Zekai couldn't look away from the sword.
Zzzzsup!
A crimson, half-transparent window bloomed in front of him.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ ARCANA STATUS ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Originless Rare Sword Acquired
Current State: Sealed
Its true power remains locked.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
He blinked. "An Originless Rare Sword...? Just how rare is something like this?"
His eyes stayed on the floating text.
Is this what Null Reality's acknowledgment actually looks like?
Before he could chase the thought further, another window unfolded.
Zzzzsup!
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ ARCANA QUEST ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Unlock the weapon before the allotted time expires.
Failure Condition: The weapon's true power will be permanently sealed.
Unlock Timer: 00:05:00
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"...What." His face twitched. "Now it's threatening to take it back?"
His thoughts raced ahead of him.
Is this... Null Reality's acknowledgment? His eyes narrowed.
Then why does the Fool's system want me to unlock it?
Is Zero trying to keep me from obtaining this sword?
The timer kept counting down without waiting for an answer.
00:04:22
00:04:21
...
Beside him, Sebastian frowned, watching Zekai stare into empty air, occasionally waving a hand through nothing.
"...What is he even looking at?"
Zekai didn't answer. He started walking straight toward the sword.
"Wait." Sebastian stepped directly into his path. "Don't touch it yet." His eyes stayed fixed on the colossal sapphire eye overhead. "Until today... no one has ever touched that eye."
His voice dropped lower. "And everyone who tried... died."
Blood still ran from the cut along his ear. He pulled a small glass vial of dark crimson liquid from his coat and drank it without hesitation.
The Grave Healing Potion moved through his system. The bleeding stopped almost immediately, the wound starting to knit itself shut.
It wouldn't close all the way.
Sebastian stared down at the shallow line still cut into his skin. Grave Healing Potions fixed almost anything ordinary.
This wasn't ordinary. His expression darkened.
"...Just like I thought."
Zekai glanced at him. What's he going on about?
He checked the Arcana window instead.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ ARCANA STATUS ]
Unlock Timer: 00:03:21
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Sebastian touched the wound lightly. "A graze. Just a graze, and a Grave Healing Potion still couldn't close it all the way." Something unfamiliar sat under his voice.
"If this is only the aftermath of a graze, I don't want to imagine what a real cut from that sword would do." His expression darkened. "And this isn't even its true power."
Silence stretched between them. Sebastian understood something bigger, though.
Null Reality ran on laws older than recorded history. Absolute laws. Once a weapon chose an owner, nothing severed that bond after the fact.
Not strength. Not rank. Not even dying.
He turned to Zekai. "Zekai." Calm, deliberate. "If that sword's accepted you, it belongs to your soul now. Whether you like the terms or not."
"It's not something you get to control carelessly."
He stepped aside. "Draw it."
Zekai nodded. No time left to second-guess it.
His fingers closed around the hilt. The instant skin met grip, pressure slammed into his arm like the whole world had decided to sit on his shoulders at once.
"...!"
He pulled. Nothing. The sword didn't budge an inch.
His grip tightened. The Fool's authority surged through him, invisible energy pouring down his arm.
He pulled harder.
Still nothing.
Sebastian watched him for a moment, then spoke. "You're forcing it. That's exactly why it won't move."
Zekai looked over.
"Do what you did the first time," Sebastian said. "Quiet your mind. Become one with it."
"...Then let the blade decide if you're worth the weight."
Zekai closed his eyes. In. Out. Everything around him dropped away.
When his awareness surfaced again, the world had lost every color it had. Only black and white remained.
The endless grass. The horizon. The floating eyes. All of it drained down to monochrome.
Except two things.
The sapphire eye, and the sword in his hand — both burning with color against a world that had none left.
A voice rose out of the blade itself. Ancient. Level. Older than anything with a name.
"What is your desire?"
Not a question looking for an answer. A judgment. No room in it for a lie, a dodge, or a moment's hesitation.
Zekai answered without pausing.
"...Battle." Steady. "I want to take back everything that's been taken from me."
His grip tightened around the hilt.
"So lend me your strength. And your will."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ ARCANA WARNING ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Unlock Timer: 00:00:22
Twenty-two seconds remaining.
Failure will permanently seal Originless Rare Sword.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Zekai's eyes snapped to the numbers. That's wrong. It had read over three minutes a heartbeat ago.
Time didn't skip on its own. Not here. Not now.
Realization landed cold, immediate. You're doing this.
Somewhere behind the falling numbers, something he'd learned to recognize the hard way was leaning its weight against the clock, shaving seconds off before he could close his hand around what was already his.
His jaw locked. Fine. Let it try.
Silence.
Then the sword answered.
A violent storm broke out beneath the blade. The plains shuddered. Every buried weapon across Null Reality trembled in response, a chorus of ancient steel answering one call.
Aron's face surfaced in his mind. The smile. The sacrifice. The last words that had reached him through a collapsing world.
Marcus.
The Graveyard.
His own helplessness, every regret stacked on top of the last one, every emotion he'd buried since this whole nightmare started colliding at once.
Not enough. Never quite enough.
The sword took all of it anyway.
Zzzzsup.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ ARCANA WARNING ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Unlock Timer: 00:00:02
Failure Imminent
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"Shut up, you fool." Zekai tightened his grip. "I know what you're up to."
His eyes hardened. "The real fight hasn't even started yet."
CLANG!!
A roar of metal tore through the plains — the forgotten blade drawn for the first time in more ages than anyone had counted.
For one impossible heartbeat, nothing moved at all.
The storm cut off. The endless grass bent outward in silent, perfect rings. Every ancient weapon buried across Null Reality stood frozen, as though the entire forgotten world had paused to witness the return of its rightful blade.
Zekai stared down at it, disbelieving.
It didn't feel heavy anymore. It felt...like it had always belonged in his hand.
His body moved before he decided anything. He swung.
The moment the blade left the earth, he cut a wide arc through the air on instinct.
SHHHHHK!!
One slash. Nothing more than that.
The compressed shockwave tore across the plains anyway, splitting the air itself down the middle.
Behind him — crack.
Sebastian's glasses shattered into pieces. His eyes went wide, pupils shaking.
"...Impossible." Barely a whisper.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ ARCANA ARSENAL UPDATED ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
New Weapon Acquired
Name: Null Drakular
Classification: Originless Rare Sword
Status: Unlocked and Registered
Soul Synchronization: Established
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ QUEST COMPLETED ]
Originless Rare Sword Unlocked
Reward: Authority Synchronization Increased
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Zekai lowered the blade slowly.
Light spiraled around it in bands — crimson, azure, gold, silver, emerald, black — dozens of colors braiding together around Null Drakular like a constellation come loose from the sky.
The polished steel threw his own face back at him. He stared at it for a long moment.
His whole life had been spent watching. Watching tragedy happen. Watching people die in front of him. Watching every chance to change something slip past while he stood there.
Always a step too late. Always without the power to do anything about it.
Not anymore.
He raised the sword toward the endless sky.
"My name is Zekai Krystan." His eyes swept the horizon of Null Reality, stretching out forever in every direction.
A quiet smile crossed his face.
"Not the Watcher anymore."
His grip closed tighter around the hilt.
"From now on..."
The blade caught the light. Whatever hesitation had lived behind his eyes was gone now, replaced with something a lot harder to shake loose.
He looked out at the horizon.
"—I'm the Hunter."
✦ End of Chapter 48 — The Null Drakular ✦