A ripple spread outward from me. The collapsing points faltered the moment the ripple touched them. Their inward pull broke apart as the distorted regions lost cohesion. One by one, the black points unraveled, their compression destabilizing before they could complete their collapse.
The space around me returned to normal.
I raised my hand and mirrored the motion.
My fingers moved in a horizontal arc.
A single black point formed in front of me.
Unlike the shadow’s construct, mine did not flicker or destabilize. It remained perfectly stable as it moved forward. Then it divided. Dozens of points spread outward before converging toward the shadow at once. The moment they reached it, they collapsed. The implosion was immediate and violent.
The space surrounding the shadow folded inward completely, crushing its structure as the collapsing regions overlapped and intensified each other. The distortion consumed its form, tearing it apart without resistance.
Its body broke apart and dissolved into drifting darkness.
Once again a fragment remained and this was a space fragment.
I devoured it.
My understanding of space deepened, as the volcano responded. I closed my eyes absorbing the new learning.
The soul that emerged bowed in gratitude before dispersing.
I continued forward.
White tile.
Black tile.
The next shadow carried temporal comprehension. It was the easiest fight of all for me. After destroying the shadow, I devoured the fragment.
And then continued walking.
Shadow after shadow emerged and fell. Law after law was tested and consumed. With each victory, my comprehension deepened, and my soul grew denser, stronger, more defined. By the time I reached the far end of the checkered hall, I was no longer the same being who had stepped onto the first tile.
There were no more tiles ahead of me.
The checkered pattern ended several steps before the far wall, leaving only smooth stone standing in silent obstruction. There was no doorway, no visible mechanism, no indication of how the path forward would reveal itself. The wall remained inert, just as it had when I first entered the hall, offering nothing in response to my progress.
I remained still for a moment, observing, waiting for the hall to react as the previous ones had.
Nothing happened.
I turned back.
The moment I did, the tiles began to move.
It started as a faint vibration beneath my feet, a subtle shift that quickly grew into something more intentional. The black and white tiles detached from their fixed positions and began sliding across the floor, rearranging themselves without sound or visible force. Entire rows shifted sideways, while others rotated or exchanged places, the pattern dissolving and reforming in a continuous flow.
Within seconds, the transformation was complete.
The hall was no longer checkered.
Half of the chamber had become entirely black. The other half entirely white.
I stood on the white side.
The boundary between the two halves ran in a perfectly straight line across the center of the hall, dividing it into equal domains of light and darkness.
Then the black side rippled.
The surface did not behave like stone anymore. It moved like liquid, its form losing rigidity as gentle waves spread across it. The solid floor had become something else entirely, resembling a dark, reflective body of water whose surface distorted and shifted without external cause.
From within that distortion, something began to rise.
At first, it was only a faint protrusion, a slight elevation breaking the smooth surface. Then it grew, forming a shape that pushed upward slowly, deliberately, as though emerging from immense depth.
A head emerged.
Then shoulders.
Then arms.
The shadow rose fully from the liquid surface, its form stabilizing as it stepped onto the boundary between black and white.
But the transformation did not end there.
The dark surface beneath the shadow rippled more violently, and from within it, chains began to emerge. They were entirely black, their surface smooth and lightless, as though they did not reflect the world around them at all. One after another, they rose from the liquid ground, slithering upward like living serpents drawn toward a single destination.
They wrapped around the shadow.
First around its legs, coiling tightly as they climbed upward. Then around its torso, crossing over one another in overlapping layers. More chains followed, binding its arms, its shoulders, its neck, until the shadow stood completely restrained within their grasp.
The entire structure trembled.
The chains tightened, pulling inward as though forcing something to remain contained. The shadow’s form flickered, its surface destabilizing as waves of distortion passed through it. For several seconds, nothing else happened. The chains continued to constrict, holding whatever existed within that form in absolute confinement.
Then the pressure broke.
A shockwave erupted outward from the shadow’s body.
The chains snapped instantly, fragments scattering outward before dissolving into nothingness. At the same moment, two wings burst from its back.
Black wings.
They extended fully, their feathers sharp and defined, identical to the wings I had seen in the vision. The shadow’s outer layer began to crack, its surface splitting apart in jagged fragments that fell away piece by piece. The darkness that had formed its body peeled off like brittle clay, unable to sustain the structure beneath it.
What remained was no longer a shadow.
A being stood there.
Fully formed.
White hair fell loosely around his face. His skin carried the faint ashen tone I remembered. His posture was calm, balanced, his wings resting naturally behind him as though they had always belonged there.
I recognized him immediately.
Theras Prime.
He looked exactly as he had in the vision, exactly as he had stood before the sword embedded in the mountain. There was no distortion in his form, no instability in his presence. He did not flicker like the shadows had. He existed completely.
His red eyes met mine. Slowly, he turned his head and looked around the hall, his gaze moving across the black and white tiles, the towering pillars, and the silent boundary that divided the chamber. His wings shifted slightly behind him as he observed his surroundings.
Then his eyes returned to me.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"Billion Ironhart," I replied.
My tone remained composed, but every layer of my perception was active. Essence flowed quietly through my channels, stabilized and ready. My Psynapse remained fully expanded, mapping every fluctuation within the hall, every movement, every shift in pressure or structure. My laws churned beneath the surface, not released, but prepared, waiting for the slightest indication of hostility.
"Billion?" he repeated.
He blinked once, his expression shifting slightly as though searching through memory.
"Never heard of that name."
His gaze drifted downward, toward his own hand. He raised it slowly, turning it slightly as though examining something that was no longer there. His fingers flexed once, testing motion, before his eyes lifted again to scan the hall more carefully.
"Where is my sword?" he asked.
His voice carried no panic, only expectation.
His eyes moved to my hands.
"Did I lose it?" he murmured.
He brought his fingers to his forehead, rubbing lightly as though trying to force recollection into clarity. His brows narrowed slightly. For several seconds, he remained still.
Then he exhaled quietly.
He lowered his hand and looked back at me.
"Never heard your name," he said. "But Ironhart..."
He paused.
"I remember completely killing you all," he continued calmly. "How did you survive?"