The universe screamed. The convergence of their attacks – Kagaya's world-breaking haymaker, Netsudo's supernova swarm, Miryoku's harmonic resonance, Shirou's emerald tsunami, Kuro's amplified HeartDeath shard, Merus's wave of creation, and X's spatial sinkholes – had struck Amado's position like the fist of an angry god. Reality itself buckled, shattering the asteroid they stood on and carving a scar of pure non-existence through the heart of Universe 3404. Stars vanished, nebulae dissolved into quantum static, the very laws of physics whimpered under the strain. The shockwave, a tidal wave of annihilated matter and energy, washed over them, forcing Merus's barrier to its absolute limit, its cerulean light flickering precariously.
"NOW! RETRIEVE THE TRASCENDER!!!" Merus's voice, amplified by divine desperation, cut through the fading echoes of cosmic destruction.
As the blinding light and deafening roar subsided, revealing the gaping wound they'd torn in the universe, the scene that greeted them froze their blood. Floating serenely in the center of the devastation, untouched, unruffled, stood Amado. Not a scorch mark marred his drowned-moonlight blue skin. His void-black silk robe didn't flutter. Those eyes, frozen event horizons, regarded them with detached, almost academic interest. A low, rumbling sound vibrated in their bones – laughter.
"Ohoho," Amado's lipless mouth curved, the sound chillingly pleasant. "How nice! A combined attack! Synchronized, diverse... truly fascinating orchestration of futility." He tilted his head, observing them like specimens under a microscope. "The harmonic resonance attempting to bolster physical laws... the amplified negation artifact... the focused stellar plasma... the brute kinetic force... the spatial distortions... the emerald annihilation... the divine potential... and the mortal ingenuity linking it all. A commendable effort. Truly."
His gaze, devoid of malice but radiating absolute, terrifying superiority, lingered for a fraction of a second on Netsudo. The small, perpetually terrified Pyrasian was still trembling, wisps of superheated magma dissipating around his clenched fists.
Then, Amado moved.
It wasn't speed. It was displacement. One instant he floated amidst the cosmic wreckage; the next, his bare blue foot was inches from Netsudo's chest. There was no wind-up, no telegraph – just an impossible shift of reality. The kick didn't connect with force; it simply occurred.
THOOMPH.
Netsudo vanished. Not flung, not sent flying – erased from his position. A sonic boom cracked through the void milliseconds later, trailing the path of his instantaneous transit. He became a streak of terrified amber light punching through the heart of a distant spiral galaxy millions of light-years away, leaving a trail of disrupted stars and panicked stellar nurseries in his wake. The sheer, casual brutality of it left the others momentarily stunned, the realization hitting them like a physical blow: Amado hadn't even tried against their combined assault.
"NETSUDO!" Kagaya roared, emerald energy flaring in panic and rage.
Kuro was already a blur of motion, his tech-gauntlet projecting a gravitic tether. "Retrieval vector locked! Engaging!" His voice was clipped, clinical, but the underlying fury was palpable. He shot after the fading amber streak, moving faster than any mortal ship could dream.
X didn't hesitate. While the others reeled, he became a streak of grey lightning, warping space to appear directly before Amado. His fist, encased in shimmering spatial distortion, lashed out – a blow designed to shatter planets.
Amado flowed. Not dodging, but allowing the distorted space to pass through him, his form momentarily insubstantial. He reappeared a meter away, amusement deepening in those cosmic eyes. "Persistent anomaly."
X didn't speak. He pivoted, his grey cloak swirling, and unleashed a focused blast of pure spatial compression from his palm. It wasn't energy as they understood it; it was a localized collapse of dimensional layers, a miniature black hole born of will.
FWOOOOM-KRACK!
This time, it struck home. Amado's head snapped back slightly. A tiny, almost imperceptible fissure appeared on his temple. A single drop of liquid, thick and iridescent, welled from the corner of his lipless mouth. He raised a hand, the tip of one blue finger touching the droplet. He stared at the luminescent fluid on his fingertip, his expression shifting from detached amusement to profound, unsettling surprise.
"You..." The word vibrated with a new timbre, a hint of something ancient and rarely disturbed – incredulity. "You drew... divine blood?"
Kuro reappeared in a burst of displaced momentum, Netsudo clutched protectively in his arms. The Pyrasian was unconscious, his fungal cloak singed, his body limp but breathing raggedly. Kuro's visor scanned Amado furiously, data streams flickering. "Vital signs stable. Minor spatial shearing. He'll live."
