Without changing his tone, Rian said, "Alice, proceed as planned."
"Understood," Alice replied through the calm voice coming from the interface lens on his face. "And… have fun, Daddy."
Rian let out a small chuckle.
A laugh so faint it was almost inaudible—yet more than enough to trigger a reaction from his troops.
In perfect unison, the fully armed SRT unit began to move. Alert, but not firing.
From the dim end of the corridor, zombies began to crawl into view one by one, shuffling toward the main lobby. Strangely, the soldiers didn't raise their weapons. And even stranger, the zombies didn't attack either.
As if an unspoken pact existed between the two sides. Slowly but surely, the lobby filled with the undead, standing side by side with armed humans.
At last, the zombies began to attack.
But from the perspective of the Six Eyes, their movements were slow—painfully slow.
As if time itself had grown heavy.
A thin smile appeared on Rian's lips. He raised his right hand, and the interface lens on his face vanished, stored back into his Void Ring.
He pulled his middle finger back, hooking it against his index finger. In the span of a fraction of a second, a complex process began—not only within his mind, but through the flow of Ki surging through his body.
Rian shaped a conceptual framework, a mental blueprint of a new reality—complete with unwritten laws and the causal effects that would unfold within it.
"Domain Expansion: Infinity Void," he said calmly.
{Ryoiki Tenkai: Muryō Koshō}
Instantly, a massive surge of energy erupted outward, spreading in all directions and warping reality within a fifty-meter radius.
The space around Rian cracked like glass falling from great height. But instead of shattering, the fractures gaped open, revealing an abstract darkness hiding beneath the physical world.
From between those cracks, something that should not exist peered back—fragments of the infinite, forcing their way into reality in an unfinished, imperfect form.
Behind Rian's head, a massive circle appeared—dimly glowing, resembling a mandala yet shaped like the gravitational halo of a black hole, slowly pulling in air, light, and reason itself.
The circle vibrated, shifting with the rhythm of a cosmic heartbeat.
Its patterns resembled fractals—symmetrical yet irregular—almost divine in structure, yet governed by a geometry that rejected understanding.
This was the manifestation of a flawed Infinite Void. An incomplete vision of absolute nothingness, leaking into the world and dragging every living creature nearby to the brink of madness.
The moment Infinity Void emerged, every creature around Rian—zombies included—instantly froze.
Billions of pieces of information were force-fed into their rotting minds and souls, forcing what little remained of their broken consciousness to endure the weight of raw, unfiltered reality.
Even the SRT unit was affected.
Though they were only struck by the diluted, imperfect version of Infinity Void, the mental assault they suffered was still overwhelming.
However, thanks to the Mind Stone still regulating the cognitive structure of their brains, they survived—breathing heavily, pupils dilated.
And even if they hadn't survived, Rian knew… Alice could simply rewind their condition to the state before the effect hit them.
"Hm… so this is what happens when Infinity Void is still incomplete?" Rian muttered quietly, his right hand moving up to rub his chin. "It's getting more dangerous by the minute…"
He frowned, eyes fixed on the cracks in reality writhing like veins of light in the air.
"Not to mention… the energy consumption is absolutely ridiculous," he added with a tired sigh.
For the first time in a long while, his head felt unbearably heavy, as if entire dimensions were spinning inside his skull. His right hand lifted again, this time pinching the bridge of his nose.
"Ugh… this is seriously giving me a migraine. No joke," Rian complained, his voice low but irritated.
Five seconds later, the imperfect Infinity Void vanished—dissolving into fine particles of bright blue light, drifting away like fireflies scattered by an evening breeze.
The zombies, however, remained completely still. Not just frozen… but truly dead in the silence.
Even though they had already been corpses, the effect of Infinity Void acted like an invisible blade—killing their existence again.
Five seconds of exposure was more than enough. In that brief span, they had been forced to process the equivalent of twelve subjective years' worth of information.
Rian exhaled slowly, trying to steady the chaotic thrum inside his mind. He retrieved his interface-lens and slipped it back onto his face with deliberate calm.
Suddenly, a blue portal burst open beside him, swirling with clouds and cosmic lightning. From within, Alice floated out gracefully.
