The Black Eye pierced the fabric of space like a dark comet, leaving behind a trail of nothingness. His speed was not merely physical movement, but an existential leap that spanned distances until he landed on the surface of that exiled desert world at the edges of the Tenth Realm. He sat amidst the sand, which began to scatter under the aura of his calm energy, and before he could catch his breath, his device buzzed with a call. He didn't need to see the caller ID to know who it was: it was Isola, and her voice preceded words of anger.
The moment he answered, her voice poured out like volcanic lava: "You are dead for sure, Black Eye! How dare you flout my orders? Do you think me a fool who doesn't understand the threads of the game you're playing? I sent you to finish that whore, and you simply turned around and walked behind my brother!"
The Black Eye replied with eerie calmness, as though her scream were nothing more than an annoying buzz: "Actually, I stopped because Dazai ordered me to. And you, before anyone else, know very well that Dazai's word is the supreme law in 'Gustoria', and his orders crush any side desires, even if they are your desires, Isola."
Isola growled over the phone, and the sound of her teeth grinding together was audible: "Even so, you should have finished the mission first! The power the organization granted you is not for you to hang around the corridors of the Ten Realms without my permission. How dare you cross boundaries with them without keeping me in the picture? Are you starting to feel independent of my shadow?"
The Black Eye adjusted his seating, looking at the endless sandy horizon and saying: "No need for this excessive worry. I am here to accomplish some personal matters, but at the same time, I will give you what you desire. I will kill Yusha, and I will end the legend of that so-called Arius as well. Consider it a promise sealed in blood."
Isola's laughter rang out, but it was not a joyful laugh; it was one of mockery tinged with danger: "Do it if you think you hold the upper hand. But remember well, 'Black', there is no turning back after that step. Once that blood is shed, the gates of hell will open, and your supplications won't close them."
He said in a tone devoid of any emotion, the tone of a man who had made peace with his death long ago: "I am completely satisfied with that. For a long time, regret has no place in my dictionary. Neither their death nor their life will change anything about my reality. I will execute it, and I will obliterate everything that stands in my way."
Isola's tone suddenly shifted to become softer and more cunning: "Good luck then. I know for sure that you are the only monster capable of doing it. But listen to me, as soon as you finish tearing their corpses apart, return to World Zero immediately. I don't want you staying under Dazai's influence any longer."
He answered her coldly as he prepared to stand up: "I can't. I will stay with Dazai until his journey here ends and he returns. So, forgive me, conversation over." And before she could utter another syllable, he hung up on her, shattering her pride with the press of a button.
He had barely put his device aside when the silence was torn apart by a terrifying energetic explosion. A treacherous blow, charged with immense destructive power, headed straight toward him from behind. The Black Eye didn't move from his spot, nor did he even try to block it. The blow struck his back, causing the desert world to detonate under the weight of the force. The area turned into a volcanic crater of dust and sparks, and the sand evaporated in seconds.
Amidst this wreckage, a massive creature with hideous porcine features appeared, wearing heavy armor and reeking of blood. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and said with arrogance, looking at the destruction: "Wonders! Is it over this easily? I thought the 'Black Eye' would be a tougher bite, but it seems the stories were exaggerating in describing trash like him."
Yet his smile completely vanished when the smoke cleared. The Black Eye was standing in the middle of the devastation; his clothes were not creased, and his black aura hadn't flickered a single hair. He emerged from the midst of the ashes as if stepping out of a warm bath, his eyes shining behind the mask with a lethal gleam.
The boar squealed madly, sparks flying from his eyes: "You despicable wretch! Are you showing off your power in front of me? Are you luring me here to show me how resilient you are against a mere strike from me? I'll turn your skin into a rug in my palace!"
The Black Eye didn't flinch. Instead, he took a single step that made the ground shake beneath his opponent's feet, and said in a calm voice carrying biting sarcasm: "Welcome, 'Yusha'.. the merciful assassin. You're a bit late; I was expecting your blow to be more.. lively."
Yusha spat a disgusting glob onto the ground, which began to crack under the weight of his bulk. A piggish smile formed on his face, revealing yellow fangs stained with filth, and he said in a husky, arrogant voice: "So, you are that rising criminal the cosmic taverns are talking about? Your bounty jumped from zero to 200 quadrillion with suspicious speed, as if the demons of World Zero suddenly decided to crown you the king of ruin. No matter, this number makes your corpse a treasure worth my trouble of coming to this miserable planet."
