A portal opened behind Adamus. Before he could react, Pride lunged forward. The world shifted around him.
Adamus plummeted through the portal, and then he hit the ground.
Pain surged through Adamus as he gasped for air. Pride pinned him to the ground, his crushing grip unrelenting. Wrath's laughter echoed close by, sharp and mocking.
Adamus thrashed against the hold. "Get off of me!"
Pride leaned closer, his voice low. "Welcome to the past." Energy pulsed from his hands, dark and resonant. dark energy coiled around his palms, radiating a force that pressed down on Adamus like the weight of a higher dimensional pressure. The pressure crushed against his chest and shoulders, each attempt to rise forcing him back to the earth.
Adamus' Tenshi no Me widened, golden light flashing in his eyes. He strained to breathe, his gaze darting outward.
A forest surrounded him misty trees stretching endlessly in every direction. The roar of a waterfall thundered in the distance, spilling into a calm river that cut across the land.
Then he saw them.
Hunter.
Kiyohime.
They were lying motionless near the edge of the waterfall, their bodies bruised, bleeding, and broken. His heart clenched in his chest. This was the exact place where he, Kiyohime, and Hunter had first landed upon entering the Hyperverse of Israel.
Adamus breath caught in his throat.
"What did you do?!" he shouted, his voice raw with rage.
Pride stepped into view from the shadows of the forest. His smirk was cruel. Cold. Unforgiving.
"We told you," he said. "We searched every timeline for you… but we found them instead."
He gestured casually to the broken bodies behind him.
"The moment they entered are hyperverse, they fell right into our hands. You don't understand how this works, do you?"
He stepped closer, voice dripping with arrogance.
"As soon as you or rather, your friends entered the Hyperverse of Israel, they stopped being outsiders."
"They became part of our timeline. Ours. Subject to our laws, our power. Just like the people in the city you tried to protect."
Pride's eyes gleamed with malice. He leaned in, whispering the next words like a threat wrapped in velvet.
"And when we leave this hyperverse… when we step into your world"
He grinned, cruel and deliberate.
"we'll become part of your timeline. And then, we'll hunt down everyone you've ever loved. One by one."
His smile deepened into something monstrous.
Adamus' chest tightened.
Pride's tone darkened. "You're lucky. If I could access your timeline fully, I would've gone back in time and killed your mother myself."
"SHUT UP!"
Adamus tried to move but couldn't, the higher dimensional pressure still pushing him down.
With a cruel grin, Wrath lifted Hunter's limp body. The once-mighty warrior was barely conscious his wings ripped clean off, his face swollen and bloodied, bones shattered beneath torn skin.
Hunter groaned weakly.
SHLUNK.
Wrath stabbed him straight through the gut.
Blood sprayed across the ground. Wrath's blade had already cut through Hunter's neck, and his body dropped like dead weight. It hit the earth with a sickening thud limp, broken, unmoving.
Adamus froze in place. His heart stopped. His breath caught in his throat.
Wrath turned to him slowly, fire curling around his armored form.
"Don't worry," Pride said, his voice calm yet dripping with venom. "She's next. And when we return to the present, we'll kill your friends all over again."
Adamus clawed at the ground, forcing his body to rise. Every breath was a war. The air itself felt thick, reality bending and warping around him. Even time faltered, dragging like a broken current. The gravity wasn't simply pulling him down it pressed through dimensions he could barely comprehend, smothering him beneath layers of existence stacked one atop another.
His arms shook. His knees buckled. Still, he tried to stand.
Then he looked up. Pride was stepping toward Kiyohime, his shadow falling across her battered form.
"No!" Adamus screamed, his voice raw and desperate. "Please don't! Don't do it!"
Pride raised his sword and, without hesitation, brought it down.
The sound of the blade slicing through her was the only thing Adamus heard before her head fell to the ground.
Adamus screamed.
Tears burst from his eyes. His entire body shook. He cried so hard he could barely breathe. The forest echoed with the sound of his anguish.
His fists dug into the ground. He couldn't save them. He had failed. Again.
But then… he saw it.
The portal.
Still open. Still glowing. Still pulling energy from the air like a vacuum. It was the only way out.
He stared at it, his breathing heavy, his chest rising and falling in desperation.
"These aren't my friends," he thought. "Not really. They're versions from another timeline. Ghosts of what could have been."
"But the ones I came here with… they're still alive. In the present."
He clenched his fists tighter.
"I have to get back to them. I have to survive.
A pulse of energy rose inside him like fire being ignited at the core of his soul. The crystal inside him responded.
Suddenly, he exploded.
A massive burst of green and gold light tore through the ground. The gravity field shattered. Rocks and dirt flew in every direction. The air bent and twisted around him.
Adamus stood. The light around him burned like a second sun.
Then he moved.
He sprinted toward the portal, at Im×5, tearing through space like a comet.
Pride turned, his sword still stained with blood. Wrath growled and launched after him.
All three raced toward the portal.
Adamus reached it first.
And in a flash of white light, all three were gone.
The portal closed behind them.
The portal ripped open over the ruined city.
Adamus, Pride, and Wrath crashed back onto the streets. The world trembled from their arrival cars flipped, glass shattered, terrified civilians ran in every direction.
Adamus staggered to his feet.
His Tenshi no Me burned with golden fury.
He turned toward Pride and Wrath and this time, there was no hesitation.
Citizens ran in terror as Wrath and Pride hovered above, their presence alone causing buildings to tremble and collapse. Below them, Adamus stood amid the destruction, his Tenshi no Me gleaming gold as he surveyed the ruined city.
His thoughts raced.
I can't let them leave this hyperverse.
If Pride spoke the truth… then time itself was his playground. He could strike whenever he wanted. Wherever.
Even his mother his world was vulnerable.
His eyes locked onto the towering statues scattered across the shattered skyline. Massive effigies of the Seven Deadly Sins loomed over the city like silent gods, their stone faces carved with cruel reverence Wrath, Pride, and the rest gazing down in judgment.
Adamus' chest tightened as the thought clawed at him. Is this what they would do if they entered my world? Would they enslave everyone, strip away free will, and force people to love only sin? Would they make my people build monuments like these, bowing to idols of their corruption?
The statues stood unmoving, but to Adamus they felt alive monuments not of stone, but of chains.
No. I can't let this happen to my world.
I have to stop them.
But how do I get stronger?
Pride hovered above, arms crossed, watching with disdain.
"You've already given up," he said, voice dripping with venom.
"I see it in your eyes. Defeat. Regret. Doubt."
He shook his head slowly, like a teacher disappointed in a student.
"I told you you don't know yourself. You're not a hero. You're a fool. A fool who rejected power. You could've been part of something greater. You could've been one of us."
Adamus clenched his fists, his breath steadying.
"The only fools I see," he said, "are you two."
Pride laughed. A cruel, sharp sound.
"We're not fools. We are gods in this hyperverse. Look around you." He gestured toward the kneeling crowds in the distance, their voices raised in desperate worship.
"They bow to us. They chant our names: Pride. Wrath. The Seven Deadly Sins. Our names are power. Our names are eternal."
Adamus narrowed his eyes, voice like a blade.
"You call yourself a name as if it were armor but names are just noise wrapped around silence."
He turned toward Wrath, stepping forward.
"You call yourself Wrath, but the moment Pride shows up, you act like a lost dog. You don't even know yourself. You're nothing but a puppet
and Pride is your puppeteer."
Wrath's fists trembled with fury, eyes blazing.
"We'll show you why our names are all-powerful!"
