The scene opens up, in a cosmos like room. A room that's only cosmos. Shou in his young boy form standing in the center.
Shou: Dark's Pre Crisis, a world where nothing means everything.
Shou points at you.
Shou: We've come a long way huh?
Shou turns around.
Shou: The worlds I've created are filled with mysteries, hope, destruction, good and bad. Justice and injustice.
Shou: An aftermath shall come after a crisis.
Shou raises a hand and Kaelion Draegor appears, bowing to Shou with respect.
Kaelion: Shou, good to see you.
Shou: Kaelion, I need you to interfere with the battle, end Copi and fight Cosmic to the death.
Kaelion: But Shou, that would force his curse to fade faster.
Shou: Let it fade, let him consume this story, this novel. I've grown bored of it all.
Kaelion: I will not be able to defeat him.
Shou: That's fine, Dark will.
Kaelion: Dark? He's barely holding on to dear life, let alone defeat Cosmic, his father.
Shou: Worry not, I shall grant Dark exactly 2.6% of what I can do. That is more than enough for Dark to stop Cosmic, but that's only if Dark can survive for a few minutes against Cosmic.
Kaelion: You really think Dark will stand a chance before you help him?
Shou: Yes, he will. I've foreseen it all.
Kaelion: Alright then, as you request, as to how you once accepted my request, it is time I return the favor.
Shou nods and Kaelion disappears.
Shou sighs.
Shou: Almost, Dark, almost there.
Scene switches back to Cosmic and Copi.
The battlefield was breaking.
Cosmic and Copi clashed in the center of the wasteland, every blow cracking existence into ribbons. Each strike from Copi carried enough force to collapse verses into dust, but Cosmic's unseen defenses, a system older than the stories themselves, nullified the shockwaves, erased the ripples before they could touch the world.
Still, the plain wasn't spared. Each exchange carved scars into the horizon, rivers of molten stone opening where their fists had collided, black suns flickering overhead like dying eyes.
Copi's body glowed white, his form shifting into something barely recognizable as flesh. His grin stretched too far, his skin splitting at the edges of his mouth, galaxies swirling across his frame like brands. His presence warped the air itself, twisting it like glass about to shatter.
Dantero staggered against the railing of Shou's barrier, clutching his head.
Dantero: (thinking) ...This isn't fighting. This is rewriting reality with fists.
Dark stood beside him, silent. His eyes never left Cosmic.
Copi lunged again. His claws raked through Cosmic's chest, tearing into muscle, ripping strands of light from his very essence. Blood sprayed in arcs, painting the ground red. Copi's laugh cracked across the plain.
Copi: HHHRHHHHAAAAAHAHAHAHA!
Cosmic staggered, but his face never changed. Calm. Unbroken.
Then he raised his hand. Slowly. Deliberately.
At the tip of his finger, light bent. A sphere swelled into existence, glowing red, but not flame, not energy. It was pressure condensed into form, the kind of collapse that could invert an entire verse if unleashed. The orb pulsed once, and the air around it buckled inward like dying lungs.
Copi's grin twitched. His eyes widened — then gleamed.
Copi: ...Verse Copy.
He raised his own hand. At his fingertip, an identical orb grew, pulsing in perfect sync with Cosmic's. The wasteland screamed beneath the mirrored force, cracks running for miles.
Dantero's knees buckled.
Dantero: (thinking) ...He copied it?...
Cosmic's lips curved faintly. Not a smile. A judgment.
Cosmic: Cancel.
The red orb in his hand dissolved instantly, vanishing as though it had never been.
And in the same breath, Copi's orb unraveled too, his grin twitching as the energy collapsed in his palm, burning his flesh raw. He gasped, not in pain, but fury.
Copi: Tch...
Cosmic stepped forward. In less than a fraction of a nanomilisecond, his hand was on Copi's throat.
The grip was soft at first. Almost gentle. Then the pressure rose.
Bones cracked. Veins bulged black against Copi's skin. His grin strained, trembling as his nails clawed at Cosmic's wrist.
Copi: KHHHHHHHRRRHHHHHHHH!
Cosmic's eyes narrowed, still calm. His grip tightened. The sound was sickening, cartilage collapsing, air crushed out of Copi's lungs. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, dripping onto Cosmic's white sleeve.