"Father, you should rest for a moment," she said softly. "Alice detects your neuronal activity is nearing its limit. Your brain is close to burning itself out."
She paused, her tone turning teasingly gentle.
"Ah, and you may collapse if you wish. Don't worry—Alice will catch you."
Rian turned his head toward her, meeting her gaze for a brief, silent moment—then nodded faintly. Without saying a word, he let himself fall backward.
But instead of crashing onto the floor, his body remained suspended midair, held gently by the Space Stone's invisible force as Alice activated it with delicate precision.
With effortless grace, Alice floated closer and landed lightly on Rian's forehead, sitting there like a tiny guardian spirit.
A soft glow began to envelop them—yellow from the Mind Stone, green from the Time Stone, and blue from the Space Stone.
The cosmic energies flickered like calm, miniature flames as they flowed into Rian's mind, soothing, repairing, and stabilizing every neural thread with uncanny accuracy.
Right now, Alice was carefully accelerating his neurological recovery. The first activation of Infinity Void had been far from perfect, and the backlash had come dangerously close to scorching his brain.
But with the combined power of the Mind, Time, and Space Stones, the damage was restored in fractions of a second.
Though not completely stable yet, Rian's condition had improved dramatically.
A faint smile curved on Rian's lips. He opened his eyes slightly and murmured, "Alice… you've gotten quite bold, huh? Sitting your butt on my head like that. It's warm, sure… but still not very proper."
Psssst~!!
The transparent blue Tesseract cube suddenly flushed red and drifted away awkwardly. "B-butt?! T-that's what's improper! Father… you shameless narcissist!"
Rian chuckled softly. "Sorry, this handsome man is weak whenever he sees a chance to tease a cute girl."
"You're awful," Alice huffed, though her voice carried clear embarrassment. Slowly, her body's hue shifted back to its usual transparent blue.
Still floating, Rian used a combination of Infinity and Blue energy to stabilize himself before landing smoothly on his feet.
He then began walking toward the torn aircraft wing, its metal shards still glowing with residual heat.
At the same time, Alice—still hovering in the air—took full control of the minds of every SRT member present.
Calmly, Alice guided them to fire at the zombies—corpses already rendered lifeless by the earlier burst of Infinity Void—as if merely confirming the kills.
In truth, it was nothing but a cover.
Zombies dying from gunfire was far more believable than suddenly collapsing because the virus inside them had been annihilated.
The rattle of gunfire echoed through the haze of battle, but Rian remained unbothered.
His steps were light, almost lazy. When he reached the edge of the wreckage, he sat atop it, crossing one leg over the other with casual elegance.
"Status," Rian said simply.
Ding!
____________________
Name: Rian Andromeda
Race: Manusia
Title: Beloved by Infinity
Job: Descendants of Destruction
Level: Ascension 1
EXP: 920/100.000
Level Authority: 5
***
STR : 43 (+22) {+6}
VIT : 42 (+22) {+6}
AGI : 44 (+22) {+6}
INT : 95 (+42) {+6} [+17]
____________________
"Nine hundred and twenty exp?" Rian muttered, half-shocked, half-defeated. "Ugh… you've got to be kidding me!?"
He let out a long, exhausted sigh. "So zombies really are too easy, huh? Makes sense… Hhh… damn it. Guess I really do need to find stronger opponents."
Not far from where he sat, Alice chimed in cheerfully, "Don't worry, Daddy~ If you need strong opponents… Alice already prepared some!"
Her voice practically smiled. "Guaranteed to satisfy Ayah."
Rian rolled his eyes lazily and closed his status window. He shut his eyes for a moment before reopening them with a resigned exhale.
"Yeah… thanks, Alice."
Right then, the SRT unit finished unloading bullets into every corpse. Now, under Alice's mental control, they stood neatly in formation at the corner of the hall—like perfectly obedient private soldiers awaiting orders.
Alice floated closer, slowly, then settled herself playfully on Rian's lap.
Rian gave a faint smile, resting his hand on her surface—cold, smooth, a perfect 10-centimeter cube of pure Uru: Alice's true body.
At his touch, Alice's dual-layered transparent-blue tesseract form pulsed softly, glowing with the warm yellow hue of the Mind Stone—an unspoken emotional response, blooming like a quiet heartbeat of cosmic light.