Wanderer of Null

The world stretched thin around Eryn Noctis, dissolving into a pale void where the horizon should have been. It was as if Yrlith’s existence ran out at this point—no more earth, no sky, just a fading line where something met nothing. He stood on the jagged edge of the last landmass, staring out into the endless emptiness ahead. The air was silent, heavy with absence, and even his breathing felt muted.

Behind him, Eilea fidgeted, her steps hesitant. "This... doesn’t feel real." Her voice was quiet, almost reverent, as if afraid to disturb the nothingness before them.

"It’s not," Eryn answered. "Not entirely."

This was the Null, a place where existence faltered, and the boundary between what was and what could never be blurred. Here, even Eryn’s powers felt strange—unpredictable, as though reality itself had grown tired of being reshaped and bent by his will. And yet, something drew him here.

He sensed it at the very edges of his perception, like a thread woven from the past: a connection to something he had forgotten, or tried to erase. If he reached too far into the Null, he feared what he might pull back. But the pull was irresistible.

"Why are we here?" Eilea asked, standing beside him now. She looked uncomfortable, like someone standing on the brink of a dream about to unravel. "What are we supposed to find in this... nothingness?"

"I don’t know," Eryn admitted, his silver eyes scanning the void. "But something is waiting."

The Threshold of Memory and Oblivion

The ground beneath Eryn’s feet was brittle, cracking with every step. Tiny splinters of existence drifted upward—shards of light and darkness twisting into ribbons, swallowed by the Null above. Every fragment carried the weight of things that could have been: lives unlived, choices undone, futures erased.

As they walked further, the land beneath them narrowed into a slender path suspended between two abysses. Eilea kept close to Eryn, her hands clenched into fists. "We shouldn’t be here. I can feel it—like we’re trespassing into a place that wasn’t meant to exist."

Eryn gave her a sidelong glance. "No place is meant to exist, Eilea. It just... does." His voice was heavy with exhaustion, tinged with the kind of melancholy only someone who had seen too many realities fall apart could carry.

Before she could respond, the air ahead of them rippled—like a mirror disturbed by a pebble. Out of the disturbance stepped a figure, tall and shadowed, draped in folds of dark robes that shifted like smoke.

Varis Grell.

The hunter’s steel-gray eyes locked onto Eryn, burning with righteous purpose. He carried a halberd on his back, its blade glowing faintly with runes designed to sever anomalies from existence. "You’ve gone too far, Noctis," Varis said coldly, his voice cutting through the silence like a knife. "The Order of Dominion cannot allow this any longer. The Null must remain untouched."

Eryn didn’t flinch. He knew Varis had been tracking him, waiting for the right moment to strike. "You're afraid of what’s beyond the edge, aren’t you?" Eryn’s lips curled into a weary smile. "What happens when the laws you cling to stop working?"

Varis unslung his halberd, the runes along the blade glowing brighter. "You won’t have the chance to find out."

A Dance with Oblivion

The moment shattered into motion. Varis lunged with terrifying speed, bringing his halberd down in an arc aimed at Eryn’s throat. The air hummed with the power of the weapon—magic designed to pierce even the most unstable reality.

Eryn’s body reacted before his mind did. With a flick of his wrist, space bent, and the halberd’s blade sliced through empty air where he had stood a second earlier. Varis growled in frustration, twisting the weapon mid-strike to catch Eryn off guard.

But Eryn was faster. Time froze for a heartbeat, and in that sliver of stillness, he stepped behind Varis. When time resumed, Eryn extended his hand, willing the ground beneath the hunter to dissolve into sand.

Varis dropped into the shifting ground—but before he could sink, he slammed his halberd into the earth, anchoring himself with sheer force of will. Reality trembled, and the sands Eryn had summoned melted back into solid rock.

"You’ll need more than that, anomaly," Varis snarled, his eyes blazing. He spun his weapon, striking again—but this time, Eryn didn’t dodge.

With a thought, the blade unraveled, breaking apart into wisps of smoke before it could touch him. The hunter stumbled, his grip on the disintegrating halberd tightening in frustration. "You arrogant—!"

Eryn raised a hand, and the space between them folded. Varis was thrown backward, tumbling through the warped air as though gravity itself had betrayed him. But the hunter landed gracefully, rolling to his feet. He was relentless.

Varis touched the ground, murmuring a command in a language long forgotten. Runes spread across the earth like wildfire, forming a circle that crackled with power. The air thickened, and Eryn felt the pressure of reality constricting around him—a cage designed to suppress his abilities.

Eilea gasped from the sidelines. "Eryn—!"

But Eryn wasn’t worried. This was his domain—a place where laws were merely suggestions.

He smiled, and with a flicker of thought, the runes shattered, breaking apart like glass. "I told you, Varis. Nothing here works the way you expect."

A Confrontation with Purpose

Varis wiped blood from the corner of his mouth, eyes burning with frustration. "You can’t just run from everything, Noctis. You think you can wander through the Null forever? You think the void will let you escape your choices?"

Eryn’s smile faded. "I’m not running." His silver eyes gleamed with something sharper than apathy—something that could have been regret, or anger, or both. "I’m just trying to see what’s left when everything else falls away."

Varis took a step forward, halberd in hand. "And what will you find? Emptiness? Or meaning?"

Eryn shook his head slowly. "I’ll let you know when I get there."

The tension between them crackled like a storm about to break. For a moment, it seemed they would clash again—but then the ground beneath them trembled, a deep rumbling that came not from the earth, but from the fabric of existence itself.

The Null was shifting.

The Edge of the World

Eilea grabbed Eryn’s arm, her voice tight with fear. "We need to leave. Now."

Eryn didn’t move. His gaze was fixed on the horizon—on the place where something began to emerge from the void. It was a figure, distant and hazy, walking toward them from the depths of nothingness.

"Do you see that?" Eryn whispered, his voice almost reverent.

Eilea followed his gaze, her heart pounding. "What is it?"

"I don’t know," Eryn answered. But something ancient stirred within him, a memory long buried beneath countless erased timelines. It was as if the figure emerging from the void was not just someone he knew—but someone he had once been.

Varis cursed under his breath, gripping his halberd tighter. "This is madness. You’ll unravel everything."

"Maybe," Eryn murmured. "Or maybe this is where it all begins."

As the figure drew closer, reality itself began to unspool—the world around them fraying like threads pulled from a tapestry. Time twisted, space folded, and the boundaries between what was real and what was not dissolved into mist.

Eilea clutched Eryn’s hand tighter. "What do we do now?"

Eryn smiled—a tired, wistful smile. "We walk. Until we find out what’s waiting."

And with that, he took the first step into the void.

The edge of the world dissolved beneath his feet, but Eryn didn’t fall. He walked forward, into the space where existence ended and nothing began—a wanderer of Null, searching for whatever lay beyond.

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