Magnus and the Nullfang held their ground at first, each subtle movement a calculated test of the other. But someone had to break the stalemate, and it was the Nullfang that struck first. In an instant, as if a switch had been flipped, its textured scales dissolved into a formless haze of static. Then, just as abruptly, it vanished, sinking into the ground like a stone dropping into water.
Magnus reacted instinctively. Without hesitation, he activated the Command Console, initiating two visualizations that quickly took form in the real world. The first was a dense mana construct encasing his right arm. For a brief moment, it appeared as though his entire arm was clad in a massive suit of armor, gauntlets, and all. The second visualization created a solid cube of rock, five meters on every side, materializing in front of Asher.
Asher shut his eyes, bracing himself, and swung his right arm like a sledgehammer. The impact was immediate and devastating—not just a shattering blow but an overwhelming force that pulverized the cube into dust and fragments. The sound of stone grinding and exploding echoed through the chamber as a thick cloud of debris enveloped the area, obscuring Magnus and much of the terrain around him.
The bank of the magma lake where he stood disappeared into the swirling haze.
The dust didn’t bother Magnus. He didn’t need to breathe, and his near-photographic memory, combined with a precise mental map of the environment, allowed him to navigate effortlessly, even with his eyes shut. Using the cover to his advantage, he bolted towards the magma lake and leaped with enough force to clear the dust cloud entirely. As he soared, the oppressive heat from the molten sea below radiated upward, prompting him to intensify his efforts to cool the air around him.
Behind him, a piercing screech rang out as the Nullfang erupted from the ground where Magnus had been moments before. Its scales regained their texture, its gaping jaws snapping at empty air and dust, having lost its target.
Magnus, now over the magma, conjured a platform of ice beneath him. The mana construct solidified into a thick slab that hissed and steamed as it hit the molten surface, giving him a precarious foothold. Standing at the lake’s center, his gaze shifted upward, locking onto his target.
Basker, start-
Before Magnus could finish the thought, a sharp hiss echoed through the chamber. The Nullfang had detected the sound of melting ice. With a single powerful sweep of its tail, it cleared the dust cloud around it in one gust. Its gaze snapped to Magnus, and in an instant, its form dissolved into static once more. Propelled at incredible speed, it shot through the air and plunged into the magma, cutting through the molten sea like a predatory missile.
Damn it, this thing is fast! And it can shift states in an instant.
There was no time to dodge, but Magnus didn’t seem inclined to try. Instead, he braced himself, planting his feet firmly as the Nullfang closed in, now only twenty meters from the ice platform. Its head and upper body surged out of the magma, moving seamlessly without disturbing the molten surface. As that part of its body regained its normal form, its gaping maw came into view—rows of curved fangs exposed as it lunged at him. The sheer size of its mouth made it look like it could swallow Magnus and the entire platform whole, or at least obliterate it on impact.
In response, mana surged around both of Magnus’s arms, forming a massive suit of ethereal armor. The constructs extended his reach just as the Nullfang struck. Magnus caught its upper and lower jaws, holding them apart even as the creature’s lower body remained submerged, still moving fluidly through the magma like it was swimming through an entirely different dimension.
The effect was like attaching a high-powered motor to a small boat.
The ice platform tilted, pushed by the Nullfang’s immense momentum, carving a path through the magma as it surged forward. Yet, despite the Nullfang’s relentless force, its jaws remained pried open, unable to close no matter how much pressure it applied. It was as though unbreakable chains bound its maw in place.
The clash came to a halt as the platform slammed into the opposite bank of the magma lake. Ice shards shot outward like shrapnel, scattering across the rocky terrain. Magnus steadied himself, activating [Self Body Puppetry] to keep his legs from buckling under the jarring impact.
“Damn, you’re heavy!” Magnus growled through gritted teeth. His mana-enhanced grip tightened around the Nullfang’s jaws, cracking and splintering the scales in those areas. Pieces of its armor-like exterior broke away, clattering to the ground. Without pausing, Magnus initiated a series of precise visualizations, stringing them together into a seamless motion. Ignoring the Nullfang’s immense size and weight, he began to twist his body, dragging the creature’s massive form with him.
The Nullfang let out a partial hiss, its elongated body trailing behind like the tail of a cyclone. Magnus’s motion started slow, but as his speed increased, the creature’s figure blurred into a spiraling mass of scales and static. Finally, with a burst of strength, he hurled it across the chamber.
