A vast, infinite void. Blacker than midnight, devoid of sound, smell, or air.

  Kazuki stood in it—no, floated, suspended between timelessness and space, emotionless eyes half-lidded as he stared into the suffocating dark. The seal dimension that Kairyuuha had cast him into was like nothing he had ever encountered. Not even death felt this empty.

  He raised a hand, channeling his mana.

  "Elemental Fury," he muttered.

  A swirling mix of flame, lightning, wind, and shadow burst forth, only to be absorbed instantly by the void surrounding him. As if the dimension was feeding on his spells.

  He narrowed his eyes and tried again.

  "Null Spiral," he whispered, invoking his non-elemental spell.

  A sharp pulse of concentrated, colorless energy crackled around his palm—then vanished into the shadows, devoured just as easily.

  A rare flicker of frustration appeared in his otherwise unreadable expression.

  His voice came out, low and steady. "Tch... Useless."

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  He turned, calling out silently with a mental link—one he hadn’t used since the start of the seal.

  "All units. Hear me. There must be a way to escape. Think. Adapt."

  Deep within his dimension, Kazuki’s Dark Army stood silently, as though frozen in time. But their minds responded.

  The 1463 strong soldiers—beasts, humanoids, dragons, mages, tanks, and flyers—began to shift, analyzing. Among them, the newly resurrected Shadow Dragon, now part of his elite guard, growled softly.

  "This seal… is divine in nature," came the Shadow Dragon's voice telepathically. "It eats magic, corrupts time. It is not a place… it is a prison crafted by gods."

  Kazuki processed the words slowly. If the divine made this seal… then only something beyond divinity could break it.

  He gazed down at his own hands, pale, steady, glowing faintly with residual mana. His INT was at 645, combat stats at 1450, yet even with all his power, he was powerless here.

  He sat down cross-legged, eyes closed. He began listening. Not to the seal. But to something deeper. The fabric underneath the seal.

  He had once tampered with forbidden necromancy. Once awakened non-elemental force. If he could understand the divine matrix of the seal… perhaps he could do more than break it.

  He could rewrite it.

  Hours passed—or perhaps seconds. Time had no meaning here. Then—

  A pulse.

  His eyes opened. A strange ripple in the seal.

  Somewhere far away, something had weakened. A sliver of vulnerability had opened.

  Kazuki muttered ancient words in Japanese, voice as calm as ever.

  “…仕方がないか。やってみよう。” (…It can't be helped. Let's try this.)

  His aura exploded, but not in power. In precision. A cold, scalpel-like concentration.

  He lifted his hand and muttered his iconic phrase:

  "Come Forth."

  The void shook as black mist swirled and his entire army—all 1463 dark soldiers—began resonating with him from within the dimension.

  For a moment… something cracked.

  Meanwhile, outside the seal—

  Kairyuuha stood atop the broken remnants of an ancient floating tower, watching the world below. His red and blue eyes glowed, lips curling into a quiet smirk.

  "He’s adapting," he said softly. “Let’s see how far you can go, Kazuki. Let’s see if you can rewrite fate itself.”

  From the capital, alarms blared.

  The Duke, Drake, Rinara, Garron, Elara—all stared at the urgent guild reports flowing in. Unknown magical tremors. Celestial ripples.

  Rinara clutched her pendant tightly, whispering, “Kazuki… please hang in there.”

  The war was no longer between adventurers and monsters.

  It was now a battle against the divine.