The world shook as Adrax descended fully—his massive hand tearing the sky apart like paper soaked in ink. Each finger was a pillar of compressed shadow, dripping streaks of void so heavy the ground fractured under their presence.
Hyung braced.
Null steadied his breath.
D U stretched like he'd woken from a nap.
Then the impact came.
Not a slam.
Not a strike.
A collapse—reality folding inward as Adrax's gravity field crushed the ruins with the force of a dying star.
The ground cratered.
Stone liquefied.
Air buckled into nothing.
Hyung was the first to move.
He shot forward, fist igniting with Mid-Prime force, slamming straight into one of Adrax's descending tendrils. The punch detonated with a sharp concussive crack, ripping a shockwave through the collapsing chamber.
But the tendril didn't break.
Hyung was hurled back, dragged across the ground until he dug his heels into the dirt and stopped, panting hard.
Adrax's voice rumbled:
"You persist. Admirable. Futile."
Hyung spat blood.
"I'm still standing, aren't I?"
Null moved next.
His aura—the one born in Chapter 45—flared to life at last. Shadow-layers coiled around his arms, bending the air as if he carried his own personal gravity. His spiral eye spun with deliberate precision, no longer flickering… guiding.
He raised a hand.
And the atmosphere around him bent inward.
Not pulling.
Not crushing.
Redirecting.
When Adrax's shadow struck, Null slid his palm forward—and the blow was diverted, the force shooting off into the sky and carving a streak through the clouds.
Hyung's eyes widened.
"You… deflected Adrax."
Null didn't answer. His focus was absolute. But his legs trembled from the effort—his control wasn't perfect yet, only awakened.
Adrax's tone deepened, layered with a hint of displeasure.
"That ability… was not given to you. It is not mine. It is not Aizeno's."
His gaze shifted, slow and cold, onto D U.
"You."
D U grinned, tapping his cheek with one finger.
"Me."
A single sliver of void shot from Adrax's palm toward him—a test strike, thinner than a claw, but strong enough to erase a mountain's peak.
Hyung tensed.
Null flinched.
D U didn't move.
The void tendril reached him—
—and the world froze.
Color bled away.
Sound died.
Time stalled like a jammed machine.
Only two things still moved:
Adrax's shadow…
and D U.
D U lifted one hand, almost lazily, and pressed his finger onto the tendril.
A soft tap.
Like clicking a switch.
Reality restarted.
The tendril shattered.
Not split.
Not broken.
Rejected.
Like the universe itself refused to allow Adrax's attack to touch D U.
A thin wound opened in Adrax's colossal hand—just a line, but deep, leaking black flame instead of blood. The rift above shivered. The giant entity dragged its hand back, as if recoiling from something corrosive.
Hyung stood stunned.
"You… wounded him."
D U stuck his tongue out thoughtfully.
"Not really wounded. More like—interrupted. Big guy here runs on divine code. I run on something… incompatible. We glitch each other."
Adrax's voice thundered, for the first time carrying a trace of caution.
"You are an infraction. An unsanctioned existence."
D U's grin widened.
"I'm everyone's favorite mistake."
Hyung stepped closer to Null.
"Did you see his ability? Did you—"
Null wasn't listening.
Because something inside him reacted violently to D U's interference.His spiral eye pulsed.His chest tightened.His aura surged with an unfamiliar rhythm, like two heartbeats overlapping.
A whisper filled his ears.
Not Adrax.
Not D U.
Not Hyung.
Something older.
Something that had been sleeping.
Null staggered.
Hyung caught him."Null—stay with me. What's happening?"
Null's voice cracked.
"I… I think… something's calling."
The ground trembled again as Adrax moved forward, ignoring D U for a moment, focusing once more on Null.
"It awakens sooner than expected. Aizeno did not intend this."
Null pressed a hand to his temple, feeling the world sway around him. A second vision dragged across his mind—not a memory, not an illusion.
A presence.
A hand reaching through darkness.A voice murmuring without sound.A shape standing behind a door made of light and shadow twisted together.
Hyung tightened his grip."What do you see?"
Null breathed out the only word that formed clearly:
"Someone… inside me."
D U's expression changed for the first time—less joking, more precise.
"That's your Second Awakening knocking. You're carrying something Adrax and Aizeno both failed to control."
Adrax raised his hand again.
"Return it to me."
Hyung stepped in front of Null, aura blazing.
"You are not taking anything from him!"
D U cracked his knuckles.
"All right. Round two. Let's make the big guy bleed properly this time."
But before they could strike—
Null moved.
Not with force.
Not with speed.
With intent.
His spiral eye rotated into a perfect, silent stillness.
The air around him condensed into a quiet storm.
The ground beneath him darkened, then brightened, then darkened again.
Hyung whispered:
"That aura… it's not your first awakening."
D U nodded.
"Nope. That's the second one entering the room."
A shadow-light halo rose behind Null's figure—balanced between two opposite energies, threatening to tear or unite.
The voice inside him spoke again:
"Find me."
Null's body shook.
Hyung grabbed his arm again.
"Null—answer me—can you control this?!"
Null exhaled sharply.
"I… don't know."
Adrax lowered his entire body from the rift, preparing to strike.
D U rolled his shoulders.
"Well, guess we'll find out fast."
The ruins darkened.
The sky tore.
And Null's Second Awakening pulsed like a heartbeat ready to break open.
The stage for the real war had finally been set.