As Kuro landed, a ripple of distorted space passed silently through the battle zone. Kokuto, the Swordwrath Monarch, materialized like a ghost on the periphery, the unconscious form of Shinji draped over his shoulder like a sack. His crimson scarf hung unnaturally still. His eyes, cold and empty, flickered towards the confrontation, then dismissed it. He saw Merus, saw the assembled mortals, saw Amado engaged. A curt nod, almost imperceptible, towards Saganbo's servant.
"Thank you, Amado," Kokuto's voice was a rasp of entropy, carrying easily across the void. "I owe you one." Without another glance, he folded space again, vanishing towards the thickening miasma of Saganbo's energy coreward.
"HEY!" Merus bellowed, cerulean power flaring as he lunged forward, but Kokuto was already gone, swallowed by the distance and the encroaching shadow of his master's domain. Merus slammed a fist into the void, the impact sending shockwaves through nearby nebulae. "Dammit! He passed us!"
Amado, wiping the starlight blood from his mouth, ignored Merus's outburst. His full attention was locked on X. The surprise had curdled into something colder, sharper. Annoyance. He blurred, a streak of blue death aimed squarely at the grey anomaly. A kick materialized, aimed to erase X from existence as casually as he'd displaced Netsudo.
X didn't dodge. He flowed. Space bent around him like water, the kick passing through a distortion where his torso had been a nanosecond before. Simultaneously, X's counter-punch lashed out, not from where he was, but from a point behind Amado, warped through a micro-portal. The blow, amplified by compressed spatial force, connected solidly with Amado's lower back.
THUD-WHAM!
Amado grunted, a sound like grinding neutron stars, as the impact sent him hurtling uncontrollably across light-years of void, trailing disrupted spacetime like a comet's tail.
X landed lightly on a fragment of the shattered asteroid, his grey cloak settling. His voice, projected calmly, cut through the stunned silence. "Don't worry, Merus. Everyone. Just go after him." He gestured towards the fading ripple of Kokuto's transit. "Leave Saganbo's servant to me."
Miryoku gasped, her light pulsing with protective fear. "No way! He's extremely stro-"
"X will take care of himself," Merus interrupted, his voice tight but resolute. He met X's hidden gaze across the void. A silent understanding passed between them – an acknowledgement of something immense and dangerous lurking beneath the grey cloak. Merus's cerulean eyes hardened with renewed determination. "We need to get the Trascender. Now! To the ship!" He turned, already moving towards the Stardust Weaver, hovering precariously nearby.
Kagaya needed no further urging. He scooped up the unconscious Netsudo from Kuro with surprising gentleness, cradling him like fragile crystal. "YAHOO! TIME TO SMASH THE SWORD BASTARD!" His roar held less fear now, replaced by focused fury. Kuro nodded sharply, his tech-gauntlet already interfacing with the ship's systems remotely, initiating emergency launch protocols. Shirou gave X one last, unreadable look – part assessment, part grudging respect – before sprinting after Merus, rifle slung. Miryoku hesitated for only a heartbeat, her violet eyes filled with worry for X, but the image of Shinji, limp and captive, spurred her forward. She followed, weaving a subtle harmonic shield around the fleeing group.
The Stardust Weaver, its crystalline baffles glowing with Merus's infused power, swallowed them whole and vanished in a streak of accelerated light, tearing towards the 3405th Universe and the thickening shadow of Saganbo.
Amado reappeared, hovering amidst the debris field. The spot where X's punch had landed shimmered faintly, a temporary bruise on reality. He stared at X, the last traces of amusement gone, replaced by cold, analytical fury. The drop of divine blood was still smeared on his blue finger.
"You..." Amado's voice was a low, dangerous hum. "You are no mortal. No being of this creation possesses such command over the fundament. Who... what... are you?"
X shifted his stance, the grey cloak swirling around him like mist. The spatial distortions around his fists intensified, crackling with silent power. "Let's stop this shit chat," X projected, his mental voice devoid of inflection but carrying immense weight. "And get right to the business." He raised his hands, palms outward. Dozens of miniature singularities, gateways to random, distant universes, snapped into existence around Amado like hungry mouths. "Choose your destination, servant."
