Chapter 587: An Impossible Feat
The moment the Chaos Flame made contact with the Dark Turtle's shell, reality itself seemed to hold its breath.
For a fraction of a second, nothing happened again-but this time, it was as if the universe needed time to process what it had just witnessed.
Then, a sound unlike anything they had ever heard tore through the air. It wasn't an explosion, nor was it the creature's screech.
It was the sound of existence being rewritten.
Where the Chaos Flame touched the shell, space itself began to warp and twist.
The black armor that had seemed impenetrable moments before began to... dissolve.
No-dissolve wasn't the right word. It was being unmade.
The creature's eye widened in what could only be described as pure terror as it watched its own shell begin to disappear, not chunk by chunk, but concept by concept.
Northern stood watching, his face a mask of cold satisfaction. "Interesting..."
The white flames spread across the shell like cracks in reality itself, each tendril erasing not just the physical matter it touched, but the very idea of that matter's existence.
The Dark Turtle let out another screech, but this one was different-desperate, primal. It tried to move, to retreat, but the Chaos Flame had already taken hold.
"You can't run from this," Northern said quietly, almost gently. "What's being erased isn't just your shell-it's the very concept of your defense."
The others watched in horrified fascination as the process continued.
Where the shell disappeared, they expected to see flesh or bone or whatever lay beneath. Instead, they saw... nothing.
Not darkness, not void, but a complete absence of anything that could be perceived.
Shin's face had gone pale. "This power..."
"What in the world?" Dante muttered, his voice barely a whisper.
The Dark Turtle thrashed, its movements becoming more erratic as more of its shell vanished.
The red veins that had pulsed with such threatening energy now flickered weakly, like dying embers.
Northern took a step forward, his eyes glowing with that eerie blue light.
"Want to know something interesting?" he asked the dying creature, his voice carrying easily despite the chaos.
"The reason my attack worked wasn't just because it was powerful."
The creature's eye fixed on him, and in that moment, understanding seemed to pass between them.
"Your shell was designed to absorb and reflect any attack," Northern continued. "But the Chaos Flame isn't really an attack; it's a concept that exists far beyond any. It was the first entity to be birthed from nothingness, and better than every other entity, it carries that inexistential essence of destruction.
"Because it is destruction, the force itself has a nature of a destroyed state; hence, it's a force that is existing but at the same time not existing. You can't reflect what doesn't exist, and you can't absorb what denies the very concept of absorption."
More of the shell disappeared, and now the process was accelerating. The white flames had spread to cover nearly half the creature's massive form.
"In a way," Northern mused, "you could say your perfect defense was exactly what made you vulnerable. The more your shell tried to absorb my attack, the more it invited its own destruction."
The Dark Turtle made one final attempt to fight back, gathering what remained of its crimson energy.
But as it tried to release it, the energy simply... vanished, consumed by the spreading flames. Northern watched impassively as the process neared its completion. "And that's why-"
He never finished his sentence. At that moment, the last of the creature's shell vanished, and with it, the Dark Turtle itself began to unravel.
Its massive form didn't explode or collapse-it simply ceased to be, erased from existence piece by piece, concept by concept.
The final thing to go was its eye, that crimson orb that had seemed so threatening mere minutes ago.
As it faded from existence, Northern could have sworn he saw something in its gaze-not fear or anger, but a sort of resigned recognition.
Then it was gone.
Where the Dark Turtle had stood, there was now only empty space-not a crater or a void, but simply untouched ground, as if nothing had ever been there at all.
The white flames flickered once more before dissipating, leaving behind an eerie silence.
Northern lowered his hand, his expression thoughtful. "Well," he said after a moment, "that was educational."
Behind him, the others stood in stunned silence, trying to process what they had just
witnessed.
The casual way Northern had erased a Behemoth from existence had shaken them to their
core.
But Northern wasn't paying attention to their reactions.
Chaos Flame had worked exactly as he'd theorized-perhaps even better. And now...
A small smile played across his lips as he thought about the implications.
This was just the beginning.
His eyes radiated like stars as he anticipated the amount of fragments he was going to have.
He looked down, waiting eagerly.
However, the system never came.
A second passed.
Two passed.
Five passed.
'Don't tell me...'
Since he erased the concept of existence for that creature, could it be that the system didn't count that as a kill?
'No way, that can't be happening,' Northern shook his head. 'That can't be it.'
If Ul was the one in charge, he would have accepted that the phenomenon made sense-he
erased the monster's concept of existence; it was possible that in Ul's book, the monster didn't die, it just never existed before.
'Something has got to be going on...'
Just as Northern was thinking, the first tab appeared. His eyes lit up immediately.
[Congratulations]
[You have reached a new level of mastery of Chaos]
[Attribute CHAOS FLAME has gained its true form]
[Your proficiency with Chaos has grown]
[Chaos is proud of your achievement]
[Chaos nods in acceptance of your existence]
[Void sneers at Chaos]
'They seem to be having the time of their life inside of me... those two. Anyway, fragments,
fragments, I'm waiting for the fragments.'
[Due to your understanding of Chaos, Heritage has leveled up]
'Oh? I wasn't expecting that....'
[You have gained a new Heritage ability]
[You did not just slay a monster, regarded as a monstrosity in its own lane; you overwrote its
concept, outsmarting Ul. This is a tremendous achievement]
[You have gained +10,000 talent fragments]
[Due to penalty of not copying any talent, you cannot progress to a new soul rank for 180 days]