[I feel like you agreed to all this a little too easily.]

The golden panel flashed, but it wasn’t before his external eyes, no.

It was before him as he lay within the Void, staring into space.

This Void was his soul space, the place where his Darkness usually remained, but now that it had taken over, White was the one in here.

He wasn’t scared of it. After all, this wasn’t his first time here.

The first had been when Viktor, his past Otherworldler, overtook him.

And even though he was inside here, he could still easily see the outside world.

"You think so, huh?"

He replied, cleverly not answering directly.

[You could have resisted leaving with them. Together with the Astral Guard Squad.]

"And what would that have accomplished?"

White asked rhetorically.

"The death of two or three members of the Astral Guard Squad for a little bit of ego stroking."

[You don’t know where they’re taking you, or why they call you Prince, or what responsibilities that title carries.]

[This could end with you getting locked up on some alien planet millions of miles away from possible help.]

The panel flashed again, but White shrugged it off.

"They don’t hold any malice. And if they eventually do, I’ll find my way through it... I always do."

"Besides... I’ve got my plans."

He claimed, not explaining further.

He shifted his view outward toward his body, but apart from them endlessly weaving past astral bodies within the Void, there wasn’t much to see.

Neither was there anything to hear.

They all moved in silence through the darkness, and White eventually recalled his vision, exhaling quietly.

Now that he finally had time to himself, he could calmly piece together everything he had witnessed over the past several hours and arrive at firmer conclusions.

The first event had been what happened back in the bar:

His meeting with the Emissary of Darkness.

That confirmed one thing to him.

Her words were true.

While the Concept of Life and Souls had told him about all the chaos happening and even warned him of Destruction eventually finding him, White had never truly taken it seriously, nor had he fully believed everything she said.

But after meeting that man in white, her words had been confirmed.

Though the Destruction had not exactly come to destroy him, White knew why that was.

It was because his goal, as he had recited to the Emissary of Destruction, aligned perfectly with what Destruction itself desired:

More chaos.

If all he wanted was to recreate the Apexial Doom Rift and send the Supernaturals back, then a clash between them would have been inevitable, since doing so would reduce the chaos Destruction craved.

But wiping out the Supernaturals entirely was different. They would resist and fight back. And that conflict would bring even greater chaos and death.

That was exactly what Destruction wanted.

With White’s potential as the Emissary of Life and Souls, he was perhaps the only human truly capable of carrying out such devastation alongside the Emissary of Darkness, which was why no conflict had arisen between them.

[Is that really your plan, though?]

The system panel suddenly flashed.

[To kill the one who holds the power to open the Apexial Doom Rift and slaughter the Supernaturals. Revenge, so to say.]

"Every single supernatural deserves death... a painful one."

White replied without hesitation.

"So simply getting them off Earth through the Apexial Doom Rift is a mercy of which they are undeserving."

"But... on second thought, if there is to be a straight-out war with the Supernaturals, even if they’re all slaughtered, human lives will still be lost. Additional damage to us just to wipe them out."

"So when we have the choice of either sending them all away instantly, it becomes a matter of whether you want more humans to die to get revenge, or you send the Supernaturals away to preserve what little is left of human lives."

"The right choice there is pretty clear."

He mused quietly.

[And that’s the best choice.]

The system said, but White shook his head.

"No. That’s not the best choice."

He continued,

"The best choice is killing all Supernaturals without losing a single human life."

[But that’s impossible, no?]

It asked.

"We’ll see soon."

He replied curtly before shutting his eyes.

’The Supernaturals aren’t deserving of mercy... only destruction.’

He thought coldly in his heart before an even deeper chill surfaced within him as he remembered.

’And the ones most deserving of death are the Emissaries of Destruction responsible for creating the Apexial Doom Rift in the first place.’

’I’ll return, and by the devil, you’ll find no greater destruction than what I’ll unleash upon you all.’

_______________

It was Void after Void, endless astral bodies continuing as far as the eye could see.

Zones of raging meteors, star dust, and half-collapsed worlds.

Hours after hours, resulting in days after days.

A seemingly endless journey through the Void that surrounded them.

But eventually, it all came to a stop.

Before them stood a massive pitch-black vortex whose top couldn’t be seen, nor could its bottom.

Yet at what seemed to be its center stood four creatures holding massive crimson-dark spears in their hands, standing protectively over it.

Crimson-dark eyes narrowed before the spears were raised, crossing over one another in a blocking motion.

Seconds later, four figures appeared.

They were none other than the three Umbrawyrs and Dark White himself, all coming to a stop before the guards.

"We have brought back the Prince, and he is to be returned on the orders of Her Evil."

They called out to the guards.

And speaking of the guards, they were abnormally huge, all towering at heights of over ten meters with terrifying auras of destruction lingering around them.

Their eyes were beyond fierce as they gazed directly at White.

About ten seconds of silence passed before the spears were withdrawn, creating an opening.

"Come, my Prince."

The four-armed Umbrawyr said, and they floated forward before all four disappeared into the vortex.

Once more, the spears crossed over each other as silence reigned within the Void.