Chapter 180 Null, A Vesper

"Wait! Look at Veylin… Something is happening to him!"

Bruce's sudden shout shattered the tense silence, his voice sharp with alarm.

Every genius snapped their attention toward Veylin—and what they saw made their blood run cold.

Crown Prince Aelric, Amelia, Revenna, Jack, Arthur—all of them stared in horror, their battle-hardened instincts screaming at them to stay away.

Max was no exception. His entire attention on Veylin as he suddenly felt a very creepy aura from him.

Veylin's body twitched violently, his hands clenched into unnatural angles, as if his very being was rejecting something inside him.

His breath turned shallow, his skin paled, but what sent a chill down everyone's spine was his eyes—

They were empty. Hollow. As if his soul had already been consumed.

And yet, from that void within him, an aura more twisted than anything before began to rise.

Max's expression darkened.

A strange, eerie aura was pouring out of Veylin's trembling form, wrapping around him like an unseen force of corruption.

It wasn't rage.

It wasn't hatred.

It was something deeper. Something darker.

Then—

Suddnely Veylin's transformation accelerated, and what followed froze everyone in pure terror.

His skin darkened, shifting into an abyssal black, consuming every inch of his body. His features—his face, his eyes, his mouth, his nose—all vanished, swallowed by the creeping darkness.

And in their place—

A mask of pure blackness formed, smooth and featureless, an eerie void where his face had once been.

"AHHHHH!"

A bloodcurdling scream erupted from Veylin's throat, raw and inhuman, as if something far worse than pain was consuming him from the inside.

Yet—

The transformation wasn't finished.

The air around him twisted, reality itself warping as something unnatural took form.

At the very center of his black mask, a single glowing white ring appeared, pulsing with an eerie radiance. It wasn't an eye. It wasn't light.

It was something far more sinister.

Then, just as suddenly as the screams had begun—

They stopped.

A suffocating silence descended upon the battlefield.

And then—

"I have finally been born into this world…"

A voice—low, twisted, filled with a sinister amusement—rumbled through the air.

It came from Veylin, but at the same time, it was not him.

His posture shifted, his presence no longer human. The energy radiating from him was wrong, and unnatural.

A cold, chilling chuckle followed, reverberating like a whisper from the abyss.

Every genius watching knew one thing—

This was no longer Veylin, at least, not on the surface.

"That—That is a Null Monster! A Vesper!"

Crown Prince Aelric's voice cracked with terror, his usually composed expression twisted in shock.

A Vesper.

The mere mention of that name sent a chill through the Battle Realm.

Most of the geniuses blinked in confusion, tilting their heads, unaware of what Aelric was talking about.

But those who did understand—

Amelia. Revenna. Arthur, Bruce.

Their faces darkened instantly, their expressions grim.

"But how?" Arthur muttered, his voice laced with unease. "How did Veylin become a Null? A Vesper?"

He felt a cold sweat forming at the back of his neck.

"Though I hated this guy—because, well, everyone hates him—how does a human even turn into a Null? That doesn't make sense!"

Aelric shook his head, his face pale.

"I have no clue ei—"

He suddenly stopped, his breath catching in his throat.

His eyes widened as he pointed toward Veylin—or rather, the thing he had become.

"He's moving. He's taking action—I think." Find your next read at My Virtual Library Empire

Every genius present snapped their eyes toward Veylin.

The blackened form, the featureless mask, the single glowing white ring pulsing ominously in the center of where his face should have been—

And then—it moved.

And vanished.

Max's entire focus had been locked onto Veylin—or whatever he had become. He had been watching, ready to react, but—

He never saw it happen.

One moment, Veylin was there.

The next—

A cold, clawed hand had wrapped around his throat.

Max's pink eyes widened as he suddenly realized—

He was in the creature's grasp.

A single clawed, pitch-black hand—as if carved from the void itself—held his neck in an iron grip.

The black mask with its single glowing white ring stared at him from up close.

It was featureless. Inhuman. Wrong.

And then—

A sound.

"Fascinating."

A whisper. A chuckle. A voice that didn't belong to this world.

A chill ran down Max's spine as his gaze locked onto the glowing white ring embedded in that featureless black mask.

The way it stared at him—not with eyes, not with emotion, but with something far more unsettling—sent a deep, primal instinct of danger through his very soul.

'Damn… what is he?'

The terrifying aura radiating from the creature made it abundantly clear—this was not Veylin anymore.

Max's instincts screamed at him to act.

Without hesitation, his right hand ignited, surging with black flames that roared to life like a feral beast.

With a tight grip, he clamped his flaming hand over the blackened claw gripping his throat.

Ssssshhh!

The flames sizzled violently against the unnatural flesh, burning deep, causing the Vesper to recoil slightly.

Its grip loosened—just for a moment.

And that was all Max needed.

With explosive speed, he broke free from the grasp, and in the very same instant—

He vanished.

Pushing all three of his agility skills to their absolute limit, he blurred backward, retreating as far as possible from the abomination before him.

When he finally stopped, standing several meters away, he steadied his breath, his gaze locked onto the creature.

For the first time in a long time, Max felt something strange.

Not excitement. Not challenge.

Something close to… unease.

"Why are you running so fast?"

The blackened face creature spoke, its voice laced with a sinister amusement, the tone both mocking and unnervingly calm.

As it spoke, its other hand traced over the burns left by Max's black flames—a slow, almost lazy caress.

Then—

The injury vanished.

Completely erased.

Max's eyes narrowed.

'Regeneration? No… It's something else.'

His body remained taut, senses on full alert, every fiber of his being prepared for whatever this thing was about to do next.

"Who are you? What happened to Veylin?" Max demanded, his pink eyes sharp, his energy coiling within him, ready to strike at any moment.

The creature chuckled.

"Who am I? Doesn't matter."

It tilted its head, the glowing white ring on its face pulsing ever so slightly.

"Just know that you… you are going down."

The space around it twisted, an eerie, almost imperceptible disturbance warping the air.

"Even if I can't kill you in this strange realm we are in…"

The creature's voice lowered, its tone turning from mockery to pure menace.

"I will make sure you taste the same feeling as my dear friend is going through right now."

With those words—the creature vanished.

This time, Max was ready.

His Three Dimensional Body skill caught a trace of its movement, an unnatural distortion in space that left behind a faint ripple.

His instincts kicked in.

Without hesitation, his sword surged with power— 20% Fusion State Aura, roaring like an unstoppable force. Level 2 Lightning Aura, crackling wildly across the blade. Level 1 Space Aura, distorting reality itself around his attack and also pure raw strength from all his 15 Draconic Essences concentrated on his sword.

"Drag Sword!"