Usually, outsiders can't influence the unnatural occurrences inside the void. They either get devoured by the all-consuming darkness or are twisted into one of the Sentinel Soldiers, their memories erased, minds enslaved, and bodies repurposed as servants for the Creature — the King of all Sentinels.
But Dylan Daniels was no ordinary outsider.
The creature, a towering mass of shifting black matter and fanged shadows, lunged with feral speed. Its fangs bared, tendrils crackling with raw, corrupt energy, it moved in for the final kill — straight toward Dylan's broken, blood-soaked body.
And then, just as the killing blow was about to land—
It stopped.
The creature's eyes widened in shock. Its limbs refused to obey. Its body froze, suspended in mid-air, like time itself had betrayed it.
"WHAT?!" the creature roared, its voice splitting the void like thunder. "What did you do?! Why can't I move?! How the hell are you able to see me?! This is impossible! No way I'm getting defeated by a weakling!"
Dylan's eyes slowly opened — dull, blood-red, and full of rage. His body trembled, drained of vital energy, blood trailing from his lips, soaking his torn clothes, matting his hair. But his spirit hadn't cracked. Not yet.
He breathed deeply, then laughed — a broken, defiant laugh.
"Weakling?" Dylan growled through bloodstained teeth, his voice growing louder. "Who the hell are you calling weakling, huh?! You're just a Disney-tier wannabe villain with fangs and daddy issues! You want pain? I'll show you what real pain looks like, you cosmic freak!"
He stumbled to his feet, broken bones snapping into place with pure willpower, his aura flickering with a crimson hue.
"Oh, you dumb god... You think I stopped you? Hah! You walked straight into my trap. I predicted this. I knew you'd go for the kill — that's what monsters like you do."
He pointed at the ground beneath the creature — though there was no "ground" in the void, just woven tension between dimensions.
"These are Whisperwebs. Not just any trap — a web laced with energy signatures drawn from your own damned sentinels. I laced the battlefield with it the moment I entered this place. The moment you lunged… you walked right into it."
The creature snarled, eyes darting in disbelief — and then it saw them. Faint glowing threads, stretching in all directions, tangled around its body like living silk. It had run headlong into Dylan's trap.
"No… no!" the creature screamed, thrashing — but the more it moved, the more entangled it became. "This can't hold me! Nothing can!"
Suddenly, the threads pulsed — and sent a shockwave rippling through the creature's entire body. It roared, body convulsing violently, white energy bleeding out of the black flesh like venom from a wound.
"This fight ends here!" Dylan shouted, voice cracking with fury and triumph. "You're going back to where you belong — hell."
The creature, still writhing, began to laugh — deeper, darker, otherworldly.
"Are you really so sure, human? You think this is the end? No…" Its voice dropped to a whisper filled with venom. "This is where the real battle begins."
Suddenly, something inside the creature began to change. A galaxy-shaped core at the center of its chest flared to life, spinning violently. The stars inside it began to swirl, distort, then collapse inward like a dying sun. Light burst from its eyes — blinding, white-hot beams — and the void around them began to shift.
The endless black turned into a blinding, sterile white — a space of nothingness so overwhelming it erased all shadows.
Then —
SPLASH.
Blood.
A red explosion tore through the brightness — not from the creature…
…but from Dylan.
A horrifying geyser of crimson erupted from his torso, splashing across the white void like paint on a blank canvas. His body flew back, twisting through the air, crashing against invisible force and dropping hard.
He gasped, eyes wide in confusion and agony.
"Wha… what… just…?"
The creature, still suspended by broken threads, now glowed with divine fury. The galaxy within its chest pulsed faster.
"You caught my body... but you didn't account for the second one inside me."
"Did you really think the King of Sentinels only had one form? This is war, Dylan Daniels — and you just triggered my ascension."
Dylan coughed blood, eyes fading, yet even as the light dimmed in them, a smirk spread across his broken face.
"Tch… I'm not done yet, you bastard. You're not the only one… with something hidden inside."