The air inside the broken ruins thickened as Adrax lowered through the torn sky.The creature's presence was no longer distant.It filled the chamber like a second atmosphere—heavy, cold, and ancient.
Null steadied himself atop the cracked pillar.His left eye flickered erratically, shifting between his own color and a black spiral that pulsed with an unfamiliar rhythm.
Hyung remained below him, bracing as the gravity warped again.The ground beneath his feet rippled like liquid stone.
Hyung called upward:
"Stay conscious. If you slip, he takes you."
Null grit his teeth.
"I'm… trying."
The second wave came.
Not energy.Not a strike.It was a memory.
A childhood scene forced into Null's mind—but it wasn't his childhood.
A throne of black metal.A child standing alone before it.A voice promising purpose.A hand reaching out to mark his forehead—
Null inhaled sharply and almost fell.
Hyung shouted:
"Null!"
But Null held on, gripping the pillar so hard the stone cracked beneath his fingers.
"No," Null whispered into the invading vision."This isn't me. This never happened to me."
Adrax's voice pressed into him like iron:
"It did. You simply do not remember.Because the mind given to you was incomplete."
Hyung leapt upward, smashing into the falling tendril of Adrax's condensed energy—forcing it away from Null.The impact blew him sideways through a wall, but he recovered instantly, blood dripping from his chin.
Hyung spat onto the floor.
"You don't get to rewrite his life. I won't let you."
Adrax ignored him, focusing solely on Null.
"He was meant to open the Gate. He was crafted as a vessel.The body you cherish… the mind you trust… they are borrowed."
Null's heartbeat thundered in his ears.
For a moment, everything blurred—the ruined chamber, the storm sky, even Hyung's presence.
He was halfway inside the memory again.
The child in the vision turned.Not him.Not his face.But wearing the same eyes.
Null staggered, whispering to himself:
"That's not me… that's someone else… that's—"
The world snapped.
A surge of pressure shot down from the rift, aimed directly at Null's mind.
Hyung recognized it too late.
He shouted but couldn't reach him in time.
The pressure struck.
Null's vision went white.
He didn't scream—his voice simply cut out as if his breath had been stolen.
He dropped from the pillar, landing on his hands and knees.
Hyung sprinted across the shattered ground and slid beside him, grabbing his shoulders.
"Null—look at me. Stay here. Don't go into that void."
Null trembled violently.
A second pulse hit—then a third—each one cracking deeper into the walls of Null's mind.
Hyung tightened his grip on him.
"You are not a vessel. You are my brother. Hold onto that."
Null's breathing stabilized for a second—but then the flicker in his eye changed.
A steady, controlled whirl.
A shape forming within it.
Not Adrax.Not the borrowed memory.
Something else.Something buried.
Null raised his head.
Hyung immediately felt the temperature shift.
"Null…? What are you doing?"
Null didn't answer.
A new aura bled from his body—dark, sharp, but unmistakably his own.
Adrax paused mid-descent.
"…So it has awakened."
Hyung's jaw clenched.
"What awakened?"
Adrax spoke with the first hint of irritation he had shown:
"The part I did not place.The part he forged on his own."
Null slowly rose to his feet.
His mind was still cracking.But he had found something to hold—a shard of identity untouched by Aizeno or Adrax.
Hyung saw it forming around him like a second skin.
This wasn't possession.This wasn't a takeover.This was Null himself pushing back.
Null's voice was low, strained, but his:
"You said I was a vessel.Then why does something inside me reject your mark?"
Adrax descended further, shadows stretching across the ruins.
"You are incomplete.The missing piece lies with the one who shaped you."
Hyung's expression froze.
A name formed in his mind without being spoken:
Aizeno.
Adrax's tone sharpened:
"Your creator split your core.Half in your body…Half in your brother."
Hyung inhaled sharply.
Null's eyes widened.
The last piece of truth began to fall into place.
Adrax extended one colossal hand from the rift.
"Come with me, Fragment.I will restore what you lost."
Null's heartbeat slowed.
Hyung stepped in front of him again.
"No. If you want him, you pass through me."
Adrax focused on Hyung.
"I already told you.You were built to break."
The chamber shook.
Null clenched his fists.
This time, he stepped forward with Hyung.
Side by side.
Null's voice steadied:
"I don't care what was taken from me.I don't care what I was meant to be.I choose who I am now."
Adrax's hand descended.
Hyung raised his guard.
Null's aura flared.
The ruins cracked