Emma had not joined the battle immediately, because a heaviness dragged inside her, not just of thought but of body. She had been pushing herself, straining beyond what her age should have endured, through one trial after another without pause. The cracks were showing. Fatigue tugged at her mind, exhaustion gnawed at her, almost wanting to affect her Ki cores.

  As she felt this, her mind flickered back to a warning she had been given before entering this fruit. Luna’s voice lingered again:

  “You must be careful. Admiring too much, too often, could become dangerous. You may not always know what you’re bringing forth... or what it might do to you. Or to those around you.”

  And now, within this fruit, Liz’s words only added weight to that warning. She had told her that she should be careful not to create complex things so it wouldn't damage her..

  The words circled Emma’s thoughts, pressing on her as she sat rooted in the frozen field. She could already notice the change in her body. She pressed her lips together, steadying herself. That was enough to make her decision: she would not step into the fray recklessly. She would wait. Watch. Find an opening. Only then would she strike to end the Eradicator.

  Most importantly, she would not manifest anything complex. Not now. Not until she was certain.

  Her breaths came sharp in the chilled air as she began digging through her thoughts, scrambling to recall what else she had left untouched. Her fingers twitched unconsciously at her side, as if flipping through the pages of her own memory. Then, suddenly, her eyes widened. A pulse of realization rushed through her.

  She had not yet tried it.

  That other of her fate related ability .

  'The Eyes That See All Things As One.'

  The moment the thought surfaced, her pulse quickened as she almost felt like kicking herself for being forgetful in times like this.

  She knew what this ability meant.

  The Eyes That See All Things As One:

  A personal contradiction that make all beings, even if they have Infinite strings of fate or the absence of them altogether, this contradiction forces a rule, a unity where there was none, bypassing their will and creates just one string of Fate on them, ignoring their vastness and everything about them into a single, absolute strand. And if cut...

  Finality.

  It could not be resisted. It could not be undone.

  Emma’s breath quivered in the air, white fog trailing from her lips as she slowly rose to her feet. Her silver-white hair caught in the breeze, strands brushing across her coat’s thick, fluffy collar. She tilted her chin upward, her unique white eyes narrowing on the shifting figure ahead. The Eradicator’s silhouette twisted inside its own storm of emerald smoke, its body warping, reshaping, evolving.

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  A soft, restrained smile curved her lips.

  My thoughts were faster than your evolution… She whispered inwardly. Let’s see if I can disrupt you, even just a little.

  Her hand lifted, slender fingers spreading as the thin silver bracelet around her wrist began to tremble. A faint hum vibrated through her skin, so subtle at first it was almost inaudible, but it grew, resonating against the very air around her. The band pulsed once, then warped in a seamless flow of motion. Metal stretched, reshaped, refined.

  Within a heartbeat, she was holding a blade.

  The Sword of Fate.

  Its sleek form gleamed with an ethereal glow, light seeping from its surface as if it bled from beyond this world. The glow pulsed in rhythm with her own breath, steady and unshaken. Her hand curled tightly around the hilt of the weapon.

  The Eradicator’s smoke grew thicker, swirling and negating the battlefield with a suffocating presence.

  Emma’s gaze deepened, and in the unseen realm of fate, her contradiction unfolded. She imposed what should not be: a single string of fate upon the Eradicator, its very existence instinctively resisting. The green smoke roared in defiance, negating, unraveling, denying her. Yet her rule pressed on, quiet but relentless.

  And then....finally!

  The string manifested.

  Just for a moment. But it was enough.

  Her grip tightened. With a calm swing, the Sword of Fate moved. Its arc was clean, precise, silent, yet existence itself recoiled.

  Finality.

  The sound that followed was not a sound at all but the absence of everything, an overwhelming, deafening reign of silence that crashed against the battlefield.

  The green smoke recoiled violently, hissing and scattering as though struck by an invisible storm. Emma’s lips parted, her chest rising in a small, relieved breath. A smile flickered, fragile but real.

  She had cut it.

  But she knew very well that,

  The Eradicator had not fallen.

  Its armor, imbued with Ash of Negation seethed, the dark plates negating the concept of finality. It still stood, alive, its body a denial of the concept of death itself. Yet she had disrupted it. Her strike had severed not its existence, but the concept of it's evolution. The string of fate she cut had stripped it of progress, ceasing its ascension.

  Emma’s thoughts rippled as she steadied her blade. It denied my finality… but at least one thing was stopped.

  The smoke that had been beaten back began to coil again, creeping closer, thicker. From within that receding haze, a pair of unseen eyes opened, fuming, seething with an unholy glare.

  And they were fixed directly on her.

  The Eradicator had noticed her.

  It knew.

  She was the one who had disrupted its evolution.

  ROAR!!

  With a existence-shaking roar, the Eradicator’s dull armor surged to life, glowing a venomous green as if primal energy pulsed beneath its plates. The ground trembled under its stride as it lowered its stance, prepared to rush forward and crush her, prepared to negate her very existence.

  But in that instant..

  DONG!!

  The world shifted. The snowy battlefield evaporated into nothingness, replaced by a silence so pure it carried weight. The Eradicator found itself dragged into another place, another layer of existence, or so it believed.

  Yet what lay before it was no familiar realm. It was like a white expanse stretched in all directions, like a blank canvas, an arena where everything is absence... Color, sound, reality, existence, layers or even external concepts.

  It was an Absolute Blank Paper World.

  Patreon plug: (35+ Chapters Ahead)

  https://discord.gg/k9MA7ZUQGJ