The ground split first. Not the clean breaks of an earthquake, but jagged tears that bled wrongness into the air. From the fissure, the Adaptive Calamity rose. It was a towering beast of pale, shifting biomass, its form vaguely humanoid but fundamentally wrong—a crystalline Core pulsed at its chest, alien glyphs swirling within its depths.
Its aura washed over the dimension—a suffocating wave of pure pressure. A dozen students, too weak or too slow, simply collapsed, their life force extinguished by proximity alone. The herd was culled instantly, leaving only the elite standing in the sudden, heavy silence. The Calamity's presence felt not of wild instinct, but of cold, deliberate design.
The Nexus Heirs moved first, a flawless surge of coordinated violence.
Marcus was the spearhead, his kinetic blade a blur of silver as he closed the distance, each strike landing with bone-crushing precision. Elarion was the controller, weaving etheric chains that bound the Calamity's limbs and leached its vitality. Elena advanced in their wake, a calm shadow at the heart of the storm, whispering words that made the air chill and the beast's flesh begin to rot.
For a moment, they were utterly dominant, a breathtaking display of synergistic destruction.
Then, the Core at the Calamity's chest flashed a brilliant, defiant crimson.
The glyphs burned. The creature's pale flesh hardened into a crystalline armor that absorbed Marcus's next strike without a scratch. A pulse of dead energy radiated outward, shattering Elarion's chains and neutralizing his drain. The atmosphere shifted. It had learned, countered, and adapted in seconds.
Null descended from the sky, a silent shadow landing without impact. He launched a single spatial slash. The strike didn't cut flesh; it cut space itself, carving a deep, shimmering rift across the beast's hide.
The wound began to close. The Core flashed a deep, resonant violet.
The battle became a high-speed puzzle. Every attack risked triggering a new, perfect counter. The heirs were forced to improvise constantly, their flawless synergy fractured by the need for unpredictable variance. Marcus abandoned kinetic force for piercing thrusts. Elarion switched from drains to elemental bindings.
The pace quickened, a frantic dance of flashing glyphs and desperate tactics. The Calamity met every new strategy, its Core glowing with each lesson learned.
After being exposed to Null's reality-bending attacks a half-dozen times, the Core locked onto him. It stopped glowing. It went dark.
Then it erupted in a flash of void-black light. A complex, star-like rune seared itself onto the Calamity's forehead.
It threw a punch at Marcus from twenty feet away. Space compressed. The blow landed instantly, the impossible distance crossed in a heartbeat. The impossible became terrifyingly clear: it was no longer just a matter of adapting. It was copying.
The horror spread as the Calamity's flesh rippled, mimicking its opponents—dense, bone-white plates like Marcus's kinetic armor formed over its limbs. A death-chill aura, a pale echo of Elena's magic, radiated from its body. Etheric chains, a crude mockery of Elarion's, twitched across its skin.
The glyphs on its Core spun like a codex, recording every stolen gift.
Their relentless assault faltered as the realization struck them.
Marcus snarled, his composure finally breaking. The kinetic energy around his blade pulsed with raw fury. Not because a family technique had been stolen, but because his very essence—the power he had honed, the strength that defined him—was being worn by this abomination like a cheap costume.
Elarion's expression was cold, but his eyes held a flicker of something close to fear. "At this rate," he stated, his voice a low, analytical whisper, "it will surpass us all."
Elena's mask of calm finally cracked. The death magic around her surged, no longer a controlled aura but a raging storm. "Then it dies here," she said, her voice carrying finality. "Before it leaves with our secrets."
Null was different. He was silent, his cosmic eyes locked on the crude imitation of his void. The heirs' outrage was that of powerful individuals seeing their strength mimicked. His was something deeper. Something primal.
This was not theft. This was blasphemy.
For the first time since he'd been reborn, Null felt a genuine emotion. Not amusement. Not curiosity. Not the thrill of a challenge.
Rage.
The dimension answered.
The faint stars in the violet sky vanished, snuffed out one by one. The air grew cold and thin. Gravity bent, the ground trembling as stones and shattered trees began to lift from the forest floor. A deep, unnatural night fell across the land, swallowing the light.
The Adaptive Calamity tilted its head. For the first time, it looked curious, sensing a power that was not a skill to be copied, but a fundamental law of existence.
Above his head, his horns flickered into existence. Not the elegant curves of his dragon form, but something older. Angular. Crystalline. Made from compressed space itself. His black-hole eyes no longer just contained the void; they burned like collapsing stars, pulling all light and hope into their depths.
He whispered a single word.
A word that made the dimension itself shudder.
"Mine."