Copi's body twitched.
His grin faltered. Not in pain. Not in fear.
In disbelief.
Cosmic's grip hadn't shifted. It stayed soft. Steady. Clinical.
Yet his fingers pressed through layers Copi didn't know could be broken.
Veins pulsed black across Copi's face.
His claws, once bright with chaos, now scratched like dull sticks against a wall too ancient to crack.
Copi: (gargling) KHHHHHRRRHGH—!
He tried shifting form.
His limbs stretched into jagged weapons.
His body turned partially white fire, partially time itself.
But it was all noise.
Cosmic didn't budge.
No defense. No retaliation.
He was simply untouched.
A second hand rose—slowly.
No aura.
Just fingers.
They reached Copi's chest.
And then tapped it. Gently.
What followed wasn't an explosion.
It was a reversal.
The entire front of Copi's torso imploded inward. Not from force, but rejection. His body refused to hold shape, caving in on itself like paper in fire.
Copi's mouth opened wide. Wider.
Wider than bone allowed.
No sound came out.
His spine snapped.
Cosmic finally let go.
Copi dropped. Face-first. Smoke rising from his back.
He coughed blood that didn't hit the ground—it was vaporized before impact.
Still alive.
Still regenerating.
Still... humiliated.
Cosmic: ...
He didn't speak to him.
Didn't look at him.
He turned away like he was walking out of a room.
And then—
Step.
Step.
Step.
From beyond the fog, the ash, the distorted horizon...
Kaelion Draegor walked in.
His coat dragged against the ground.
His eyes were calm.
On his shoulder—resting sideways as if weightless—was the blade known to all corners of the sea and silence.
Kasēnshō.
Dantero didn't speak. He couldn't.
The sound of Kaelion's steps over the scorched stone was louder than thunder.
Not in volume. In meaning.
He passed Copi without a word.
The white fire dripping from Copi's body snuffed itself out when Kaelion's shadow crossed it.
And then—
THUNK.
Copi's head hit the ground.
No blade had been swung.
But it was done.
A clean, horizontal sever across the base of the neck.
His body didn't realize it was dead yet.
It stood for three seconds longer.
Then collapsed.
Kaelion stopped a few feet in front of Cosmic.
Cosmic turned slowly.
They faced each other.
No aura.
No stance.
Just two beings—one bound by fate, the other sent to push it.
Kaelion: (calm) That all?
Cosmic: (even calmer) Not yet.
Kaelion adjusted Kasēnshō on his shoulder.
Kaelion: Good.
Cosmic: You're early.
Kaelion: You're slipping.
Pause.
Cosmic: Shou?
Kaelion: He's watching. Got bored. Said it's time. Told me to kill Copi and force your curse to bleed.
Cosmic: It already is.
Kaelion: Then let's open it wider.
Cosmic: You won't survive.
Kaelion: Doesn't matter.
Cosmic looked past him, to the wasteland behind.
Then to the far edge of the battlefield—where Dark stood, unmoving.
Cosmic: They're watching.
Kaelion: Let them.
Kaelion slowly lifted his sword off his shoulder.
Kasēnshō hissed.
Not from heat.
From pressure.
From depth.
Kaelion: Let them see what happens when oceans fight back.
He took one step forward.
Cosmic's fingers curled.
Reality began to fold inward.
Dantero collapsed to one knee.
Dark: (thinking) ...Not yet.
His head turned.
Toward the pull.
Toward the thing calling him.
The Dominion Sphere.
It hovered at the far edge of silence, a black wound carved into the skin of reality. Its surface did not ripple, did not glow, did not breathe. It simply turned once every few moments, each rotation like the heartbeat of a god trying to remember its name.
Dark walked toward it. With each step the battlefield behind him began to fade. The clash of Kaelion and Cosmic. Dantero struggling to keep his balance. The ruined earth and screaming heavens. All of it bled away until there was only him and the Sphere.
The closer he came, the quieter the world became. Not silence, but the suffocation of sound. Even his own breath lost weight as it slipped from his lips.
The Sphere opened. It did not part like stone or steel. It peeled like flesh, an incision cut into the fabric of everything. A wound waiting to be stepped into.
Dark entered.
