Reality folded in on itself at the point of impact.
It wasn’t destruction—it was erasure.
The arrow didn’t burn the hand. It unmade it.
With a flashless burst, the limb began to dissolve—not disintegrate, not shatter—just... cease to exist.
The black flames crawling across the Leviathan’s flesh screamed in rejection. They flared, wildly and desperately, fighting back against the purging force. But the resistance was meaningless.
They were devoured.
Swallowed whole by the white flame, without mercy, without recognition.
And then came the scream.
It wasn’t heard—it was felt.
A pressure slammed into every soul present, as if the sky itself shrieked in protest. The landscape didn’t shake, they recoiled. Clouds twisted into shapes they weren’t meant to take. The weight of the soundless howl cracked the atmosphere like fragile glass.
Northern’s Chaos Eyes narrowed.
He stood still—silent—watching the hand’s reality unravel. And from his body, black tendrils erupted, hundreds of them, like spears of entropy. They surged toward the heavens, veiling the rift’s entry point in a web of living darkness.
Now that the hand was gone, the Leviathan would no longer be anchored. And once freed, it might hurl a stronger force through the rift, one capable of breaking their last line of defense.
No one here was ready to face a Leviathan.
And it wasn’t about him.
If he’d been alone—without humans to protect, without time pressing its blade against their throats—he would’ve welcomed it. He would’ve looked it in the eye and grinned.
After all, it would be the perfect test. A confrontation worthy of his evolution.
But not here.
Not in Lithia. Not where a single breath from the beast could end thousands of lives.
Already, the city looked like a graveyard carved by gods. Half of Lithia stood in ruins, buried beneath ash and broken hopes. If he clashed with the Leviathan now, even the sea would not survive it.
Could he kill a Leviathan at his rank?
Absolutely.
He possessed a power that could unmake existence itself.
An attribute that could disrupt the balance of the world.
And yet—
For the briefest moment, Northern froze.
A thought surfaced. Uninvited. Inevitable.
"…Chaos Flame. Seems like a rip-off from it… I should investigate that later."
He forced his gaze back to the sky.
The void tendrils covering the rift were bulging—thick, dark veins pulsing as something massive on the other side tried to claw through. The pressure made the rift tremble, its boundaries warping with strain. Yet the tendrils held, refusing to yield.
They pulsed. Contracted. Then expanded, struggling to hold their form under the Leviathan’s power. Some widened, threatening to tear apart. Others shook, tense as drawn wire.
Then, Northern extended more tendrils—doubling, tripling their number. He unfurled his Void Wings and latched them onto the rift’s edges, anchoring the frame in place and reinforcing the tendrils from outside the breach.
The contraction resumed.
A silent tug-of-war began between reality and monstrosity.
And slowly, the Leviathan began to lose.
The tendrils squeezed tighter, folding space around the rift. But there was more to them than just void. Woven into each tendril, like veins beneath the surface, was Soul Thread—fine, spectral filaments laced with precision.
They slithered through the rift’s borders, threading through the seams of fractured reality.
Stitching.
Binding.
Sewing the edges of the tear as the tendrils pulled, clenched, and closed the rift.
Not sealed.
Not yet.
But the gate was narrowing.
And with every second, the Leviathan’s grip on this world weakened.
Northern poured more force, more essence into the Soul Threads—driving even more Void Tendrils forward until he felt his body reach the edge of elasticity.
They weren’t just constructs.
Void Tendrils were him.
Extensions of his soul—woven in the same breath and expressed through his body.
He groaned through clenched teeth, pain spiking like lightning as his limbs trembled. At this point, all he could do was endure—wait for the Soul Threads to finish what they’d started.
And the waiting...
It was excruciating.
Each second felt like a lifetime stretched thin, like skin pulled over shattered bone. His body expanded, or at least felt like it did—stretching, warping, bloating with unbearable pressure.
Worse still, the Leviathan hadn’t stopped fighting. Its will pressed against the tendrils, gnashing down on them with force titanic enough to shake the sky. And that resistance didn’t just strain his flesh—it ravaged his soul.
The tendrils may have emerged from his body, but their roots were buried deep in the evolving chaos of his soul. Every tug, every clash, tore a little more of him apart.
At some point, Northern began to tremble.
And then—
The rift sealed shut.
He watched in silence as the last thread stitched the final edge. And only then did he release the tendrils.
They recoiled like rubber bands snapped from the heavens—flapping once before collapsing inward and vanishing into him.
A heartbeat later, Northern lost his balance.
His flight cut out. His limbs failed him. Chaos Eyes flickered once—and died—leaving him with nothing but a haze, a blur of falling color.
And he plummeted.
But before the wind could howl…
She was already there.
Jeci.
A blur of motion, too fast for eyes to track. She caught him mid-air, arms locked around his body, her descent like a feather’s fall. She landed soundlessly, kneeling with grace carved from reverence, laying his head gently across her lap.
Around her, the air shifted.
Every one of Northern’s summons stood in a silent circle—present, alert, and untouchable. No one had seen them move. No one had tracked their arrival.
But they were there.
And the atmosphere turned volatile.
Bairan dropped to one knee beside his fallen master. The Sword King lowered his head and listened, close, as Northern mumbled in a voice frayed by exhaustion.
"I… can only trust you… to lead… things… from here…"
It wasn’t permanent. Northern had not fallen—merely overdrawn.
Pushing the Void Tendrils to their limit was no different from pushing his own body beyond its brink. Even Chaos couldn’t regenerate damage like this instantly.
And Void... Void made it worse.
But that was fine.
He just needed a nap.
A long, deep one.
He had unmade the hand of a Leviathan.
And sealed a Tier 8 Rift.
That was enough for one day.
Bairan stood slowly. His eyes swept across the gathered summons, all watching in solemn silence. Then, from within his cloak, he drew a blade.
"This," he said, "is a special sword bestowed upon me by the Master himself. Its sole purpose is to open the gateway to the Limitless Void—should the need arise."
He raised the blade, letting its faint aura flicker to life.
"By right of this sword," Bairan continued, "I am the second in command."
Revant’s brows twitched. His face darkened.
"You lying, cheating scum," he spat. "That’s only Dark Mortal—"
But Bairan cut him off with a smirk and a flash of condescension in his glowing blue eyes. He said smoothly.
"—That was given to me by the Master. Which, by law and legacy, makes me second in command."
He stepped forward.
"I shall open the gateway to the Limitless Void, so the Master may rest within."
He stared hard at Revant, eyes locking like drawn swords.
"Incomplete Tyrant… you’ll take Shard Creeper, Light of Featherstone, and Abyss Tyrant. Head with the Drifters to Verulania."
He turned, planting the sword into the ground beside him.
"The rest of us will escort the Master to the other place."
Revant glared at him.
And Bairan—he only lifted his chin a little more, his grin deepening, that blue light in his gaze dripping with scorn.
His voice sounded like a blade dipped in mockery.
"Master’s command. Got a problem with that… Incomplete Tyrant?"