Chapter 27:

  "One Against All, All Against One"

  Arc 3: Chapter 6

  POV: "???"

  The metallic voice, devoid of soul or warmth, still vibrated in Raphadun’s bones like the hum of a snapped steel string. “Where is the Restoration Stone?”

  He swallowed, his throat dry as Infernal Zone dust. The figure before him was a living cartoon of terror—the silhouette of Empty.

  “Who are you?” Raphadun’s question was a hoarse breath, more a survival reflex than a rational demand. “Identify yourself!”

  The figure turned its entire body to face him, a movement less fluid and more… cinematic. The tilt of its head wasn’t curiosity; it was the angular adjustment of a sensor.

  “It’s me… Raphadun. Empty.”

  The world beneath Raphadun’s feet seemed to give way. A cold void opened in his stomach. “No… it can’t be. You died. We saw it! We buried…” His words tangled. His eyes feverishly scanned the figure. The armor wasn’t merely patched; it seemed to have grown, thicker, more organic, dark veins pulsing beneath the surface. And the body inside it was no longer the fragile skeleton he had carried. It had volume, defined muscle beneath a cadaverous pallor. “Your body… isn’t thin anymore. What happened? Who the hell are you?!”

  Empty (was it Empty?) remained motionless for a moment, the impenetrable mask turned toward him. The silence was more terrifying than any roar. Then the robotic voice returned, clear and impossibly calm:

  “I met you when you came to me carrying a woman in your arms. You said she was the future of humanity.”

  It was the spark.

  The words were a low blow, an intimate memory dagger driven into Raphadun’s heart. That desperation in the Infernal Zone, Luna unconscious, his mute plea to an armored creature. A detail that existed in no record, only in the living memory of the two of them.

  “What the fuck…” he whispered, taking another step back, his boot crushing the luminous grass that seemed to burn beneath his feet. The horror of confirmation was infinitely worse than doubt. It was real. In some impossible way, it was real. “What’s happening? Empty… where have you been all this time?”

  The figure’s head tilted to the other side, an almost mechanical study.

  “I was here,” the voice echoed, flat. “All this time.”

  “Here?” Raphadun shook his head, looking at the pulsing circle of supernatural green, at the void from which the creature had emerged. “What do you mean by ‘here’?”

  Empty did not answer. Instead, it slowly raised its arms, a strangely theatrical gesture. The palms of its hands—still wrapped in black metal that seemed fused to skin—turned toward the starry sky, as if feeling the weight of the air, the pressure of the night.

  “So this is how it is…” the metallic voice murmured, and for the first time, there was a trace in it. Not emotion, but… discovery. Like a machine reporting a new variable. “Feeling the wind. Without feeling pain.”

  Before Raphadun could process the monstrous meaning of those words—without feeling pain—Empty moved.

  It was not the supernatural, graceful leap Raphadun remembered. It was a rupture. The creature’s feet exploded against the ground with brute force, cracking the earth and hurling grass and stones aside. Its body launched upward in an awkward yet terrifyingly powerful arc, black silhouette tearing through the moon’s silver light, straight toward the rooftops of the commercial district that began a few blocks below the cliff.

  Raphadun stood paralyzed, watching the friend-ghost, the aberration, disappear into darkness. Shock kept him frozen for three long, pounding heartbeats.

  Then instinct—the same one that had made him run with Luna in his arms years ago—fired.

  “SHIT!” The scream was torn from his lungs.

  He turned and ran. Not with a teleporter’s precision, but with the raw desperation of a drunk and terrified man, staggering downhill toward the only light and noise he knew that night: Flávio’s house.

  Meanwhile, the being called Empty ran across rooftops. Not with the past’s economy of motion, but with animal, uncontrolled strength. Each push of its feet cracked tiles; each landing echoed like a small thunderclap. It was not hiding. It was an experiment.

  The wind, once a torture of needles against exposed skin, was now merely pressure, a sensation. It tilted its head back, mask pointed at the sky.

  And then, from the throat that had never formed sounds, came a scream. Not pain, not alarm. It was a triumphant, primitive roar that erupted from a place beyond memory or intellect.

  “WOOHOO!”

  The sound echoed across silent rooftops, bestial and strangely empty of true joy. It was the cry of a force finally freed from its prison of weak flesh, discovering the pure mechanics of movement.

  Raphadun burst into the house like a hurricane of panic. The scene was warm disorder: Luna, face flushed and green hair disheveled, tried to follow Flávio’s ridiculous invented dance steps, while Fencer watched from the side with a glass of soda, a tired half-smile on his face. The air smelled of wine, cake, and cheap happiness.

  “EMPTY’S BACK!” Raphadun’s shout cut through the music like shattered glass. He grabbed Luna by the shoulders, fingers digging into flesh with desperate force. “SOMETHING CAME BACK AT THE PLACE WHERE EMPTY USED THE STONE!”

  Luna rocked backward, her green eyes clouded by alcohol, trying to focus.