Adamus didn't flinch. His voice stayed firm, cold.
"Your names are empty. Pointless."
He raised a hand, energy crackling around his knuckles.
"Power is a flame. The hand that clings to it… will always burn."
Then, he turned to Pride.
"And you. You act like you're the strongest. Like you're in control. But you're just another pawn."
His gaze burned now.
"You call yourself Pride, but Lucifer is the one pulling your strings. You don't know yourself either."
He stood tall.
"You're both puppets. No identity. No self."
Pride's grin widened, still hovering midair, floating beside Wrath both of them towering above the broken city like executioners.
Adamus stood still, his hands resting calmly behind his back. His posture was composed almost regal, as if untouched by the chaos that surrounded him.
Then, slowly, he brought his hands forward.
His eyes locked with theirs unflinching, burning with something ancient and terrible.
"I will show you," he said, his voice low but heavy with finality.
"Why we are feared.
Why names matter.
And why you should be afraid."
And then he saw what he was holding.
Kiyohime's severed head.
Blood still dripped from her neck, trailing down his hands like ink in water.
Adamus froze.
His entire body locked.
His knees trembled.
His breath shattered in his chest like glass. It was as if someone had reached into him and ripped out his soul.
Across from him, Pride twirled the head lightly in his grip, holding it like a trophy. His smile was cold and cruel.
"The only thing left," Pride said softly, "is to kill the version of her that exists in this timeline. Right after we kill you."
Adamus didn't respond.
He couldn't.
Something inside him cracked quietly, violently. A silence took hold of him, one deeper than despair. His green flames, once a steady blaze, began to flicker.
And then… they changed.
The emerald light began to darken. A shadow spread through it, thick and oily like ink spilled into fire. The flames twisted, warped until green and black began to swirl around his body in a rising storm.
The black grew stronger, overpowering the green. It clung to him like living smoke, dancing around him with a will of its own.
The wind stopped.
The air trembled.
Above Adamus' head, a gold halo appeared. It spun slowly, glowing with divine stillness a ring of judgment suspended in silence.
And then his eyes changed.
They turned to pure gold.
The Tenshi no Me had awakened. And it was angry.
Beneath Adamus, the earth split open not violently, but with solemn grace. Something grew from the crack.
A lotus.
Pitch black.
Its petals unfolded silently, but their presence was immense. Each petal stretched outward, spreading across the streets, the trees, the mountains. Each one pulsed with cosmic energy like starlight trapped in obsidian silk.
Each petal was alive. And they were watching.
Wrath stepped back with a scowl. "What the hell is that?"
Pride's smile faltered, his voice losing its usual confidence. "Is that… a lotus? A black lotus?"
Another petal drifted past soft, weightless, and yet somehow heavier than gravity itself.
Wrath squinted, frowning. "Since when do flames make flowers? I thought we were supposed to fear swords, explosions… not flowers."
They both chuckled, but it wasn't real laughter. It was tight, shaky, and forced. Because the petals weren't just spreading. They were multiplying. They were changing everything they touched.
They weren't mere flowers.
They were invaders.
They were rewriting reality.
And Adamus stood at the center of it all silent, unmoving, wrapped in black and green flames. A golden halo glowed above his head, his eyes burning like twin suns. He didn't speak, he didn't move, and yet the world around him was already shifting. Nothing would ever be the same again.
Adamus blinked. In the next instant, he was no longer in the world. He had been drawn inward, pulled not across space, but into something deeper a mind dimension.
Everything was white. Infinite. Still. No sound, no walls, only silence humming with unspoken meaning. His Tenshi no Me flickered, adjusting to the emptiness.
"…This place," he whispered. "Is this the same one from before the place I saw when my black flames first awakened?"
Then, a presence stirred.
Vajrapani appeared before him. Cloaked in calm. His robes flowed without wind. His hands folded neatly before him. His face still, like carved stone but his eyes glowed with ancient knowing.
"You have returned to the temple within," Vajrapani said, his voice gentle, like water over stone. "But your heart is stormed by fire."
"You let your emotions consume you. Rage. Sorrow. Grief. They overtook you. Left you hollow."
Adamus's jaw tightened.
"I don't have time for reflection," he said. "I'm fighting two monsters. I can't win. I need your help."
His fists clenched.
"If I don't stop them… my friends are going to die."
Vajrapani nodded once, his eyes closing in brief silence.
"There is a time for war, Adamus," he said. "But even a flame must know its own shape, or it will burn the forest it seeks to protect."
Adamus exhaled hard. "Then help me. Whatever happened last time… when the Black Lotus awoke I need that again. I need more."
Vajrapani opened his eyes.
"Very well," he said. "But know this"
"The Black Lotus Sunyata is not a weapon. It is not power. It is not rage.
It is the pages upon which all things are written and beyond. The breath before the first sound, the silence after the final word.
It does not destroy it restores.
All beginnings and all endings are inscribed upon its petals.
Adamus swallowed hard.
"I don't want to destroy anything. I don't want to kill anyone."
Vajrapani stepped forward. His aura a calm tide.
"The Lotus does not kill. The Lotus does not hate.
It is judgment without anger.
It is the unmaking of distortion.
The quiet that follows illusion.
And yes… there are those whose very existence is a stain upon the fabric of being.
Not all deserve death.
But some… must be erased- returns to their original form, Emptiness."
Adamus stared into that eternal calm and gave a firm nod.
"I can do it. I will master it. I'll defeat them. And then… I'll silence the lotus, before it takes more than it should."
For the first time, Vajrapani smiled.
"A lotus only blooms in the mud," he said, his voice carrying the weight of centuries. "And yet, it remains pure."
He gestured to the floor.
"Sit."
Adamus lowered himself into a meditative stance, closing his eyes and slowing his breath until his chest moved with quiet rhythm.
Vajrapani's voice deepened, resonant and reverent.
"Open your eyes. But know this: when you stare into the void… the void stares back."
Adamus drew in a long breath, steadying himself. Then, with resolve, he opened his eyes.
Before him bloomed the Black Lotus. Its petals pulsed with shadow immense, weightless, and alive. Each one seemed to carry an echo of the void, a ripple of silence woven into its folds. They unfolded gradually, stretching outward and curling toward him like celestial vines.
The instant his gaze met their endless depths, the void surged forward. It pressed against him, pressing deeper still into his very soul.
Adamus gasped, his body convulsing as the darkness wound itself around him. One petal wrapped tightly around his arm, another coiled around his leg, binding him with the suffocating weight of chains spun from shadow.
A cry tore from his throat as his body ignited with energy. Golden light blazed from his eyes, radiant and fierce, burning like twin stars struggling to pierce the abyss.
But the Black Lotus did not falter. It was endless. It did not strike him outright it tested him. It sought to pull him inward, to drown him in its silence, to consume him in the void until he was erased from existence itself.
Yet Adamus resisted. He refused to yield.
He endured.
His fists clenched tighter, the pressure of the void still coiling around him like a cold tide.
"Calm yourself," Vajrapani said, standing tall beside him. "The void only has power if you surrender to it. Focus. Center yourself."
Adamus drew in a deep breath, golden light swirling in his eyes. He didn't push back. He didn't resist. He simply stood rooted, steady. Like a mountain unmoved by storm.
With each breath, the crushing weight around him lessened. The Black Lotus petals, which had tried to ensnare him moments before, began to shimmer confused by the unwavering stillness of his spirit.
He opened his mind fully to it. To the immense presence before him.