The Nullfang’s body whipped through the air, colliding with stalagmites formed from cooled magma. Each impact sent explosions of rock and debris flying, leaving shattered remnants in its wake. It barreled toward the chamber wall, seemingly helpless. But just before it hit, its body shifted. In an instant, the collision—along with its interaction with the physical environment—was nullified. The Nullfang vanished into the wall as though it had been tossed into another dimension, disappearing with the eerie smoothness of a pebble sinking into water.
Magnus flinched, his stomach churning at the unnatural sight. The creature’s distorting texture assaulted his senses, leaving an uncomfortable ache in the back of his mind.
“Damn it,” he muttered under his breath, urgency creeping into his voice.
I can’t waste time fighting this thing. If I don’t collapse the magma chamber soon, Mia and the others will think the plan’s failed—or worse, that something’s gone wrong. But I won’t get a chance to do that if it keeps interrupting me. I need to distract it for at least a-
Magnus’s thoughts were ripped away as the Nullfang’s presence surged, its eerie melody reaching a crescendo that signaled an attack, one he reacted to late to. By the time he registered the sound, a massive boulder was already hurtling toward him, propelled at high speed and skimming across the ground like a missile. There was no time to gather mana for a proper shield or to dodge; its speed made either impossible.
But Magnus’s mind was faster than any reflex. Instinctively, he tapped into the Command Console. With [Self Body Puppetry], he could force his body to move as quickly as he imagined. So, in the split second before impact, he raised his arms to shield his face and chest.
The collision was brutal. The ten-ton boulder slammed into him with devastating force, shattering the reinforced skeleton in his arms. The impact rippled through his body, fracturing his collarbone, ribs, shoulder blade, pelvis, and even his femur. Yet, his resilience showed its worth. Despite the immense damage, Magnus’s body endured just enough to push back against the boulder.
In the same instant that his bones cracked under the pressure, the boulder itself broke. It shattered as if it had slammed into a wall, fragments scattering around Magnus as his body was flung to the ground. His skull struck the floor with a sickening thud, the force leaving him momentarily stunned.
Pain surged through him, sharp and unrelenting, as his mind struggled to sync with his broken body. Jagged fractures of bone and rock pierced inward, slicing into muscle and tissue and causing internal bleeding. Each breath sent waves of searing agony coursing through him. His senses were overwhelmed, his vision reduced to a blur, and his muscles spasmed uncontrollably, failing to process what had just happened.
But in the midst of the chaos, Basker took over.
[Perfective Regeneration] activated instantly, knitting Magnus’s broken body back together. The bleeding stopped within moments as fragments of shattered rock were expelled from his flesh, wriggling free like splinters. Slowly but steadily, the pain ebbed away. Magnus coughed violently, blood splattering onto the ground, sizzling as it met the superheated floor of the magma chamber. He rolled onto his hands and knees, breathing heavily. By the time he steadied himself, his body had been fully restored—bones realigned and reinforced even further down to the microscopic level.
Fuck me, that hurt... How the hell did it even throw that boulder without me noticing?
The answer came almost immediately. The eerie melody of the Nullfang reached another peak—a clear warning of another attack. Magnus didn’t waste time analyzing it. Still, on his hands and knees, he pushed off the ground with enough force to propel himself high into the air, nearly reaching the roof of the chamber. A fraction of a second later, he spotted it: the Nullfang’s tail shooting out of the ground where he’d just been.
Its tail was like a blade, sharp enough to slice through anything in its path. If he’d hesitated, it wouldn’t have just impaled him; it would’ve cut him clean in half.
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Oh, I get it now. It’s staying hidden in the world, only exposing parts of its body to attack. I guess it realized charging at me head-on won’t work.
The realization made him click his tongue in frustration. The boulder attack had likely been the result of the Nullfang using its tail to launch the rock while keeping the rest of its body safely underground, locked in its null state. That meant it was adapting—learning from the fight and improving. Each move made it harder to predict, let alone trap. The longer this dragged on, the more difficult it would be to outmaneuver and trick with their plan.
Think, think…
Magnus steadied himself in midair, using the Command Console to stand in the air. His sharp eyes scanned the chamber below, tracking the Nullfang’s tail as it retreated back into the ground.
I can’t pin it down. I can’t trap it. And if I try to stun it with electricity, it might just learn to nullify electricity-based attacks—or stunning altogether. Damn it... I need a way to stop it, even briefly, without making things worse later.
Basker’s voice interrupted his thoughts.
[Master, we do still have that item from the merchant.]
The mention made Magnus frown. His mind flashed back to the item in question.
