Chapter 253 – Fear.
A double domain...
What a monstrous and unfair thing to have in a universe where domains are practically territories where your power is amplified to a whole new level, all while suppressing your enemies.
Now imagine stacking two domains like that onto one enemy.
Red and Anya had done it before—but they were two people. And no matter how synchronized they were, their fusion would never be seamless.
But Mortis...
Mortis had two domains of his own. One was the unique skill granted to him by Shadow. The other, the one he obtained himself after stepping into the Supreme rank.
And right now Mortis, in front of a Supreme-rank being and a Mythic one, had activated both of his domains simultaneously.
As a Law Creator rank, he was going in hard on these lower ranks.
Because they had earned Mortis’s acknowledgment. They had proved... they could be a threat.
And there was one thing Mortis never played around with—threats.
Because he was too lazy to care once things got out of hand. If he saw even a flicker of danger, he would nip it in the bud before it grew into something real.
All to protect his peace. And that’s exactly why—
Red and Anya suddenly found themselves in a world of shadows.
That was all they could think of.
Because everything around them was shadow. The air was shadow. The space was shadow. The ground... even the most elusive affinities—Time, Space, Fate, Destiny—they all seemed to be made of shadow. Deep, ancient, terrifying shadow.
The kind you wouldn’t want to glimpse even under sunlight. The kind you’d run from, screaming.
And as they looked around, trying to understand, trying to find an exit, they realized...
Their bodies were starting to corrode.
A frown instantly formed on both their faces as they remembered Noah’s words.
Everything Mortis corrodes in his domain...
"He gains a part of it..." Anya muttered, her voice shaking just a bit.
"Oh? Who told you about my Unique Skill?" Mortis’s voice echoed through the domain and suddenly, like a curtain being pulled open, the shadows parted to reveal Mortis, sitting calmly on a throne made of condensed darkness.
He was now fully healed, his appearance pristine.
He looked at Anya with mild curiosity, wondering where she could have learned something so confidential that only his sisters and the Progenitors knew of that Unique Skill.
So... how?
Anya didn’t answer. She didn’t even have the breath to try. She was doing everything she could just to keep the corrosion at bay.
But Red... Red was suffering.
She was only at the Supreme rank, and being inside this domain was like being trapped inside her worst nightmare.
She was being corroded at an unbelievable pace and soon she would be completely devoured, even her soul burned away into nothing.
That thought sent a shock through her entire being.
The possibility of dying... was real. Too real.
She could feel it. She was going to die.
And her war affinity it didn’t whisper this time, didn’t show her a way to win. Because there was no way to win against a Law Creator as a Supreme rank.
And worst of all?
Mortis hadn’t even used his Authority yet. He hadn’t invoked his Law.
Only his Domains.
And already, they were crumbling like castles of sand. Like nothing but gifted power given too quickly to beings with weak foundations.
Red and Anya kept thinking about their odds, about the gap between them, all while fighting off the corrosion.
Mortis tilted his head.
"Answer. Or you’ll die in the next second," he said coldly, his patience thinning.
And as soon as he spoke, the domain responded to his emotions growing more violent, more ravenous.
The corrosion deepened.
Anya tried to destroy it with her affinity power but it barely worked.
She had already lost her right arm and half of her face.
Red’s condition didn’t even need to be described. She tried to infect the corrosion with war itself, to turn it, consume it but her war concept was too low. Far too low.
Only the upper half of her body remained now and even that was crumbling fast.
They gritted their teeth, bloodshot eyes locked onto Mortis, who looked back at them without emotion.
"W-Who told us, huh...?" Anya finally rasped, her lips peeling away painfully, every word like tearing skin.
But still, she spoke.
"What do you think... Mortis?" she asked.
"D-Does anyone come to mind?" Red added, still grinning, even if...if you looked close enough, you could see it...
The fear in her eyes.
Not just hers.
Anya too.
They were afraid.
Not of death itself.
But of what they’d lose if they died.
And that’s how it always was.
The more you held dear in this world, the more reluctant you’d be at the end.
Red and Anya didn’t want to leave behind their husband. Their sisters. Their people. Their family...
They didn’t want to leave all that behind.
And so, fear crept in.
But fear didn’t stop them from acting.
Fear didn’t make them break. Didn’t make them beg.
Not because they were fearless. Yes, they were courageous, but more than that...
They were the wives of Noah Vaelgrim, The Absolute.
Could you even imagine the wives of The Absolute bowing down to another? Crying for mercy?
Nah... they couldn’t.
And they wouldn’t.
So, even when only their heads remained, eaten by corrosion inch by inch, they didn’t cry.
They taunted.
"W-Who? Think more, Mortis..." Anya whispered louder now, trying to drown the fear that gripped her.
"Who could’ve told us in this whole damned universe?"
"WHO?" Red shouted, only half her face left, voice loud, as if to prove her strength before she vanished forever.
Mortis didn’t answer.
But his mind was racing.
And the mind of an Original wasn’t something mundane, because instantly, he connected the dots.
His sister being released...this sudden attacks...the fact someone knew his Unique Skill.
You didn’t need to be a genius to see it.
"...Shadeva?" Mortis whispered, disbelief laced in every syllable.
But even if he only whispered, his emotions were loud.
And the domain became loud with him.
And in an instant, Red and Anya were consumed completely by the corrosion, leaving behind only flickering wisps.
Their souls.
And even those were being eaten—slowly, but surely.
Until suddenly...
A voice rang out through Mortis’s domain, causing him to jolt upright, startled, scanning the space in disbelief.
A voice filled with power. With Authority beyond measurement.
A voice filled with...
Absoluteness.
"Epithet."
The whole domain paused. Even the shifting shadow didn’t even budge. Because they sensed the weight and authority behind that voice. They sensed that they were not supposed to move when this words rang out.
Then,
"Anya, my dear cute destroyer... your name shall be The Undying Entropy."
"Red, my dear war lover... your name shall be The NeverEnding Warmonger."
And then—
DIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNGGGGGG!!!!
The Records...
Chimed.
—End of Chapter 253—