The sky over the Imperial Capital didn't just turn dark; it turned silent.
As Kaito and Rin arrived at the Golden Gates, the sheer pressure of Kaito's presence caused the elite guards to faint before they could even draw their spirit-blades. But the Emperor had one final line of defense: The Five Calamities.
These weren't warriors. They were sentient disasters—humans who had completely merged with their Spirit-Ink until they lost their humanity.
"Kaito," Rin whispered, her resonance-sense screaming. "The gate isn't made of gold. It's a living seal. And the five heartbeats behind it... they aren't human. They're 'Singularity-Class' Ink-beasts."
Kaito stepped forward, his white hair glowing with a cold, silver light. He raised the Null-Edge, the blade that was a literal gap in the universe.
"The Sun-King thinks he can stop a vacuum with a wall," Kaito said, his voice echoing in the minds of everyone in the city. "He's about to learn that Nothing is the strongest force of all."
From the gate, the first Calamity stepped out: The Sage of Eternal Drought. Every step he took turned the air into a desert.
"Void-Child," the Sage hissed. "You are but a shadow. And shadows die in the sun."
Kaito didn't take a stance. He simply lowered the temperature of his own atoms to Absolute Zero.
[Technique: Kinetic Stillness]
The heat of the Sage's drought hit Kaito and simply... stopped. The energy didn't bounce off; it was deleted. Kaito walked through the heat like it was a summer breeze.
"My turn," Kaito whispered.