The platform glowed beneath Akamea's feet as she began her walk down the illuminated pathway. Each step echoed with a hollow metallic ring that reverberated through the infinite void surrounding the arena. Volt watched her move with predatory grace, her footfalls creating small ripples of crimson energy that dissipated into the air like blood diffusing in water.
Unlike Seyin's analytical approach, Akamea carried herself with feral intensity—shoulders slightly hunched, head forward, eyes constantly scanning with quick, darting movements. The faint smell of copper and ozone emanated from her as she moved, a scent that seemed to intensify with each step.
Her outfit was practical but distinctive: formfitting black armor reinforced with what looked like crystallized bone along vital areas. Each plate clicked softly against the others as she moved, the sound like teeth gently clicking together. A series of small pouches lined her belt, contents shifting with quiet liquid sounds. Several thin blades were strapped to her thighs, their edges catching the ambient light with hungry gleams. Most striking was the mask that covered the lower half of her face—a respirator design with small vents that occasionally emitted wispy crimson vapor with a soft hissing sound, like air escaping from a pressure chamber.
Through the projection, Volt could see data begin to materialize:
HP: 380/380
SATIATION: 100/100
STORED ESSENCE: 0/250
He found himself focusing on the unfamiliar resource metrics. Satiation and Stored Essence must be related to her FEED DRIFT trait.
As Akamea reached the halfway point of her pathway, the platform ahead began to materialize. Unlike Seyin's architectural challenge, this space transformed into what appeared to be an endless field of pale wheat under a blood-red sky. The stalks swayed despite there being no perceptible wind, creating undulating waves across the vast expanse. The rustling of millions of wheat stalks created a constant background whisper, like countless mouths murmuring in unison. The air grew thick with the scent of dried vegetation and something metallic—iron perhaps, or blood.
At the field's center, fifty meters away, stood a dark, impossibly tall and thin figure. Its proportions seemed alien, wrong in a way that defied comprehension, as if straddling dimensions.
"The Nullification Void," someone whispered in the rift. "They say it doesn't exist in the same way we do—it's defined by what isn't there."
The voice boomed across the field: "Challenger Akamea, S-tier Ruler. Your trial begins. Defeat the Nullification Void to allow your companions to advance."
Akamea continued forward without hesitation, the wheat parting before her as if afraid of her touch. Each stalk bent away with a dry scraping sound, leaving a clear path approximately two meters wide. The scent of the field intensified as she disturbed it—a mixture of sun-baked grain and something else, something acrid and unnatural.
As she approached, the figure at the center became clearer. It stood nearly three meters tall, impossibly thin with elongated limbs. Its skin—if it could be called that—was a mosaic of constantly shifting absence, like portions of reality being systematically deleted and rewritten. Most disturbing was where its face should have been—instead, a perfect void, not black or dark, but a complete absence of anything, a hole in reality itself.
As Akamea drew within twenty meters, the entity moved for the first time. It didn't step or walk—instead, portions of it simply ceased to exist in one location and appeared in another, like frames cut from a film. No sound accompanied this movement, only the absence of sound where there should have been something.
The air temperature around Akamea plummeted suddenly, frost forming on her armor plates with an audible crackling. Her breath became visible through the vents of her mask, the crimson vapor condensing in the supernatural cold.
"FEED DRIFT: Hunger Sense," Akamea whispered, her voice carrying a slight metallic edge through the mask.
COMBAT ENGAGEMENT: INITIATED
HUNGER SENSE: ACTIVATED (PASSIVE EFFECT OF FEED DRIFT)
Through Akamea's hunger sense, Volt could somehow perceive additional information about the entity. Unlike normal beings that registered as potential sources of consumption, the Nullification Void appeared as an anti-presence—not something to be consumed but something that consumed consumption itself. It registered as a conceptual negative, a vacuum that didn't just absorb matter or energy, but negated the very concept of existence.
A wave of unease washed over Akamea—Volt could feel it through their connection. Her pupils dilated slightly, fingers flexing with tension. The realization that her primary abilities might be fundamentally opposed by this entity's nature sent a spike of adrenaline through her system.