Inside there was no ground. No sky. No direction. Just an endless grey stillness that swallowed every notion of place.
At the center of it all, bound in scripture and iron thought, was Sukojo. His body was stretched against the air, limbs pulled by chains that glowed with law older than verses themselves. His head hung low. For a moment he seemed still. Until his lips curled into a smile and the chains shivered with the vibration of his laughter.
Sukojo: (smirking) That face.
Sukojo: I almost forgot how much I loved it.
Sukojo: The one caught between sadness and rage.
Sukojo lifted his head, eyes opening, red and faint like dying embers. His grin widened as the sound of his laugh crawled through the stillness.
Sukojo: I have seen that look on knights who swore to protect their kingdoms. I made them slaughter the children they guarded and then held their heads down in the blood.
Sukojo: I have seen it on saints who sang to heal. I cut their tongues and made them hum broken hymns as they died choking on their own throats.
Sukojo: I saw it on a healer once. They called her the Hand of Mercy. I left her hands intact. I forced her to strangle her husband with them while her sons screamed.
Sukojo chuckled, the sound grinding against the walls of the Sphere.
Sukojo: There was a warlord who raised orphans on his shoulders. A strong man with a noble heart. I made him lay them one by one at his feet and snap their necks while he counted their names aloud.
He leaned forward against the chains, grin stretching wider.
Sukojo: Entire verses begged for me to spare them. I did not burn them. I hollowed them. I erased their names, their children, their faith, until the people themselves forgot they had ever lived. Wives slept beside strangers they once called husbands. Mothers woke with no memory of sons. Priests opened their mouths and forgot the words to their gods.
Sukojo: That was my art. That was my joy.
The stillness deepened. Sukojo's grin no longer looked forced. It looked nostalgic, like a man remembering old friends.
Sukojo: Do you understand what I am, boy? I am not death. Death ends. I am cruelty. Cruelty lingers. Cruelty makes hope beg to become filth.
Sukojo: And you stand there with your lips tight, hiding sadness like it is strength. You are no different from the others. You will be my next memory.
Dark did not answer. His head remained tilted down, eyes hidden, mouth pressed into that silent line. His chest rose once in a slow breath. Nothing more.
Sukojo saw it. His grin widened like splitting flesh.
Sukojo: There it is. The crack in the mask. The sadness hiding in your mouth. You are not here to end me. You are here to pretend you can.
Dark finally spoke. His voice was low, steady, heavy as stone.
Dark: No.
Sukojo tilted his head.
Sukojo: Then what are you here for?
Dark lifted his chin. His eyes still shadowed, unreadable. His mouth no longer trembled.
Dark: I came to break you.
Sukojo's laughter shook the silence, ragged and raw, filling the space with mockery. His eyes glowed dimly as his grin twisted into something crueler than a knife.
Sukojo: You think you can break me?
Sukojo: You think you can make me bow?
Dark finally lifted his head. His face was still hidden beneath shadow, but his voice was calm, cold, and absolute.
Dark: You will.
Sukojo narrowed his eyes, his grin faltering for just a moment.
Dark: Not today. Not tomorrow. But you will.
Dark took one step closer, and the void rippled like water disturbed by a stone.
Dark: I have ten Champions. Each one greater than the armies of men. Each one stronger than kings who thought they ruled eternity.
Dark: Igor. Biru. One. Vel. Raz. Malik. Clum. Cal. Syv. Brak.
Dark's eyes glowed faintly under the veil of shadow.
Dark: And you will be the eleventh.
Sukojo froze. His grin stayed wide, but his laugh stalled for just a moment. Then it came back, sharper, louder, more unhinged.
Sukojo: The eleventh? Me?
Sukojo: Do you know who I am?
He leaned forward against the chains, teeth bared.
Sukojo: I made kings slit their sons' throats with crowns. I made saints burn churches while their flocks screamed inside. I made healers beg to become butchers.
Sukojo: I am not a Champion. I am the nightmare Champions fear when they close their eyes.
Dark: Not anymore.
Dark: You will be mine.
Sukojo hissed through his teeth, his grin twitching, but his chains shivered faintly as if they were listening to Dark more than to him.
Dark: You are forgotten, Sukojo. Locked in a cage, left to rot, feared only in whispers. But under me, you will be remembered again.