The Stardust Weaver screamed through the inter-universal void, pushing its upgraded drives to the absolute limit. Inside, the atmosphere was thick with tension and the oppressive, ever-increasing weight of Saganbo's energy. They had breached the 3405th Universe – the outermost edge of his suppressed domain.
Kagaya grimaced, his emerald glow dimmed, muscles straining against an invisible pressure. "Feels... heavy. Like the whole sky is sitting on my chest." Netsudo, laid out on a medical slab, moaned in his unconscious state, his skin slick with sweat despite the ship's climate control.
Kuro's visor flickered with alarming data streams. "Energy density increasing exponentially. Readings exceed any previously cataloged natural phenomenon by orders of magnitude. Biological systems are experiencing severe stress. Neural degradation possible with prolonged exposure."
Miryoku stood at the viewport, her hands pressed against the cool crystal. Her harmonic aura pulsed around her, a desperate counterpoint to the crushing negativity. She wove threads of turquoise and amethyst light, not just shielding herself, but attempting to resonate a protective harmony within the ship itself, bolstering Kagaya, soothing Netsudo's distress, reinforcing the vessel's structural integrity against the psychic onslaught. "It's... like the song of the universe is being silenced," she whispered, her voice strained.
Merus stood beside her, his cerulean form radiating a focused aura of Creation that pushed back against the encroaching void, creating a fragile bubble of stability. "Don't fret," he said, his voice calm but laced with the strain of maintaining the bubble against Saganbo's passive emanation. "This is the lowest intensity you'll feel. The density increases coreward. Focus. Breathe. Your light, Miryoku, is crucial here. It disrupts the uniformity of his negation."
Kuro adjusted a dial on Netsudo's support system. "Physiological stress stabilizing within tolerable limits. For now. This energy... it's not just power. It's will. A declaration of ownership over existence itself. The mortals in these universes..." He trailed off, the implication hanging heavy. The sterile voids Kokuto had traversed weren't natural; they were graveyards.
"Nah, that's nothing," Kagaya forced a grin, flexing his massive arms, the emerald energy within him flaring defiantly against the pressure. "Just a stiff breeze!"
Netsudo stirred, his amber eyes fluttering open, filled with pure, unadulterated terror. "N-no... it is..." he rasped, struggling to sit up. "It is... Truly Something... The end... of everything..."
Far ahead, Kokuto's distinctive void-shear signature pulsed like a malignant star, slicing effortlessly through the dense energy field, heading unerringly for the 3448th Universe. Merus's ship, bleeding speed against the mounting pressure, fought its way into the 3445th.
*Tch*, Kokuto's thought cut through the psychic murk, directed at the persistent flicker of pursuit on his enhanced senses. *These persistent gnats. Still clinging to my wake. Futile. I am the Void's Edge; they are dust in the cosmic wind. Let them chase. Let them witness the heart of oblivion. Lord Saganbo awaits... and with him, their final, screaming dissolution. The Monarchs will ensure their welcome is... memorable.*
Universe 3523: The Throne of Weeping Stars
Saganbo lounged on his throne, sculpted from the compressed, screaming cores of a thousand neutron stars. Supernovae glinted in the obsidian canopy above like malevolent eyes. The air hummed with the suppressed agony of extinguished realities. Below the dais, bathed in the throne's baleful purple-black radiance, stood his current retinue.
Raimei vibrated with barely contained energy, violet lightning crackling along his spiky hair. "I am present and primed, Lord Saganbo!" he chirped, hazel eyes darting around the vast chamber. Beside him stood four figures who seemed profoundly out of place amidst the cosmic dread, yet radiated significant power:
Sasaki: A woman of average height, clad in sleek, form-fitting combat gear of shifting greys. Her most striking feature was her hair – half stark white, half raven black, swept back sharply. Her eyes, one ice-blue, one deep brown, held a chillingly analytical calm. She stood perfectly still, a honed blade waiting to be drawn.
Shinaru: Looming beside Sasaki, this man was a mountain of muscle barely contained by heavy, scarred plates of dark metal. His face was hidden behind a featureless, crimson helmet shaped like a snarling demon's maw. Twin energy cannons, humming with contained power, were grafted onto his massive forearms. He radiated brute force and silent menace.
Raigan: A stark contrast to Shinaru, Raigan was lean and agile, dressed in loose, dark blue robes that seemed to flutter in a non-existent breeze. Silver hair fell to his shoulders, framing a face marked with intricate, glowing silver tattoos that pulsed with subtle energy. His eyes, a piercing silver, held knowledge and curiosity. He held a simple, unadorned staff of polished black wood.