The wheat field suddenly wilted in a perfect circle around the Nullification Void, the stalks not withering but simply ceasing to exist, leaving behind perfectly circular bare ground. The entity didn't grow larger—instead, the space it occupied seemed to expand while its form remained the same size, a spatial distortion that made distance calculations treacherous.
ENTITY STATUS: FIELD NULLIFICATION DETECTED
VOID EXPANSION: STAGE 1 ACTIVATED
No words came from the entity. Instead, a sensation pressed against Akamea's mind—not communication but the absence of communication, negative space where understanding should exist.
Akamea circled cautiously, maintaining a distance of approximately fifteen meters, her boots making no sound as she placed each step with precision. Her blade gleamed in her hand, held at a precise angle that would allow for either attack or defense with minimal adjustment.
"FEED DRIFT: Hunger Projection," she commanded.
SATIATION: 100 → 85
ABILITY ACTIVATED: HUNGER PROJECTION
A wave of crimson energy pulsed from Akamea, washing over the entity and the surrounding field with the sound of a thousand mouths inhaling simultaneously. The wheat stalks bent toward her, drawn by the projection. The technique seemed designed to analyze the target's conceptual weaknesses through the lens of consumption.
DATA ACQUIRED: ENTITY COMPOSITION – CONCEPTUAL VOID (PRIMARY)
WEAKNESS DETECTED: NULLIFICATION CAPACITY FLUCTUATION
VULNERABILITY INDEX: 15%
"Nothing to consume," Akamea murmured, the insight causing her heart rate to increase even more. Her hand moved to her belt, fingers brushing over several pouches as she assessed her options. "Nothing to take... but perhaps something to fill."
She reached for one of the pouches and removed what appeared to be a small crystalline object that pulsed with internal crimson light. The object throbbed with a heartbeat rhythm, warm against her palm.
Without warning, the Nullification Void accelerated toward her. It didn't run or lunge—space itself seemed to compress between them, reducing the fifteen-meter gap to three meters in an instant. The sensation was like altitude dropping suddenly, pressure building in Akamea's inner ears with a painful pop. The air displaced by this spatial compression created a thunderclap that flattened the wheat in a shockwave for twenty meters in all directions.
The entity's arms—if they could be called that—extended not by stretching but by erasing the space between its limbs and their target. Where the limbs passed, reality dimmed, colors fading to monochrome.
Akamea's reaction was instantaneous, muscles coiling and releasing like steel springs. "FEED DRIFT: Consumption Barrier!"
SATIATION: 85 → 70
DEFENSIVE FIELD: ESTABLISHED
A translucent red sphere materialized around her with the wet sound of membranes stretching taut. The barrier rippled like the surface of a massive stomach, peristaltic waves moving across its surface. The smell of digestive acids filled the air, sharp and pungent.
When the entity's limbs struck the barrier, they didn't bounce off—instead, portions of the void-matter began to disappear into the membrane, pulled inward with the sound of wind being forced through a narrow passage. The barrier didn't just block the attack—it began actively pulling at the entity's form, attempting to draw substance from anti-substance.
The entity recoiled, not in pain but in physical reaction to opposing forces. The parts of it touched by the barrier began to fluctuate more rapidly, cycling between existence and non-existence at accelerating rates. The space between them distorted, stretching and compressing like fabric under tension.
STORED ESSENCE: 0 → 15
ENTITY STATUS: CONCEPTUAL SEEPAGE
The entity didn't retreat—it simply expanded the zone of nullification around itself, pushing outward in all directions. The wheat field began to transform, not growing or dying but fundamentally changing in nature. The golden stalks lost their color, turning transparent like glass. When they brushed against each other, they produced crystalline notes, a haunting melody of emptiness.
As the transformation approached her barrier, Akamea dropped to one knee, pressing her palm against the ground beneath her. The touch sent shivers up her arm—the earth felt wrong, as if it were becoming hollow from within.
