The emergency shelter materialized from shadows themselves, Selene's power weaving darkness into solid walls. The Nexus Heirs stumbled through the portal she'd torn in reality, their usual composure shattered like the scrying spell Null had destroyed with a smile.
Marcus was the first to speak, his voice tight with controlled anger. "Report. Now."
"He looked directly at us," Elena said quietly. "Through every ward, every concealment. Like they weren't there."
"Impossible," Leo burst out, his red hair practically crackling with agitation. "No way! How could he have gotten so strong, so fast? He barely won against Marcus!"
Silence followed that statement. Marcus's jaw clenched.
"Your assessment," Elarion said slowly, each word precise as a scalpel, "was flawed. He was never struggling. He was observing."
The elf moved to the center of their makeshift war room, conjuring a three-dimensional replay of Null's recent battles. The images flickered in the air—Null dancing through attacks, laughing, treating lethal combat like a game.
"Look at his stance. His breathing. His ether expenditure." Elarion manipulated the images, highlighting details. "Minimal effort. Maximum psychological impact. The cold prince we thought we knew was a carefully constructed mask."
"Then what is he really?" Elena asked.
"Chaos," Orin spoke for the first time, his voice carrying that unsettling, dual tone of his demonic heritage. "The cold version was predictable. Logical. This playful version…" He tilted his head, considering. "He is an agent of chaos. Far more dangerous."
Leo slammed his fist on the makeshift table. "We can't just let him—"
"Let him what?" Marcus interrupted. "Attack him? You saw what happened to those twenty students. Unite against him? He wants that. It's entertainment to him."
"Then what do you suggest?" Elena's green eyes flickered with concern.
Marcus straightened, authority radiating from every line of his body. "We don't engage. Not directly. Let the other students wear him down. Let the Special Ranks find him. We observe, we learn, we wait for the perfect moment."
"Assuming there is one," Elarion added quietly.
The silence that followed was heavy with unspoken fears. Each of them had thought themselves among the world's elite. Null had just demonstrated how vast the gulf between elite and transcendent truly was.
Selene, who had been silent throughout the discussion, finally spoke. Her voice was soft as death's whisper. "Where is Khaos?"
The volcanic plain stretched endlessly under a smoke-choked sky. Black obsidian crunched under Khaos's boots as she walked, each step deliberate, measured. The air tasted of sulfur and promised violence.
She'd tracked the Pyroclastic Tyrant for three hours. Not because she needed to—its ether signature blazed like a beacon—but because she enjoyed the hunt. The anticipation. The slow build to inevitable destruction.
The creature erupted from the molten rock ahead, forty feet of crystallized magma and rage. Its body was composed of volcanic glass, imbued with murderous intent; every movement sent showers of superheated stone cascading around it. The temperature spiked thirty degrees instantly.
A beautiful canvas for destruction, Khaos thought, a small smile playing at her lips.
The Tyrant's roar shattered obsidian for a mile in every direction. It raised one massive arm, channeling enough thermal energy to vaporize a city block.
Khaos raised one finger.
The gathered power ceased. Not dispersed, not redirected—negated at the conceptual level. The Tyrant's arm dimmed from white-hot to dull red, confusion flickering in its molten eyes.
"Disappointing," she murmured.
The creature attacked physically, moving with speed that belied its size. The ground exploded under its charge, molten rock spraying like arterial blood.
Khaos took a single step forward.
The space her foot touched didn't crack—it ceased. A perfect sphere of absolute destruction expanded from the contact point, racing up through the obsidian, through the air, through the Tyrant's approaching form. Everything the sphere touched was reduced to component particles, then to even smaller particles.
The Tyrant's leg disappeared. It stumbled, caught itself, tried to regenerate.
She wouldn't let it.
Her hand rose, dark energy coalescing into a spear of pure endings. Not death—death implied something remained. This was cessation itself given form.
The spear moved at the speed of thought. It passed through the Tyrant's chest, and for a moment, nothing happened.
Then the creature began to unravel. Not violently, but quietly, like a bad dream fading at dawn. Its crystalline structure lost cohesion. Its fire dimmed to nothing. Within seconds, only volcanic glass dust remained, settling gently on the obsidian plain.
Khaos walked through the dust cloud without slowing. The Tyrant had lasted seventeen seconds—a decent warm-up, nothing more.
She could feel other presences in the distance. Students fleeing the remaining Special Rank. The Void Stalker was still active, still hunting. She could find it, destroy it, and claim another easy victory.
But that would be boring.
No, she had a better target in mind. One that would actually make her pulse quicken. One that would look at her with those cosmic eyes and understand exactly what she represented.
The final day couldn't come fast enough.
Three miles from the volcanic plain, in a grove of trees that had somehow survived the dimensional chaos, Null had found the perfect spot.
The grass was soft. The shade was pleasant. A gentle breeze carried away the stench of sulfur from distant battles. He could feel the various ether signatures clashing across the dimension—desperate students, rampaging monsters, careful predators stalking their prey.
All of it might as well have been background noise.
He'd piled twenty unconscious students in neat rows earlier, made sure they were breathing, then left them for someone else to deal with. Three more groups had tried to ambush him since then. They were sleeping now, too, arranged in an aesthetic pattern he'd found amusing.
The smart ones had learned to avoid the area entirely. His ether signature was like a black hole—impossible to miss, impossible to approach safely. A few scouts watched from what they thought was a safe distance. He let them. Their fear was more interesting than their attacks.
Null stretched out on the grass, hands behind his head. Above, the violet sky swirled with dimensional instability. Beautiful, in its own way.
Somewhere out there, the Nexus Heirs were plotting. Khaos was hunting. Students were dying, triumphing, or discovering exactly how far they'd go to survive.
None of it concerned him.
He'd made his point. Established his position at the apex of this little food chain. Now he could relax and wait for something interesting to happen. The final day would bring Khaos. Maybe before then, someone would surprise him.
Probably not.
A small smile played at his lips as he closed his eyes. The peaceful eye of the storm he'd created. Untouchable. Unbothered. Completely, perfectly content.
Within minutes, the dragon prince was asleep.
Around him, chaos reigned. Students fled from monsters and each other. The Special Ranks carved paths of destruction. The Nexus Heirs schemed and worried.
And at the center of it all, Null slept peacefully, dreaming of nothing at all.