The Black Eye looked at him with lethal coldness; his eyes behind the mask didn't blink, and his voice came out like an icy hiss cutting through the roar of the wind: "I read your filthy file, Yusha.. I heard that all your enemies fall defeated before they realize the nature of the blow, but more importantly, I found out your truth. You don't kill for money; money to you is just trivial paper. You kill for that sick pleasure that grips your insides. You hunt high-bounty targets not to capture them, but to practice your sadism.. you rape, torture, and practice the filthiest mutilation rituals on your victims before allowing them to die. Seventy-five million victims fell in your hell.. you are not an assassin, you are a sick insect feeding on pain."
Yusha burst into mad laughter that shook the expanses of the planet, the fat on his face shaking sickeningly as he said: "Fantastic! You are well-versed in my resume then! This makes things even more exciting. It seems you're eager to be victim number seventy-six million. And in this secluded place, where no one hears your screams, I'll teach you how pain is an ingenious art."
The Black Eye remained as steady as a mountain, saying in a tone that defied the laws of logic: "I'll give you an offer that won't be repeated.. If you can scratch me just once, a trivial scratch invisible to the naked eye, I promise you before this vast space that I will surrender completely to you. Do whatever you wish with me, practice all your filth on my body, and I won't resist. But.. if you fail to do so after the number of strikes you determine yourself, I will consider your time up, and my turn will come.. Do you agree?"
Yusha's eyes gleamed with greed and mockery, stepping forward with strides that crushed rocks beneath his feet: "Agreed! Blind confidence is always what leads fools like you to blindness and doom. I will hit you with just one blow, a blow that will vaporize your atoms and make them part of this universe's dust."
Yusha gathered his energy into his massive fist, which swelled until it became the size of a small mountain, and then unleashed a reckless punch. The force was so terrifying that the planet's sands and mountains completely vanished and flew into space, and the planetary crust split like a fragile egg. Yet, when the dust cleared, astonishment was the master of the situation. The Black Eye hadn't budged a single millimeter; not even the edges of his black cloak had fluttered.
Yusha retreated, confusion gnawing at his features: "Wait! This isn't fair.. I wasn't fully ready, my foot slipped!"
The Black Eye replied with biting sarcasm: "Take all the time you need.. I don't want any lame excuses from you when I start. How many strikes do you want now?"
Yusha screamed madly, having lost his mind: "A million strikes! I'll shower you with a million strikes until the fabric of existence crumbles beneath you!"
The Black Eye nodded in agreement with provoking coldness. At that moment, Yusha turned into a hurricane of destruction. He began to strike and strike; every punch unleashed destructive waves never before witnessed by the cosmos. The planet completely vaporized and vanished from existence, and the destructive impact spread to tear apart millions of neighboring star systems, turning galaxies into graveyards of extinguished stars. Complete silence prevailed in space after Yusha exhausted every single atom of his energy.
He was panting, his sweat scattering in the vacuum like drops of mercury, and he looked ahead to see the impossible. The Black Eye was standing in the middle of the cosmic void, without a scratch, without fatigue, as if all that destruction were merely a cool breeze.
The blood froze in Yusha's veins, and for the first time in his life, he knew the meaning of the terror he inflicted on his victims. He turned to flee at the speed of light, trying to pierce the dimensions of space to save his life, but in a fraction of a millisecond, he felt a cold hand grasp his shoulder like an eternal shackle.
The Black Eye whispered behind his ear with the voice of inescapable doom: "Your turn is over.. and mine has begun."
He didn't use a sword, nor did he charge energy. Quite simply, he raised his finger and tapped lightly once on his back. At that moment, the indescribable happened; Yusha's massive body exploded from within, not like shattering bones, but his entire entity transformed into a massive sea of crimson blood that began to float and spread in the cosmic vacuum like a terrifying surreal painting.
The Black Eye looked at the nebula of blood he left behind and said calmly: "Another one down.. and the most important remains." Then he turned and flew away, piercing the distant horizon, heading toward the awaiting destiny.. toward Arius. The three settled in a dilapidated inn in one of the villages of the Fifth Realm, where shadows embraced the cracked walls. Dazai's features suggested a calm before the storm. He turned to his two companions and said in a decisive tone: "Yellow Eye, tomorrow your mission will be the key to our passage; I want flawlessly forged identities that allow us to infiltrate the borders of the Sixth Realm without raising a single suspicion. As for you, Red Eye, you will be our advance eye; go ahead, study the loopholes, monitor troop movements, and I want a detailed report on the inspection protocols there before we take a single step."
Red Eye nodded coldly: "As you wish," then left with Yellow Eye, leaving Dazai alone. Dazai took a deep breath as he contemplated his borrowed face in an old mirror. His thoughts intertwined in a labyrinth of complex calculations whose secret no one else knew, until fatigue overwhelmed him, and he dozed off on the wooden table, his forehead touching the maps of the realms.