"FEED DRIFT: Consumption Analysis," she commanded, her voice tight with concentration.
SATIATION: 70 → 65
ANALYSIS COMPLETE: FIELD TRANSFORMATION – REALITY CONVERSION TO NULL-MATTER
"Converting reality itself," she muttered, a bead of sweat tracing down her temple beneath her mask. "Creating a zone where consumption cannot exist because matter itself is only partially present."
The crystalline wheat suddenly shattered around her barrier, each stalk exploding into thousands of transparent splinters that hung suspended in the air. For three heartbeats, they remained motionless—then, as one, they accelerated toward Akamea's barrier from all directions. The sound was like a million tiny glass bells ringing simultaneously, beautiful and terrible.
"FEED DRIFT: Essence Expulsion!"
STORED ESSENCE: 15 → 0
ABILITY EFFECT: TARGETED REPULSION WAVE
The essence she had absorbed from the entity was forcefully expelled in a concussive wave of crimson energy. The barrier expanded outward with explosive force, creating a thunderclap that shook the entire field. The crystalline shards caught in the blast shattered further, reduced to dust that glittered in the red light before fading from existence entirely.
Akamea's chest heaved with the exertion, her breathing audible through the mask's respirator. The expelled energy had created a clear zone around her, approximately twenty meters in diameter of untransformed wheat that swayed gently, seemingly unaffected by the chaos.
ENTITY STATUS: ESSENCE RECOGNITION – ADAPTATION INITIATED
VOID EXPANSION: STAGE 2 ACTIVATED
The Nullification Void's form began to change, not by growing or shrinking but by fragmenting into multiple silhouettes that phased in and out of visibility. Each silhouette occupied the same space but seemed to exist in slightly different realities, creating a strobing effect that strained the eyes and mind to comprehend.
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No voice came from the entity, but the pressure against Akamea's mind intensified—the absence of communication becoming more profound, more invasive. The sensation was like having a portion of her thoughts systematically erased, leaving gaps in her cognitive processes.
It's trying to nullify my thought patterns, she realized, fighting to maintain focus. The mental assault sent shooting pains behind her eyes, as if portions of her brain were being selectively frozen.
The entity—now entities—began to circle, moving with unsettling coordination. They maintained a perfect distance of twelve meters, forming a ring around Akamea's position. Where they passed, the wheat transformed instantly, creating a boundary of crystalline vegetation that trapped her within their circle.
Akamea's eyes narrowed behind her mask as she tracked their movements, calculating distances and angles with practiced precision. She reached for another pouch, this time withdrawing a handful of what appeared to be small black seeds. Each seed pulsed with a dull crimson glow, warm against her fingers.
"FEED DRIFT: Satiation Garden."
SATIATION: 65 → 45
FIELD DEPLOYMENT: INITIATED
With a precise motion, she scattered the seeds in a circle around her position. They arced through the air, leaving trails of crimson mist before landing in the soil with soft impacts. The moment they touched earth, they began to sink, pulled downward as if the ground itself were consuming them.
For three seconds, nothing happened. Then the ground began to tremble, small mounds forming where the seeds had landed. With a wet, tearing sound, plants erupted from the soil—nothing like the wheat they replaced. These growths were black and oily, their stems thick and muscular, pulsating with visible internal fluids. Crimson flowers bloomed at their tips, each shaped like a mouth filled with crystalline teeth. The air filled with the scent of copper and warm meat.
"My void against yours," she said, adjusting her stance as the plants continued to grow, now reaching two meters in height and forming a protective ring approximately eight meters in diameter around her.
The Nullification Void fragments paused their circling, their strobing forms becoming momentarily synchronized as they assessed this new development. Then, in perfect coordination, they attacked—each accelerating toward Akamea from a different direction, space compressing between them to reduce the distance.
Akamea didn't attempt to dodge. Instead, she knelt at the center of her garden, driving both palms against the ground. The soil felt slick and warm beneath her touch, pulsing with the same rhythm as the plants.
"FEED DRIFT: Feast Inversion."
