Page 98 of Chaos Carnival

As if those spaces had never existed at all.

A hunter slammed into Baphomet, celestial blade singing. He batted the attack aside, but another hunter phased behind him, forcing him to spin and defend. Their clash sent the air rippling, and in the chaos, Baphomet vanished behind a wall of golden flame.

The Null God moved.

No—movement wasn't the right word.

One moment it loomed by the summoning circle, the next it existed elsewhere.

My senses screamed as I tried to track it. There were no paths between points, no lines connecting its positions.

It quite plainly was and wasn't, each location a separate violation of existence.

I reached for my power, gathering infinite tendrils into a lance. The attack left my hands with enough force to shatter dimensions, but it passed through the Null God like it had never existed.

I tried again. And again.

Wove death and chaos from fundamental forces into my strikes. Each attempt slid into that perfect emptiness and disappeared, leaving no trace, no impact, no echo in the fabric of reality.

Ice spread through my blood as understanding hit. You can’t fight something that exists outside the rules of existence.

The Null God's attention turned to me and oblivion pressed against my mind. Anti-matter wrapped around my limbs. No, not anti-matter.

Anti-everything.

Where it touched, sensation itself ceased to exist.

I tried to phase away, to slip between dimensions like I'd done countless times before.

The chords wouldn't respond.

I reached for my fail-safes, the contingencies I'd woven throughout the carnival grounds, preparations for every possible future.

They dissolved at the entity's touch.

Panic clawed up my throat, sharp and primal.

I unleashed everything.

Every scrap of energy, every forbidden technique, every fundamental force I could grasp.

Each attack vanished into that perfect oblivion, consumed by the thing that should not be. I thrashed against its hold, my senses reeling as I tried to process what was happening.

Where the null touched me, pieces of myself simply... stopped.

“No, no, no—” Power ignited through me like dynamite as I tried everything, anything. But my careful preparations, my woven patterns, my mapped futures—they all depended on my understanding of the universe.

This thing existed where reality broke down. I'd become a being of infinite possibility, and now I faced something thatnegated possibility itself. The Null God’s grip tightened. More pieces of myself unraveled.

I watched, helpless, as my family fought an enemy I should have seen coming. Maverick's shadows touched the Null God and dissipated into nothingness. Stone's crystalline barriers ceased to exist. Lux's glamours vanished, taking with them even the memory of their casting.

The weight of my own hubris crushed down on me. I'd been so certain, so arrogant. I'd thought I was choosing to break to save them all.

Instead, I might have led them to their doom.

Our performers executed their battle formations with desperate grace. The Sisters sliced through hunters until they hit the void and vanished. Lilith's creatures sought purchase against an enemy that negated their existence.

Above us, Maverick soared through golden light, engaging three hunters simultaneously. His shadows formed razor-sharp weapons, wielded with ruthless precision. He phased between dimensions, appearing behind one hunter to drive shadowed blades through their wings before vanishing again. The hunter plummeted, but Maverick was already moving, locked in his aerial dance of death.

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