With the dawn of the next day, Yellow Eye succeeded in securing the cards, while Red Eye returned from his reconnaissance mission annoyed: "The situation there is hell; cosmic soldiers are spreading like ants, our pictures are hanging on every corner, and scrutiny even reaches dust motes crossing borders."
Inside the inn, Dazai watched the hourglass and said: "The time hasn't come yet."
Yellow Eye objected sharply: "Why all this waiting? Let's storm the gate with our power and end this nonsense in minutes!"
Dazai replied, raising his gaze to him sternly: "If we enter by force now, we will fall into the trap Karma set; he isn't looking for the reason for our coming as much as he is eager to know our location to trap us. In this position, my friend, the mind is more important than the fist, and every uncalculated step is a free ticket to death."
Several days of agonizing waiting passed, until Dazai spotted a loophole in the surveillance fabric resulting from a guard shift change. He shouted to them: "Now! Go!"
The three blended into the crowds of wretched migrants heading toward the Sixth Realm, wearing tattered rags that hid the magnitude of their power. They stood before the giant gate where massive guards scrutinized badges and faces with terrifying solemnity.
As the gate slowly opened for the first batch to enter, Dazai moved with the agility of a fox; he shoved one migrant toward another skillfully, instantly sparking a brawl. Amidst the shouting, Dazai unleashed subtle, stinging energetic pulses toward random people in the crowd, making everyone feel a tingling sensation and start punching each other in total chaos. The guards became busy breaking up the scuffle and moved away from the crossing lane. In that second, the three shot like arrows toward the gate, and the moment they crossed, Dazai unleashed a devastating rear blow that completely shattered the gate to cut off any pursuit.
They stopped in the dark inner corridor before exiting to the other side. Red Eye breathed deeply and said: "We succeeded, but it felt suspiciously easy."
Dazai raised a warning hand: "Stop! This is where the real plan begins. Karma isn't foolish enough to leave the gate without secondary protection."
With a precise palm strike, Dazai smashed the side corridor wall and opened a gap in the space-time fabric fabric: "We're going in through here."
They crossed into a strange spatial field, where light and time broke in a way that allowed them to pass right in front of rows of soldiers on the other side seeing them clearly, while the soldiers saw only a hollow mirage, because they were moving inside a "parallel dimension" separating them from reality by mere inches. They walked with dignity and calm inside the territories of the Sixth Realm, penetrating the strongest fortifications with Dazai's terrifying intelligence, becoming now at the heart of Raimus's kingdom, where no one knew of the presence of these three monsters. The moment Dazai and his companions set foot on the soil of the Sixth Realm, they didn't waste a single second in contemplation; they shot like lightning phantoms, tearing the void at immense speeds to get away from the fortified border area. They settled in a geologically dormant, remote planet, making it a temporary base to map out their upcoming movements in the new Kingdom of Raimus.
As for the Black Eye, his crossing of the Sixth Realm was like a nightmarish stroll; his space-time abilities turned the toughest barriers into mere imaginary walls. He arrived on Planet Earth, the place holding the memories of old "Arius." He landed with terrifying silence in front of the Kyle family house. He stood for a moment contemplating the plaque hanging on the door, then in the blink of an eye, used teleportation to find himself inside the hallway.
Silence pervaded the surroundings, a heavy silence hinting at abandonment. The Black Eye was surprised by the house's emptiness; he took a few steps into the main living room, and his eyes fell on a picture of Raimus and Lina hanging prominently. The expressions of happiness in the picture contrasted sharply with the coldness he carried in his heart. He delved deeper into the house until he found the basement door. He opened it cautiously and descended the wooden stairs that groaned beneath his feet.
He ignited his palm with a faint purple light, the illumination revealing piles of old, dusty boxes. He began searching them with robotic coldness until he found what he was looking for: old pictures of Arius's mother, and pictures of Arius himself in his early childhood. He picked up one of the pictures, and his gaze froze; the picture frame was broken, the glass shattered, and there were deep, disfiguring, intentional scratches right over Arius's face, as if an old grudge had been poured over this paper. The Black Eye stood up and left the basement, then the house with confident strides. He stood in the outer garden, slowly raising his hand toward the building that once embraced a whole life, and unleashed a black energetic pulse that turned the house into a mass of flame and wreckage in seconds. He stood contemplating the fire coldly, as if cleansing the place of the burden of the past, then shot toward the sky at fantastical speed, vanishing into the cosmic nebula.