The Black Lotus loomed just a few feet away monolithic, vast, blooming endlessly into the darkness. Each petal was a wave of shadow, vast boundless , with living veins of emerald light threading through them. It reached for him again slow, deliberate then stopped.
Adamus didn't move. He only stared, his eyes glowing gold.
The Lotus recoiled.
Not in fear, but in recognition.
The chains of darkness loosened. The silence, once deafening, became meditative harmonious.
The Lotus hovered before him now, still massive, still pulsing with cosmic gravity but no longer trying to bind him. It simply existed an ancient being responding to his presence.
Vajrapani's voice echoed through the stillness, low but firm.
"You're doing well controlling it. But hurry. Do what you must before it consumes you again."
Adamus nodded, his body crackling with quiet intensity. The Lotus no longer dominated the space it pulsed with him, resonated with him, a force now attuned to his command.
He sat down a few feet away from it, cross-legged, eyes glowing bright. Meditating.
The Black Lotus bloomed in front of him, immense and eternal And boundless.
He was using its power.
No longer resisting.
And now he had returned to the battlefield.
BACK ON THE BATTLEFIELD.
Adamus' eyes snapped open.
His body stood at the center of chaos but his spirit radiated calm fury.
Above him floated Pride and Wrath, laughing like gods above insects. In Pride's hand
Kiyohime's severed head.
Adamus rose slowly, the ground cracking beneath his feet as black and green flames erupted around him. The fire danced wildly, but it was no longer chaotic it obeyed him. His Tenshi no Me glowed a blinding gold, pulsing with divine clarity. And above his head, a golden halo hovered brilliant, silent, like the judgment of something beyond this world.
Pride's smirk faltered.
Adamus stood amidst the swirling storm of flame, the massive, intimidating figures of Wrath and Pride looming above him. He glanced down at the head still hanging from his grip. With a casual flick of his power, it disintegrated into dust, scattering like ash in the wind.
Wrath squinted at Adamus, his voice rising with a hint of unease. "Wait a second… Your new form looks impressive, sure. But answer me this why do you have a halo?" His voice grew louder. "Are you some kind of angel now? In your hyperverse?"
Adamus didn't blink. His golden eyes gleamed as he took a single step forward through the storm of swirling black and green flame.
"You worry about titles too much," Adamus said calmly. "Things that don't matter. Things that are empty."
Wrath scoffed and folded his arms, his expression twisted with disdain. "I've had enough of this," he growled. "This kid talks like he's some divine philosopher. Like he understands the world better than we do."
Pride turned to him, his expression still sharp, and nodded in agreement. "Stop acting like you're smart and answer my question. Are you an angel?"
Adamus paused for a brief moment, his golden halo flickering with divine light above him. He then tilted his head slightly, a knowing smile playing at the corners of his mouth.
"Since you care so much about titles," he said, "you can just call me Vajra."
Pride's expression hardened, the smile turning into a scowl. "You arrogant little" His voice dropped, but the venom was still clear. "It doesn't matter what you are. You will soon be gone."
He studied Adamus with cold contempt, his voice sharp and dismissive. "I'm tired of this little brat. Who cares about this planet anyway? Destroy him, Wrath. Don't hold back."
Straightening his stance, he gestured to the planet and people around them. "Go all out. Use everything you have. We're far from Planet Goshen so far that nothing here will ever matter. You could shatter multiverses and it still wouldn't affect Planet Goshen change."
Wrath's grin widened, growing sharper with malice. He raised his hand, and space itself bent around his fingers. A colossal red sphere began to form at his fingertips, pulsing with an energy that radiated annihilation.
"This isn't just for you," Wrath snarled, his eyes burning with the intensity of the attack. "This ball of energy will wipe out entire multiverses. And after that we're heading back to Goshen… To finish your, kill your friends."
Adamus, watching them from below, squinted at the massive sphere of energy growing ever larger above him. His eyes narrowed in focus.
"That ball of energy..." Adamus muttered, his voice low, but carrying across the space. "Is it truly strong enough to destroy multiple multiverses?"
Wrath's grin only deepened as the energy ball continued to expand, the space around it warping with power. "Yes, turn you into dust. It was fun while it lasted. You should've joined the Seven Deadly Sins when you had the chance."
Adamus inhaled, the Black Lotus energy pulsing through him. He raised his eyes to the storm above, golden fire blazing in them. "With all this energy I'm receiving from the Black Lotus," he said, "I think I can use that technique I've been practicing in my Parallel Simulations."
Pride turned to look at him, a flicker of confusion crossing his face. "What is he talking about?"
Adamus stepped forward, his body surrounded by a golden aura. He spoke with calm finality. "Dimension Ascension."
The words hung in the air, and the moment Adamus finished speaking, the atmosphere around him shifted. Higher-dimensional shapes vibrating with white energy and streaked with rainbow sparks swirled around him. His life strings extended outward, spreading across the city and beyond, as the entire environment began to warp and transform into a higher-dimensional white space. Everything buildings, streets, the very fabric of reality began to shift, moving with the rhythmic pulse of energy, glowing with radiant sparks.
As the dimension ascended across the planet, Pride's eyes widened in disbelief. "Impossible," he muttered under his breath. "He's a baby when it comes to being a concept. It took me decades to learn how to use Dimension Ascension."
Adamus's voice was steady. "You're right. I don't know how to use it fully. But I know for a fact I can use it. I can use it to protect the people on this planet And make sure the explosion does not destroy parts of the multiverse and any other multiverse near it."
As Dimension Ascension surged across the planet, reality didn't simply change it fractured into brilliance.
Layers upon layers of space folded like divine origami, but not as separate realms instead, each was a reflection of Adamus himself. He wasn't moving through dimensions. The dimensions were moving through him.
Each layer spiraled outward, not in finite recursion, but into a self-aware spiral of a state beyond infinity, beyond transcendence itsel a level of being where even the concept of boundlessness fractures into lesser echoes. Adamus was not navigating this architecture he was its source. The fountainhead from which existence, possibility, and all imagined forms of reality cascaded.
And through every layer flowed Adamus's golden life strings veins of pure existence, threading through the planes like luminous arteries. Some danced through air, others curved across reflections of reality where physics melted into metaphor. These strings pulsed with divine rhythm, anchoring him to every mirrored veil of being.
Pride's voice trembled. "He's not just bending dimensions. He's reflecting them into themselves… forming recursion loops. This should be impossible…"
But Adamus was calm.
"In my Dimension Ascension," he said, golden eyes burning, "anything that happens inside stays inside. No destruction escapes. No lives outside are touched."
He looked upward, toward the incoming chaos.
Wrath hurled his ultimate strike a crimson orb seething with collapsing timelines and devouring multiverses. This was no ordinary attack; it was a weapon forged from wrath incarnate, laced with enough power to erase the totality of a Multiverses.
The energy wasn't singular it was collected across countless universes, drawn from alternate versions of Wrath scattered throughout the hyperverse. Each fragment of him from every possible reality had contributed a piece of its fury, its despair, its ruin.
What surged now was the total wrath of every Wrath a singularity of hatred and power fused into one collapsing star.
The orb tore through dimensional strata like a god's scream through glass, warping every mirrored layer it passed. Entire reflections of reality buckled. Timelines blinked out. Metaverses shuddered.
A shockwave like the death of universes roared out. Light bent. Space fractured. Sound itself died.
And yet none of it moved past Adamus.
His life strings surged, forming an intricate web in front of him, glowing brighter than the blast itself. They didn't shield him they contained it. The explosion burned with reality-breaking force just inches from his face, but it went no farther. Caught. Frozen.
