The cosmic shimmer bent, then crumbled into silence. What was once a galaxy-dusted sky dissolved into a black, endless void. Kairyuuha floated still, staring into the formless dark, his crimson and cerulean eyes narrowed—not with fear, but faint amusement.

  "A domain…? Or a seal again?"

  His voice echoed softly, yet it rattled across the silent void like a divine whisper. He extended a hand and light bent around it—no, not bent. It obeyed. Particles of illumination stretched like strings, rewound like threads of time, and shattered like glass, before he let them reform.

  A pause. Then his gaze sharpened.

  "...A seal. How pathetic. He still tries."

  He vanished.

  Reappeared again mid-void—effortless, like existence itself folded around him. Around his body, time had frozen, but at his command, it resumed. The dark trembled. Reality was being pushed aside.

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  ---

  Meanwhile… Outside the Abyss

  Vorthal’Zyn stood among the fractals of shattered spacetime, his divine frame still regenerating. He gazed down at his palm, the black mark burning now with a faint, luminous purple.

  “He's trying to understand…” the ancient being whispered. “A domain? A seal? No. This isn’t either…”

  His glowing eyes lifted, narrowing.

  “This is the Abyss… but not the Abyss I knew.”

  Suddenly, his head ripped free—shot into the Collective Expanse beyond creation, far past mortal universes. Stars blurred into streaks, then were snuffed out. His vision spiraled across eternity.

  “How…?”

  “How much can this boy really do…?”

  His floating divine head came to a halt. Space stilled. Time waited.

  Then—he felt it.

  Him.

  From the nothingness, a throne of obsidian took shape, rooted in no reality. Kairyuuha sat upon it like a sovereign of paradoxes, arms resting, one leg crossed over the other. Behind him—universes orbited in silence, like docile hounds. In his presence, even truth trembled.

  “Trying to seal me?” Kairyuuha spoke, his voice calm, but crackling with divine contempt. “You’re wasting your tricks, old god.”

  “You’re stuck,” he said flatly, raising a hand.

  “This is my dimension now.”

  ---

  Vorthal’Zyn clenched his fists.

  “No. If that is your realm… then allow me to invoke mine.”

  He lifted both hands.

  “Y’Hamarth Aetherion: The Inversion of Thrones.”

  Reality inverted. Stars blinked inside-out. Laws of space collapsed, reforming into a spiraling plane of luminous glyphs and forbidden words. A golden tower rose behind him, anchored by seven infinity symbols glowing in sapphire flame.