What was it like transitioning through reality?

It was a process Basker, who in Physical Reality had an incorporeal, shadow-like form, experienced firsthand: the act of entering and leaving a mind. The sensation began as if being squeezed from all sides into something impossibly small, like slipping through an infinitesimal hole. And yet, as one traveled through, it somehow felt like it got even tighter.

It wasn’t painful—not that a creature like Basker could truly experience pain. But in those fleeting moments of transition, where its thoughts were unbound, it wondered: What was this place? What was it traveling through to reach the other side—a place in opposition to Physical Reality, like the other side of a flipped page?

It wasn’t until Eveline’s lesson on the structure of the world that Basker finally understood.

It was the soul.

The bridge between mind and body, built upon the Spiritual Realm. This explained everything—how Basker could slip into the minds of living creatures that possessed one. By entering the soul, it became like a creature of living information, merging with the endless stream of exchanges between the mind and body. It meant that few could resist Basker from entering their minds, even if they could resist its attempts to manipulate them. After all, the soul was a mystery to most and barely understood even by those who studied it.

In the seemingly instantaneous yet strangely drawn-out time it took to traverse the flow of information within the Nullfang’s aspects, Basker arrived at its destination: the mind of the monster.

A mind is hard to describe. It has no shape, no defined boundaries—it simply exists. It’s not something you can measure or map. Perhaps the best way to imagine it is as an isolated world, one governed by its own laws. Some of these laws are intrinsic, tied to the nature of the mind itself, while others reflect the individuality of the creature it belongs to. Just as imagination defines a dreamland, the experiences, emotions, and memories of a being shape the rules of its mind.

In a way, every mind has its own subjective laws of physics—not governing matter or energy, but thought processes, the formation of ideas, and reactions.

Intelligent minds are chaotic. Outside of what they are consciously focusing on, everything dissolves into a jumbled mess, hard to comprehend. But for creatures like animals, monsters, and mana beasts—beings like the Nullfang—that focused center doesn’t exist. If the mind is a world, then entering the Nullfang’s was like stepping into a swamp. A soup of fragmented thoughts, raw emotions, and, above all, instincts.

The instincts stood out, shining like beacons amidst the murky chaos. They were the foundation of its every action, whether monstrous or seemingly clever. And within that muddy plane of the Nullfang’s mind, there was something else—a patch of moss. Small, almost imperceptible, it writhed as it observed the world around it.

The chances Master will be injured rise the longer this takes…

It wasn’t a voice but a thought. A thought belonging to a mind within a mind.

Then, after a brief silence, the moss bloomed. Basker’s own instinct, dormant since its encounter with Magnus, flared to life.

The instinct to devour.

Like sunlight fueling its growth, the instinct caused the moss to expand rapidly, spreading across the Nullfang’s mind, consuming and assimilating it. The beast felt it immediately, the way parts of its own mind seemed to vanish, no longer accessible. But unlike an intelligent creature that could focus its thoughts and force Basker into the subconscious or out entirely, the Nullfang lacked such defenses. It was a beast, and all it could do was respond instinctively. The muddy expanse of its mind hardened under Basker’s influence, slowing the moss’s spread.

But it didn’t stop; the devouring continued, although slowed.

On the outside, back in Physical Reality, things weren’t nearly as simple. The initial plan—Gerald and Mia sticking close to the Nullfang to draw most, if not all, of its attention—had been working. By focusing on avoiding its attacks rather than striking back, they used their agility and heightened senses as knights to stay just ahead of its strikes. Staying so close but refusing to fight head-on also allowed them to keep the Nullfang contained in one general area, preventing the battlefield from expanding.

Meanwhile, Magnus, still being carried by Marcos, stood at the edge of the perimeter Gerald and Mia were holding. They kept their distance, roughly fifteen meters from the Nullfang. That seemed to be the farthest Basker could stretch between Magnus and the Nullfang, as the shadowy tether between them thinned noticeably at that range.

“Come on, hit me!” Gerald shouted, leaping upward from below the Nullfang’s head. Its nonexistent eyes seemed to lock onto the large man in midair before it whipped its body around, sending its skeletal tail hurtling toward him like a lash. The sound of the tail cutting through the air was sharp, and the end of it shimmered with the incomprehensible chill of absolute zero.