He held it in place like a god holding the scream of existence in his palm.
Then, with deliberate calm, Adamus raised his hand and snapped his fingers.
The explosion unraveled. It folded into tesseracts, then Möbius forms, then into whispers of subatomic equations. Adamus reshaped the very idea of the attack reduced it to code, stripped its meaning, and returned it to nothingness.
Slowly, the dimensional storm receded.
Mirrored layers collapsed into each other. Fractals dimmed. The sky stitched itself back into form. Rainbow sparks faded, and the veils of reflected reality folded into one.
And the golden life strings curled back into Adamus's form, soft as breath, strong as destiny.
The world untouched was whole again.
Adamus stood still, golden halo aglow.
"That's my version," he said softly. "Not a weapon… a sanctuary."
He looked to Wrath and Pride, both frozen in disbelief.
"Your attack didn't fail. It was never allowed to reach them."
He paused, aura flickering with quiet power.
"I didn't block it. I changed what it was."
But for now, he had shown them that he was no longer the same person who had stood before them only moments ago.
"Now," Adamus muttered, his golden eyes flashing as his life strings pulsed around him, "I've only just begun."
Narrator: It always started with his eyes.
Not a gesture. Not a chant. Not a word. Just light pure and absolute burning from the center of Adamus Jovajra's golden gaze.
The Tenshi no Me, his divine eyes of infinite perception, began to glow brighter, surging with the weight of endless parallel realities, each one folding into the next like mirrored pages in a boundless book. The glow intensified until it was no longer just light, but pressure bending space itself beneath the gaze of something too aware, too alive.
Then it happened.
That light shot inward not outward flooding his chest, straight into the Om Mani Padme Hum Crystal embedded in the heart of his being.
The crystal absorbed it instantly.
But this was no ordinary absorption. The golden light met a structure not of this world an omniversal quasicrystal, built from the mathematical breath of the stars, forged in divine symmetry, and alive with omni-architectural patterning. As the energy collided with its lattice, the crystal didn't merely respond it reacted.
It awakened.
It pulsed once.
And Dimension Ascension was born.
A shockwave rippled through reality and nonexistence not as sound or light, but as something beyond transcendence. The air fractured into color. Space folded like paper caught in a cosmic breeze. Around Adamus, the world split into layered sheets, each one a higher-dimensional echo of the one below it.
Tesseracts bloomed around him like flowers made of time. Fractals spiraled outward, each one reflecting infinite versions of itself in recursive perfection. Interlaced geometric shapes spun and danced through the air some familiar, others utterly alien drawn from laws not meant for lower realities.
This was no simple ability. It was a domain.
A higher-dimensional realm superimposed on existence itself, its scope and depth dictated by Adamus's will and the energy he poured into it. The more power he invested, the more it transcended, climbing past layer after layer until even dimensionality itself fractured and fell away. Within Dimension Ascension, he did not merely inhabit higher planes he generated them, ascending reality to whatever height was required.
And in this radiant storm, Adamus stood transformed.
His body became a conduit for white and rainbow light, radiating in waves that warped both existence and nonexistence. His very presence twisted the laws of the universe around him, folding gravity like cloth, bending perspective until the horizon curved in on itself, and stretching the boundaries between the real and the imagined.
Inside Dimension Ascension, reality obeyed no familiar law.
Here, matter turned to metaphor. Fire danced upward as rivers of light. Wind carried memories. Words became weapons or healing tones. Even the very ideas of destruction and creation could be inverted, remixed, or looped infinitely.
For weaker, lower-dimensional beings, simply existing within this domain could mean annihilation. The sheer weight of dimensional recursion shattered any who were unprepared. Some dissolved at the molecular level. Others were erased narratively from causality itself, their stories unwritten by the overwhelming architecture of existence.
If Adamus willed it.
But that was never his desire.
For all its unfathomable power, Dimension Ascension was not born as a weapon, and Adamus never sought to wield it as one. With a heart anchored in compassion, he chose defense over destruction. When activated, Dimension Ascension could envelop entire battlefields in cascading layers of higher-dimensional geometry, forming radiant shields around innocent life. Cities became sanctuaries, wrapped in recursive space-time, untouchable by lower forms of violence.
Those caught within civilians, animals, beings unaware remained untouched by the chaos and majesty surrounding them. They walked through subtly altered cities, never realizing the laws beneath their feet had shifted. Even if someone were to unleash enough power to destroy all of existence, Adamus could activate Dimension Ascension to contain the explosion within its bounds. The devastation would unfold entirely inside the ascended layers, never reaching the world outside. No matter how volatile the energy within, nothing escaped unless he allowed it.
It was the ultimate safeguard
a domain of infinite height, where existence itself could only rise as far as Adamus willed it.
End of narration.
Wrath and Pride stood frozen in place, their expressions caught between shock and disbelief. Adamus stood tall before them, unwavering, his presence unshaken as he gazed up at them, a silent storm raging in his golden eyes.
His Tenshi no Me shimmered. The world around him faded, and his perception expanded beyond the mere surface of energy. He saw beyond the light, beyond the fabric of space and time. He saw truth.
Wrath's life string glowed gold but it was not pure. It twisted with rage, pulsed with pain, and trembled beneath the weight of memories spanning infinite versions of himself across countless timelines.
Adamus saw them all.
Each iteration of Wrath was a fractured echo some drowned in cruelty, others screaming in regret, many lost to fear. Their souls spiraled outward like broken stars, scattered across the Hyperverse.
Adamus stepped forward.
And reached.
With the full force of the Black Lotus Sunyata, his fingers closed around Wrath's golden thread.
In that moment he knew Wrath.
Every version. Every thought. Every dark moment etched across every life.
Each life string Adamus touched was no single thread it was a cosmic braid, layered infinitely. Within each layer were endless threads, and within each thread: a parallel world.
Infinite Wraths. Infinite pasts. Infinite futures.
Adamus pulled.
And the golden energy rushed into him.
The torrent of Wrath's existence surged through his arms, flooding his body like divine lightning. Memories, choices, cruelties every divergence across every possibility compressed into a single, searing point.
He dragged it all into his eyes.
His halo ignited, a blinding ring of golden light expanding behind him like a sun reborn.
Flames roared around him, not of fire, but of memory and judgment.
And his Tenshi no Me flared twin stars forged from divine sight burning through illusion, perception, and time itself.
All that remained of Wrath's essence was a single fragile thread, faintly flickering, still barely tethered to his body. The rest Adamus had taken.
Wrath stared in stunned silence.
Pride took a half-step back, uncertain.
Then Wrath's shock turned to fury.
With a snarl, he raised his hand and conjured an orb of raw crimson energy. It hissed and cracked, pulsing with anger as he launched it straight at Adamus.
But Adamus did not move.
He simply raised his chin.
And softly whispered:
"Parallel Vision."
The storm erupted from his eyes.
Golden energy surged forward not in a smooth, linear wave but in twisting, spiraling rivers of shattered time. The energy storm was chaotic, alive with fury, the very fabric of reality was being torn apart.
And within that swirling beam figures. Shadows. Shapes. Thousands, Millions, Infinite Wraths. All of them. Every version. Every facet of his being pouring through the energy like ghosts from forgotten timelines, filling the beam with an endless array of possibilities.
The beam clashed with Wrath's massive red sphere of annihilation. At first, there was resistance then, a quake that reverberated through the fabric of the battlefield.
Cracks appeared in Wrath's energy sphere.