Dark: Not as a devil. Not as a god.
Dark: As the Eleventh Champion of Dark.
The grey void thickened. The chains creaked as Sukojo's body leaned forward, his grin splitting wider, teeth glinting in the silence. His voice dripped with venom.
Sukojo: Champion? You dare speak to me of champions?
He laughed, low at first, then higher, the sound echoing like claws raking across steel.
Sukojo: I am not a name to be written among foot soldiers and loyal pets. I am not a pawn to be commanded, nor a knight in your shadow army.
Sukojo's head tilted, his eyes glowing faint, his grin sharp enough to cut the air.
Sukojo: I am the rot in hope's marrow. The hand that turned healers into murderers. The whisper that made saints curse their gods.
Sukojo: I have outlived empires, broken heroes, devoured verses. My legend is not numbered. It is feared. It is endless.
He laughed again, harder this time, shoulders shaking against the weight of his chains.
Sukojo: To compare me to your Champions is insult. I am above them. Beyond them. They are ants gnawing crumbs from my table.
Dark stood still, his gaze unmoving, his voice cutting through the void with the precision of a blade.
Dark: Not all.
Sukojo's grin faltered for the first time. His laughter paused. His eyes narrowed.
Dark: Igor.
The name carried weight, vibrating in the silence.
Dark: The Black Sun. The Blood-Red Knight. The God Killer.
Dark stepped closer. The void rippled.
Dark: In some ways, he stands above you.
Sukojo's grin twitched, his teeth grinding together.
Dark: His blade does not waver. His loyalty does not bend. His presence does not decay. Even you, Sukojo, cannot claim that.
The chains strained as Sukojo snarled, laughter returning but rougher, edged with fury.
Sukojo: Igor...
He hissed the name like it was poison.
Sukojo: That knight of yours may strike fear into gods, but he will never know the ecstasy of corruption, the art of twisting purity into filth.
Sukojo leaned forward, his eyes burning hotter, his grin wider but shaking at the edges.
Sukojo: Do not insult me again, boy. I am not your Champion. I am the monster they warned you about when you were still gnawing bones in caves.
Dark: And yet, you will kneel.
The silence thickened again, pressing down like a hand against the lungs of existence.
Sukojo's grin trembled, then faltered. The laughter that had filled the Sphere died in his throat, leaving only the sound of his chains breathing against the void. His eyes, still burning red, dimmed slightly.
He exhaled. Slowly.
Sukojo: ...Luna was right about you.
Dark's eyes narrowed faintly in the shadows.
Sukojo lowered his head, not in defeat, but in thought. His voice came quieter now, rasped by centuries of laughter and screams.
Sukojo: She said you would be the one to carry what none of us could. That your silence wasn't emptiness. It was weight.
Sukojo chuckled softly, bitter, almost human.
Sukojo: I mocked it. I called her blind, said she clung to hope the way mortals cling to fire in storms. But she was right. She always was.
The chains groaned as Sukojo leaned back, his grin gone, replaced by something heavier.
Sukojo: I have been called monster. Devil. Devourer. And all of it was true. I broke more than lives. I broke meaning itself. But in all my cruelties... I never saw someone like you.
His eyes lifted, faintly glowing in the stillness, softer now.
Sukojo: You stand where gods would kneel. You hold in your silence what I could never hold in screams.
He paused, almost choking on the words.
Sukojo: And Luna... she told me long ago, when she still walked among us, that there would come a shadow who was not just void, but will. One who would build where all of us had burned.
Dark stepped closer, his presence bending the air.
Dark: And now you will be rewritten, renewed, become one with me.
Sukojo: ...Now I see.
The grin did not return. His lips pressed into a thin line, his gaze steady, sharp, but no longer mocking. His chains no longer strained with fury. They trembled, as if the weight of his own history pressed heavier than the bindings themselves.
Sukojo: Igor may be steel. Biru may be loyalty. Your Champions each have their fire. But you... You make monsters into more than themselves.
His voice cracked, just barely, beneath the rasp.
Sukojo: To be your Eleventh... is to finally matter beyond the fear.
Dark: You understand, then.
Sukojo: I... think I do..
Dark's gaze sharpened, the glow beneath his shadowed eyes piercing through the grey silence. He stood only a pace away now, the void itself bending to make space for his words.