But before the attack could reach him, a chunk of earth suddenly shot upward from the ground nearby, flying toward Gerald at incredible speed. It reached him faster than even the Nullfang’s strike.

With a sharp bend of his knees, Gerald avoided the rock’s direct path and instead used it as a platform, springing off just as the Nullfang’s attack arrived. Its tail sliced clean through the rock, shattering it into countless fragments that disintegrated in the air.

“Nice one, Captain,” Gerald called out with a grin, the force of his jump carrying him safely back to the ground and just out of the Nullfang’s attack range.

Freed from its focus on Gerald, the Nullfang’s attention immediately snapped to Mia, the source of its missed strike. Without hesitation, its entire skeletal body shifted, bones grinding audibly as its jaw unhinged in a grotesque motion. With a sudden burst of speed, it charged toward her in a frenzied dash.

“Oh no, you don’t!” Gerald roared, launching himself forward like a rocket. His leap sent the ground beneath him cracking and spiraling dust into the air as he crossed the distance between himself and the beast. Reaching out mid-air, his hands clamped onto one of the Nullfang’s massive ribs.

The moment Gerald’s hands connected, his legs locked into place, embedding him into the earth as the Nullfang tried to continue its pursuit of Mia. But as the skeletal creature pushed forward, it suddenly found itself stopped, as if hitting an immovable wall. It turned its head to find Gerald, legs braced and buried in the crumbling ground beneath him, holding it back with sheer force.

So, what’s it going to be, you sack of bones? Charge me, or nullify your ability to interact with the physical world?

Gerald held firm, muscles straining as he waited for the Nullfang’s next move.

From behind the creature, Mia watched intently. Rather than keeping its attention on one target, the two knights seemed to be harassing it, creating false openings and interfering whenever the Nullfang tried to commit to an action. The moment it focused on one of them, the other disrupted its attack, forcing it to switch targets repeatedly.

If this had been an attempt to defeat the creature outright, such tactics wouldn’t have worked. But for their purpose—to distract it—it was more than enough to keep a simple-minded beast occupied.

Or at least, it should have been.

"Looks like Mia and Gerald are managing," Magnus muttered, his eyes fixed on the pair as they dealt with the Nullfang.

"It's going better than-" Marcos began, but he suddenly stopped mid-sentence. The Nullfang, which had seemingly made up its mind on how to deal with Gerald, froze, stopping in place. The abrupt change threw everyone off guard. Even without the warning of his sixth sense, Gerald instinctively released his grip on the Nullfang and quickly retreated, putting distance between himself and the creature with a series of cautious backsteps.

Mere moments after he did, the Nullfang’s broken jaw suddenly snapped wide open—far wider than should have been possible, even for something reduced to a skeletal form. A second later, its body began to convulse violently, thrashing around as though seized by an uncontrollable fit. Staying upright or balanced was no longer a concern for the beast as it rolled across the ground, its jagged skeleton tearing into the earth. Its ribs dug deep into the dirt, and its violent movements sent chunks of ground and tufts of grass flying through the air.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

"What is it doing?" Mia muttered to herself, taking a step further back, her eyes fixed on the monster as it flailed like a fish out of water.

But there wasn’t much time to ponder her question. Suddenly, the Nullfang’s body began to flash, and a sharp, searing pain shot through everyone who looked at it, Magnus included. They all winced, shielding their eyes as the familiar fuzz of incomprehensible, shifting colors spread across the Nullfang’s body like a chaotic storm.

"Agh, dammit, what the hell is it up to now?" Gerald growled, clutching his head with one hand, his teeth clenched. The group cast quick glances at the creature in brief bursts—just long enough to catch glimpses of its actions without succumbing to the overwhelming pain.

"It's... cycling?" Marcos muttered, his voice tinged with confusion and doubt as he winced from the strain of looking at it.

Magnus saw it too. The chaotic static flashing across the Nullfang wasn’t random, though it looked that way. The colors and patterns seemed to shift constantly, but that was just an illusion created by how tightly packed the countless ‘dots’ of incomprehensible colors were. A simple tilt of the head made the patterns appear to change rapidly, but in truth, the static was unchanging. It was just that: a pattern locked in place, deceptively chaotic.