Ubiginu: The smallest of the mortals, Ubiginu was a whirlwind of nervous energy. Dressed in a patchwork jacket covered in pockets and tools, their large, luminous green eyes darted everywhere behind thick goggles. Messy purple hair stuck out in all directions. They fiddled constantly with a complex, multi-limbed drone that hovered at their shoulder, its single lens eye whirring as it scanned the throne room.
Raimei gestured expansively. "Lord Saganbo! May I present my... associates? Sasaki, Shinaru, Raigan, and Ubiginu! Truly capable mortals! Some of the strongest I've encountered in my considerable existence!"
Saganbo's purple eyes, swirling with galaxies of malice, swept over the newcomers. A flicker of annoyance crossed his face at the intrusion, but Raimei's enthusiasm seemed to give him pause. "Explain yourself, Raimei. Mortals in my sanctum? This is... unprecedented."
"Ah, but Lord!" Raimei beamed, his violet lightning flaring excitedly. "They possess unique talents! Sasaki's unusual control over spiritual energy is exquisite! Shinaru's arm-cannons could level small galaxies! Raigan manipulates temporal echoes! Ubiginu's gadgets... well, they're delightfully unpredictable! They sought an audience, and knowing your appreciation for... interesting tools..."
Saganbo studied them again. Sasaki met his gaze unflinchingly, her heterochromatic eyes revealing nothing. Shinaru remained an immovable statue of armored menace. Raigan bowed slightly, his silver tattoos gleaming. Ubiginu squeaked and hid partially behind their drone. A slow, predatory smile spread across Saganbo's face. "Oh? If it's you vouching for them, Raimei... I suppose I can make a special case. Very well. They may observe."
Sasaki and Shinaru gave curt nods. "Thank you," Sasaki stated, her voice cool and precise. Raigan bowed again. "We are honored, Lord of Destruction." Ubiginu just squeaked again, adjusting their goggles.
Daganu, the colossal Monarch clad in event-horizon armor, shifted his immense weight, causing the star-metal floor to groan. "I also am present, Lord Saganbo." His voice was the grinding of continental plates.
"Good," Saganbo purred, leaning back. "Three Monarchs will be present. Sufficient for the... entertainment soon to arrive."
Daganu's armored head tilted. "Lord Saganbo? May I inquire why you require Monarchs gathered? Is there a threat?" His voice rumbled with anticipation.
Saganbo chuckled, a sound like black holes colliding. "A threat? A minor nuisance. Merus, that persistent gnat of Creation, is inbound. He brings... guests. Mortals. They seek to retrieve the Trascender that Kokuto is currently delivering to me."
Daganu's armor plates shifted, a grinding sound of surprise. "Amazing! So Kokuto succeeded in capturing the Fourth? Excellent news!"
"Indeed," Saganbo preened, purple-black energy flaring around him. "He always delivers. A most efficient instrument."
"Kokuto truly excels," Daganu rumbled approvingly.
Raimei tilted his head. "Lord Saganbo, forgive the question, but... won't the mortals accompanying Merus simply... expire upon entering your domain? The energy density here..."
Saganbo waved a dismissive hand. "They may be heavily pressured, crushed under the weight of true existence, but they won't simply pop. They held their own against Torento and Nirvana, after all. Flimsy insects, but... resilient flimsy insects." He glanced towards the mortals. "Consider it... a test of their worthiness to witness the end."
Sasaki's eyes narrowed slightly. Shinaru's cannons hummed louder. Raigan stroked his staff thoughtfully. Ubiginu's drone emitted a high-pitched whine.
Amado's annoyance had crystallized into cold, focused rage. X's portal tactic was an infuriating mosquito bite. One moment, Amado was lunging; the next, he found himself adrift in the turbulent, young nebula of Universe 3381. He tore back into 3404 within two seconds, space screaming at the violation. X was waiting.
"Nice! Pretty Good!" X projected, the mental tone almost mocking.
Amado didn't rise to the bait. His cosmic mind analyzed. "How fascinating," he conceded, his voice dangerously calm. "Such spatial manipulation is troublesome. Efficient. But limited." He pointed a blue finger at the fading ripple of the portal. "Instantaneous displacement... only viable for nearby universes. To shunt me truly far... you require time. Focus. An opening."
