The battlefield lay in chaos.
Nullframe stood at the center of a fractured city block—an unmoving tower of stillness. Around him, the Cosmic Tyrants fought with everything they had, yet every strike, every blast, every maneuver seemed to unravel as soon as it began.
Kael lunged forward, fists blazing with silver energy—only for his punch to flicker and vanish mid-swing.
Lyra's blades struck… but no clash rang out. Her swords simply passed through empty space where Nullframe had stood a moment before—yet he had not moved.
"This is impossible!" Orion shouted, cosmic force leaking from his fists. "He's… erasing our actions!"
Zevak gritted his teeth from the rooftop, screens flickering around him as he analyzed Nullframe's impossible presence. "No linear causality—he isn't dodging… he's voiding the event before it happens."
Veyra's aura flared, crystalline light shimmering against the distortion in the air. "Even my flames… they won't ignite. He's freezing intent."
Across the field, Nullframe finally spoke, voice glitching and stuttering:
"You blinked. I was always here."
The team regrouped, forming a defensive line—panting, worn, and unsure of their next move.
And then—
A ripple.
A pulse of non-time tore through the night air.
Kael's eyes snapped to the skyline. A single spark of brilliant silver-white light flared in the distance—then another—and another—until space itself twisted into an infinite streak of motion.
A lone figure appeared, stepping through cascading folds of space-time.
Zero Step.
Draped in flowing white, eyes burning with infinite velocity, Zero Step came to a stop—though even his "stillness" seemed alive with layers of unrealized movement.
He glanced at the team, then at Nullframe—eyes narrowing.
"So. The Absolute Pause."
Nullframe turned ever so slightly, cracks widening along his static frame.
"The Storm arrives… yet the eye remains unmoved."
Kael exhaled, feeling the air grow impossibly tense.
Zero Step walked forward slowly—his every step echoing through time, warping the ruined street beneath him.
"You've locked the flow," Zero Step said calmly. "But locking does not erase the river."
Nullframe answered in that cold, paradoxical tone:
"No river. No current. Just… stop."
Without further warning, space shattered. Zero Step launched into motion—his afterimages folding through the battlefield, a barrage of infinite-speed strikes aimed at Nullframe.
But again—events failed. Hits that should've landed were simply… absent.
Kael, watching with sharp eyes, clenched his fists.
"He's even slowing Zero Step…!"
Zevak's voice echoed through the comms: "We need more—divine will, something outside his conceptual lock—Kael… you might be the key."
Kael's heart pounded.
Inside him, that ancient energy stirred again—bright, infinite… waiting.
But for now, they would fight—together.
Zero Step blurred again, surging past Nullframe in a flurry of impossible speed.
"Then I'll break your pause," Zero Step vowed. "One frame at a time."
The storm against the stillness had begun.
⸻
END CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18: NULLFRAME VS ZERO STEP — THE CLASH OF PARADOXES 📖
The battlefield was distorted beyond recognition. Whole moments flickered and failed—light froze midair, sounds looped in broken echoes, the very idea of cause and effect hung by a thread.
At the center of this storm: Nullframe and Zero Step.
The two figures stood locked in an impossible exchange—neither moving in a conventional sense, neither following the laws of reality.
One represented unstoppable motion through all time.
The other — unchanging stillness beyond cause.
BOOM.
A pulse shook the sky — not an explosion of force, but a ripple through possibility.
Every time Zero Step advanced, Nullframe's presence attempted to erase that moment — to skip the attack entirely.
"You lost when you started." Nullframe's fractured voice echoed.
Yet with each impossible step, Zero Step bent across those nullified outcomes — fists striking where no strike should have been possible.
Orion and Lyra watched in awe.
Veyra clutched Kael's arm. "Kael… they're fighting on a level… we can barely even see…"
Zevak's scanners sparked furiously in the corner. "Their interaction is breaking my readings—this is beyond baseline omniversal cause trees! It's pure paradox combat!"
Kael's gaze never left the clash. His heart was pounding harder and harder—because deep inside… he felt it.
Something ancient.
Something vast.
Some sleeping power waking inside him.
Zero Step stepped again—and this time struck a heavy blow across Nullframe's chest. Cracks of stillness bled across Nullframe's form, like shattered frames of a film reel.
But Nullframe did not falter.
"You blinked. I was always here."
A surge of null-space pulsed outward, sending shockwaves of distortion toward Zero Step — and even brushing across Kael and the others.
Kael dropped to one knee, gasping — time itself was trying to reject him.
Veyra knelt beside him. "Kael—!!"
He gritted his teeth, sweat running down his face. His voice, strained:
"It's… coming… I can feel it…"
Orion helped steady him. "What do you mean?"
Kael's fists began to glow with an otherworldly brilliance — not just energy, but something deeper, divine. His voice trembled:
"My… Ascension… It's not ready… but it's waking—!!"
Lyra gasped. "He's triggering… something's breaking through…"
But before they could process further — Nullframe and Zero Step's clash reached a fever pitch. The air warped with every second that passed—or failed to pass.
Zero Step's voice rang out:
"Kael. Hold fast. Soon — the eye will close."
Kael's eyes burned. "Soon… I will rise…"
⸻
TO BE CONTINUED…