On the new "Planet Raimus," the atmosphere was charged with the noise of power. Raimus was training madly, his destructive energy tearing rocks and creating thunderstorms in the atmosphere. Mythos stood watching the scene apprehensively, turning to Wang and saying in a low voice: "Wonders.. he has exceeded the limits of brutality in his training. Look at his eyes; he sees nothing before him now except power. I don't intend to cross paths with him while he's in this state; he looks like a volcano about to erupt."
Wang laughed with his usual dignity and replied: "No matter, Mythos, absolute power requires a hard heart; he will get used to this burden soon."
In the quiet side of the palace, Lina was sitting in a lush garden Wang had specially designed for her to practice her hobby of caring for flowers, trying to forget the anxiety gnawing at her heart. Suddenly, the magic wand in Wang's hand vibrated, and an energetic screen burst forth displaying a live scene of a house burning on Planet Earth. Wang's eyes widened slightly, and he immediately headed toward Raimus to brief him on the matter.
Raimus stopped training and looked at the screen with shock that instantly turned into blinding rage: "Who dared? Who is the fool who dared to touch my property and desecrate the memories of my people?"
Wang moved his hand over the screen to reveal a clear picture of the masked man: "Actually sir, the culprit is this person.. I don't know, this is the actually the first time I've seen him."
Mythos narrowed his eyes as he contemplated the plague mask: "The plague mask? Who is this scoundrel? Have you seen him before, Raimus?"
Raimus studied the masked features with intense focus, then exhaled with annoyance: "No.. I don't know him, and I don't care who he is. But he committed a sin that will cost him his life. Wang, prepare yourself, we're going to hunt this wretch down right now and tear him to pieces." Then he turned sharply toward Lina, who was watching them from afar, and said in a commanding tone: "Don't you dare tell her anything of what happened; I don't want her mood ruined by this piece of trash."
Raimus signaled Lina with a fake smile from afar and said: "I have urgent business I'll finish quickly and return, my dear."
The three prepared to fly, and Mythos said while charging his energy: "I'll accompany you, for I have a burning curiosity to know what this masked man possesses to dare challenge us in our own backyard."
Wang began tracking the Black Eye's remaining energy trail, and thanks to his vast experience, he succeeded in pinpointing his coordinates precisely. The three shot after him like bolts of wrath, cutting through the expanse of space at insane speeds, while fate drove them toward a confrontation nobody expected. In the corridors of the First Realm, where power meets mystery, the air was saturated with intangible tension. Karma sat on his plush seat, his stern features hinting at a deep anxiety he tried to mask behind his usual coldness, while Nahira sipped from her cup with a softness not devoid of cunning.
Karma broke the silence with a deep, poised voice: "Nahira, listen to me seriously.. things are taking a very suspicious turn; there's a flaw in the security fabric we imposed."
Nahira raised a single eyebrow and asked coldly: "And what's strange about that? The Ten Realms are under your grip, and everyone trembles at the mention of your name."
Karma placed his hands on the table and interlocked his fingers: "Dazai.. he is here. Hovering inside my property, breathing the air of our realms, and we, with all the technology and power we possess, are unable to track his location or pinpoint his coordinates."
At that moment, Nahira's movement froze. She lowered her cup slowly, and her confident smile vanished, replaced by a sharp, anxious look: "Dazai is here? At the heart of the Ten Realms? Where is he exactly? In which realm is this rat hiding?"
Karma exhaled with annoyance: "I don't know.. and that's the core of the danger. He's planning something, weaving threads in the dark whose end I don't know."
Nahira went back to sketching a poisoned smile and said in an instigating tone: "Are you asking for my help to trap him? Have your armies failed to catch a shadow?"
Karma replied strictly: "It's not that simple. He isn't alone; with him are two rabid dogs of his men: Red Eye and Yellow Eye. And you know very well the danger of this duo if unleashed."
Nahira looked at him dismissively: "And what could they possibly do against our mighty power? We are the rulers of these universes, and they are merely mercenaries from World Zero."
Karma slammed his table with his fist, not in anger but as a warning: "The issue isn't what they will do to us directly, but the destruction they will leave in our realms! Each of them is capable of wiping several realms from existence with the blink of an eye, let alone Dazai, who represents the mastermind behind all this madness. Their presence here means heavy losses in lives and resources if their intention is total destruction.. But what puzzles and worries me more is that new 'Senshu'."
Nahira stopped playing with the hem of her dress: "A new Senshu?"
Karma nodded: "Yes, the sixth member of their organization. A strange entity that only appeared recently, as if they were hiding him in the deepest layers of hell far from our eyes. When I looked at his existential record, I felt a shock I haven't experienced in centuries."