SATIATION: 45 → 25
GARDEN EFFECT: ACTIVATED – CONSUMPTION POLARITY REVERSED
The crimson flowers suddenly convulsed, their petal-mouths opening wider with wet, tearing sounds. Instead of facing inward to protect Akamea, they twisted on their stems, facing outward toward the approaching entities. The air filled with the smell of digestive acids and the sound of dozens of maws inhaling simultaneously.
As the void fragments converged, crossing the boundary of her garden, the flowers attacked. They didn't reach out or extend—instead, space itself contracted around them, bringing the void fragments instantly within reach. The flowers latched onto the attacking entities with the sound of teeth sinking into dense flesh, though the Nullification Void had no flesh to bite.
Rather than consuming energy or matter, the flowers began forcing something into the entities—existence itself. Where the Nullification Void was defined by absence, Akamea's garden forced presence, filling empty space with raw, unfiltered reality.
The effect was visually stunning. Where the flowers touched the void fragments, color bloomed within the empty spaces—vibrant crimsons, blues, and golds spreading like ink in water, forcing definition where there had been none. The sound was like ice cracking under pressure, reality reasserting itself against the void's resistance.
ENTITY STATUS: CONCEPTUAL CONTAMINATION
VOID EXPANSION: STAGE 2 → STAGE 1 (FORCED REGRESSION)
Two of the four void fragments dissolved entirely, unable to maintain coherence under the assault. The remaining two recoiled, their forms flickering more rapidly as they retreated to a distance of twenty-five meters, merging back into a single entity that seemed less substantial than before. The air around it wavered like heat distortion, reality struggling to reconcile its paradoxical nature.
HP: 380 → 360
TOXICITY: 0% → 15%
Volt noticed new data appearing in Akamea's status. The strain of forcibly manipulating consumption concepts at this level was taking a physical toll—small black veins were visible on her exposed skin, spreading outward from beneath her mask. He could sense her discomfort, a burning sensation like acid flowing through her veins.
The Nullification Void retaliated, darkening the blood-red sky into a perfect absence—void of light or reality, spreading outward like a cosmic wound. The temperature plummeted further, approaching absolute zero. The moisture in the air froze instantly, forming tiny ice crystals that hung suspended before blinking out of existence one by one.
The entity's form elongated upward, not by growing taller but by erasing the space between itself and the void-sky. It seemed to stretch impossibly, becoming a three-meter-wide pillar of nullification that connected ground to sky. The wheat field around it ceased to exist in expanding rings, reality itself being systematically erased.
"VOID ULTIMATUM: NULLIFICATION TOTALITY."
The concept pressed against Akamea's mind, not as words but as the removal of the possibility of words. It manifested as a pressure wave of anti-sound, a silence so complete it nullified noise itself. The void began to pull everything toward it—not with gravity or suction, but by compressing space itself. Distance began to contract, the twenty-five meters between Akamea and the entity shrinking to twenty, then fifteen, without either of them moving.
Akamea's garden began to wither, not dying but having its existence negated, plant by plant. The black stems and crimson flowers didn't fade or wilt—they simply ceased to be, erased from reality with methodical precision. The garden that had extended eight meters around her contracted to six, then four, the protective circle diminishing by the second.
She drove one of her blades into the ground as an anchor, muscles straining against the spatial compression. Her body lifted horizontally, not pulled by wind or force but by the contraction of space itself. The sensation was like being stretched in two directions simultaneously, muscle fibers screaming in protest.
Through the compressed space, she stared at the entity, now just twelve meters away and closing without movement. Her mind raced through options with desperate speed.
"So that's your nature," she grunted, blood vessels rupturing in her eyes from the strain, turning the whites crimson. "Not consumption's opposite—its absence. The null state before hunger can exist."
THREAT ASSESSMENT: CRITICAL
FEED DRIFT: MAXIMAL RESPONSE AUTHORIZED
WARNING: TOXICITY MAY EXCEED SAFE PARAMETERS
With her free hand, Akamea reached up and fully removed her respirator mask. The action released a cloud of crimson vapor that was immediately drawn toward the void. Volt gasped at what was revealed—the lower half of her face wasn't human. Her jaw extended too far, lined with multiple rows of needle-like teeth, and where her cheeks should have been were pulsating red sacs that expanded and contracted with her breathing.