  “What’re you… talking about… huh?” she slurred, a drunk and confused smile still trying to form on her lips.

  Flávio stopped dancing and started laughing, a loud and carefree laugh.

  “Damn, Rapha, what’re you drinking? Share it!”

  But Luka, watching from a corner with an almost untouched glass, froze. Sobriety gave instant clarity to his gaze. He saw the absolute terror on Raphadun’s face, sweat running from his temple, panting breath. This was no drunken joke.

  “What are you talking about, Raphadun?” Luka’s voice was low but cutting.

  Raphadun turned to him, eyes pleading.

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  “Luka! You’re the only one… sober here. The tower! Go to the tower! He’s going to steal the Restoration Stone!”

  The blood seemed to drain from Luka’s face. Without a word, without hesitation, he threw the glass to the floor, where it shattered with a crystalline sound that silenced the room, and bolted out the door, his cloak billowing behind him.

  The being that might be Empty stopped at the edge of a higher rooftop, a noble house offering a clear view of the main square and, beyond it, the imposing spiral of the Tower of Light glowing against the night sky.

  It stood motionless for a moment, observing. Then it raised one hand. From its fused metal-and-flesh fingers, a flow of pure darkness began to pour—not as an attack, but as heavy liquid dripping from the eaves and pooling on the ground below, forming a shadow puddle that seemed to absorb the streetlight.

  It looked at the tower, calculating distance. At its feet, darkness accumulated, seething like living ink. Its reconstituted muscles, now free of pain, tensed.

  And then it leaped.

  It was not a leap. It was a launch. An explosion of black force hurled it from the rooftop at such a steep upward angle it seemed to defy physics. Its body, a silent black missile, crossed the sky over the square, passing above the heads of a few night wanderers who looked up, stunned. The trajectory culminated directly at the high floor of the Tower of Light, where the crystal-reinforced windows of the Chamber of Stones glittered.

  The impact was catastrophic. The projectile-proof glass did not shatter—it pulverized into a rain of diamonds under the brute force of its body and the enveloping aura of darkness. The sound was a contained thunder, followed by the metallic crash of its landing inside the sacred chamber.

  Across the city, in the discreet apartment, Bruce sat on the sofa, a forgotten teacup in his hand. Bruno, his son, brandished a wooden training sword, demonstrating a strike Ver?nica had taught him.

  “And then you twist the wrist like this, Dad! See?”

  “I see, son. You’re getting good,” Bruce’s voice was soft, an absolute rarity.

  Then the shrill, piercing alarm of the Tower of Light’s maximum security system cut through the air, followed by a distant but perceptible tremor that made the cups on the table clink.

  Bruce rose so fast that sofa slid back inches. All warmth, all softness evaporated. The Strongest Man in the World was back, emerald eyes flashing with deadly danger.

  “Stay here. Lock the door. Don’t leave for anything,” his order was a growl, and then he moved—not toward the door, but to the balcony, vanishing into the night with a leap that made the building structure groan.

  Luka ran through the Tower’s inner corridors, heart pounding in his throat. The guard mages were in position, purple energy barriers sealing the halls. But it was too late. The boom had come from above.

  In Flávio’s house, the sound of the shattered glass and Luka’s sudden departure had thrown a bucket of ice water on the party. Luna’s drunken expression dissipated like smoke. Laughter froze on Flávio’s face. Fencer slowly lowered his soda glass, eyes sharpening behind his glasses.

  Luna looked at Raphadun’s hands still trembling on her shoulders, at the genuine terror in his eyes.

  “Rapha…” she whispered, voice already clean, hard. “What did you see?”

  Inside the Chamber of the Universal Stones, the air was thick with dissipated energy and the sharp smell of ozone and scorched glass. Empty stood amid the shards, black silhouette stark against the soft light from the three pedestals. Its gaze (if there was one) fixed on the Restoration Stone, pulsing with a dirty yellow light, as if sensing its presence.

  It approached, heavy footsteps echoing in the silence. Its hand—now stronger, more defined—rose toward the force field protecting the stone. The air sang, electrons jumping against its touch.

  And then it touched the containment glass. And removed the glass.

  It was then that new light appeared. Not from the stone. From the entrance.

  A barrier of pure yellow light, so dense it seemed physical, struck Empty in the chest like a sun-forged hammer. The impact was not explosive; it was overwhelming, an absolute repulsive force that tore it from the pedestal and hurled it backward, through the already destroyed window, and out of the tower.

  It fell.

  Not in freefall, but driven downward by the continuous force of that light, like a meteor being crushed against earth. The crash of its impact on the marble plaza below was felt throughout the central district’s foundation, raising a cloud of dust and debris.

  When the dust settled, Empty knelt in the center of a crater it had created itself.

  And before it, amid the rubble and still-settling dust, a figure materialized from the light itself.

  Alfredo Lighting stood, sword drawn.

  “Looks like,” Alfredo said, his voice echoing with an unnatural metallic resonance, “you never learned to knock.”

