The Door screamed.
Not metaphorically.Not symbolically.
Reality itself produced the sound—an impossible vibration that tore through matter, memory, and meaning as the crack widened. Space warped inward around the opening, folding like wet paper around a wound that refused to close.
OR'VYLLA recoiled within the fracture.
Its presence no longer felt absolute.
It felt threatened.
Null stood before the Door, feet planted on stone that had reshaped itself beneath him. The air around his body bent—not pushed away, not consumed—but rearranged, as if existence itself was recalculating how to coexist with him.
The symbol in his left eye burned steadily now.Not spinning.Not unstable.
Complete.
Hyung dragged himself upright several meters behind him, one hand clutching his chest where the fragment had been torn free. His breathing was ragged, his vision blurred—but his eyes never left Null.
"…You're still you," Hyung whispered.It sounded like a prayer.
D U leaned heavily against a half-collapsed pillar, one hand pressed over her chest where her heartbeat had stalled moments ago. Her skin was pale, lips tinged blue—but she was smiling.
"Barely," she muttered."But yeah. That's him."
OR'VYLLA moved.
The Door widened violently as an appendage unfolded—no longer a limb, but a concept given shape. It didn't cut through the air.
It erased the space it passed through.
A section of the chamber vanished entirely, replaced by nothing—not darkness, not void. Absence.
The attack reached Null in less than a heartbeat.
Null stepped forward.
He didn't block.
He met it.
The moment contact occurred, the world lurched sideways. Time stuttered. Light bent around the collision point like glass under stress.
Null's aura compressed inward, forming a sharp boundary around his body. The erasing force slammed into it—
—and stalled.
For the first time since its descent, OR'VYLLA failed to overwrite something.
The appendage trembled.
OR'VYLLA's voice thundered from every direction at once.
"YOU ARE NOT COMPLETE.YOU ARE A FRACTURE PRETENDING TO BE WHOLE."
Null's reply was quiet.
"Wrong."
He reached out and grabbed the concept trying to erase him.
The moment his hand closed, the air screamed.
Not because Null was strong—
—but because OR'VYLLA had never been touched before.
A shockwave ripped outward, flattening debris and slamming Hyung and D U back against the ruins. The Door convulsed, its edges splintering as if something inside it had panicked.
Null's grip tightened.
"I was broken," he said evenly."I was divided. Shaped. Used."
His voice didn't rise.
It sharpened.
"But I am not incomplete anymore."
He pulled.
The appendage tore free from the Door.
OR'VYLLA screamed—not in sound, but in distortion. The sky above fractured into jagged layers, bleeding warped light as something fundamental had been violated.
Hyung stared, stunned.
"He's… pulling it out."
Aizeno—who had remained silent until now—finally spoke, his voice tight with disbelief.
"That shouldn't be possible.Not unless—"
Null slammed the severed piece into the ground.
The impact detonated.
The erased space reconstituted violently, matter crashing back into existence like an avalanche. The chamber shattered further, but the wound in reality sealed partially—scarred, unstable, but no longer expanding.
OR'VYLLA recoiled deeper into the Door, its presence flickering.
"KEY," it thundered again, but the certainty was gone."YOU BELONG TO THE SYSTEM THAT CREATED YOU."
Null turned fully toward the Door.
"No," he said."I belong to the choices I survived."
The symbol in his eye flared.
The Third Fragment resonated.
For a brief moment, Hyung felt something echo inside his chest—an absence, yes, but also relief. Like something heavy had finally found where it was meant to be.
Null raised his hand.
Not to attack.
To define.
A field expanded outward from his body—not energy, not force, but assertion. The rules within it bent toward him, aligning with his will rather than resisting it.
OR'VYLLA halted mid-motion.
Its massive form strained against an invisible boundary.
"What is this?" the Entity demanded.
D U coughed weakly, pushing herself upright.
"That," she said hoarsely, "is what happens when someone stops asking what they are… and starts deciding."
Null took another step forward.
The Door cracked further—but not outward.
Inward.
OR'VYLLA's presence faltered, its shape destabilizing as parts of it flickered in and out of coherence.
Hyung forced himself to stand beside Null, legs shaking but resolute.
"…You don't have to face it alone."
Null didn't look back—but his answer was immediate.
"I know."
OR'VYLLA roared, summoning what remained of its authority. The Door surged, ancient symbols igniting along its frame as it prepared to unleash something far worse than before.
The First True Exchange had ended.
The real battle—
was about to begin.
End of Chapter 56.