Date (Conceptual Time): The Space Between Seconds. Location: The Conceptual Blood Sea (Deep Dive).
Null was drifting in the velvet darkness of Fang's protective spell, his physical body resting on the floating bed in the Wonder World. But his soul was dragged downwards, heavy as an anchor, plunging through the layers of consciousness until he hit the surface of the Blood Sea.
He woke with a gasp. He was standing once again on the viscous, crimson ocean, the red sky stretching infinitely above him.
"Not again," Null whispered, his voice thick with a depression that transcended physical fatigue. His silver-white hair hung limp over his eyes. The sharp, authoritative grey of his cross-eyes had dulled to a flat, lifeless slate. "I just want to rest. I have to fight a war... why am I here?"
He stared into the nothingness, his spirit weary. "I defeated the False Son. Is that not enough?"
"Welcome... New King," a voice answered. It wasn't the gravelly doom of Umbros or the clinical coldness of Asura. It was a sound like wind chiming through a cathedral—beautiful, terrifying, and utterly inhuman. "I am the Proxy of the Divine Will. I am the Substitute of the Throne."
Null looked up, confused. The blood of the sea before him began to boil and rise. It twisted, defying gravity, sculpting itself into a figure of breathtaking beauty.
A woman formed from the crimson liquid. She possessed massive wings of red feathers. Her hair was a cascade of vibrant scarlet, and a thick, intricate cloth blindfold covered her eyes.
She hovered before him, her blindfolded face tilting down.
"I am here to inform you that you have fulfilled the ancient requirements," the Angel announced. "You have walked the razor's edge of the Path of Divine Grace (The Almighty's Blessing)."
Null blinked, his dull eyes trying to process the words. "Blessing? I feel cursed."
"The Almighty rewards the conquering of the Fallen," she intoned. "By defeating Satan 666, the False Son, you have earned the endowments of the High Code."
She raised a hand, and two spheres of light drifted into Null's chest.
"First: Sanctified Physiology (Physical Augmentation). Your senses are no longer bound by biological limits. You shall see the atoms of the air and hear the heartbeat of the earth."
"Second: The Mind of Grace (Divine Intuition). Your will is now a fortress. No demonic suggestion, no whisper from the void, and no lie from the King of Stone shall ever penetrate your logic again. You are conceptually immune to corruption."
She paused, the blood-wings beating slowly. "And finally... I must inform you. By conquering a being of God-hood, you have crossed the threshold. You have reached Apotheosis. You have achieved Godhood Status."
The Burden of Divinity
Null stared at her blindfold, the words crashing into him. "Godhood?" he repeated, his voice cracking. "I don't want to be a God. I just want to save my friends."
"To save them, you must become the thing that can protect them," the Angel replied coldly. "You possess the seeds—Umbros and Asura. To finalize your status, you must do what the False Son did. You must bind them. You must merge them into the fabric of your existence."
Null wanted to refuse. But the memory of Maya's dead eyes flashed in his mind. The memory of Aris weeping. He remembered who he was fighting.
"Fine," Null whispered, sitting down on the surface of the Blood Sea. "If I have to be a monster to kill monsters... then so be it."
He closed his eyes and reached inward, finding the two colossal conceptual signatures within his Shadow Stone.
Umbros (Death). Asura (Life).
"Bind," Null commanded.
The Transformation
The reaction was instantaneous.
Null gasped as his perception exploded. The Sanctified Physiology kicked in. His senses expanded across the planet—hearing the tectonic grinding of plates, seeing the flow of wind miles away.
Then, his body shifted.
He felt lighter, faster, stronger. He looked at his left arm—the Black Arm of the Void. It was changing. Stark, glowing white veins began to pulse through the darkness, throbbing with the power of the fusion, looking like cracks of lightning frozen in obsidian.
The Eyes: His eyes snapped open. The dull grey was gone. The irises turned a deep, piercing crimson red—the color of authority and power. In the center, his signature cross-shaped pupil turned a dull, matte black, void of all light. They were not monstrous; they were the beautiful, terrifying eyes of a Ruler.
The Teeth: His jaw ached slightly as his canines elongated, sharpening into elegant, predatory vampire fangs.
The Scales: Sleek, dark scales erupted along his shoulders and forearms, fitting him like natural, biological armor.
He didn't look like a beast; he looked like a dark, ascended deity.
The Vision of Horror
Then came the Divine Sight.
Null leaned forward, clutching his stomach. The merger forced him to see the world as a God sees it—without filters.
A vision assaulted his mind.
He saw a ruined city block. He saw demons—low-level summons from the King's army—laughing on a basketball court. They were dribbling a ball that was heavy and wet. It was the severed head of a human man, his expression frozen in terror.
Null gagged, dry-heaving onto the Blood Sea. The cruelty was infinite. This was what he had to fix.
He wiped his mouth, his new claws scraping his skin. He stood up, trembling not with fear, but with a cold, divine rage.
The Bloody Hell
Null looked around the Blood Sea. The landscape had changed.
Rising from the crimson ocean were Doors. Massive, imposing doors of iron, bone, and shadow. There were twenty of them, perhaps more, stretching into the distance.
Null turned to the Angel, his crimson-and-black eyes wide with questions.
"I'm assuming you may or may not know this," Null said, his voice now carrying a strange, dual resonance. "But... what are these doors that are appearing?"
The Angel turned. She looked at the doors, and then she looked at Null.
She froze.
She didn't see a demon. She saw a being of absolute, terrifying potential. A dark body, glowing white veins, crimson eyes with dull black crosses.
"It's you..." she whispered, her voice trembling with awe and fear. "Basically... every time you unlock a memory or a power... they open. And when you unlock something... more spawn."
She stepped back, her wings fluttering nervously. "This place... in the ancient texts... it is called the Bloody Hell. It is the library of trauma and power."
She looked into Null's eyes—the eyes of a predator that had just tasted divinity—and realized she was in the presence of something that could devour the very concept of an Angel.
"Don't think you are the only one who has this," she stammered, her form beginning to dissolve into mist, desperate to escape his presence. "And well... my job here is done!"
The Angel faded away into the blood water, fleeing the God she had just crowned.
Null stood alone in the Bloody Hell, surrounded by the doors of his past and future, a God with the fangs of a vampire, the eyes of a King, and the heart of a grieving boy."I guess when they angels are the most beautiful beings isn't a lie"
End of chapter 74
See you later