  The Empty Man raised its head. For the first time, the expressionless mask was turned toward an opponent who was not a curse, not an Infernal Zone monster. It was one of the highest peaks of human power in the kingdom.

  The crash of the fall still echoed in the devastated plaza. From the smoking crater, a shadow rose.

  Empty stood. The impact that would have reduced a battalion to paste had merely bent plates of its organic armor. It straightened with an awkward but undeniably intact movement. Its hidden eyes behind the mask fixed on the new opponent before it.

  Alfredo Lighting did not move. His sword, “Dawn’s Edge,” was a focal point of reality, a line of pure light so intense the air around it seemed to fade. The promise in it was silent and absolute.

  Then the air split again.

  It was not a sound, but a violation of physics. Bruce Darking did not arrive; he coalesced from the plaza’s own shadows, as if his desire to be there had reshaped reality around him. The ground beneath his feet did not crack—it receded, compacted by the sudden weight of his aura. The Valkyria Sword, a black metal blade that seemed to drink the surrounding light, rested on his shoulder, unpretentious as a cleaver.

  He did not even look at Alfredo. His gaze, laden with glacial and triumphant fury, pierced Empty.

  “So…” the word came out as a breath but carried the weight of a year of vindicated distrust. A narrow, heatless smile stretched his lips. “I was right.”

  Across the plaza, Empty finally freed itself from the last rubble. Bruce materialized before it, not with a leap, but with a displacement. Twenty meters of space simply ceased to exist between them.

  “I told you, aberration.” Bruce’s voice was a low whisper that vibrated in bones, not ears. A perverse satisfaction impregnated every syllable. “Our fight was inevitable.”

  Empty tilted its head to the side, the gesture strangely familiar but now empty of its old curiosity.

  “It may be.”

  “Hah!” Bruce’s laugh was a dry snap, a sound of contempt. “Even talking is boring!”

  The Valkyria Sword moved.

  There was no glow, no roar of energy. There was only a vacuum. The air before the blade seemed to vanish, creating a pure pressure wave that preceded the strike by a fraction of a microsecond. It was that wave, not the metal, that struck Empty first—a merciless wall of force that crushed it.

  It was not hurled. It was erased from that point in space.

  Its body became a kinetic projectile, cutting the air with a supersonic howl. It did not collide with the first building; it passed through it, turning masonry, beams, and glass into a concussive cloud of debris. And it did not stop. A linear channel of devastation opened through the commercial district. Windows shattered blocks away with the shockwave. The trail was a smoking scar of dust and ruin, stretching for kilometers until ending in a shapeless mound of twisted concrete and slowly settling dust.

  Bruce was already turning, his satisfaction shifting to the next move, when light blinded him.

  Not an explosion. A presence.

  Alfredo Lighting knelt at the epicenter of the destruction, right where Empty had finally stopped. His sword was not raised to attack; it was planted in the ground before the pile of rubble, its light forming a translucent, impenetrable barrier between the debris and the outside world. The light did not burn; it purified the air, keeping dust away.

  Bruce appeared beside him in an instant, his darkness colliding with Alfredo’s light in a hiss of antagonistic energy.

  “You—” Bruce’s growl carried ancient personal hatred. “Your pathetic sentimentality. Why did you interfere?!”

  Alfredo did not raise his eyes. His attention was fixed on the rubble.

  “You would have killed him. No questions, no hesitation.”

  “He is a threat! The proof is before you!”

  “And perhaps he is.” Finally, Alfredo looked at Bruce, and his calm was a deeper insult than any shouting. “But killing him now is burning the book before reading the only page that matters: the why.”

  “That kindness of yours…” Bruce spat the words, fingers tightening on Valkyria’s hilt until his knuckles whitened. “Will get you killed one day, Alfredo Lighting. And when it happens, I’ll be the only one not surprised.”

  The air distorted again with a wet crack, and Luka materialized beside them, panting, face pale with effort and alarm.

  “Where is he…?” His question died as he followed Bruce’s gaze.

  “There,” Bruce jerked his chin disdainfully toward the pile of ruins still trembling under Alfredo’s light field.

  The dust inside the field began to stir. A concrete block the size of a carriage was shoved aside, rolling with a dull thud. From the wreckage, Empty emerged.

  Its rise was slow, methodical.

  It looked at Bruce, whose darkness pulsed with murderous impatience. At Alfredo, whose light was a silent, intentional barrier. At Luka, whose face was a mask of horrible conflict. And finally, at the forming perimeter: Shadow Guard soldiers and containment mages, weapons and spells trembling toward it, eyes wide with a mix of terror and hatred.

  Luka stopped. But Alfredo, the strongest man of light, walked. Beside him, Bruce Darking, the strongest man in the world, moved too. Empty watched them intently.

  For a long moment, silence hung, broken only by the distant crackle of fires and the groan of compromised structure—even with the slow steps of the world’s strongest approaching, hands on sword hilts.

  Then Empty acted.

  “I surrender,” it said.