Then, a rupture.
Parallel Vision tore through Wrath's red sphere like paper drenched in light, unstoppable and relentless. The golden beam pierced through Wrath's chest, blasting through him without hesitation.
Wrath's body spasmed, flickered, and twitched. For a moment, it seemed like he was about to collapse. But then, to Adamus's surprise, Wrath threw his head back and laughed wildly.
"Pathetic!" Wrath bellowed, his voice ringing with a mix of arrogance and madness. "That was your weakest attack yet! It didn't even hurt me. I don't feel anything"
His voice trailed off as the smile on his face lingered, but something was wrong.
Wrath's body flickered again. This time, it wasn't just a distortion. It was something far worse. A chaotic, erratic flicker a distortion that tore at the very essence of his being. Wrath wasn't just flickering; his form was being pulled apart, stretched and twisted as if his existence itself was unraveling.
Faster than the blink of an eye. Faster than thought itself. Every fraction of a second, his form changed. His body split and reformed, a grotesque procession of selves, too rapid to comprehend. One moment he was tall, the next short. A massive, armored titan, then a thin, wiry figure. His face was fleeting, shifting from monstrous to human in the space of a breath. In a heartbeat, a infinite Wraths fought to exist, all collapsing in on each other, only to be replaced by another in the next instant.
His limbs shook violently, his chest heaving with an internal war of itself. His form twisted in and out of focus, time itself were trying to reject him.
"What… what's happening to me?!" Wrath's voice was barely recognizable, a cacophony of his past, present, and futures blending in a maddening, fractured scream.
Pride's face drained of color, his smirk dying as his eyes locked on the distortion unfolding before him. He took a step back, suddenly uncertain, his jaw clenched.
"What did you do to him?" His voice was no longer mocking now, it was full of fear, tinged with disbelief.
Adamus didn't flinch. He remained a calm center amidst the chaos, his black and green flames swirling around him in perfect harmony, the gold of his Tenshi no Me burning brighter with each passing second. His golden halo above him shimmered with divine judgment.
Adamus didn't need to answer right away. He took a moment, allowing the terror of Wrath's endless flickering to sink into the very fabric of their reality.
And then, with the faintest of smiles, he spoke.
His Tenshi no Me pulsed with golden radiance as he gazed at Wrath, whose body continued to flicker uncontrollably shifting between infinite versions of himself across countless timelines.
"You want to know what's happening?" Adamus said, his voice calm yet absolute. "I shot him with a beam of energy containing infinite parallel worlds. Now, he's experiencing every single version of himself all at once. Condensed. Compacted. Collapsing."
Wrath's form convulsed.
It started as a flicker barely noticeable at first, a glitch in the air where his silhouette wavered, blurred. Then it intensified. His body snapped between forms in an uncontrollable cascade young and old, armored and bare, monstrous and human. Each transformation brought a new voice, overlapping the last, screaming in fragmented tones that reverberated through the battlefield like a broken choir.
"I'm Wrath! No I'm Wrath! NO I AM WRATH!"
The voices multiplied, colliding into one another in a cacophony of identities. Some spoke in alien tongues, harsh and guttural. Others cried out names not even recognizable as his own. And still others whimpered with the terrified confusion of children.
From his vantage, Pride watched his eyes narrowing as the chaos unfolded before him. The arrogance that had once rested so firmly across his features began to erode. His brow furrowed.
"That's impossible," he muttered, but the disbelief in his voice betrayed the truth: he didn't understand what was happening.
Adamus stood at the heart of it all.
"No," Adamus said softly. "It's not impossible."
He tilted his head, just slightly.
"I deal with it every day."
Wrath's flickering form froze, as if something in Adamus's voice had pierced through the infinite versions screaming within him. He turned slowly toward Pride his oldest comrade, his anchor, his center. His voice was raw now, stripped of power, warped by overlapping realities.
"Pride… what's happening to me?"
There was a tremble in his tone genuine fear. Something lost. Something fragile.
Pride took a step back.
For a heartbeat, silence reigned.
And then Pride's gaze hardened, like steel cooling under pressure. His lips curled into a sneer.
"…Who are you?"
The words shattered Wrath more completely than any blow.
His body spasmed. His hands sometimes small, sometimes large, sometimes scarred, sometimes smooth trembled as he looked down at them. They changed with every blink, every breath. In one form, he bore rings. In another, claws. In yet another, his hands weren't even human.
"Who… who am I?" he whispered.
No answer came.
Pride had already turned away.
"Leave this battle," he said coldly. "This fight is between me and Vajra."
In that instant, Pride no longer recognized Wrath. The bond, the brotherhood, the memory of who Wrath once was it all slipped away, erased from the story.
Wrath stumbled backward, his breath fractured. The battlefield blurred around him as his identity unraveled.
No.
No, no, no.
He turned, eyes wide, and caught sight of the broken city a cluster of statues, still standing amidst the ruins.
Adamus followed his gaze and spoke, his voice laced with eerie amusement.
"Those statues over there," he said, "maybe they have your name written on them."
Hope surged reckless and desperate.
A burst of speed. Wrath was gone in an instant, racing toward the statues. His body glitched through realities with every step, becoming dozens, hundreds of versions in motion.
He reached the nearest statue. His eyes locked onto the base where a name had once been carved. Dust and grime obscured it. He wiped at the stone feverishly.
There.
Letters began to emerge.
This is it, he thought. This is who I am.
He leaned in closer only for the letters to vanish right before his eyes.
Gone.
The name erased.
"No… no, no, no!" he cried out, stumbling backward. He spun wildly, searching for another anchor, another sign of who he was.
A glint caught his eye shattered glass, lying in the debris like a graveyard of reflections.
He dropped to his knees, hands shaking, and peered into the shards.
No reflection.
Nothing.
His breath hitched. His body convulsed.
"WHO AM I?!"
The question ripped from him like a dying star's final scream.
And the his form began to unravel.
Flicker.
Flicker.
Faster. Faster.
His body became a blur of infinite selves, spiraling and folding in on one another, overlapping until even the laws of reality couldn't contain him.
And then
He vanished.
Gone.
Not vanished into the sky or beneath the earth.
Gone from existence, Going from the narrative From this story .
A ripple passed through the battlefield like a final breath.
Pride stood in silence, his heart pounding. Slowly, he lifted his gaze to Adamus.
Adamus was smiling.
But there was no joy in it.
Only truth.
And the quiet, unshakable power of a man who had seen infinity and bent it to his will.
Can be skipped.
Narrator: Parallel Vision a reality-shattering technique forged through the awakened gaze of Tenshi no Me. It is not an attack in the conventional sense, nor a force that simply crushes, burns, or obliterates. No, this power is something far more terrifying. It is an unraveling of the very foundation of self, a collapse of identity on an incomprehensible scale. When Adamus unleashes this technique, a beam of golden energy imbued with the weight of infinite parallel existences strikes his target, forcing them into a state of existential dissonance.
At lower levels, the victim falters, lost in the overwhelming storm of possibilities. They see themselves reflected in countless realities, each one slightly different, yet all undeniably them. But which version is the true self? Which path was real, and which was merely a forgotten possibility? Their thoughts begin to blur, their certainty fractures, and doubt seeps in like a venom. Who are they? What were they before this moment? These are the first whispers of madness, the first threads of their unraveling.
Yet this is merely the beginning.
