The damp air of the lower levels clung to Null as he descended the stone staircase.
Step. Step. Step.
He kept walking, his footsteps rhythmic and unhurried. The underground complex felt like an endless labyrinth, a maze designed to swallow intruders whole. Yet, Null's expression remained perfectly neutral, his sharp eyes scanning the shadows.
Suddenly, a figure materialized from the gloom ahead.
"Leo?" Null called out, stopping in his tracks.
Hearing his name, Leo spun around. But instead of running forward in relief, Leo instantly scrambled backward, widening the gap between them. His eyes were wide, filled with deep paranoia.
"Who the hell are you?!" Leo shouted, his voice echoing off the stone walls.
Null exhaled a short, exasperated breath. "Seriously? I am Null."
"If you're really Null, tell me where we met for the first time!" Leo demanded, his posture tense.
Null's eyebrows knitted together slightly. "But why are you—"
"Tell me!" Leo roared, refusing to let him finish.
"Okay, okay," Null sighed, raising his hands slightly to placate his friend. "I don't know what happened to you, but we met under a tree. And before you met me, you were... a star-like thing."
Leo took a long, deep breath, the tension visibly draining from his shoulders. He stepped closer, a relieved grin breaking across his face. "Now I'm sure. You really are Null."
"I told you," Null muttered.
But as Leo closed the remaining distance, a sudden, blinding flash of movement shattered the silence. Before Null could react, a sharp, cold object tore into his flesh.
Squilch.
Null gasped. He looked down. A heavy combat knife was buried deep in his stomach. When he snapped his head back up, Leo's relieved expression was warping, bubbling away like melting wax to reveal the scarred, mocking face of the assassin.
"Why..." Null grimaced, his voice straining as blood began to seep through his shirt. "Why didn't my Axiom catch this?"
The assassin grinned, twisting the blade slightly. "Because earlier, I injected a drug into you specifically designed to forcefully cancel your ability. Your body is terrifyingly adaptive, though—it immediately synthesized a resistance to it, rendering it useless. Unfortunately for you, I have more than one way to bypass your rules."
Rage, cold and absolute, flared in Null's eyes. Ignoring the agony in his abdomen, Null surged forward, throwing his entire weight into a brutal, explosive headbutt.
CRACK!
Their skulls collided with sickening force. The assassin staggered backward, crying out as he clutched his broken nose.
"You are too late for this," the assassin gasped through the blood flowing down his mouth, a twisted smile appearing on his face. "Now... the next target is your friend."
Before Null could strike again, the assassin's body violently dissolved, crumbling into a pile of harmless grey dust on the floor. A clone.
Null clutched his bleeding stomach, his breath ragged. "Leo... where the hell are you?"
"Brother?"
A soft, trembling voice echoed from the shadows behind him. Null spun around, his hand tightly pressing against his wound. Lana was standing there, her eyes wide with shock and worry as she took in the blood dripping from his clothes.
"Are you okay? Where have you been all this time?" Lana rushed to his side, her hands shaking. "I... I don't know what happened. I was searching for Leo, but then all of a sudden, my eyes felt incredibly heavy. I just fell..."
She stopped, her gaze dropping to the blood pooling around Null's fingers. Her face drained of color. "What... how did you get injured? Your Axiom..."
Null's mind raced, analyzing the data. If that drug temporarily shut down Axiom earlier, then my absolute rejection of this world's rules was paused. Which means...
"Lana," Null commanded, his voice tight. "Use your healing magic on me."
Lana staggered back, shaking her head. "But... but it doesn't work on you! Your body rejects my mana!"
"I want to try something. Just do it," Null insisted.
Hesitantly, Lana raised her trembling hands over Null's open wound. She closed her eyes, channeling her mana.
SHING!
An explosion of brilliant, blinding blue light erupted from her palms, far brighter than anything she had ever produced before. Within seconds, the torn flesh beneath Null's hands knitted back together, leaving the skin flawless.
Lana stumbled back, staring at her hands in utter disbelief. "What...? My healing speed... it was never this fast! How did this happen?!"
Null took a deep breath, feeling his strength rush back. As the magic faded, a familiar, invisible weight settled around him once more. The temporary window had closed. His body had fully broken down the foreign chemical.
"The drug's effect is gone," Null murmured, his eyes narrowing. "My Axiom has returned."
On the other side of the massive underground complex, Leo was still wandering through the shadows, his boots clicking against the stone.
"I am still wondering why this basement is so damn big," Leo muttered to himself, rubbing his arms against the chill.
Suddenly, a figure stepped out from a crossroad ahead.
"Me too," Null said calmly.
