In the space between seconds, as the life force of Aris the Executioner flickered like a candle in a hurricane, he did not find darkness. He found a room of absolute, terrifying whiteness.
Aris stood in the center of the void. There were no walls, no ceiling, and no floor only an infinite expanse of white. To an outsider, he was standing still, looking at nothing. But inside his mind, the "Code" was breaking. The obsidian shackles that had bound his memories for ten thousand years were melting away.
Memories of things he never had yet had always possessed rushed back with the force of a tidal wave. He saw a small cottage. He saw a woman's smile. He saw a baby boy with eyes that held the spark of air and logic.
A single tear overflowed from his right eye the eye that had been blind and clouded for centuries. He wiped it away with a trembling hand, staring at the moisture on his fingertips.
"I see," Aris whispered, his voice cracking. "I forgot I had a son. What kind of human am I... to forget his own blood? My name is Aris. I don't even remember my full name. I spent years fighting... copying... losing my eye... losing my memories. I shortened my own lifespan just to become a missing hand for a King with a missing limb. I forgot my baby boy. Kai. The boy I swore to save."
Aris fell to his knees, the weight of his sins heavier than the obsidian armor he had worn. He sobbed into the white void, the sound of a father's grief echoing into infinity.
The Almighty's Mercy
From the whiteness, a presence emerged. It was not a man, nor a spirit, but a Being that defied the laws of geometry. It was a Biblically Accurate Angel a wheel of eyes within wheels, burning with a fire that did not consume. Yet, in the center of the fire, a figure appeared.
The Being's eyes were sealed away by a dark, glitching blindfold. His hair was the color of rich chocolate, flowing down to touch his shoulders. His face was veiled in a light so divine it could have turned Aris to ash, but a shimmering shield protected the fallen knight. He wore a simple white robe, and around his hands, a red rope was wrapped tightly.
"My child, Aris," the Being spoke. The voice was not one, but millions of voices harmonizing into a single, peaceful note.
The Being placed a hand on Aris's head. "Get up, my child."
Slowly, the Almighty lifted Aris to his feet. With a gesture, the obsidian armor vanished, replaced by a white robe identical to the Being's, but with a rope of pure gold wrapped around the wrists instead of red.
"Don't cry," the Being said, His voice a balm to Aris's shattered soul. "I will give you a chance to say goodbye to your son. All of those actions you have done... they were not your choice. You were a prisoner of the Stone. I am sorry for not stepping in sooner. Please, forgive me."
Aris was shocked. The Lord was asking him for forgiveness? He looked into the light and smiled through his tears. "I forgive you, Lord. I am just... happy to remember his name."
"I have decided to let you see your son for twenty minutes," the Being declared. "That is all the time the fabric of this world can allow. After this, I promise I will transport you to another world a place where you have your abilities, but no drawbacks. No memory loss. No blindness. Go now, my child."
The Father's Final Gift
Aris's body became a streak of pure light.
In the Wonder World, Kai was on the verge of a total mental collapse. His "Division by Zero" attacks were tearing his own brain apart. His nose was gushing blood, and his eyes were rolling back.
Suddenly, the world went white for Kai.
"Stop, Kai. Stop."
Kai froze. He found himself in a mental landscape of a calm meadow. Standing before him was a man he recognized from the deepest, locked closets of his heart.
"Listen to me. I am your father, Aris," the man said, his voice shaking with emotion. "I am so sorry for what I have done. I was supposed to take care of you after we left Yogiuri. But I was captured. I was bonded to the Stone. My memories were eaten by the King's greed. I was blind, Kai. Blind in my eyes and blind in my heart."
Kai's body began to shake. The stoic strategist was gone. He was just a boy again. Tears formed in his red, strained eyes.
"Father?" Kai's voice was a whisper. "I... if I had remembered, I would have found you. I thought I was alone. I thought I was just a failed experiment."
"No," Aris said, grabbing Kai's shoulders. "You were never a failure. You were the perfect one. That's why the King wanted you dead because you represent the Logic that he cannot control. My time is almost up. You must fight! Don't give up! Go and help your friend Null. He is in the Throne Room, and he is losing himself. Ask Ashley to let you out of the Wonder World. Go, my child. Save him!"
Aris's image began to fade, his body visibly shaking as the transport to the new world began.
"I love you, Kai," Aris whispered as he vanished into a new life, leaving behind the weight of the Stone forever.
The Dash to the Throne
Kai snapped back to reality. He wiped the blood and tears from his face, his eyes burning with a new, lethal seriousness. He turned to Ashley, the gatekeeper of the Wonder World's borders.
"Ashley! Let me out! Now!"
Seeing the desperation and the new, golden aura around Kai, Ashley didn't hesitate. She opened a rift in the fabric of the Wonder World. Kai sprinted through it, his legs moving faster than the speed of sound.
He arrived back in the High Kingdom. The air was thick with the scent of ozone and ink.
Fang landed in front of him, his dragon-wings beating slowly. "Looking for Null? He's up there. I can get you there in seconds."
Fang grabbed Kai, and with a thunderous roar of wind, they flew upward, bypassing the thousands of headless giants Null had left in his wake. They landed at the end of the long corridor.
Kai ran past the corpses of the Council. He reached the spot where Aris had fallen. There, lying in the grey dust, was the **Aether-Reaper** Aris's final blade. Kai picked it up. On the hilt, he saw the small, hand-carved mark: *Aris's Blade*.
Kai gripped the sword, his knuckles white. He didn't care about "air" anymore. He didn't care about "Math." He cared about the friend who was currently dying behind those doors.
The End of a King
Kai kicked open the final obsidian doors.
The Throne Room was a void. At the far end sat the **King of Stone**, a mountain of a man made of living, jagged rock.
And there, in the center of the room, lay Null.
He wasn't fighting. He wasn't standing. Null was face-down on the ground, his Iron Crown shattered into a dozen pieces. His jet-black hair was soaked in blood. He looked like he had been crushed by the literal weight of the world.
The King of Stone raised his hand, a massive boulder of "Final Law" forming in the air to crush the life out of the "Human" who had dared to enter his home.
"Null!" Kai screamed, holding his father's blade high, his eyes red with the blood of a thousand generations.
The volume ends not with a victory, but with a scream.
End of volume 5
See you in April