The sky above Null's newly restored universe didn't just crack, it rotted.
Where billions of freshly birthed stars had just shone with serene gold and violet radiance, a bruised, sickening purple aura bled into the void. It felt as if a heavy, invisible weight had dropped onto the cosmos, making the very fabric of space groan under the pressure. Planets in distant solar systems trembled in their orbits, their atmospheres vibrating as higher-dimensional physics forced themselves into a 3D realm.
At the epicenter of the disruption stood the 8th-Dimensional Herald.
Its form was a shifting nightmare of non-Euclidean geometry towering spires of liquid obsidian, floating rings of burning white flame, and a giant, faceless silhouette draped in dimensional armor. It didn't exist in one place at once; it flickered across multiple planes simultaneously, its mere presence threatening to crush Null's universe into a flat, two-dimensional sheet.
"MORTAL VESSEL OF THE UNWRITTEN KING!"
The Herald's voice was like grinding mountain ranges, echoing directly inside the minds of every living soul across the cosmos.
"HAND OVER THE FRAGMENT OF THE ALMIGHTY! THE BLOOD OF ORIGIN DOES NOT BELONG TO A LOWER-DIMENSIONAL INSECT!"
The Herald raised a massive, geometric hand. Instantly, an invisible wave of 8th-dimensional compression surged across the void, aiming to dissolve the dark matter scaffolding Null and Aera had just built, collapsing the local solar system into non-existence.
Null didn't flinch. He didn't even step back.
Instead, the Prime Stone resting against his sternum throbbed violently a deep, resonant beat that sounded like a war drum echoing from the origin of time. A blinding, golden-black aura burst from Null's chest, expanding outward in a shockwave that slammed directly into the Herald's compression wave, canceling it out instantly.
> "Heh... look at this overgrown, geometric lightbulb thinking he owns the place,"* True Umbros's voice chuckled deeply within Null's consciousness, full of arrogant amusement. *"He thinks having an extra dimension makes him a god, kiddo. He has no idea what's actually sitting in your chest."
"The Almighty's blood," Null muttered under his breath, his eyes glowing with an absolute, pitch-black intensity.
> "Exactly," Umbros rasped, his voice dropping into a colder, harsher tone. "Standard stones come from His tears, but you carry His living blood and hair. This parasite wants to claim divine origin, Null? Show him what happens when lower-dimensional hands wield supreme power."
Beside him, Aera's snow-white hair whipped in the cosmic tempest. Her pink eyes flared with brilliant spatial energy as her translucent space-time cloth unfolded behind her like a pair of majestic, celestial wings.
"Null, I'll handle the collateral," Aera said, her voice completely calm despite the apocalyptic aura radiating off the Herald. "I won't let a single shockwave reach the people on those worlds below."
She didn't wait for a reply. With a graceful sweep of her arms, Aera wove her space-time mantle into an absolute, impenetrable dome around the surrounding solar systems. She anchored the flow of time within the barrier, isolating the mortal planets into a safe temporal pocket so they wouldn't crumble under the impending clash.
She glanced back at Null, giving him a confident, sharp wink. "Go tear him apart."
A dangerous, cold smirk spread across Null's face. "With pleasure."
BOOM!
Null vanished.
He didn't use a spatial portal. He didn't teleport. He simply pushed off the non-existent floor of the void with pure, raw physical conditioning the exact same physical power that had once punched straight through the boundary wall of the empty space itself and tanked a direct blow from the King of Stones.
The void shattered under his launch point like cracked glass.
In a fraction of a millisecond, Null closed the distance, appearing directly in front of the Herald's faceless, armored chest. The Dark Crown materialized above Null's head, pulsing with hyper-dense dark matter as Form 5: The Axis of the Dead ignited across his body.
The Herald's floating rings of white flame shifted instantly, forming a multi-layered, 8th-dimensional spatial barrier. "FUTILE! LOWER-DIMENSIONAL STRIKES CANNOT PENETRATE HIGHE-"
"Shut up your bitch ass up," Null growled.
Null pivoted mid-air, channeling the dark matter scaffolding through his leg. He snapped out a high-impact, dark-matter-infused spinning hook kick a pure, brutal Taekwondo technique executed with hyperversal precision.
CRACK-THUNDER!
The kick didn't just hit the barrier; it completely shattered the 8th-dimensional laws maintaining it. The spatial shields exploded into glowing shards of cosmic glass, and Null's heel buried itself deep into the Herald's armored chest, sending the colossal entity skidding backward across thousands of miles of empty space.
The Herald stumbled, its geometric form flickering wildly in sheer disbelief. "WHAT?! PHYSICAL FORCE... PENETRATING AN 8TH-DIMENSIONAL AXIS?!"
> "He still doesn't get it!" Umbros laughed inside Null's head, practically roaring with pride. "He thinks you're just throwing punches! He doesn't realize your Prime Stone is rewriting the physical rules of his body every time you make contact!"
The Herald snarled, its form expanding as dozens of crimson spatial rifts tore open around Null, aiming to snip his body out of the timeline.
"Not on my watch!" Aera's voice echoed.
From her position at the center of the defensive barrier, Aera snapped her fingers. The space-time threads she controlled shot forward, instantly freezing the crimson rifts in place mid-expansion, locking the Herald's spatial traps in absolute temporal stasis.
"Now, Null!" she called out.
Null took a deep breath, dropping into a low, classic martial arts stance mid-void. He closed his eyes for a split second, feeling the warm, divine pulse of the Prime Stone syncing with his heartbeat. He didn't just gather dark matter this time. He drew upon the dormant Reality Manipulation pre-installed within his stone the divine legacy of the Almighty's blood.
His fists became enveloped in a dense, swirling vortex of pitch-black dark matter and golden origin light.
"You came all the way from the 8th Dimension for the Almighty's blood, right?" Null said, his voice echoing across the cosmos as he opened his eyes now completely dark, devoid of white, glowing with pure divine authority.
He stepped forward, breaking the barrier of sound, light, and space simultaneously.
"Then take a good look at it stupid bitch! "