A world, halved like a moon at the start of the month, floated in the deep void of space, releasing arcs of streaming white light that reached into the farthest parts of the Void.
"How bizarre."
These were the first words that left Ryuk’s lips as he came to stand a few kilometers away.
In his range of vision, he could see this world, the world of Gione, where the Third Calamity and his army had just newly conquered.
Yet looking at it, he could immediately tell that something didn’t feel right at all.
His hand reached toward his heart, and he felt the attractive ripple making him turn his gaze down to Gione.
His heart was beating with familiarity, which showed indeed there was another part of his body just within this world.
"If he’s here, then I need to go to him," Ryuk determined, and in the next moment, he silently flew forward.
When he pierced through the atmosphere of Gione, what he found made no sense.
He had, back in the Stringed domain, watched a broken vestige of a world to narrow down upon Devil Lord Aizelran’s location, and this world should be it.
Yet, why was this world unbroken?
It was an advanced civilization of endless skyscrapers, yet there wasn’t the faintest sound.
He descended onto the top of a skyscraper, and his gaze traveled across the buildings in a one-kilometer range.
But Ryuk still did not find a single living soul in any of these countless buildings.
Not one building had been destroyed; not even the tiled roads were cracked.
And what was even more unnerving was that there wasn’t a single Knull Army in sight.
"A trap?" he mused, unsure, but in the next moment, everything changed once more.
-He watched as some of the skyscrapers folded into each other under a force that defied explanation.
Some of the skyscrapers on the ground retracted inward, only to extend back out from the sky, sealing off both the heavens and the earth with towering structures.
The tiled floors folded to become unending tunnels that trailed forward as far as the eyes could see.
"We finally meet, Ryuk Knull."
The words rang out softly from above as Ryuk turned his gaze up to find a being descending upon him.
"Devilish Dream Lord Aizelran,"
Ryuk whispered beneath his breath, his heartbeat slowly spiking up.
Finally, he had met with the Third Calamity.
He was a humanoid being hidden beneath a flowing white garment—the purest of whites.
Out from within the garments were his hands, the darkest of dark Ryuk had ever seen in a being, seemingly shifting between solid and illusion.
A white hoodie lay upon his head, and as he turned to look down at Ryuk, there were no eyes on his equally pitch-black face.
Neither was there a nose nor a mouth.
All there was was a golden strand drawn over his face, forming the silhouette of a single runic eye, big enough to cover half his entire face.
Over his neck, one could see the golden runes of light that continued deeper into the garment.
"Any chance you’re looking for him?"
His words echoed throughout the twisted landscape, and in the next moment, a being appeared between him and Ryuk.
It was the one from whose mind he had been informed of the Third Calamity’s location.
But just before he could say a word, he watched as the Knull slowly dissolved into golden flower petals, carried away by the breeze until they turned into drifting golden ash.
It confirmed to him: he had really been lulled over.
The Calamities must have been aware that he had regained the parts of the others, and this being before him must have predicted Ryuk would try to search for him using the strings of the Sixth Calamity.
Hence, he had created a false scene of destruction to lure him here.
What Ryuk didn’t understand, though, was that he had been in the mind of the being that had just turned into ashes, and it couldn’t have lied to him.
If there was no destruction at all, then what was that broken vestige of old that he had seen previously?
An illusion?
He had said he had gathered an army.
If he couldn’t lie, then what and where was the army, or was there never an army?
"I believe you have something which rightfully belongs to me," Ryuk called to Aizelran, watching as the golden lines upon his face gleamed with golden light.
"Are you sure I do... or that it’s just you stuck in a dream?" he asked, his voice not echoing in Ryuk’s head but within his bloodstream, and carried all over.
"A dream?" Ryuk asked.
"Yes," Aizelran replied. "A dream called reality."
"You’re a sick one," Ryuk said, and in the next moment, he raised his palm, a dark ball of abyssal energy congealing together, before
BOOOOOOOOOM!
A massive shockwave exploded as the ball furiously scorched forward toward Aizelran, who remained standing where he was.
The ball pierced through him immediately, but it blew open no hole.
It was like it had phased through him instead.
But that wasn’t all. The insanity appeared right after:
The skies divided, the skyscrapers turning to golden ashes like they never existed, and then they began falling:
Meteor-sized balls of dark energy, the same thing Ryuk had shot out just a moment ago.
’Just what is this?’
Ryuk asked, looking at the hundreds of thousands of dark ball meteors raining from the sky, and about a thousand of them silently reaching for him.
His own attack was released back to him on a Mega scale.
He turned his gaze to Aizelran, and he found him saying,
"You’re in a dream."
"How interesting."
Taking a single step backward, Ryuk’s hands shifted into devilish dark claws, and in the next moment, he made the simple motion of slashing forward toward the thousands of meteors flailing toward him.
Five silent lines rippled, appearing in the space and continuing into the distance, silently fading away, yet,
...