Do you think that’s a good idea? We’re trying to avoid giving it any more states to nullify.
[Considering it thrives in this environment, it’s unlikely to experience any states it hasn’t already encountered.]
Fair enough. But I can’t just throw it at this thing. It’s too fast—it’d avoid it easily. If I want this to work, I’ll need it to get close and make sure it hits in a way that immobilizes it.
Still hovering, Magnus kept his senses sharp, scanning for any sign of the Nullfang. His mind raced for a strategy, and then it hit him—an idea sparked by a memory.
Marcos... He pierced one of its eyes. It only has one left. That could work.
Magnus’s ears twitched as his gaze shifted from the magma chamber floor to the ceiling. In an instant, the Nullfang appeared, plummeting from above with its jaws wide open, aiming to bite his head clean off. For a fleeting moment, Magnus seemed to consider counterattacking. Instead, a grin spread across his face as he canceled the visualization keeping him airborne and allowed himself to freefall.
Behind him, the Nullfang descended like a missile, cutting through the air in its static-laden state. Magnus noted it didn’t seem like the type of nullification that allowed it to pass through solid objects completely. If that were the case, it wouldn’t have been able to devour him physically. Even so, the creature’s speed was alarming. Despite Magnus having the lead, the Nullfang was closing the gap rapidly.
A state that negates air resistance? Or something more complex? Whatever it is, I’m close enough to the ground now.
Magnus turned his focus downward, watching the floor rush toward him. As he crossed the five-meter mark, he kicked off the air, abruptly shifting his trajectory. Instead of falling straight down, he launched himself toward the nearest wall of the chamber. The force sent him soaring, and as he glanced back mid-flight, he saw the Nullfang’s single remaining eye tracking him with intense focus. A moment later, the creature plunged into the ground, its form dissolving into the null state that let it slip through the world effortlessly.
As it disappeared, Magnus twisted midair, orienting his feet toward the ground. His momentum carried him into a sliding stop just a meter from the wall he’d been aiming for.
Alright, you no clipping bastard. My back to the wall—that’s how you like your prey, right?
Every sense Magnus had was on high alert, tuned to catch even the faintest sign of an attack. Simultaneously, he prepared multiple visualizations, ready to dodge in any direction depending on where the Nullfang emerged.
He didn’t have to wait long—seconds at most. From the corner of his vision, he spotted it. The Nullfang’s fangs and jaws protruded silently from the wall behind him, snapping shut even before its head fully emerged.
Without hesitation, Magnus executed a forward-dodge visualization, kicking off the wall with enough force to shatter it. The broken stone trembled and collapsed, though it had no effect on the Nullfang, most of which was still in its untouchable state.
As Magnus landed, he pulled out the strange, cartoonishly simple bomb Howard had given him back in Larter Village from his storage ring. With a quick spark of fire elementrix, the fuse ignited. He hurled it at the Nullfang just as its head began to emerge from the rocks. The creature’s jaws snapped shut on nothing, and its singular eye locked onto the small black object flying toward it. Seeming to realize something was amiss, it shifted back into its null state, attempting to sink into the ground once more.
Shit! If it does that, will the bomb even work on it?
Magnus turned his face away, wincing at the sharp, disorienting pain that looking at the Nullfang in its null state caused. That reaction saved him from what came next.
The bomb’s metal shell began to bulge, straining as it tore itself apart from within. The Nullfang, its head still above ground and eye fixed on the device, seemed caught off guard. Then it happened—the bomb didn’t detonate in the traditional sense. Instead, the moment the shell split open, an intense burst of light and sound erupted.
The sound was high-pitched, reaching a frequency beyond human perception, but the light was inescapable. It was pure white, so blinding that it seemed to drown out every other color in the chamber. Magnus, already turned away, escaped the brunt of it.
The Nullfang wasn’t so lucky.
The creature let out a deafening screech, its body thrashing violently as it was assaulted by the light and sound. Its null state remained, however, and it fell through the ground in a desperate retreat, trying to escape the relentless onslaught battering its senses.
"That thing wasn’t a bomb? It was a damn flash grenade," Magnus muttered, squinting against the lingering brightness. Even from far outside the epicenter, the light was searing, reducing the entire section of the magma chamber into stark contrasts of white and elongated shadows.
[Master, this is your chance.]
Basker’s reminder snapped him into action. Magnus nodded—whether it was a bomb or not didn’t matter anymore. It had done its job, buying them the time they needed. There was no room for hesitation. Relying on his partial vision and his mental map of the chamber, Magnus leaped toward the magma lake’s center, summoning another ice platform beneath him. It solidified just as his feet touched down.
