효스베 이차베 VS Void Sovereign

In the slow parting of the crimson nebula, Hyosbei Ichabe first realized what lay beneath his feet. There was no ground. It was the surface of an unnamed graveyard, where the debris of shattered stars drifted, bound by each other’s gravity. The massive metal shoulder armor, seemingly crafted to fit his colossal frame, caught the red light and revealed a semicircular pattern. His right hand held a giant brush, still dry, standing upright toward the void.

He had come for one reason: the faint vibration emanating from the heart of the collapsed stars, perceptible only to those who sought to rewrite the world. Someone was tearing out the skeletal framework of space here.

“Standing in this place is itself an act of arrogance.”

The voice descended from beyond the cosmos. Eyes glowing purple rose among the nebular remnants. It was the Void Sovereign. Obsidian plates were layered along her body, and blood-red energy veins pulsed through every gap in her armor. Behind her, jagged shards unfolded like wings, spewing violet lightning. She did not walk; space pushed her forward.

“You are the one who claims to be master of this world,” Ichabe’s low voice caused the debris to tremble slightly. “I am the one who wrote it.”

“The writer has already finished,” the Sovereign raised a fingertip. “All that remains is erasure.”

The first clash was not physical. As she spread her palm, space began to fold around Ichabe. Layers of stellar debris compressed from all sides, forming a crystalline prison intended to seal his massive form. He did not move. Instead, he drove the sword in his left hand into the ground. Characters inscribed on the blade ignited simultaneously, and the compressing fragments scattered between the letters, turning to ash.

“Even if you fold space, without a name within that space, you cannot hold me.”

He lifted his brush and drew a stroke in the air. One single brushstroke. The black shape thus created extended straight toward the Sovereign. She did not twist her body but presented her broken wing as a shield. Violet lightning pierced the shape, but it was not black—it was drawn. The punctured shadow refilled itself and grazed her side, cracking the surface of her armor.

The Sovereign narrowed her eyes. For the first time, she stepped back. Debris swirled at her feet, coalescing into a sphere. When she pushed it outward, the mass of a star condensed and fell upon Ichabe. He drew his sword and met it head-on. The impact crushed the fragments beneath his sandals into dust, and the circular pattern on his shoulder armor split with golden light. Yet he was not pushed back.

“The source of your power lies in these broken things,” he said, pressing his sword into the sphere. “Broken things always break again. That is your limitation.”

“You have become a mouth that speaks of limits, Creator.” She clenched her hand. The sphere exploded, and the scattering fragments transformed into living blades surrounding him. Hundreds, thousands of blades thrust inward simultaneously.

Ichabe closed his eyes. He swept his sword horizontally. “One Stroke.”

A single line crossed his vicinity. Every blade that touched the line lost its form. The fragments were no longer sharp, nor did they remain suspended. Stripped of their ability, they dispersed into meaningless dust. The violet light faded from the Sovereign’s broken wings. She looked down at her hands. The blood-red veins encasing her fingertips were growing dim.

“What have you done…”

“I erased the name of the space you sought to dominate,” Ichabe approached. With each massive step, the debris parted to avoid him. “In a nameless space, no ruler can reign.”

The Sovereign swallowed a scream and mustered her last strength. Her body blurred, attempting to dissolve into space itself. This was not escape, but an attempt to draw him inside her and annihilate him. Ichabe recognized this but did not stop. Rather, he lifted his brush and made the final stroke in the void where her form was dissolving.

“Seal.”

At the moment the character was completed, the Sovereign’s body folded inward. Pieces of her obsidian armor vanished one by one. Her violet eyes gazed at him for the last time, but even that gaze lost its name and faded. The space she had sought to rule remained empty, and she herself was completely absorbed into that emptiness. Stellar debris slowly returned to its place, filling the void that had been nothing.

Ichabe lowered his brush and stood there for a moment. The cracked pattern on his shoulder armor slowly healed. Because what he had written had once again become part of the world.

“For the greater good, I do not hesitate to erase what must be erased.”

His voice seeped through the debris. And the crimson nebula parted again, as if nothing had happened.