If Adamus exerts greater force if he pushes the technique further the cracks in the target's mind widen. No longer do they struggle to distinguish between different versions of themselves. Instead, their sense of self completely dissolves. The concept of i becomes meaningless. Every flicker of their body reflects a different existence, a different fate. One moment they are a warrior; the next, a beggar. One moment they are a god; the next, a mere thought struggling to persist. They shift between timelines, between identities, between realities until the weight of infinity crushes them.
But when Adamus reaches the full potential of Parallel Vision, the consequences go beyond personal destruction. The victim is not simply erased.
They are removed from history itself.
Their name vanishes from every record, every mind, every reality that once knew them. Their family forgets them, their children no longer remember being born from them. The events they shaped, the legacies they left behind all of it collapses into nothingness. The world adapts as though they were never there. History folds over itself seamlessly, rewriting existence into a state where they simply never played a role.
And at its absolute peak, Parallel Vision doesn't just erase the target. It erases the erasure itself.
To those present, there is no moment of destruction, no flash of power, no scream of terror because there was never anyone to be destroyed. The attack is never seen, because the victim never existed to be struck in the first place. No one will grieve. No one will question their absence. The very fabric of reality adjusts instantly, and all that remains is silence.
End of narration.
Pride floated midair, frozen in disbelief. His smirk had vanished. His breath caught in his throat. Wrath his ally, his brother in sin was gone.
Not dead.
Not defeated.
Gone.
As if he had never existed.
Pride's eyes darted to the statues that loomed across the ruined battlefield. Once, they stood as eternal testaments to the Seven Deadly Sins. Gods carved in stone.
Now there were only six.
The seventh Wrath was simply… missing. Not broken. Not destroyed. Not even dust in the wind.
Erased.
Pride's mind whirled in confusion and dread.
There were seven of us… weren't there?
Why do I see only six?
Who was standing beside me just now? That man was he one of us?
And why… why did it feel like a piece of me been ripped away?
His gaze rose slowly cautiously to Adamus, who stood calmly beneath him. The black and green flames roared around him like divine firestorms. His golden halo burned above his head like a judgment sun. And those eyes those cursed eyes Tenshi no Me now glowed like collapsing stars.
Adamus smiled. There was no triumph in it.
Only truth.
"I told you," he said softly, "titles are empty. You've already forgotten your closest friend. Wrath he spent lifetimes etching his name into the fabric of fear. And now... he's gone. Not slain. Not imprisoned.
Forgotten. Erased from all of creation."
Pride staggered, a knot twisting in his chest. "No… no. That's impossible."
Adamus tilted his head. "Is it? Look around. The statues. The reality you swore could never be touched. Do you not feel it? The shift in the Hyperverse? The echo that never returns?"
Pride's voice trembled. "You're lying. You'd need power beyond the narrative layer... beyond dimensional law... beyond even our Hyperversal plane to do something like that!"
Adamus's eyes pulsed with golden light.
"And yet… here we are."
His voice broke into a roar as he exploded forward divine energy cracking from his fists like thunder tearing through creation. Black darkness veins of power streaked behind him, and his aura ignited in a maelstrom of darkness and fury.
"I'll destroy you before you erase anyone else!" he screamed. "I'll show you why we are warriors feared across the entire hyperverse!"
But Adamus simply raised his hand.
And from the air black petals spiraled down like divine verdicts. Each one shimmered with the presence of the Black Lotus Sunyata, weightless yet absolute. They curled toward Pride like the breath of an ancient judgment.
Then they snapped shut.
In an instant, the petals coiled around his limbs, wrapping his arms, his legs, his torso mid-flight. His body halted suspended, frozen in the air, like a god caught in prayer. Energy fizzled against the lotus bindings, powerless to resist.
Pride strained against them. His muscles flared. His veins glowed.
But nothing moved.
"No no!" he panicked, eyes wide. "The world has to remember me! You can't do this! I am the greatest warrior!"
The bindings held tighter.
His voice cracked, now spiraling into madness. "They have to remember me! I'm Pride! I'M PRIDE! I'M PRIDE!"
He repeated it like a mantra, each syllable more desperate than the last. Not to convince Adamus but to convince himself. As if the name alone could keep him from unraveling.
But Adamus, calm with composed an infinite stillness inside the storm.
His eyes, the Tenshi no Me, gleamed with golden gravity.
"The fiercest warrior," Adamus said, voice low and resolute, "is not the one who strikes first."
He walked closer, the ground beneath his feet humming with dimension-born energy. The air shimmered around him, reality bending like silk.
"It's the one who waits. The one who listens."
Pride's struggles slowed choked by confusion.
"Patience carved the path that force and pride could never walk," Adamus continued, now face to face with the trembling warrior. "A true warrior is an empty shadow in a cloak of silence. He does not echo his name."
He extended his hand toward Pride's chest.
"The world does."
And his fingers closed delicately, precisely around a golden strand that pulsed just beyond the skin.
Pride's Life String.
It shimmered beneath Adamus's touch, vibrant and tangled with layers upon layers countless selves, each thread a parallel echo, a possibility that clung desperately to identity. Adamus could feel them all, could hear them whispering in unison:
I'm Pride.
I'm Pride.
I'm Pride.
Adamus looked down at the string, then into Pride's eyes those once-blazing eyes now shaking with something alien to them.
Fear.
And then, gently, he pulled.
And with that, Adamus's eyes blazed, twin golden beams bursting forth, ripping through the air like godlight unleashed.
Parallel Vision.
The beams struck Pride head-on. His body convulsed as the light pierced him, and then he began to flicker. His form wavered, stuttering in and out of existence.
The petals of the Black Lotus curled back into the void like fading memories, releasing the soul they had ensnared.
He fell no, collapsed from the air like a marionette with its strings cut, slamming onto the earth in front of Adamus. Dust spiraled upward. The impact cracked the ground beneath his knees.
He didn't scream.
He didn't cry.
He just landed hard on all fours, trembling, his breath ragged.
Then he began to flicker.
Not just his body but his entire being.
Flickering through versions of himself, thousands per second, some overlapping like broken film reels unsteady, haunting.
A man in regal armor, cloak billowing.
A little boy with wide, innocent eyes.
A war-scarred giant with arms like carved stone.
A masked figure in ceremonial robes.
A naked shadow with no face.
Each version mouthed the same words, over and over, a mantra becoming a madness:
"I'm Pride. I'm Pride. I'm Pride. I'm"
The phrase broke apart mid-sentence as his form continued to unravel.
Adamus stood still, silent, golden eyes glowing with that terrifying, infinite stillness like a lighthouse at the edge of reality.
The flickering man staggered to his feet, shoulders hunched, breathing like a hunted animal. His gaze met Adamus's for a second, but there was nothing behind his eyes now just confusion, terror, and identity spiraling into chaos.
He stumbled backward.
And then he screamed.
"WHO AM I?!"
He turned and launched himself into the sky with a panicked burst of energy, trailing flickers behind him like dying stars. Up, into the clouds, past burning towers and suspended debris. He flew until Adamus could no longer see him.
But Adamus didn't chase him.
He didn't need to.
Across the sky, across the world, Pride landed in a crumbling city center, his feet carving trenches into the concrete. He found a woman holding a child beneath a broken streetlamp, both wide-eyed with fear.
He hovered over them, breathing hard.
He grabbed the woman by the arms, desperation in every pore.
"Tell me!" he barked. "WHO AM I?!"
She trembled. "I don't know… I don't know who you are, I've never seen you before please please, let me go"
He stared at her.
And something inside him shattered.
He let her go.
And flew again.
City to city. Nation to nation.