X's grey form seemed to ripple. "And that," he projected, "is precisely what I was utilizing while you were pontificating."
Amado spun. Behind him, where there had been empty void, a colossal portal now yawned. Not a shimmering window, but a gaping maw of swirling oblivion, easily large enough to swallow a star system. Tendrils of distorted space lashed out from its edges, grasping towards him.
"Annoyance!" Amado snarled, but before he could react, X was there, a spatial distortion amplifying his push. Not physical force, but a fundamental shove against Amado's position in reality. Amado, caught off-guard by the sheer audacity and the portal's sudden pull, was hurled into the vortex.
FWOOOOSH!
The portal snapped shut behind him.
Fifteen agonizing seconds later – an eternity for a being like Amado – space tore open violently in Universe 3404. Amado emerged, not calmly this time, but radiating palpable fury. His drowned-moonlight skin seemed darker, his event-horizon eyes swirling with storm fronts. The void around him crackled with suppressed power. He beheld not one, but six colossal portals, each identical, each swirling with impossible depths, arranged in a hexagon around him. Gateways to the far, forgotten corners of the multiverse, or perhaps beyond.
X stood calmly outside the hexagon. His toneless mental voice held a new edge, sharp and sardonic: "Now then... Choose your Portal, Kind Sir!"
Amado's lipless mouth tightened. The air grew thick, heavy, tasting of ozone and decaying stars. "This," he stated, his voice vibrating with a finality that shook the fabric of the universe, "has gone too far. The game ends."
He vanished. Not a blur, not a warp. He simply ceased to be in one location and was present behind X. His hand, glowing with an internal, terrifying light – not an attack, but an extension of his fundamental being – reached out. His index finger, radiating pure, concentrated Entropy, brushed against the knuckle of X's left hand.
X flinched. "Wha-?"
The effect was instantaneous and horrifying. Where Amado's finger touched, X's grey glove and the flesh beneath didn't burn or melt. They unmade. The molecules disintegrated, bonds snapping, atoms decaying into base particles and dissipating like smoke. The decay spread up X's finger with terrifying speed, turning flesh and bone into swirling grey ash, racing towards his wrist.
Amado watched, his expression devoid of triumph, only cold, analytical observation. "That," he stated, his voice flat, "is my ability. I created it. A refinement. My essence is Entropy. I control its flow, its focus. I can channel it through my form, making my very touch absolute decay. Contact with my body, infused with this energy, initiates dissolution at the most fundamental level." He tilted his head. "Of course, against beings whose existence transcends my own energy magnitude... beings like Lord Saganbo... my touch would be negligible, a spark against a supernova. But you... anomaly... are not Saganbo."
X didn't scream. He didn't panic. He looked at his decaying hand with a detached curiosity that mirrored Amado's own. Then, with blinding speed, his right hand blurred. Not a weapon, but a gesture. A spatial edge, sharper than any monomolecular blade, manifested along his forearm. He brought it down in a swift, decisive chop.
SHINK.
His left forearm, already grey ash up to the elbow, severed cleanly. Luminous, silvery fluid, not blood, fountained from the stump, spattering the void before quickly vaporizing. There was no cry of pain, only a sharp intake of breath that seemed to echo strangely in the vacuum.
Amado stared, his cosmic composure finally, irrevocably shattered. His eyes widened, the swirling galaxies within them momentarily stilled. "Wha-?" The syllable escaped him, raw and unguarded. "Regeneration? But... the decay is ontological! It unravels existence! It cannot be regenera—"
He never finished. His eyes bulged. A wet, tearing sound, grotesquely organic despite his divine nature, erupted from within him. His stomach distended, then ruptured outward in a spray of iridescent, decaying viscera. His ribs snapped like rotten twigs, protruding through skin that was suddenly turning grey and flaking away. His eyes, those frozen event horizons, clouded over, the light within them dimming and fracturing like breaking ice. The terrifying aura of Entropy that was his birthright flickered, weakened, then began to fade, guttering like a dying star.
Amado stumbled, clutching at his spilling organs with hands that were themselves crumbling into dust. His lipless mouth worked, trying to form words as his jawbone began to disintegrate. "Wh-at... Ar-e yo-u... doi-ng...?" The words were gurgled, choked with his own decaying essence, filled with a profound, universe-shaking confusion.