Leo flinched, immediately skithering backward to maintain a safe distance.
Null stopped, tilting his head. "Leo? What happened?"
"Nothing," Leo said, his eyes darting around the dark hallway. "But I have a question for you."
"And what is it?"
"How do I know you're the real Null?" Leo asked, his voice laced with suspicion.
"How could I not be real?" Null questioned, taking a step forward.
"Because that bastard assassin can shapeshift into other people," Leo countered, keeping his guard up.
"Oh?" Null paused, a faint smile touching his lips. "Thanks for giving me such valuable information. I'll be sure to keep that in mind."
Null took another step forward. Leo immediately matched it with a step backward, his knuckles turning white. "Stay back. I am still not sure about you."
"Leo, you are just wasting time," Null said, his voice dropping into a firmer, slightly annoyed tone. "We also have to find Lana."
Leo's heart skipped a beat. "What happened to her?"
"I don't know. I can't find her," Null replied smoothly.
"If you can't find her, then what the hell are you doing here?!" Leo demanded, his suspicion reaching a boiling point.
"I actually was looking for her, but eventually, I found you instead. And here you are, asking these weird questions," Null reasoned, his tone perfectly logical.
Leo narrowed his eyes, playing his final card. "Okay. I'll believe you if you tell me where we met for the first time."
Null didn't hesitate. "We met under a tree. And before meeting me, you were a star-like thing."
The answer was completely correct. It was the exact truth. But something deep inside Leo's gut screamed that something was wrong. The real Null would never leave Lana behind to look for me. His first priority is always his sister.
"Fine," Leo said, forcing a relaxed smile as he walked closer to the figure.
The moment he got within arm's reach, Null's hand shot out from his coat, holding a gleaming syringe, aiming straight for Leo's neck.
But Leo was already moving.
Having anticipated the strike, Leo ducked beneath the arc, his hand flashing forward to violently grab Null's wrist. Using the momentum, Leo drove his elbow upward with shattering force, striking the fake Null squarely under the chin.
CRACK.
The imposter staggered back. Leo didn't give him a chance to recover. He wrenched the syringe out of the fake Null's grip, spun it in his hand, and slammed the needle deep into the man's neck, depressing the plunger fully.
"I can't believe you thought I'd fall for that," Leo panted, watching the man stumble. "You separated from your sister just to find me? I know Null. His first priority is always Lana."
The assassin groaned, his eyes rolling back as he crashed heavily onto the stone floor. But this time, his body didn't turn to dust. He remained solid, breathing heavily.
"Maybe this injection was just for unconsciousness," Leo muttered, kneeling down.
He began frantically rifling through the unconscious assassin's pockets. His fingers brushed against several small vials. He pulled them out, examining them under the dim light. There were five syringes in total.
"Okay... that one looks exactly like the one I just used for unconsciousness," Leo analyzed, setting it aside. "But these other four... I have no idea. Wait..."
He squinted at the glowing, volatile fluid inside the four vials. It felt oddly familiar. "Maybe these are the drugs that increase magic energy? The drug he injected me with before... it feels like its effects are finally wearing off. Yes, I must be right. This madman was probably planning to inject all four of these into me at once to step up his twisted experiments."
Leo scoffed, pocketing the vials safely. "What a psycho. But I guess in stories, characters always have to face this type of overpowered madman."
He stood up, staring down at the dark hallway ahead. He paused, a strange, daring thought striking him.
If my theory about what this drug does is correct... I want to try something. I might actually need these injections.
Turning away from the unconscious body, Leo began walking deeper into the labyrinth.
Meanwhile, in a parallel corridor, the real Null and Lana were moving quickly through the darkness, searching for any sign of Leo.
"Why is this basement so massive?" Lana complained, wiping sweat from her forehead. "We've been walking in circles for so long."
Null didn't answer immediately. His mind was executing a series of complex calculations.
I can feel it. Axiom is fully operational again because my physical parameters have returned to normal. But if my body created a permanent resistance to that specific strain of the drug, will it work on me again? Or worse... does he have completely different variations of drugs that can cancel Axiom? If he does, this is incredibly bad news.
Lost in his logical deductions, Null didn't notice the absolute silence that had suddenly fallen over the corridor.
Shhhk.
Out of the absolute darkness behind him, a hand materialized. Before Null could even register the motion, a heavy needle was driven violently into the side of his neck.
The plunger was slammed home instantly.
Null's eyes went wide. The world instantly tilted. A profound, artificial darkness rushed into his mind, completely shattering his cognitive functions. His knees buckled, and without a single sound, Null collapsed face-first onto the cold, hard ground, plunging into complete unconsciousness.