"My turn to reveal my nature," she said, her voice now distorted without the mask, a harmonizing of multiple tones that suggested multiple mouths speaking in unison. "FEED DRIFT: Hunger Incarnate."
SATIATION: 25 → 5
INCARNATE STATE: ACTIVE (DURATION: 60 SECONDS)
TOXICITY: 15% → 35%
Her transformation was immediate and horrifying. Her body elongated, limbs stretching and fingers extending into claws with audible pops and cracks as bones reformed and muscles redistributed. The black veins spread across her entire form, her skin taking on a translucent quality that revealed pulsating crimson energy beneath. The sound was wet and organic, like meat being stretched and reconfigured.
Most disturbing was how her torso split vertically from sternum to navel, revealing a gaping maw lined with the same needle teeth as her face. The opening was wet with glistening crimson fluids that steamed in the frigid air, releasing the copper-sweet smell of fresh blood mixed with digestive acids.
In this transformed state, Akamea stopped fighting against the spatial compression. Instead, she released her anchoring blade and allowed herself to be pulled toward the entity.
"You want to nullify?" she called out, her voice a distorted chorus. "Then nullify THIS!"
The distance between them closed with accelerating speed—twelve meters to six, six to three, three to contact. Instead of resisting, Akamea spread her arms wide as she plunged directly into the void-pillar that connected earth to sky. Her body made no sound as it entered the nullification field—sound could not exist there. There was only the visual of her transformed form disappearing into the absence that was the Nullification Void.
For a moment, there was complete stillness. The spatial compression ceased. The field went silent.
Then came a terrible sound—not quite a scream, not quite a tearing, but the sound of silence itself being violated. The void-pillar began to convulse, its perfect emptiness disrupted by something inside it. Ripples of reality spread through the nothingness, like drops of ink in clear water.
"FEED DRIFT: INTERNAL CONSUMPTION."
SATIATION: 5 → 0
STORED ESSENCE: 0 → 100 → 200 → 250 (MAXIMUM)
TOXICITY: 35% → 50%
Through their connection, Volt could sense what was happening inside the void. Akamea wasn't fighting against nullification—she was consuming it. Her transformed body's mouths were devouring the very concept of absence, turning nothing into something through the paradoxical process of digestion. The sensation was indescribable—the taste of consuming that which had no taste, the feeling of being filled by emptiness.
The Nullification Void's form began to destabilize, perfect absence corrupted by introduced reality. Patches of color appeared within its emptiness, like reality bleeding back into a vacuum. The void-pillar contracted and expanded erratically, its perfect geometry corrupted by Akamea's presence within it.
With a sound like reality tearing along a perforated edge, the void-pillar split open from within. Akamea emerged, still in her transformed state, her body-mouth chewing on fragments of the void-stuff that constituted the entity. The crimson energy within her pulsed with newfound power as she systematically consumed the essence of the Nullification Void, converting absence into presence, nothing into something.
The void attempted to reform, its fragments pulling together in a desperate attempt at self-preservation. Reality warped and buckled around it as it tried to establish nullification fields to protect itself, Akamea was relentless.
"FEED DRIFT: Essence Saturation."
STORED ESSENCE: 250 → 200
HP: 360 → 380 (FULL)
TOXICITY: 50% → 60%
She directed the consumed essence throughout her body, using it to repair damage and enhance her capabilities. Her movements became faster, her strikes more powerful as she systematically dismantled what remained of the entity. Where her claws tore through the void-stuff, reality reasserted itself, color and substance replacing nullification.
The remnants of the Nullification Void made one final desperate attempt, collapsing into a concentrated point of absolute nothingness—so dense that light bent around it, creating a perfect black sphere approximately thirty centimeters in diameter. This last vestige of the entity shot toward Akamea like a bullet erasing the space.
