Time itself stopped moving forward.
A gray hue swallowed reality whole, covering everything around Frey.
A dark, lifeless gray... pierced only by drifting red sparks and others black as the void itself.
Agaroth froze before him.
While Frey alone remained capable of movement, having stepped beyond the laws of time itself.
"I’m glad you left this copy behind for me, Agaroth."
Slowly, a spark formed between Frey’s fingers.
A spark colored in gray, crimson, and black.
"It’s been a very long time since I last used this power."
"And I needed a target worthy of testing my limits upon."
His eyes glowed faintly.
A dim violet radiance... yet one so deep it seemed endless.
The power gathering between his fingers was not ordinary strength.
It was a force born from another world entirely... and extending even beyond that.
The spark ignited.
Then suddenly, colors exploded from it, flooding the empty gray canvas with overwhelming life.
"Out of this world !"
As those words left his lips, Frey’s hand snapped backward slightly—
As though he had fired a bullet through those two fingers.
The attack itself was silent.
No thunderous explosions.
No blinding lights.
Only a single spark overflowing with life and color.
And yet that tiny spark unleashed destruction greater than any attack Alexander Rybak and the others had witnessed throughout their entire lives.
Agaroth’s copy vanished from existence.
Completely.
The instant Frey’s attack touched it, the Demon King’s replica dispersed utterly without leaving behind a single trace.
No ashes.
No blood.
Not even the faintest fragment of aura.
Everything connected to it was erased.
Completely wiped away, as though it had never existed within this world to begin with.
Everyone stared in stunned disbelief at what they had just witnessed.
Especially Maskith, whose eyes widened violently after finally seeing the true authority of a Writer at the peak of his power.
"He... rejected his existence from this world..." he whispered faintly, causing Alexander and Shiva to unconsciously turn toward him.
Neither of them understood what had just happened.
But Maskith did.
That strike represented the pinnacle of destructive power a Writer could unleash.
An attack capable of erasing its target from existence itself.
To those struck by it, it simply appeared as though they had evaporated entirely.
’Frey learned it from my lady Clea...’
’Every time she used it, she always uttered the same words: "Out of this world."’
’And now... he repeats them as well.’
Maskith slowly clenched his fist as he watched Clea’s shadow emerge through Frey.
’As expected... you alone are capable of inheriting her legacy and walking the same path she did.’
’Neither Seth nor Ark could ever accomplish it.’
’Only you, Frey.’
With a single glance, Maskith finally understood why Clea favored her eldest son so deeply.
Though Seth and Arlecchino were powerful... Frey alone resembled her to a terrifying degree.
He truly was his mother’s son.
"Stop thinking pointless thoughts, Maskith."
Frey’s voice rang out after erasing Agaroth’s copy, turning toward the old man as though he had read his mind directly.
"Agaroth’s copy is gone."
"Only the Ultras remain now... the last living creatures left upon this planet."
"Shall we exterminate them?" Alexander Rybak asked immediately, fully prepared to destroy every last one of them alone if Frey gave the order.
But Frey shook his head.
"No."
"We are not the ones who should kill them."
Slowly descending toward the earth below, Frey reached out and touched the ground with his hand.
A violet flame spread outward from his palm.
"Those who once lived upon this land..."
"...and were slaughtered by that monster..."
Closing his eyes, Frey used aura this time rather than Aether, expanding it outward until it covered an unimaginably vast area, displaying a terrifying spectacle of overwhelming power.
"Nameless’ Manipulation of Life and Death..."
"Circle of Eternal Life."
With a single movement of his hand, a massive formation emerged and spread across most of Planet Earth itself.
An enormous violet circle covered in profound and intricate runes carrying within them the deepest mysteries of life and death—mysteries countless beings had spent their lives pursuing.
"Fortunately..." Frey murmured as he rose to his feet once more and lifted his gaze toward the heavens.
"The formation still remains intact."
His Formation of Life and Death had preserved the souls of the dead...
And spared them from an even crueler fate.
One soul after another began appearing in the skies above Frey.
Souls belonging to people he had spent an unimaginably long time beside.
He stared at them silently for several moments.
Then eventually lowered his head and closed his eyes, fully aware that what they had all endured was no simple suffering.
Alexander Rybak and Shiva watched as well.
And naturally, the souls of Fulghor and Adir were the ones their eyes were most drawn toward.
They knew this formation well.
They had witnessed Nameless use it many times throughout their lives in order to return fallen comrades back to life.
"He always created vessels to house those souls..." Shiva muttered unconsciously.
"But now he has no vessels prepared... so what is he planning to do?"
Frey answered calmly.
"There is no need for vessels."
"I will not place them inside cold bodies destined to crumble with time."
Raising both hands into the air like the conductor of a grand orchestra preparing to begin his performance, Frey gathered the aura maintaining the Formation of Life and Death within his right hand.
Meanwhile, his left summoned something entirely different.
Another kind of power altogether.
The mysterious force known as Aether.
"Aura... is the power of life."
"And Aether..."
"...is what creates that life."
Using aura, Frey preserved the souls from fading away.
And through Aether, he began reconstructing the physical forms through which they had once lived in this world.
Manipulating Aether itself, Frey focused intensely upon that power in particular...
Because it was by far the more difficult of the two to wield.
’Aether is completely different from aura... and I cannot use it endlessly. Nameless’ method of circulating aura does not work on it.’
Using it like a vibrant painter’s brush, Frey began painting across the canvas of existence itself.
’It comes from within us Writers. It is what grants our worlds shape, structure, and form... like constructing a human body. Bones, flesh, skin, organs... all of them are built through Aether.’