The textureless effect, as Magnus knew from the Command Console’s report, was the result of innumerable Automatic Manifestations being created and undone in rapid succession. It was a side effect of the Nullfang’s nulled state interacting with the physical world.

What was something that couldn’t interact with the world supposed to look like?

How could light bounce off of it?

How did the temperature change its appearance?

What happened when it was dirtied?

Or when it was wet?

The questions piled up endlessly. The chaotic, scrambled mess they saw was simply the result of these unanswered questions. No matter how well reality—or the source code behind it—adapted to ensure glitches didn’t disrupt the world, making sure everything functioned properly was far simpler than ensuring everything looked correct.

There was no doubt: the Nullfang was rapidly removing and re-adding a state to its body, over and over again. Perhaps it was even doing this to multiple states at different parts of it's body simultaneously.

As for why?

The question flitted through Magnus’s mind, and before he realized it, he muttered aloud, “It must have something to do with what’s happening inside its mind.”

Still carrying Magnus, Marcos overheard and frowned, glancing at him.

“Does that mean your ‘spell’ is working?” Magnus hesitated, shaking his head, his expression uncertain.

“I... I’m not sure. Considering there’s still a connection between my mind and the Nullfangs, I don’t think it’s finished yet. It might just be going crazy because its mind is being invaded.” It was a plausible explanation, but Magnus couldn’t be certain. Even though he could still sense Basker’s connection to his mind, he had no idea what was happening inside the Nullfang’s head—or how far along Basker’s progress was.

Before he could ponder further, his gaze shifted upward, drawn to the sky above the Nullfang. His eyes widened.

“What the hell...” The words slipped from his mouth, almost absentmindedly. Marcos followed his line of sight, careful to avoid looking directly at the Nullfang.

He spotted it too—the anomaly.

The valley sky was nearly clear, with only a few clouds scattered across the horizon. Yet, far in the distance, one of those clouds behaved in an impossible way. It seemed to skip. It was like watching a scene from a movie being played forward and backward on repeat. One moment, the cloud drifted forward naturally, only to snap back to its original position the next.

But that wasn’t all.

On the ground, the dirt and grass displaced by the Nullfang’s thrashing had suddenly stopped moving, frozen in place as if time itself had halted. A blade of grass vanished the instant it touched the Nullfang’s skeletal body, only to reappear in a different spot moments later.

Mia and Gerald noticed it too. The distortions were everywhere. Colors around the Nullfang flickered, some appearing inverted, while other parts of the world seemed fragmented, segmented in unnatural ways. For brief moments, reality itself looked like it was made of sliding squares, revealing a strange, colorless void beneath—a void that disappeared the instant they tried to focus on it.

It was bizarre. Everyone could sense something was deeply wrong.

Yet none of them retreated.

Magnus’s connection to the Nullfang needed to be maintained, and the others had to remain close in case the creature turned its attention toward him while he was vulnerable. Despite the chaos surrounding them, neither their sixth sense, which they trusted implicitly nor Mia’s connection to the spirits, which she had come to rely on, warned of any immediate danger. Even the BGM glitch had gone silent, signaling that the Nullfang was no longer classified as an enemy—at least for now.

But in the pit of Magnus’s stomach, he felt it. A gnawing unease, like he was missing something vital.

His eyes narrowed, and he began thinking to himself. The sounds of the Nullfang’s thrashing and the destruction it wreaked faded into the background as his thoughts focused.

Why is all of this happening now?

The static from the null states was the result of Automatic Manifestations—the source code of reality adapting to accommodate the Nullfang’s abnormalities. But now, the Nullfang was cycling null states across its body, rapidly and repeatedly, and the distortions were spreading.

The Null State Glitch should only be able to affect the Nullfang itself—not the world around it.

As Magnus continued to think, the realization hit him like a lightning bolt as a flash of recognition crossed Magnus’s face.

"Right... what Monlam said..." Magnus muttered to himself, recalling the warnings he had memorized from their meeting. Of everything Monlam had told him, one thing stuck out above all others: the world needed balance, and there were two ways it could fail.

