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║ [System Warning: Presence of Dark God Energy Has Been Sensed.]
[Accessing Dark God Type...]
[Error!]
[Energy Concealed By Advanced Ritual Technique Or Not Real,]
║ The host is advised to exercise caution.║
╚══════════════════════════════════════╝
"Dark gods, huh..."
"How mystifying," Ryuk muttered as he felt himself descending, falling deeper and deeper into a strange realm.
A realm of darkness and of cards.
Three colossal cards—each nearly a thousand meters tall—stood around him.
One to his left, the other to his right, and the last one directly behind.
Each bore a different, corrupted art, partially concealed by swirling dark energy and Ryuk himself?
He was caught in the center of it all, endlessly descending into a pit of thick, suffocating black.
The abyss of darkness rolled and coiled around him like smoke.
Below, he sensed something blooming—an overwhelming aura of a nefarious entity.
He couldn’t see what lay beneath, not fully.
But the faint shape of a putrid, wide maw lingered just below, giving the impression of a monstrous mouth, opening wider... waiting to devour him.
But he still had time—exactly 16 seconds.
The grimoire appeared, hovering above him, and his will reached out, trying to activate Void Vortex, but even after 3 seconds, nothing responded.
Even after he stretched his hands forward—
’The Void has been locked down?’ he thought grimly.
The realization dawned on him, its source unmistakably tied to one of the hanging cards—and his pupils narrowed in response.
Then, he looked at the one cradled in his arms.
"Princess Eiffel?" he called softly.
She slowly raised her gaze from where her face had been buried in his chest.
Her expression was filled with pure fear.
Even though she could see nothing—her world having turned pitch black—the horrifying aura suffocating them was more than enough.
The only warmth, the only sanity she could feel... was whatever was holding her or which she held so tightly.
"Is that you...? Mr. Ryuk?" she asked shakily, her trembling fingers reaching to touch his neck.
’She can’t see? Ryuk thought to himself.
But he pushed the thought aside and answered,
"Yes, it’s me, Princess Eiffel, and right now, we’re in quite the precarious situation."
Her arms tightened around him.
"I should never have come to this party... I told my father. I told Sir Leopold..."She began murmuring like someone facing the abyss—and losing their mind to it.
Her helplessness confirmed what Ryuk suspected: she was of little help in this realm.
In that instant, he gave a command.
"Activate Beyonder Dragon."
The second he uttered those words, the abyss came to a screeching halt, followed by the dark light around the cards freezing in place, and the rolling darkness slowing to a crawl.
Then—
Six white-scaled fragments seemingly slipping out of the void emerged around Ryuk’s head like a halo.
Snowy white scales reappeared on his skin.
He raised his right hand into the air—fingers outstretched—And then—
WHOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
He clenched it into a fist.
The shockwave from that single grasp of space unleashed a destructive wave of energy, rippling outward with unrestrained power.
The realm shuddered, fabric of space cracking like fragile glass, spreading from above Ryuk in all directions.
And then—
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!
A second shockwave thundered out as the blast smashed against the three giant cards.
Cracks tore across their surfaces as if they were made of brittle crystal, but they resisted being fully shattered.
They remained suspended, pulsing, sending out more streams of dark energy that made the abyss roll even more.
"thhhm, gool, yuuht’, deeeiro,"
Murmurs came ringing through the darkness around him, each word distracting him and sending fragmented memories and thoughts into his mind.
Ryuk’s folded hands dropped slowly from the air.
He turned his gaze downward, then his arms jerked back, three afterimages appearing of him, each bringing him closer down the darkness, before he launched a powerful punch straight downward.
When that punch slammed into the space beneath him, it seemed to carry the weight of an entire realm.
The darkness trembled, and the space fractured completely.
Ryuk watched with steeled eyes as a massive purple fist-shaped halo surged downward.
It was his simple punch, further powered by his Hurricane energy, and it crashed directly into the opened maw below.
The sickening sound of thick liquid rolling rang out—followed by a terrifying explosion—and a bloodcurdling shriek that died as quickly as it rose.
Whatever had been holding this bizarre realm together finally broke, and the second it did, the world cleared in an instant.
Once more, sunlight pierced through, and he raised his head, finding himself still in the same place.
’An illusion?’ he wondered.
But then he turned his gaze back to the assassins.
The trio still hovered in the same position above him, just where they had been before the illusion.
All of a sudden—
Dark blood burst out from beneath the cloak of one of them, and his hands shot up to his head.
"AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!"
A soul-piercing scream rang out.
Ryuk watched him fall from the sky, but before he could hit the ground, he faded into ashes.
He, and even the clothes he wore, vanished—As if he had never existed at all.
The two remaining assassins blinked as if just waking up, snapping their eyes toward Ryuk with looks of disbelief.
For a second, they froze.
Then they launched forward.
A curved, sickle-like blade, rolling with dark energy, appeared in the hand of the first.
His grip locked tight around it as both hands powered up—
SLASSSHHHH!!
A devastatingly swift strike aimed straight for Ryuk’s neck.
In less than a second, it was just an inch away.
But it met nothing.
Ryuk bent his waist, allowing the sharp edge to graze barely an inch from the tip of his nose.
Then, he stepped to the side, fading from where he had stood, just as a long spear sliced clean through his afterimage, obliterating it.
Both assassins paused in shock, turning around, only to find him now standing in the very spot where they had just left.
"You have already lost," he said calmly.
His hands extended toward them, two fingers pressed together.
’Activate: Sovereign Rewriting.’
FLICK.