Northern was insanely angry.
The Leviathan’s hand still hung from the rift, fingers slightly curled. Its position had shifted. Black smoke seeped from its skin, and where it lifted, black flames crawled along its surface, healing the exposed whitish muscles beneath the ravaged flesh.
Northern stared, disgusted and deeply irritated.
A clone had just exhausted all the Void essence gathered from the Void Palace and there was nothing to show for it.
He closed his eyes again, diving deeper into the sanctum of his mind.
Then he began.
He remembered it clearly. During the raid with Paragon Dante, he had somehow unraveled the true form of Chaos Flame—transforming it from black to white.
The effect had been so catastrophic, it completely erased a creature’s existence.
How did he do it?
Chaos Flame had always been a fragmented ability, broken into Black Flames and Black Lance.
It often felt closer to the Void than to Chaos itself—until the first time Northern merged the two. That was when it became clear: Black Flame and Black Lance were never meant to be used separately.
They were two halves of a whole.
A puzzle, only complete when put together.
Chaos Flame wasn’t either of them. It was both of them. Together.
Earlier, he had used only a part—Black Lance. Its damage was conceptual. It could cleave through the impossible. And yet, it hadn’t worked.
The hand had remained.
Northern was bothered—but not consumed by doubt.
Black Lance was a conceptual attack. It dealt physical devastation and instantaneous death. But if something existed that could alter its own essence—its nature, vast and adaptive—it could theoretically block, or even survive, Black Lance.
The Abysmal Belial had shown him that much. So he wasn’t entirely surprised.
But still... for the Leviathan’s hand to remain intact—and worse, to heal—was maddening.
The flames healing it bore a striking resemblance to the former state of Black Flame.
Black Flame now was a bluish-black, a beautiful and dangerous flame. Black Lance, by contrast, retained its color—an inky darkness that devoured light.
And yet, when combined…
They produce white flames.
It was strange. Illogical. And yet—real.
On one hand, Black Flame ignited, burning and dancing wildly in his palm, surging with chaotic intensity.
In the other, Northern held Black Lance, humming with suppressed violence.
He brought the two together.
As they moved toward one another, ripples formed—one to his left, one to his right—as if the very air had become water, disturbed by the drop of invisible stones.
The ripples expanded, converged.
And in that instant…
Impact.
A violent force exploded outward, displacing the wind in a burst of raw energy.
Northern’s clothes flared, whipping in the turbulent air as the darkness around him lit up—bathed in white fire.
The flames in his hand burned viciously, as if trying to escape his grip, straining against containment. They roared, desperate and alive, like wild animals clawing at the cage.
Northern gritted his teeth, a bead of sweat rolling down his brow as he fought to contain it.
The flames pulsed in his palm, fierce and unforgiving in their heat. Northern watched with a tense frown as his skin burned away—only to regenerate chaotically, then burn again the next second. It was a merciless loop that wouldn’t end so long as the Chaos Flame remained in his grasp.
But Northern didn’t relent.
He doubled down—pressing the full weight of his vast soul and body against the white flame.
It was, by all accounts, a foolish act. Chaos Flame was a fragment of Chaos itself—second only to the Void in sheer destructive force... though even that was debatable.
Trying to tame it was madness.
But taming it wasn’t his goal.
He wasn’t trying to dominate it—he was instructing it.
Chaos, Void, and he had struck an agreement.
And the imprint of that pact was carved into his very body and soul. Pressing them onto the stubborn flame was his way of reminding Chaos—
"Remember... I’m supposed to be in control here."
And just as Northern predicted—it worked.
The flame still danced wildly in his hand, dangerous and alive, but the searing pain ceased. It no longer burned him, though its ferocity remained as vicious as ever.
Now, Northern felt it—control.
Bit by bit, he extended the flame outward.
He pulled his hands apart. The Chaos Flame stretched, elongating into a brilliant, burning arrow. He held it over his shoulder, gaze fixed coldly on the Leviathan’s hand.
Then, his Chaos Eyes opened.
Instantly, the flame surged—its glow intensifying, responding to the activation of Chaos Eyes. Northern felt his grip tighten on the strange embodiment of finality. It was his now. More than ever.
All his Chaos Eyes converged, narrowing on the grotesque limb hanging from the rift.
He frowned.
Azure sparks flared in his eyes.
In that moment, the pressure around the Leviathan’s hand collapsed. What had been sagging, dragged down by gravity, now floated unnaturally—its weight erased.
The air around it began to behave erratically. The wind itself fled, swirling and recoiling, as if repulsed by the anomaly.
A strange zone had formed—an invisible gravity-less field enveloping the hand completely.
But Northern wasn’t done.
That was only the first step.
He moved to the next.
"Echo…"
The arrow in his grip hummed, vibrating with primal satisfaction.
Northern took one last glance at the Leviathan’s hand—then slowly began to fly backward.
[You have changed your name.]
He infused himself with Colossal Force, his frame bulging with overwhelming, titanic power. He clenched the arrow tighter, as if choking the very soul from the Chaos Flame.
Then, with a mighty surge of power, he whipped his arm backward—and hurled the arrow with everything his titanic body could offer.
A seismic sound erupted.
It tore through the air, ripping apart the sound barrier, unleashing a deafening shockwave that pulsed outward with unstoppable force.
The arrow screamed through the air like a wrathful comet, dragging a trail of blinding white fire behind it. Space trembled in its wake. Even the stars recoiled—twitching ever so slightly—as if reality itself was instinctively flinching.
The wind didn’t howl. It fled.
Silence followed the arrow’s path, a vacuum of sound where nothing dared to exist.
Then it struck.
The Chaos Flame Arrow collided with the Leviathan’s hand—and for a moment, there was nothing.
No explosion. No sound. No light.
Just... silence.
Then came the collapse.