Dark: You will be given two paths.
Sukojo lifted his head slightly, the chains groaning as his body shifted. His eyes locked with Dark's, no grin left to hide behind.
Dark: The first is to rise as my Eleventh Champion. To walk among shadows not as a prisoner, but as purpose. You will stand, not only feared, but needed. You will help me tear down what is rotten and rebuild a world that deserves more than cruelty.
The silence pressed heavier. Dark's words cut like stone across glass.
Dark: Or... you may choose the second path.
Dark's eyes narrowed, his voice colder.
Dark: To fall as a Hollow. Stripped of memory. Stripped of voice. You will serve as nothing more than an empty shell, nameless, faceless, without history. Forgotten.
The stillness grew unbearable, as though the Dominion Sphere itself held its breath.
Dark: Those are your choices. Meaning, or nothing.
Sukojo closed his eyes. The chains rattled softly as his body trembled, not from rage this time, but from the weight of decision. For the first time in his endless cruelty, there was no grin, no mockery, no laughter. Only silence.
Sukojo: ...You would give me that choice? After everything I've done?
Dark: I would.
Sukojo: Why?
Dark: Because monsters are only monsters when they have no path forward.
Sukojo: You offer me a path as if I ever walked beside you. I never served you.
Dark: You've saved me before.
Sukojo: Saved you? Hhh...
Dark: When Retsyu had me broken, crushed in his own Empire. You stopped him from finishing it.
Sukojo: I wanted to humiliate him, not save you.
Dark: But I lived because of it.
Sukojo: ...
Dark: When the Assassin Empire swarmed me with blades, you cut their will in half.
Sukojo: They were insects, nothing more.
Dark: Yet you turned their blades away from me.
Sukojo: ...
Dark: When Copi tried to erase me, when even my own shadows bent under his hand... you intervened.
Sukojo: I wanted to see how far he would go if I pushed him off balance.
Dark: And still — you gave me breath when I had none.
Sukojo: ...
Dark: You've been more than cruelty. Even if you never meant to.
Sukojo: You twist my sins into favors.
Dark: No. I see them for what they are. And I know what you can become.
Dark: I will give you one. A choice. Or I will erase you.
The Sphere shook faintly, the ancient laws binding Sukojo flickering as if already preparing to release or consume him depending on his words.
Sukojo: ...If I choose the hollow, I lose everything.
Dark: Yes.
Sukojo: No name. No fear. No past.
Dark: Nothing.
Sukojo: And if I choose you...
Dark: Then you are mine. Eleventh Champion of Dark.
Sukojo: Hhh... Champion. You number me like a soldier.
Dark: Not a soldier. A pillar.
Sukojo: ...
Dark: You will walk in shadow, but not as a prisoner. You will walk with purpose.
Sukojo: Purpose. I slaughtered purpose out of men's hearts for centuries.
Dark: Which is why you know how much it matters when it's real.
Sukojo's chains trembled. His grin never came back. His lips pressed thin, his voice rougher now.
Sukojo: And if I fail you?
Dark: Then you will be nothing.
Sukojo lowered his head. For once, he didn't laugh.
Sukojo: ...I spent lifetimes thinking cruelty was the only truth. That nothing lasts except the joy of breaking it.
Sukojo: But you... you've made cruelty into something else. You've turned it into loyalty, into strength, into empire.
Dark: And you've lived long enough to see that cruelty alone cannot build anything.
Sukojo: Hhh...
Sukojo: You speak like a man who already knows my answer.
Dark: I do.
Sukojo: And if I told you I still wished to rot?
Dark: Then you would.
Sukojo: ...And if I told you I wished to rise?
Dark: Then you would.
The chains rattled softly, as though even they waited.
Sukojo: I am tired of being remembered only as fear.
Dark: Then stop being only fear.
Sukojo: ...
Sukojo: Eleventh Champion.
Dark: Say it.
Sukojo: I will rise as your Eleventh Champion.
The chains cracked, law splintering like old glass.
Sukojo lifted his head, eyes no longer mocking. No grin. Only weight.
Sukojo: ...Emperor.
Scene switches to Shou sitting on Dark's throne.
Shou: To be continued.
End Of Arc 6 Chapter 23.