He descended like a broken comet, bursting through rooftops, crashing through spires. Smoke. Sirens. Screams.
Each time, he grabbed a stranger.
Each time, he begged the same question:
"Who am I? Tell me. You know me. I must mean something. I must."
But none did.
To them, he was a flickering ghost. A blur of voices. A blur of selves.
And with every answer of "I don't know," his body shimmered more violently, like a signal unraveling through static.
Eventually, like a cursed wind returning to its source, he made his way backhovering, trembling to Adamus Jovajra, who had not moved.
He crashed to his knees once again, breathless, still flickering through lives and timelines. His eyes were bloodshot now. Voice hoarse.
"Who am I…?"
He raised his head. Tears fell down his cheeks.
"Tell me. I know you know. Please… just tell me who I am."
Adamus stepped forward, slowly. The air pulsed around him light bending, time folding at his presence.
He looked down, golden eyes glowing brighter.
And in a voice both kind and cosmic, he said:
"You are a warrior who needs a name."
"A warrior who once needed the world."
"Now… a warrior who no longer even knows himself."
Pride stared up at him.
His body stilled just for a breath.
No flicker.
No voice.
Just the empty stillness of a man realizing there was no anchor left to cling to.
Then one final flicker.
And he was gone.
No scream.
No light.
Just silence.
Adamus stood there alone as Pride flickered out of existence. A heavy silence blanketed the battlefield, broken only by the eternal drift of the Black Lotus petals, which floated around him unmoving—untouched by wind or time.
He lowered his head and released a weary breath. "The battle's finally over…"
Raising a hand to his chest, he unsummon the Dimensional Flames. They coiled around him in black and green, shifting like oil dancing across water. With a slow exhale, he tried to will them away, to extinguish their brilliance and allow himself to fall back into silence. But they refused to leave.
His brow furrowed as his fingers began to tremble. The flames clung tighter, winding like serpents across his skin, pulsing darker and heavier than ever before.
And then he heard it.
The voice of the Black Lotus slithered into his mind—ancient, elegant.
"Erase everything. Return all to the original form. Return all to nothing."
"No…" Adamus clutched his skull, his golden eyes widening. "No. I'm done fighting. I won. This is over."
But the flames ignored him. The green that once flickered with harmony was swallowed by a devouring void. The black fire twisted into something beyond life or death, something alien, something inevitable.
It began to spread.
Adamus turned in horror as the flames crept across the battlefield, stretching silently over concrete and metal like waves of deletion. He watched as a trail of fire reached a car—and it simply vanished. No explosion. No smoke. Just gone.
He turned again and saw a building disintegrate the moment the black fire touched its base. One second it stood firm; the next, there was only empty space where it had been.
Then the voices came. The screams of the citizens—running, panicked, desperate to flee from the force of his own unraveling power.
"No, no, stop!" Adamus cried. With a rush of wind, he lifted himself into the air, black trails streaking behind him as he tried to escape. "This isn't what I want! This isn't who I am!"
He soared high, beyond the buildings and even past the clouds, desperate to outrun himself. But the flames followed. They wrapped around him like chains, infecting the very air with erasure.
Grabbing his head again, his golden eyes flickering with panic, he felt his flame spiral out of control.
"Stop trying to take over my body!" he roared.
The fire surged violently, and Adamus lost his grip.
He plummeted downward, crashing into the ocean.
The impact sent waves crashing for miles.
Steam rose in great plumes as his black fire touched the sea and unmade it.
Entire schools of fish flickered and vanished.
Coral reefs gone.
The water itself boiled, then dissolved into nothingness without a trace.
Adamus forced himself to stand in the shallows but there were no shallows now.
Only blackened absence where the ocean once lived.
He staggered.
Every breath was agony.
"Please!" he shouted to the sky. "I don't want to hurt anyone please!"
But the Black Lotus whispered again.
"Erase more."
He shot into the sky faster than thought, his tears disappearing into the void before they could fall.
In the still silence of space, Adamus hovered.
Alone.
A black, flickering aura of anti-light pulsing around him growing.
His golden eyes stared down at the planet.
At the destruction he had left behind.
Smoke. Rubble. Screams. Silence.
His flames writhed around him like devouring stars.
He gritted his teeth and clutched his head as a piercing pain split through his skull like a blade dragged through eternity.
"Erase more. Erase more," the Black Lotus roared within him, a storm without mercy.
"Erase more. That is your purpose. That is your truth."
"No," Adamus whispered, shaking. "That's not my truth."
But the flames didn't care.
They expanded faster than light, larger than thought, unstoppable.
A black supernova bloomed around him.
And the battle had only just begun.
Mind Dimension.
Adamus now sat cross-legged in the infinite void of his inner world.
The petals of the Black Lotus Sunyata curled around him like a living storm. Tendrils of void spiraled toward his core, seeking entrance, seeking to root inside his being.
His body trembled. His gold Tenshi no Me burned like twin stars, but even they were beginning to dim beneath the pressure.
"Erase. All of it. Erase."
The Lotus didn't just speak it invaded.
Then
A hand on his shoulder.
"Focus."
Vajrapāṇi sat beside him. Calm. Still. His presence was a temple in the chaos.
"You must quiet your soul, Adamus. This is not a battle of strength…"
"It is a battle of will."
Adamus struggled to breathe.
"I don't want to destroy…" he whispered. "I didn't mean to… I just didn't want anyone else to die."
"Then remember them," Vajrapāṇi said. "Not their deaths. Their lives. Anchor yourself."
The petals of the Lotus tried to close around him but Vajrapāṇi began peeling them away one by one, his fingers glowing with soft blue light.
Adamus thought of his friends.
Their laughter.
Their strength.
Their humanity.
He thought of the people running below how none were harmed, how he had chosen to flee before it could.
"I still have control," Adamus whispered. "And I won't let this thing take me."
His golden eyes pulsed.
Brighter.
Brighter
Until they shined like suns, pushing back the dark.
The Lotus shrieked, recoiling. Its petals twisted violently, but Adamus focused deeper. His heart stilled. His mind cleared. And finall
The Black Lotus retracted, folding in on itself.
The Black Lotus began to retract.
It no longer surged to consume him.
No longer whispered destruction in his ear.
Instead, it pulled bac petals folding in on themselves, spiraling down from the void like feathers of midnight.
And from the stillness, it took form.
Before Adamus now stood a massive Black Lotus towering, elegant, terrible in beauty. A flower not of this world, forged from silence and starless thought. It pulsed with ancient power, but it did not move.
It simply stood before him.
Vajrapāṇi gave a small nod.
"You did well to contain the Black Lotus. But don't make this a habit. Each time you call on it… it will grow harder to control."
Adamus sat in silence, the echoes of the Lotus still fading from his soul. He looked down at his hands, where the last traces of the black flames curled and vanished.
"I won't," he said quietly. "Trust me… I don't think I ever want to use it again."
His voice trembled, not with fear but with guilt.
"Those people… the way they ran from me. They were terrified. I almost destroyed everything. And I did what I swore I'd never do…"
"I killed."
Vajrapāṇi's gaze remained calm, unwavering.
"There is no shame in destroying evil," he said. "But make no mistake what you did was not killing."
Adamus looked at him, confused.
"You didn't kill Wrath and Pride. You erased them. There is a difference."
"They were not born. They were not truly alive. They were concepts embodiments of sin, forged from the fabric of hyperversal ideology. You didn't take a life… you unmade a distortion."
Adamus clenched his fists.
