A week has passed since the Champion Trial. Nihil's life has become a monotonous and oppressive routine. He is confined to the Medical Wing, a gilded cage of comfort. Meals are delivered three times a day. He has access to basic books. But his freedom has been stripped away. Two Holy Knights of the Inquisitorial Order stand guard outside his door day and night, their strong Blessing auras felt like invisible walls constantly pressing down on him.
Every day, priests from the Church of Life come to "examine" him. They take blood samples, chant diagnostic spells, and try to understand his regenerative magic. Every time their spells touch him, the magic vanishes, and the priests retreat with pale faces.
Grand Inquisitor Richter Von Braum does not come again. He wages a psychological war. Every evening, a priest sits outside his cell and chants scriptures for hours, the monotonous voice designed to erode his sanity. The food given to him is always overly blessed, tasting like ashes to Nihil and draining a small portion of his energy just to swallow it.
This is subtle and unending torture.
Nihil spends his time in meditation. He has to. His Void Sync at 9.6% is a greater enemy than the Inquisition. He can feel the influence of the Void creeping into his mind—colder, more efficient, more ruthless thoughts. Emotions like sympathy or doubt feel increasingly distant. He must cling to Heze's logic and memories to maintain his sanity.
One night, his meal tray arrives as usual. But there is something different. Alongside the bowl of soup and bread is a book. Titled "Fundamental Principles of Arcane Thermodynamics." A standard textbook.
But when Nihil touches it, he senses something else. A peculiarity. No magical aura, but the structure feels... wrong.
After the guards change shifts, he examines the book carefully. Using the most delicate Void Grasp on the cover, he nullifies a thin layer of glue. The cover opens, revealing a small hollow space inside. Within it lies a thin sheet of black crystal, covered with strange circuits he does not recognize. Dimensional Guild technology.
He touches it.
A faint three-dimensional hologram appears in the air before him, projected directly onto his retinas so that no one else can see it. It is Elara Moonveil's face. This is a recording.
"Nihil," Elara's voice sounds, clear and straight to the point. "If you are seeing this, it means my risky delivery method has succeeded. I apologize for the disruption, but your current situation cannot be sustained."
The hologram changes, showing a complex cosmic diagram. "I will get straight to the point. You are not a curse. You are not a devil. You are the warden of a Trans-Essential level power. The same power used to erase gods from existence during the Dawn War."
Heze's mind freezes.
"The Shackles of Nihility are not a curse intended to kill you," Elara continues. "It is a seal. A containment mechanism designed to lock that power within your bloodline. Your terrifying regeneration is proof that the seal is beginning to crack. Your Void Sync is a measure of the seal's damage."
The hologram shows a horrifying simulation. A city, Solara Magna, then a black dot appears in the center and expands, swallowing everything in silence. "If your Void Sync reaches 100%, the seal will be completely shattered. The energy release that will occur will not only kill you. It will erase a hundred-mile radius from existence. This is the 'Ascension' desired by the Cult of Nullity. And this is the apocalypse feared by the Inquisition, though they do not understand it."
Nihil stares at the destruction simulation, finally grasping the true scale of the time bomb within him.
"I cannot extract you from there. Not yet," says Elara. "But I can give you a key. A tool to survive. You cannot stop the increase of Void Sync. It is a natural process of the seal's damage. But you might be able to control it."
The hologram now shows extremely complex theoretical diagrams. "This recording contains all my theories on conceptual engineering. With your Conceptual Forging talent, you should be able to create a new skill. Not for attacking or defending, but for delving inward. A technique to consciously strengthen the seal within your soul. A skill [Conceptual Stabilization]. This will be a battle against your own nature, against the pull of the Void. But it is your only path."
The recording ends. The crystal data shatters into dust.
Nihil is left alone in the silence, shaken by the knowledge that has upended his world. He is not just a boy with a curse. He is the vessel of a weapon of mass destruction.
He stares at the cell wall. He is no longer a prisoner awaiting fate. He is now a jailer who must repair his cell from within, before the inmate within him destroys the entire world.