Nahira asked dismissively, trying to hide her interest: "And what's in his record? Another criminal who spilled the blood of some weaklings?"
Karma looked straight into her eyes and said in a tone dripping with quiet terror: "This person killed nearly two billion monsters.. monsters that don't even exist in our Ten Realms to begin with. And worse, he exterminated those monster armies in just three years alone. The least among those monsters possesses enough energy to easily destroy hundreds of universes. Those creatures don't belong to World Zero or our realms; their source is completely unknown, meaning this person was training in a place beyond our comprehension."
Nahira fell silent for a moment, while Karma continued: "No name, no past, no identity.. all we know is his title 'The Black Eye' and that damned black mask he wears. He is a mystery walking on two legs."
Nahira tried to regain her composure, thinking to herself: "This isn't entirely strange, for World Zero is a dumping ground for the universes' waste and the nameless; perhaps he's just a biological weapon they developed there." But deep inside, the seeds of doubt began to grow; a billion monsters in three years? Those numbers don't reflect merely a strong fighter, but a "thirst for destruction" being prepared for a single purpose.. to pounce on anyone standing in his way. The Black Eye was slicing through the vast space of the Sixth Realm with total coldness, and suddenly, the cosmic fabric vibrated behind him. He sensed a treacherous energy heading toward him, so he leaned his body a few millimeters to let the strike pass by him, shattering a massive asteroid on the horizon. He didn't turn around completely, but cast a cold side-glance to see Raimus, Wang, and Mythos surrounding him like predatory falcons.
Raimus stepped forward, anger boiling in his veins, and shouted in a voice that shook dimensions: "You masked insect! Do you realize the magnitude of what you've committed? Why did you destroy my wife's family home? What drives a scoundrel like you to burn memories that don't belong to you? Answer me before I erase your trace from existence!"
The Black Eye turned his entire body, and in a tone devoid of any emotion, as if talking about the weather, said: "I am looking for Arius."
A brief silence ensued, then Raimus laughed mockingly: "I expected as much.. trash looking for trash."
Mythos intervened, narrowing his eyes suspiciously: "Wait, Raimus.. why does this person want Arius specifically? What did that boy do to attract the plague mask's attention?"
Raimus replied indifferently: "Surely Arius caused trouble in World Zero and they sent this person after him like a hound. Tell me, masked one, are you a friend of that scoundrel?"
The Black Eye looked at them and said dryly: "I just want to kill him."
Wang asked him with his usual dignity, but in a tone carrying a hidden threat: "And what is the reason that makes you cut all these distances and pierce the realms to kill him?"
The Black Eye answered with even colder detachment: "I want to kill him.. because I just want to."
The three grew furious at this dismissal. Raimus shouted: "You want to kill Arius while your power doesn't exceed 300 degrees? You're a pathetic joke!" Raimus raised his hand and unleashed a sphere of pure destruction energy, but the shock came when the Black Eye raised his hand and with just the tip of a single finger, pushed the strike away as if it were a fluttering feather.
Mythos didn't give him a second, using his utmost speed to appear beside him and deliver a supernatural punch, but the Black Eye caught his fist with a single hand as if it were a child's hand, then delivered a swift kick to his belly that sent him millions of kilometers away into the space vacuum. Wang rushed to catch Mythos, who was gasping trying to recover his breath, while the Black Eye said regretfully: "Strange.. even though I restrained myself to the utmost, you couldn't take it."
Raimus went mad and attacked like a hurricane; his fist collided with the Black Eye's body in an energetic explosion that completely destroyed nearby galaxies, but the Black Eye caught Raimus's fist and pinned him in place. He told him with terrifying calmness: "You reckless fool.. you've destroyed many lives and populated planets just to attack me.. you are a barbarian who doesn't deserve the power you carry."
Raimus retreated, panting heavily from frustration, and decided to reveal their trump card: "The Purple Transformation." His power began to rise madly, his skin turning purple, his muscles swelling terrifyingly, and an aura emitting that caused the walls of the universe to crack. The Black Eye muttered: "His power reached 5 septillion, huh.."
The transformed Raimus attacked, blows raining down like thunderbolts, but the Black Eye received them with his body as if it were a "massage session." He didn't stagger, didn't feel pain; instead, he watched their movements like a teacher watching failing pupils. Wang and Mythos joined the attack, the three striking from every direction, while the Black Eye dodged them with his fingertips, then suddenly widened his eyes to unleash an energetic whirlwind that blew the three away like autumn leaves.
Mythos said in astonishment: "What's the story with this monster? Didn't the record say his power is weak?"
Wang replied, wiping blood from his mouth: "He is hiding an ocean of power behind that mask."