The battlefield around the shattered Black Rift had gone unnaturally silent—not because the fighting stopped,but because everyone present felt something ancient and wrong crawling through the cracks of reality.
Even Adrax, blood still dripping from the wound DU carved into him earlier, stopped breathing for a moment.
Because the air changed.
Because the Third Fragment… awakened.
THE THIRD FRAGMENT EMERGES
A deep vibration shook the ground—slow at first, then rising like a heartbeat that belonged to something larger than a world.
Thump…Thump…THUMP—!
Null's body jerked as if pulled by invisible chains. His shadow stretched unnaturally, bending and splitting until a third outline appeared behind him—taller, older, and infinitely more monstrous.
Black static began bleeding off his spine.
A spherical mass of glitch-like particles rotated behind him, and in the center…
A third eye—hollow, white, and spiraling with a symbol no one recognized.
D U breathed sharply.
"That's impossible… He wasn't supposed to reach the Third Fragment yet…"
Hyung stepped forward, jaw tightening. "What does that mean?"
D U didn't answer immediately.
Because the Third Fragment suddenly looked directly at him.
And smiled.
Not Null.Not the First or Second Fragment.
The Third.The one meant to wake last.The most unstable of all.
The ground cracked in a perfect circle around Null as his voice layered into three tones—child, adult, and something ancient.
"You opened the door too early."
Even the sky flickered.
HYUNG CONFRONTS AIZENO'S TRUTH
While the Fragment awakened, Hyung's focus snapped elsewhere.
Aizeno.Standing calmly atop a broken pillar, hands inside his coat pockets, watching everything unfold as if he had been waiting for this exact moment.
Hyung charged over, grabbing Aizeno by the collar and slamming him against stone.
"You knew this would happen. You knew the Fragment was close! What else have you been hiding?!"
Aizeno didn't resist.He didn't even blink.
He stared at Hyung with that same empty, unreadable look.
"Everything I hid… I hid to delay doom, not cause it."
"Stop speaking in riddles, Aizeno!"
So Aizeno finally spoke real words—flat, quiet, and terrifying.
"Null was never meant to awaken the Third Fragment. Not now. Not like this. Because the moment the Third Fragment wakes…"
His gaze shifted behind Hyung—
—toward the sky tearing open like a curtain—
"The Entity behind the Door begins watching."
Hyung felt cold spread up his spine. "The Door… The one DU sealed?"
"No." Aizeno corrected him."The one DU thinks he sealed."
Hyung stepped back, heart pounding.
Aizeno brushed the dust off his coat.
"Null's awakening was supposed to happen carefully. In three cycles. With three safeguards. But now those cycles are broken because someone forced him into battles he wasn't ready for."
His eyes glowed faintly.
"And you helped push him."
Hyung froze as if stabbed.
He wanted to deny it.Wanted to shout back.
But deep inside… he knew Aizeno was right.
Null had been fighting nonstop. Bleeding. Growing. Breaking.
Too fast.
Too violently.
And now something ancient was responding.
D U'S WARNING
D U approached Null—slowly, cautiously—like a predator approaching something even more dangerous.
He pressed a hand to the ground, sending thousands of black glyphs crawling outward in every direction.
Hyung recognized the style.
DU's real technique.The one he never used unless the situation was beyond recovery.
"Hyung," DU said without looking up."If you want to live… if you want ANYONE here to live…"
His voice was low, steady, deadly serious.
"Do not go near Null. Not now. Not until the Third Fragment finishes stabilizing."
Hyung clenched his fists. "And if it doesn't stabilize?"
DU exhaled slowly.
"Then the Entity behind the Door will come through. Entirely."
A crack formed in the air above Null—white, jagged, stretching wider with each pulse of the Third Fragment's heartbeat.
Adrax took a single step backward.
Aizeno closed his eyes.
DU lowered his head.
Hyung stared helplessly.
And Null, wrapped in glitching shadows, whispered in that three-layered voice:
"He comes."
The Third Fragment opened its spiraling eye fully.
The world held its breath.
The Door…began to open.