While Nihil battles within his mind, Velka Nocturne battles within her own haunted house.
Under the cover of darkness, she and Tarek Mornhall slipped into the Nocturne Mansion complex. Not through the front gate, but through an old sewer entrance long forgotten—a part of the "Raven's Escape Route" once used by Nihil.
For Velka, it was a surreal experience. Walking through the dark servant corridors of the home where she was raised, now as an intruder. She was a ghost in her own home.
Velka's knowledge of the mansion's secret layout was invaluable. She guided Tarek through rat runs, avoiding the doubled guards patrolled by her father.
They stopped behind a tapestry, peering into the main hall. They saw Alban, her brother, berating a head servant, his face taut with paranoia. "I want hourly reports! Every corner! I don't care if it's just a mouse!"
"Your father and brother are both on the edge," Tarek whispered. "This house will soon collapse from within."
Following Velka's vague childhood memories—nanny's tales of the "Queen's forbidden wing"—she led Tarek to the oldest and dustiest part of the mansion. To her mother's private library, a place sealed after her death.
The door was locked with a puzzle mechanism, not magic. A cipher based on her mother's favorite poem. With trembling hands, Velka solved it. The door creaked open.
Queen Lilliana Nocturne's laboratory was frozen in time. Strange preserved flowers in glass jars. Complex alchemical diagrams pinned to the walls. The air smelled of dried herbs, chemicals, and sorrow.
"We split up," Tarek said. "I'll look for the 'restraint' formula. You search for her personal journals."
They moved quickly and silently. Tarek, with a hunter's eyes, found a hidden filing cabinet behind a specimen shelf. Meanwhile, Velka felt a strange pull towards her mother's desk. Beneath a false drawer, she found a secret compartment.
Inside lay an aged leather-bound journal. Queen Lilliana Nocturne's personal diary.
Velka opened it, her heart pounding. Her mother's handwriting was neat and analytical, the writing of a scientist, not a desperate queen.
She read about her mother's research on the Shackles of Nihility. She read about how her mother realized it was not a curse, but a broken 'seal.'
Then she reached the most terrifying pages. About the birth of her first son.
"He was born... with eyes open. Crimson eyes. The seal within him was shattered from the start. He was not a baby. He was a pure singularity. Valerius and the priests from the Church of Life were terrified. They said he must be 'cleansed.'"
Tears began to stream down Velka's cheeks.
"I refused. He was my child. But his power... it drained life from those around him without intention. They gave me an impossible choice. Sacrifice him to create a 'restraint' that could stabilize the seal within me and future children, or let him grow and inadvertently obliterate everything he touched."
"I made a mother's choice. I chose to save the future by sacrificing my present. They took him from me. They used his essence... the soul of my firstborn... to create that restraint formula."
Then, Velka read the final entry, written in trembling handwriting.
"Valerius does not understand. This restraint will not last forever. The seal continues to weaken. Nihil... Velka... one of them will be the last. The seal will eventually break. The Void cannot be imprisoned. It can only... be balanced."
"My children... they are the Key and the Lock. Nihil, with his active power, is the Key that can open the door. And Velka... my precious daughter... her pure, unactivated blood... she is the Lock. The lock that can keep the door tightly shut... or can be forced to open it wide."
Velka finally understood. Her mother's message in the sanatorium. VELKA... YOU ARE THE GA... Lock.
She was not just the Chosen Vessel for the Cult. She was the safety mechanism—or trigger—of her family's curse.
"I found it."
Velka looked up. Tarek stood there, holding a small crystal vial containing a silvery liquid. The restraint formula.
Suddenly, they heard footsteps outside the library. Not ordinary guards. The steps were too light. Too silent.
Tarek reacted instantly, pushing Velka behind a bookshelf and readying his crossbow.
The door creaked open.
A figure wearing a plain white porcelain mask stepped in.
The Silencer.
She did not come for Tarek. She did not come for Velka. She came to erase evidence. Valerius had sent her to clean up his own tracks.
Tarek and Velka were now trapped in the sealed room with the world's deadliest assassin.
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