22:Lord of Temporal Chaos

Nullus didn't move. He didn't even blink.

Silently, he activated his conceptual vision again, his eyes fixed on the lifeless body before him. Kara was no longer breathing. There was no pulse, no sign of life. Yet something else was happening… something unnatural.

He watched as concepts began to decay.

The word he had seen earlier—"Contract"—was dissolving, fading as if it had never existed. But the moment it vanished completely, he saw something else…

"Chrono-Entropic Abyss."

It wasn't just a name. It was a mark, a trace that lingered for a fleeting moment before disappearing into the void, as if it had never truly belonged to this world.

But something else caught his attention.

A thread—colorless.

Or perhaps, it was a color that didn't belong to this world, a shade his eyes couldn't comprehend. As if the spectrum it reflected didn't align with any visual concept known to human perception.

The thread stretched from the vanished "Contract" toward the ceiling of the white room… into the boundless void beyond.

Then, suddenly—

The thread snapped.

And the moment it did, the corpse began to decay at an impossible speed.

Black worms slithered from within, multiplying in mere moments, as if they had been lying dormant inside her flesh all along, eagerly awaiting their release. Within seconds, Kara had become a crumbling husk—her skin tearing apart, bones exposed, and an unnatural stench spreading through the air.

But Nullus showed no reaction. He didn't cover his nose. He didn't recoil.

He was watching something else.

What was that thread?

Azrael's voice came suddenly, as if it had emerged from nowhere—his heavy tone echoing through the white chamber:

"What did you do?"

"We've lost control of the White Room!"

"Was this your doing?!"

But Nullus did not answer.

He was still focused on his conceptual vision, trying to trace the remnants of the thread as it faded into nothingness.

Then something happened—

An earthquake.

The White Room trembled violently. Its walls didn't move, yet they cracked. Gray lines spread across the pristine surface, as if reality itself was beginning to break apart.

He knew something was wrong.

But the real question wasn't "What is happening?" It was:

"What was that thread connected to?"

---

The ground shook, and the putrid stench of the decaying corpse thickened. The worms continued gnawing at the flesh, but this time… they weren't alone.

Sounds began seeping into the White Room. Sounds with no clear source.

Azrael appeared suddenly.

But he wasn't alone.

Behind him, a group of figures clad in black suits stood motionless, their expressions devoid of life. Their eyes were frozen, as if they weren't human at all.

They surrounded the corpse and began chanting words Nullus had never heard before:

"Zul'tharok Nie-Kaos."

"Exerithon Finalis."

Their voices were not entirely human. They were deep, distorted—echoing as though spoken from multiple throats at once.

Nullus watched them in silence, but then—

Something else drew his attention.

In the endless white void around him, a single word floated before his eyes.

"Door."

A simple word, yet it pulsed, shifting as if it were alive.

Then, without thinking—without even understanding why—he amplified the concept.

The moment he did, the world changed.

---

Sound came first.

It wasn't a human sound. It wasn't even a sound that could be classified.

A thousand layers of noise at once.

A deafening echo, as if an entire universe were collapsing.

A rustling—not of paper flipping, but something far more unnatural, as if time itself were being rewritten in reverse.

The ticking of clocks—but their hands weren't moving forward… they were spinning backward at an insane speed.

Muffled screams, as if buried beneath layers of fractured time.

The chittering of worms devouring flesh—but amplified, savage, as if those tiny creatures were suddenly growing.

The sounds of nocturnal insects—mixed with the cries of seagulls, clashing in an unnatural, dissonant symphony.

---

Then, a voice spoke.

But it wasn't just a voice.

A sound in a language that wasn't spoken—but remembered.

A sound that made you feel as if you were listening to the death of stars… a million years from now.

— The eternal fractures in the fabric of time. —

— The one who turns hours into ashes. —

— The roar at the edge of nothingness. —

— The first inciter of temporal chaos. —

— A knife that slices time… stealing the future from eternity's womb. —

The voice became more than sound.

It became vibrations that cracked through bone.

A voice that made you feel as though your body was dissolving into scattered timelines—as if your very cells were being pulled toward the past and future simultaneously.

Then—

"The one who shatters the barrier of time."

"The ruler of chaos."

"The beast that devours yesterday and tomorrow."

The words echoed, and with them, distortions began spreading through the white void.

---

Images seeped into the space.

Not appearing normally, but at random—like a being announcing its arrival through sheer terror.

Within the endless white, floating bubbles held creatures like black clouds, slowly shifting, consuming fragments of time, reshaping memories at will.

Rituals—faceless figures standing in circles, carving symbols into the air, as black fissures formed before them, opening doors to something that was never meant to exist.

Victims frozen in place. One man collapsing to the ground—yet instead of hitting it, he reversed to his previous position… and collapsed again… and again… endlessly.

A man screaming—but his voice never reaching anyone. His lips moved, but time itself was broken around him.

Kara's corpse—the thing that was no longer Kara—suddenly stirred. It wasn't alive.

But something was trying to manifest inside it.

Nullus didn't move. He didn't run.

He saw a "door" opening.

And he heard the entity speak, in its monstrous, layered voice—defying all logic:

"At last… someone has opened the door."

---

The corpse changed.

At first, it was just a decayed husk—worms crawling from its hollow eyes, its flesh rotting away. But now, something was forcing it to reassemble.

The putrid flesh wasn't returning to its original state. It was stitching itself together in an unnatural way—as if something dead was rebuilding itself, despite being beyond salvation.

The sounds were horrific—tearing, cracking—bones reconnecting, but incorrectly.

It was human… but not.

A body crafted from corruption itself. Flesh riddled with fissures. Eyes a mix of decayed white and abyssal black. Every movement sounded like shattering bones being forced into place.

Then… the corpse spoke.

---

"Humans?"

The voice was double-layered.

The woman's—distorted, rasping—but beneath it, something else.

A voice that did not belong to this world.

A voice so deep it wasn't just heard—it was felt. Inside bones. Inside the mind. Twisting the very way the brain perceived sound.

"Did you think I would abandon my domain without a price?"

There was amusement in its tone—but it wasn't ordinary mockery.

It was the mockery of a being that saw humans as fleeting specks in existence.

"A pathetic swarm of arrogant insects… who believe the world revolves around them…"

---

Nullus didn't move.

Not out of paralysis—but because something felt wrong.

Was this fear?

Or was it the human body he occupied, reacting on instinct?

It was… strange.

He, as a being, didn't understand fear.

And yet… something within him whispered:

Run.