The first was immediate and catastrophic—a glitch appearing that is so severe it would destabilize the world, with reality’s attempts to recalibrate only making things worse. The second, slower but no less devastating, was like death by a thousand cuts. Glitches and abnormalities would accumulate over time, each one accompanied by a ‘fix.’ Eventually, the strain from both the glitches and the patches would grow unbearable, causing reality to collapse under the pressure.

One path was an explosion, a sudden end; the other, a gradual unraveling.

Now, Magnus realized he was witnessing the second scenario in action. Not on a large scale, but the signs were unmistakable. The source code’s abnormalities were piling up, and reality itself was tearing at the seams.

And they were standing right next to the epicenter.

“We need to get out of here... now!” Magnus yelled, his voice strained but urgent.

“Marcos, get me away from here—forget the connection! Mia, Gerald, get away from the Nullfang—forget the plan!” His scream barely cut through the chaos of the Nullfang’s thrashing body, but Mia and Gerald, with their heightened senses, caught his words.

For a moment, they hesitated, confusion etched on their faces. But the urgency in Magnus’s voice spurred them into action. At the same time, Marcos, though clearly wanting to question him, caught the serious look in Magnus’s eyes and turned without hesitation, carrying him away at a sprint.

But none of them—despite their speed—managed to take a single step before it happened.

Something broke.

The shattering of the world wasn’t something you could hear. It wasn’t a sound; it was a silent fracture in reality itself. What happened next could only be observed, not felt or heard.

Within a ten-meter radius around the Nullfang, everything simply ceased to exist. The air, the ground beneath it, the photons of light traveling through the atmosphere—even the fabric of space itself—vanished. Anything defined as part of the world disappeared without a trace.

What remained in its place was a void.

A perfect, circular darkness blacker than pitch, devoid of light, depth, or any reaction to the world around it. It was nothingness in its truest, most terrifying form.

"Agh, fuck!" The sharp cry of pain drew Mia’s attention, her head snapping toward Gerald’s voice. Her eyes widened as she caught sight of him. His left hand and right foot—both trailing slightly behind him as he prepared to run—were missing pieces. Large, perfectly circular chunks had been erased, devoured in the same void reality itself had vanished into.

"Gerald!" Mia’s voice cracked with urgency as she shouted his name. Her mind raced and the idea of running or leaving him behind didn't appear even as an afterthought.

But then she noticed it—the ground.

All around her, pieces of the earth began to vanish in rapid succession. It wasn’t like the void that had swallowed the Nullfang’s surroundings. No, the ground twisted and warped for the briefest instant, before disappearing entirely. One after another, small holes spread outward, expanding erratically.

Mia’s eyes darted across the shifting terrain, tracking the pattern. Her heart pounded as she spotted the ground beneath her feet begin to twist. There was no time to think—only act. Pouring all her aura into her legs, she launched herself into the air like a rocket. The ground she had just been standing on vanished in an instant.

Below her, Gerald, collapsed and clutching the remains of his right foot, groaned in pain. His face contorted with agony, but the panic in his eyes quickly overpowered it as he looked up at Mia.

"Mia, look out! It’s happening in the air too!" The warning came too late.

Mia barely had a chance to process his words before the air around her twisted, just like the ground had. For the briefest moment, she was there—and then she was gone.

"Mia!" Marcos’s voice broke as he came to a sudden stop, his senses screaming at him that her presence had just vanished. Magnus was frozen in shock, his mind unable to keep up with what was happening.

On the ground, Gerald slammed his fist into the dirt, the impact cracking the earth beneath him.

His teeth clenched in a mixture of pain and fury as he shouted, "Marcos, don’t stop! Get the kid out of-"

But he never finished. The ground beneath Gerald twisted violently, and before he could react, he too vanished.

I don’t...

Magnus’s thoughts raced, jumbled and incoherent. His eyes locked with Marcos’s, whose expression was a chilling mix of helplessness and horror. And then, the space around them began to twist.

Just like it had for Mia, Gerald, and everything else caught in the chaos, the world warped and folded around them.

A moment later, they were gone.