"Still doesn't feel right. I chose to erase. I passed judgment. I don't want to be that. I don't want to be someone who decides who deserves to exist."
He turned away, the golden glow of his Tenshi no Me dimming in the void.
"These flames… these black petals… they're too powerful. I don't want to carry them anymore. I don't want to be a weapon."
Vajrapāṇi stepped closer, placing a hand gently on Adamus's shoulder.
"Then you must decide now. You can't wield this power and still run from what it means."
"If you refuse to be judgment… then be mercy. But if you hesitate evil will decide for you. Evil will become judgment in your place."
The words echoed through Adamus's mind like a distant bell ringing in an empty temple.
Suddenly
His body snapped back into the present.
Adamus snapped back into reality.
He gasped, his eyes opening wide as the black void of his mind dimension dissolved. His body floated in space, surrounded once again by green flames he black had retreated.
He turned toward the planet he had just fled from. Raising his hand, his Tenshi no Me ignited, glowing with golden fire. The divine vision pierced through atmosphere and clouds, scanning the surface with omniscient clarity.
The black flames were gone.
The buildings were erased, but luckily no people had been harmed.
No one had been erased.
A single tear escaped his eye, followed by a choked sob of relief. His body trembled.
"good..."
He turned away, taking off through the void running across the fabric of space, leaving green streaks behind. With no enemy to sync with, he was limited to about FTL Plus Speeds. Slower than his battle state but still fast enough to leave planets in his wake.
"Velocity Sync… without Wrath or Pride, I can't copy their speeds. I'm capped."
As he ran, stars passed like flickers, cosmic dust bending around him.
"How am I going to find Moses? Lust? What if erasing Wrath and Pride changed everything? What if they're not even"
His thoughts were interrupted.
A rift tore open in space ahead of him made of black smoke, curling like ink in water.
From within, he saw them.
Lust and Moses.
"Adamus!" Lust cried, launching herself from the portal into his arms. "You're alive! Where did you go?! One moment you were fighting with us and the next you just… vanished."
Moses followed, eyes narrowed in confusion. "Yeah. And we kept fighting the sins, but something weird happened. They just… stopped. Like they forgot why they were even there."
Adamus stepped back, swallowing hard.
"It's a long story. I used a special technique… the Black Lotus Sunyata. I erased Wrath and Pride from existence."
They stared at him.
"Who?" Lust asked, tilting her head.
Adamus' heart sank a little. "…Exactly."
"They were the leaders of the Seven Deadly Sins. We were fighting them. They pulled me into a hyperversal battle across layers of reality. I defeated them but when I did, I didn't just kill them. I erased them from history entirely. Even your memories of them."
He looked at Moses, golden eyes glowing softly.
"I erased them. From history. Entirely. Even from your memories."
Moses furrowed his brow, lips twitching in disbelief. "Impossible. You're strong, vajra, but… not that strong."
Adamus didn't argue. Instead, he lifted his hand. Thin strands of gold light Life Strings wove through his fingers, dancing with cosmic energy. He connected one thread to Moses's forehead. Another to Lust's.
In a flash, knowledge flowed. Time unraveled and rewove itself inside their minds. They saw it Wrath. Pride. The 12th-dimensional battle. Their erasure.
Moses stepped back, stunned. "…Incredible."
Lust threw her arms around Adamus in a warm, fierce hug. "That makes so much sense now…"
And then
The sky split open.
One portal. Then ten. Then hundreds.
Thousands.
Adamus broke from the hug, spinning into a defensive stance as rifts tore through space all around them. Each portal shimmered like a cosmic mirror, and inside each one…
A being.
He saw them Gluttony, Sloth, Envy glaring from beyond the veil.
"What's going on?" Adamus asked, fists raised, eyes glowing.
Lust stepped forward, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Calm down. They're not here to fight."
She turned to face the ever-growing tide of portals.
"It makes sense now," she continued. "When you fought Wrath and Pride… and erased them… everything changed. The others stopped fighting us. The hyperverse began… resetting."
Adamus narrowed his gaze. "Resetting how?"
Lust looked at the figures appearing in the portals.
"Long ago, we the Seven Deadly Sins went across the hyperverse and destroyed the Concepts. Purged love. Devoured joy. Crushed peace. We made the worlds feel only us. But you… you broke that chain. Wrath and Pride are gone, and with them, so is their influence."
Adamus looked again. His eyes widened.
He saw the Concept of Happiness. Joy. Friendship. Compassion. Hundreds thousands of hyperversal ideas, each shaped like a person, waiting in their own portal.
Moses gave Adamus a proud slap on the back. "Good job, kid. Looks like because of you, the Hyperverse of Israel can finally feel again really feel. Not just wrath, pride, lust. But everything."
Lust smiled. "Adamus… can you do it again? Use your Life Strings. Show them the truth. Show them what happened."
Adamus nodded. He raised both hands and the air shimmered.
Life Strings webbed outward in every direction, delicate threads of gold light connecting to every Concept, every portal.
And then revelation.
He shared the war. The erasure. The victory. The truth.
One by one, the Concepts bowed their heads in solemn gratitude. Some stepped back into their portals, returning to the cosmos, returning to their purpose.
As the light dimmed, Lust turned to Adamus again.
"I think… since Wrath and Pride were erased… the spell that bound me was broken. I don't love you anymore."
She paused, then added with a soft smirk, "Well… not entirely."
Just then, Sloth and Envy appeared, stepping through a nearby portal.
"Come on, sister," Envy said coolly. "It's time. As Concepts, we shouldn't be interfering."
Adamus crossed his arms. "You've all been interfering quite a bit."
Sloth yawned and muttered, "Not by choice. Wrath, Pride… and lucifer. They forced our hands."
Lust nodded. "They're right. Without Wrath, without Pride, and with Satan hopefully kept at bay… we're free. The Concepts are free to return to balance."
She began to open a portal of her own, swirling darkness wrapping around her fingers.
Adamus stepped forward quickly. "Wait my friends. How do I get back? I still need to find Moses. I need to return to the Red Plane, Goshen t."
"Oh. Right!" Lust laughed, turning toward Moses. "We're not supposed to interfere. But…"
Dark energy pulsed from her body, enveloping both Adamus and Moses in a swirl of shadows.
"…I can still teleport you."
As the portal opened wide and the three of them were drawn in, Lust's voice echoed one last time—low and reverent.
But it wasn't just her voice anymore.
It was all the Concepts, speaking as one:
"Thank you, Vajra."
With a shimmer of black mist and the echo of ancient voices fading behind them, Adamus and Moses landed on the Red Planet, Goshen.
They stood in the middle of a familiar, dust-streaked town the place where they had first crossed paths, where the journey had begun. The air was heavy with memory. Crimson sand blew gently across the stone roads, carrying the whispers of old battles and promises not yet fulfilled.
Moses looked around, then turned to Adamus, eyes sharp with purpose. "Grab my hand. Or at least stand close enough."
Adamus stepped forward without hesitation. "Let's do this. Let's go save my friends."
Moses gave a firm nod. "The people we gathered from across the Hyperverse… and my people the Israelites they're all waiting. The Pharaoh has them."
Adamus clenched his fists. "Not for long."
The ground trembled beneath them as Moses raised his staff and pressed his free hand against Adamus's shoulder.
A radiant white light burst from within their bodies, pulsing outward like a heartbeat that echoed across dimensions. It wasn't just teleportation it was the will of liberation made manifest.
Time bent. Space folded.
And in an instant
They vanished.
Headed straight for the Pharaoh's Kingdom.
The final liberation had begun.