kai returned. No journey, no effort, no transition. One moment the void stretched endlessly, the next, he was back in his own dimension, the familiar warmth of the world around him embracing him. Rivers flowed normally. Clouds drifted. Time continued. Nothing had changed except the faintest whisper of awareness left in the void, a reminder that something existed beyond nothingness itself.
Ren Kai stood alone for a moment, Lumen-white eyes reflecting the ordinary sky of his world, serene and untouched. What should have been impossible had been walked through, yet nothing had been broken. Nothing had ended.
He glanced at the horizon, small and calm, the child who was more than a child, untouched by the unthinkable.
And somewhere nearby, the faint sound of footsteps approached—his mother, searching again, sensing his presence even before she saw him.