X lowered his right hand. The stump of his left arm stopped bleeding silver. Flesh, bone, sinew, and grey fabric began to reweave themselves from nothingness, knitting together with impossible speed and silent precision. He watched Amado's horrific dissolution, his hidden face unreadable. The toneless mental projection held a chilling, almost bored finality: "Too bad I let you activate your ability out of pity and like I said... Don't make me repeat myself over and over. I'm just having... my share of fun." He flexed his newly regenerated left hand. "Toying with you."
Amado's form was collapsing inwards now, limbs detaching and crumbling, his torso dissolving into swirling motes of decaying starlight. The last vestiges of his power surged – a final, desperate act of defiance. He unleashed the entirety of his remaining Entropy in a wave, not aimed at X, but at the space around him. The void itself began to rot, space-time fraying, stars in distant galaxies winking out as the wave of decay radiated outwards at light-speed.
X sighed. A sound like mountains grinding. He raised both hands, palms facing the spreading wave of Entropy. He didn't counter it. He didn't shield. He simply... dismissed it. The decaying space, the unraveling reality, the wave of absolute negation – it all ceased. Not destroyed, not countered, but unmade from the conceptual level. Where the wave had been, there was only pristine, untouched void. As if it had never existed.
Amado was now little more than a crumbling torso and a head, the light in his eyes reduced to faint, dying embers. As his jaw finally dissolved, preventing speech, his fading consciousness projected one last, stunned thought, filled with awe and a terrible, dawning understanding as X finally takes his cloak off for a moment for Amado to see him and deduce his identity: "I see... , Looks like this... is to be expected... I couldn't have won... , However... You won't defeat Lord Saganbo... Or... that is what I hope... After all... I'm nothing more... than a hoping... advisor..."
A single, luminous tear, purest starlight, welled from his decaying eye socket and evaporated before it could fall. Then, Amado, the Right Hand of Destruction, the Architect of Ruin, dissolved entirely. Not into energy, not into dust, but into absolute, silent, and final nothingness.
X lowered his hands. The pristine void felt colder, emptier. He looked at the spot where Amado had been. "...You didn't have to serve him," he murmured aloud, his voice no longer toneless, but low, resonant, and carrying an unfathomable weight of ages. "If you were going to regret dying... you fool..."
He took a deep breath, the grey cloak settling around his now fully regenerated form. The casual display of power had been necessary, but costly. "One down," he stated to the uncaring void. "However... I had to shed a layer of the mask to put him down for good." He flexed his fingers. "He was Saganbo's servant, after all... No room for half-measures."
He raised his hand, grey energy coalescing, ready to weave a portal towards the unfolding confrontation at Saganbo's throne. Not to rejoin the others. But to directly face the God of Destruction.
"Impressive."
The voice was like bedrock grating against the fabric of reality. It didn't come from a direction; it vibrated within the space X occupied.
X froze. His head snapped around.
Standing on a floating shard of asteroid, seemingly having arrived without displacing air or warping space, was Dentetsu. He wasn't radiating power. He was containing it, a black hole wearing human skin. His spiky dark hair was unruffled, his bare muscular torso gleaming faintly in the starlight, simple chinos hanging loose. His eyes, fixed on X, held a predatory curiosity, a hunter assessing dangerous, unexpected prey. A faint smirk played on his lips.
Dentetsu chuckled, the sound low and dangerous. "I came rushing after sensing Amado's defeat... the sudden absence of that persistent cosmic rot." He tilted his head, his gaze piercing the grey cloak. "Amazing, actually... Didn't think anyone could erase Saganbo's favorite pet. Especially not permanently. You're one heck of a monster, Grey Man."
X slowly lowered his portal-forming hand. His posture shifted subtly, no longer casual, but ready. The spatial energy around him crackled with new intensity. "Who are you?" X demanded, his voice back to its toneless projection, but laced with a new wariness. He could feel it now – the sheer, terrifying depth of spiritual energy contained within Dentetsu. It wasn't just vast; it felt... fundamentally different. Primal. Unbound.
Dentetsu laughed, a full-throated sound that made the nearby asteroids tremble. "Why should I tell you?" He took a step forward, not on the rock, but on the void itself. "For now... I'm just a Simple Monarch." He spread his hands, a gesture both mocking and challenging. "Name's Dentetsu. And you, Masked One... have just made things infinitely more interesting." The smirk widened, showing sharp, white teeth. "For me."