Akamea's body-mouth opened wider, her torso splitting further to reveal more rows of teeth extending deep into her transformed flesh. The sound was like wet leather stretching to its limits.
"FEED DRIFT: Consumption Singularity."
STORED ESSENCE: 200 → 100
TOXICITY: 60% → 75% (DANGER THRESHOLD)
SINGULARITY FORMED: COUNTER-VOID MANIFESTATION
From the maw in her torso, Akamea projected a sphere of concentrated consumption energy—not emptiness like the void, but its opposite: absolute presence. Where the void was defined by what wasn't there, her singularity was defined by everything being there simultaneously, reality compressed to its maximum density.
When the singularities collided, the field erupted in a silent implosion. Space bent, light fractured, and shockwaves rippled outward, etching prismatic distortions briefly into reality. Light bent and warped around the collision point, forming prismatic patterns that etched themselves temporarily onto reality before fading.
When the energy dissipated, only wisps of the original entity remained—fading tendrils of void-stuff that dissipated like smoke in a breeze. The wheat field began to revert to its original state, the crystalline transformations returning to normal vegetation with soft rustling sounds.
ENTITY STATUS: CONCEPTUAL DISSIPATION
TRIAL STATUS: VICTORY ACHIEVED
Akamea's knees hit the broken earth as her monstrous form collapsed inward. Through the dissolving crimson haze, Volt glimpsed flickering memories in her aura - a younger Akamea staring at a town reduced to ash, her FEED DRIFT spiraling out of control. The vision clarified with painful precision: when she was just starting out when humanity was still weak, she'd had to consume an entire town and everything in it to save a city from a rift break. She had been too weak and needed the strength. For seven days after, her body had purged the corrupted essence—soil blackened with ash and death coating her in a toxic sludge. Her tissue had partly necrotized from the toxicity, leaving portions of her jaw permanently transformed. The people who had begged for her help couldn't meet her eyes; their gratitude stained with revulsion. They called her savior with their words while their eyes screamed monster. The memory burned more caused more pain than any S-tier rift could, the price of wielding power others could neither understand nor accept, but this was why she could consume even the void by first infecting it by what she was. After all what void was most afraid of was change.
"Never... again... uncontrolled..." she rasped through reforming vocal cords, clawed hands trembling as they pressed against the closing torso-maw. The scar tissue there pulsed with ancestral sigils - Volt now realized they weren't armor decorations, but self-inflicted binding runes.
INCARNATE STATE: DEACTIVATED
TOXICITY: 75% → 65% (STABILIZING)
STORED ESSENCE: 100 → 80 (DEGRADING)
A chime sounded throughout the chamber, and the disembodied voice announced:
"Second trial completed. Passage granted."
The platform beneath Akamea began to glow with the same light that had healed Seyin. Her body lifted slightly as the energy analyzed and treated her condition, bathing her in golden luminescence.
"Challenger Akamea has succeeded. Restoration protocol activated."
TOXICITY: 65% → 40%
HP: 380/380
SATIATION: 0 → 50
STORED ESSENCE: 80 → 40
The platform extending from Akamea's position illuminated, creating a bridge to where Kesseo waited at the beginning of his own path. The barrier separating them dissolved with a chiming sound like crystal bells.
Akamea rose to her feet, her posture still slightly hunched but her movements once again controlled. She looked toward her companions with a nod of acknowledgment, crimson vapor escaping in a small puff from her mask.
"Two down," she said, her voice once again filtered and metallic. "Make it count, Kesseo."
A transport beam enveloped her, and she vanished in a flash of light, ejected from the trial rift just as Seyin had been.
Kesseo stepped onto his illuminated path, eyes fixed on the platform materializing in the distance. His features were calm but resolute, hands already beginning to glow with a faint blue light as he prepared for his own challenge.
"Eidolon powers against whatever's next," Lao commented quietly. "This should be interesting."
In the rift, Volt continued to watch as the third trial began to take shape, wondering what nightmarish challenge would test Kesseo's unique abilities.
