Light exploded across the cavern.
Not normal light.
Oblivion-light.
The kind that bent shadows into spirals, twisted sound into silence, and made even divine beings flinch in instinctual terror.
"Lumeria threw up a dozen layers of celestial shields.
They shattered instantly."
Flare regained consciousness long enough to scream:
"Not again-why do we always end chapters with explosions and start them with more explosions?"
But Hayate…
Hayate "walked directly through the eruption."
Calm.
Steady.
Unmoving inside the storm meant to erase him.
The Hollow Star thrashed behind him, claws of empty gravity tearing through the cavern, ripping apart space in jagged arcs.
—"STOP!! YOU CANNOT BE ALLOWED—YOU MUST NOT—!!"—
Its panic broke through the void-tone of its voice.
Its composure fractured.
It sounded afraid.
Genuinely.
Lumeria stared in disbelief.
"…It's terrified. A calamity-class void entity is TERRIFIED of him."
Flare clutched her exploding-flame hair.
"Well, I'm terrified of him too, who walked through that beam like it was morning fog, who does that?"
Hayate ignored both of them.
He had no room for distraction.
His world had narrowed to a single point:
The Heart of Oblivion.
The black, cracked, pulsing core floating above the ritual circle.
The thing that once held his Throne, his existence, his power, his death.
And now—
His return.
The Heart pulsed again—
THRUMMMMM—
—and the gravitational shockwave blasted outward.
Crystals shattered.
Platforms crumbled.
Chunks of the cavern detached and floated like shattered moons in the air.
Lumeria shouted over the deafening hum:
"Hayate! Wait, if you and the core resonate too strongly, your sealed Sovereign identity might overwhelm your human consciousness!"
Flare shouted very loudly.
"In summary: don't touch the gigantic black heart of universe-death!"
Hayate "placed his hand on it."
The cavern froze.
Every sound died.
Every movement halted.
Even the Hollow Star stopped mid-lunge, tendrils suspended in the air like dying shadows.
A single heartbeat echoed.
Then—
The world ruptured.
---
THE PAST BREAKS OPEN
Dark stars spiraled across Hayate's vision, pulling him backward—
No.
Downward—
No.
Inward, deep into the seat of his own soul.
A memory surged.
His throne room.
His empire of devouring constellations.
A universe kneeling at his feet.
And standing before him—
A silhouette of cosmic flame and hollow darkness.
The Hollow Star.
Not as an enemy.
But as a creation.
A weapon he himself had forged.
Hayate's breath vanished.
The memory blurred—voices echoing from ages before:
—"It is unstable."—
—"A being born to consume even its master."—
—"Destroy it now—before it grows."—
But he—
The former Sovereign—
refused.
And the Hollow Star became the first thing in existence to kill him.
The memory dissolved into dust, and Hayate felt his current self snap back into his body—
Eyes wide, breath unsteady.
Lumeria gasped.
Flare whispered:
"…He saw something."
Hayate's lips tightened.
"It's worse than I thought."
---
THE HOLLOW STAR LOSES CONTROL
The monster recovered first.
All eight of its colossal heads snapped toward Hayate, hollow flames bursting from its broken mouths.
—"YOU REMEMBER."—
—"YOU KNOW WHAT YOU CREATED."—
—"THEN YOU KNOW WHY YOU MUST DIE."—
The Hollow Star expanded—
No, not expanded.
It deteriorated into a storm of gravitational ruin, its form glitching, swelling, fracturing in catastrophic pulses.
Lumeria's face went white.
"It… It's destabilizing! Without the seal, it will implode the entire dungeon floor!"
Flare shrieked,
"Why does every today like Self-Destructing? Is this a Culture?"
Hayate didn't move.
The Heart under his palm pulsed again.
—DOOM.—
A wave of resonance tore through the cavern.
The Hollow Star shrieked.
—"STOP HIM! STOP HIM BEFORE—"—
It lunged, all eight heads converging into a single spike of annihilation.
But the Heart responded first.
A beam of devouring light erupted from beneath Hayate's hand—
SHAAAAA—!!!
And pierced the Hollow Star straight through its center mass.
The monster convulsed.
Tore open.
Collapsed back into seven incomplete forms.
Lumeria "stumbled, stunned."
"He didn't attack. That was the CORE attacking for him."
Flare froze.
"So he's not stealing the core."
She gulped.
"HE'S REBOOTING IT."
---
THE FIRST PULSE OF THE SOVEREIGN
The Heart of Oblivion rose higher.
Black lightning spidered across its cracks.
Streams of dark cosmic dust formed rings around it.
The ritual circle burned brighter, absorbing energy from the cavern.
And then—
It projected a System window into the air.
A massive one.
Glowing black and silver.
[SOVEREIGN REINTEGRATION PROTOCOL INITIATED]
Current Synchronization: 18% → 21% → 27%
Warning: Host consciousness may destabilize.
Warning: Hollow Star resisting reintegration.
Proceed?
[YES] / [NO]
Hayate didn't hesitate.
He answered:
"Proceed."
The System chimed.
[Reintegration accelerating…]
27% → 33% → 40%
Sovereign Neural Pathways Reconnected.
Memory Access Expanding.
Hayate's aura erupted.
Dark galaxies spiraled around him.
Devouring constellations bled from his skin.
Black starlight rained upward, crawling into the core.
Lumeria whispered, trembling:
"He's… awakening. Piece by piece… the Sovereign is waking up inside him."
Flare hid behind her,
"He's glowing with the 'I do not pay taxes' energy!! We're dead!"
The Hollow Star reformed with renewed fury.
Its heads screamed in unison:
—"IF YOU RECLAIM THAT CORE—YOU WILL RETURN."—
—"IF YOU RETURN—YOU WILL KILL US ALL."—
—"SO WE WILL STRIKE FIRST!"—
Eight beams of annihilation converged.
They bent the cavern.
Bent light.
Bent time.
Hayate lifted his hand.
His voice was quiet.
Unshaken.
"Devouring Star Art—"
The Heart pulsed in unity with him.
THRUMMM—
"—First Form: Star-Eater's Eclipse."
The beam that erupted from Hayate's hand devoured the Hollow Star's combined attack—
And everything went black.
---
THE BLACKOUT AND THE AWAKENING
Lumeria screamed.
Flare screamed.
The cavern screamed.
Even the dungeon roared in structural agony.
For five full seconds—
There was nothing.
No sound.
No light.
No gravity.
Just the echo of a Sovereign's power returning.
Then—
The world snapped back into existence.
Dust settled.
Floating platforms stabilized.
Broken space rewove itself.
And in the center of the cavern…
The Hollow Star lay half-collapsed, bleeding hollow light, body shrinking as its power was ripped back into the core.
Hayate stood above it.
His aura was calm again.
But behind him—
A partial crown of devouring starlight floated, flickering like a forgotten constellation.
Lumeria's voice trembled.
"Hayate… your aura—"
Flare fainted in midair and somehow still managed to land on Hayate's shoulder perfectly.
The System chimed again:
[SOVEREIGN REINTEGRATION: 49%]
Core Reactivation: Stable.
Hollow Star Suppression: 12%
Warning: Full confrontation unavoidable.
Hayate exhaled once.
Slow.
Controlled.
But his eyes gleamed with something new.
Something ancient.
Something the Hollow Star recognized instantly.
—"…Sovereign…"—
—"…you awaken…"—
And Hayate finally spoke—
Cold.
Sharp.
Resolute.
"Round two."