Do it now.
[Right away.]
Magnus felt the Command Console activate, its immense computational power forming a visualization in his mind. It was a construct so intricate that, under normal circumstances, it would have taken him and Basker weeks—maybe months—to refine. But the Command Console bypassed all of that, completing the visualization in mere seconds. The moment it was executed, the world around Magnus began to twist and contort.
The ice platform beneath him warped and stretched, folding in on itself until it surrounded him like a twisted wall. His legs, impossibly, seemed to shift to his side. The magma lake, once flat and unbroken, bulged and rippled unnaturally from his perspective. Reality itself appeared to have lost all logic and cohesion.
Space itself was being warped.
[The focal point space has been successfully created, Master.]
Perfect. Now I just need to feel this out.
Navigating warped space visually was futile, so Magnus shut out his vision entirely, relying instead on the sensations coursing through his body. He clenched his fist, focusing entirely on the distorted flow of space, and oriented himself toward what his instincts told him was up.
Then, with absolute precision and force, he threw a punch—a strike so devastating it could vaporize his body if no protective measures were in place.
[Velocity Breaker]
The sound of Magnus’s fist breaking the sound barrier hadn’t even reached his ears before the strike accelerated exponentially. The superheated air of the magma chamber twisted, ionizing in an imperceptible instant. Within the warped space, his arm seemed to vanish amidst a maelstrom of electricity and plasma. From an outsider's perspective, it appeared as though a blue sun had ignited at the magma lake’s center, its radiance eclipsing even the lingering luminance of the flash grenade.
The last time Magnus used this technique, it had permanently reshaped the terrain. It was a strike that carried enough power to obliterate the magma chamber entirely—but aimless destruction wasn’t his goal.
That became evident as the strike neared its peak. His fist transformed, becoming a white-hot spear of plasma, so charged with energy that perceiving sound or light became impossible. The energy unleashed from his attack ricocheted within the warped space, twisting and turning until it finally funneled into a single direction.
Up.
Magnus and Basker had bent space so precisely that it functioned like a teapot, with all the energy—the boiling steam—forced through a single, near-pinpoint exit. The result was a concentrated laser of kinetic, thermal, and electromagnetic energy.
The moment it touched the roof of the magma chamber—an impossible structure that seemed both molten and solid—it vaporized instantly.
What followed was a cascade of catastrophic explosions. Anything touched by the beam of energy was consumed, triggering chain reactions so powerful they seemed to shake the very world. Waves of light and heat swept through the magma chamber, vaporizing molten rock into gas before breaking it down further into plasma.
It was as though a singularity had been unleashed underground, pulling everything into its core, breaking it apart, and expelling it in explosive waves that fed the relentless destruction.
Above ground, Mia could be seen crouched low in a grassy meadow, her expression suddenly shifting from calm observation to confusion as her senses picked up on something before it could be felt properly. Her frown deepened just moments later as the violent shaking began, spreading across the valley like a ripple in a pond.
"Is this wha-" She started, but her words were cut off as her eyes widened in shock.
A beam of light erupted from the ground, piercing the sky with unimaginable brightness. It rivaled the sun, its brilliance blinding and unstoppable. The column of energy carried with it an intense heat, immediately followed by a superheated shockwave that swept outward. Everything within its path was set ablaze, vegetation reduced to ash, and the air itself seemed to shimmer with heat distortion.
Even at her distance, Mia felt the force of the shockwave. Though her aura shielded her from the worst of it, she stumbled slightly as the heat dried the surrounding area in an instant, igniting anything flammable, including all the grass around her. Without hesitation, she stood up and began running, her instincts screaming at her to put distance between herself and the epicenter, which was turning everything into a sea of flames.
But as she moved, the ground beneath her shifted unnaturally, rippling like a liquid instead of remaining solid. Moments later, it began to collapse. The earth caved inward as if being funneled into an immense drain. Hard rock fractured and fragmented, forming an intricate web of ravines across an area over a kilometer in diameter. It was as though the entire section of the valley she was monitoring was being sucked into a void deep beneath the surface.
Eruptions tore through the collapsing terrain, spewing flames, ash, and debris high into the sky, mixing with the white-hot beam still tearing through the heavens.
The scene resembled an apocalyptic volcanic eruption. Mia came to a halt, her eyes wide with disbelief. Her mouth opened and closed, words failing her at first.
Finally, she muttered under her breath, "Magnus… You said to watch for a tremor... what in the world is this?"