Suddenly, the heavy energy that Askald and the others feel flies away like a weight that has finally been removed from their shoulders.
Against all odds, Askald and the others were not interrupted by the two guards until proven otherwise, both were on the ground, unconscious.
Therefore, Askald was able to enter Alvine's apartment, accompanied by Fy and Azalea.
But they were seized by another wave of shock when they saw that the room was empty and in a pitiful state as if the apocalypse had manifested itself within it.
Askald, like the others, was speechless; he leaned towards the ground and picked up one of the few pieces of debris still intact; ...if the word intact was qualified to justify its condition.
In any case, he used this fragment of stone among other ash to scan the aura to find out what had happened in the room.
"You think it's...-
Fy did not dare to speculate too much on the situation by seeing Askald's face as dark as coal.
"They are no longer there," Askald mumbles his thoughts aloud while squeezing the rock plate that turned into dust under the effect of his brute force.
"They?" Azalea thinks about Askald's words while raising her eyebrows as she tries to get the same information as the others.
"...What should we do?" Unfortunately, her question seems to fall on deaf ears.
"Nothing at all," Askald answers Fy's question without thinking too much about it.
"Are you sure of that?" She persisted while wearing a dubious face.
Askald finally gets up and looks at the condition of the room over and over again. "To hope to do something, you must first find them; but yet, we already know the answer.
-And even if we manage to locate them, we won't be more or less than spectators...or even worse, dead weights." He enunciates before walking to the outside of the room.
"From right now, let's continue with our respective missions; I feel that the situation will no longer be as before when he returns." He gives this order before evaporating in front of the two women.
Subsequently, Sabrina and the others, who were slightly late, returned later.
--
Askald was not wrong about their inability to join Alvine and his clone.
Both were currently in an independent dimension and disconnected from everything; a dimension where bodily or intangible matter had no place.
A dimension only made up of black energy in its most perfect state.
Alvine, floating in the darkness, stared at his alter ego who was close to him to such an extent that he could touch him if he held out his hand while being far from him at incapable distances.
Space, time, water, fire, light, and more importantly, the atmosphere... these elements that make up a large part of the universe as it is, did not exist in this desolate place where a single law reigned supreme; darkness.
[It was clever to drag me with you to this place. You at least spared your so-to-be family from being annihilated by--
"Say me, why are you doing this?" Alvine cut him off in the middle of his jubilation while asking him this question.
His shadow's smile threatened to fade following Alvine's question.
[...]
As for their natures, it was not so difficult to guess; in the absence of the lightning that crackled on one of the three.
The last two were just as threatening as the first.
Then,
He controls one of the three spheres with his gravitational power after mumbling...
[Flame of nothingness!]
In a lightning surge, the colossal and spherical mass, similar to a nuclear-fusion sun, falls on what can be considered the remains of Alvine, reducing it to ashes.
But still not happy with his victory, or perhaps uncertain that his spell defeated Alvine, he immediately sends the other sphere that made black lightning crackle around it.
[Arcane of souls: absolute dark lightning!]
Just as with his first attack, the lightning sphere explodes at the same location as his first sphere.
His actions could be considered futile and crazy but faced with being able to reconstitute himself with his soul intact, it is not; no, far from there, it was even the right thing to do.
As a being sadly famous for his fierce battles against transcendent beings and beyond, no one was more qualified in this field than he was; killing beings like him.
But dissatisfaction soon twisted his facial nerves when he realized, through his eyes which could see beyond the visible, that Alvine's soul had fragmented into several pieces and that some debris could survive.
But immediately comes a Machiavellian smile worthy of the demon he is and has always been.
[Your tenacity does not surprise me, you are proudly worthy of being a part of me.]
While formulating this single sentence vehemently, he finally triggers the last sphere, as if he knew, from the beginning, that Alvine was going to survive his attacks, each of which... able to defeat any of his prey from the past.
The third sphere, being the smallest and most 'harmless' among its congeners, due to its silent character, is nevertheless the one that had taken more than fifty percent of his aura.
Smooth, black, and more importantly, silent, was the third sphere ( just screwed up to have the size of a basketball).
[Universal Law of Darkness, last form; return to origin!]
As soon as he had finished articulating this incantation, pearls of sweat were already sparkled on his forehead.
But it was only an insignificant detail compared to the real protagonist, the black spheres.
The latter, without moving from its place like its predecessors, instantly attacks the dimension of absolute vacuum.
Its role was not to target Alvine, but to devour what could not be devoured; vacuum.
-!!
But as it blossomed like a poisoned flower, something strange and inconceivable alarmed the 'winner' who was only waiting for cheers; Alvine's voice.
"You perfectly played your role as a bait; I congratulate you."
In addition to his voice, Alvine reappeared just behind his back, as if he had never been present from the beginning.
Tetanized by anxiety and frozen by a dread he had never felt before, the giant, measuring several hundred feet, did not dare to turn around even to make eye contact with the little ant that had just appeared.