The ruined chamber breathed like a dying beast.
Every shattered wall, every exposed girder, every drifting shard of debris trembled as Adrax descended through the torn sky. He didn't fall—gravity bent to accommodate him, shaping itself around the colossal entity forcing its way into the world.
The air thickened.
Not wind.Not pressure.
Something older.
A second atmosphere settled over the ruins, colder than stone buried beneath moons, dense enough to bend the metal beams still jutting from the broken structure. The weight of Adrax's presence alone made the air taste metallic.
Null stood atop a fractured pillar that barely supported his trembling stance. His left eye flickered uncontrollably between its natural color and the spiraling black mark. Each rotation pulsed like a second heartbeat—steady, alien, and wrong.
Hyung remained below, legs braced as the ground rippled beneath him.The stone warped like thick liquid, bending under the distortion radiating from Adrax's presence.
He called upward through the shaking air:
"Keep your mind here. One slip, and he'll take all of it."
Null fought to control his breathing.
"I'm… trying."
But the second wave came.
Not energy.Not force.
A memory.
The world melted around him like heat bending light, pulling him into a childhood he had never lived:
A throne built from black metal, humming with runes that vibrated like caged beasts.A child standing alone before it, stiff and silent.A massive figure emerging from the shadows behind the throne.A hand lowering toward the child's forehead—slow, deliberate, authoritative.A symbol being etched into skin.
Null gasped and nearly fell from the pillar.
Hyung's voice cut through the collapsing chamber.
"Null!"
Null's fingers dug into the stone pillar; deep cracks spread outward beneath his hands. He forced breath into his lungs, whispering through clenched teeth:
"No. This isn't me. This never happened to me."
Adrax's voice slid across the ruins like sinking iron.
"It did. You were simply not permitted to remember. Your mind was created incomplete."
Another tendril of void-energy descended from the rift—twisting like a streak of night itself. It shot directly for Null's head.
Hyung moved before thought.
He launched upward, smashing his fist into the tendril mid-air.The impact detonated like a shockwave.Hyung was hurled sideways through a thick wall—stone spraying in all directions.
He rolled through the rubble, pushing himself up with blood dripping down his chin.
He wiped it away and glared toward the rift.
"You don't get to rewrite his past. I won't let you."
Adrax ignored Hyung entirely. His gaze never left Null.
"He was born to open the Gate. His body, his soul, his existence are vessels. The consciousness you cling to… is borrowed."
Null's heartbeat pounded against his skull.
The chamber vanished again.
He fell halfway back into the memory—trapped between realities.
The child in the vision turned.
Not Null.A stranger.But with the same eyes.
Eyes that did not belong to that child or to him.
Null's voice cracked:
"That's not me… it can't be… that's—"
The world snapped.
A surge of pressure dropped from the rift like a collapsing star.
Hyung recognized the attack too late.
"Null, get down—!"
The pressure struck.
Null's vision went stark white.His breath disappeared.His body seized.
No scream escaped him—his voice simply stopped.
He fell from the pillar like a puppet with cut strings, landing on his hands and knees with a hollow impact.
Hyung sprinted across the fractured ground, sliding in beside him and grabbing his shoulders.
"Null—look at me. Stay here. Do not fall into whatever void he's pushing into your head."
Null convulsed, unable to breathe properly.
A second pulse hit.Then a third.Each one hammered deeper into his mind, shaking loose pieces of his identity.
Hyung tightened his grip, his voice firm and grounded.
"You are not a vessel. You are my brother. Remember that. Hold onto me."
For a breath, Null steadied.
Then—
His left eye changed.
The chaotic flicker became a smooth, controlled spiral.Not glitching.Not unstable.Purposeful.
Something stirred behind it.
Not Adrax.Not the memory.
Something buried within him.
Null lifted his head.
Hyung felt the temperature drop instantly.The air sharpened like thin blades.The stone under their feet hummed.
"Null… what is that?"
Null didn't answer.
A new aura slipped from his body—dark, coiled, yet unmistakably his. It wrapped around him like a forming shadow-cloak, layer by layer.
Adrax paused in mid-descent.
"So. It has awakened."
Hyung clenched his fists.
"What has awakened?"
Adrax spoke with the first sign of irritation in his voice.
"The part I did not create. The piece he forged alone."
Null rose slowly.
His mind was still cracking at the edges, but something inside had surfaced—something strong enough to resist Adrax's intrusion.
Hyung saw it forming like a second skin of willpower.
This was not corruption.Not possession.Null was shaping himself.
Null's voice, strained but resolute:
"You said I was a vessel. Then why does something inside me reject your mark?"
Adrax extended one colossal hand from the rift, shadows dripping from the fingers like a spreading stain.
"Because you are incomplete. The missing piece lies with the one who shaped you."
Hyung froze.
A name ripped through both their thoughts:
Aizeno.
Adrax continued, tone like stone grinding against stone:
"Your creator split your core. Half remains in your body. The other half resides inside your brother."
Hyung inhaled sharply.
Null stiffened.
The truth snapped into place inside both of them.
The missing part of Null…was in Hyung.
Adrax lowered his hand toward them.
"Come, Fragment. I will restore what you lack."
Null stared at the hand.
Hyung stepped between them instantly.
"If you want him, you go through me."
Adrax finally looked at Hyung.
"I told you. You were built to break."
The ruins trembled.Shards levitated.Dust spiraled upward like a rising vortex.
Null stepped forward, shoulder touching Hyung's.
Side by side.
He clenched his fists.
His aura intensified until cracks webbed across the ground beneath him.
"I don't care what was taken from me," Null said."I don't care what I was designed for."
His voice rose, steady and unshakable.
"I choose who I am."
Adrax's hand descended, shadows dragging reality with it.
Hyung raised his guard, stance anchored.
Null's aura erupted upward like a rising storm.
The ruins shattered as the collision began.