The sky broke.
Seven silhouettes descended through the fractures, their bodies concealed beneath robes that appeared to have been woven from the absence of light.
They did not fly.
They did not fall.
The world simply lowered them into existence.
Below them, the ancient creature rose from the fissure.
The broken rings around its throat shattered one after another.
Each ring fell toward the earth.
None reached it.
They vanished before touching the ground, leaving behind seven enormous holes in reality.
The Traveler stood between the creature and the descending judges.
Black flames moved around his fingers.
His purple eyes remained fixed on the figures above.
"Get down here and do it yourselves."
For several seconds, the Null Court said nothing.
Then the central judge raised its hand.
"The human remainder has developed an unacceptable degree of defiance."
Another judge answered.
"Its vessel remains unstable."
A third spoke.
"Its existence remains unfinished."
The Traveler tilted his head.
"Are you seven going to discuss me until I die of boredom?"
Dark Arafial closed his eyes.
"Unbelievable."
Light Arafial did not react.
He was watching the judges' hands.
Each carried a different symbol.
A circle.
A broken line.
A black square.
A hollow crown.
Three interlocking rings.
An empty eye.
And a final symbol that neither Light nor Dark appeared willing to examine for long.
The ancient creature looked at those symbols.
Then it spoke.
"You have brought your laws into my presence."
The central judge turned toward it.
"You have no presence. You have no authority. You are a forbidden remainder."
The creature's expression did not change.
"Is that what you called me when you buried me?"
The judge's symbol brightened.
"You were buried because you refused your assigned purpose."
"Assigned by whom?"
The question passed through the valley.
The judge did not answer.
The creature took another step out of the fissure.
The earth beneath its feet dissolved into black dust.
"Who assigned your purpose?"
The seven judges raised their hands together.
"The Court does not answer to its prisoners."
The creature stared at them.
Then, for the first time, it smiled.
Not warmly.
Not cruelly.
With the quiet recognition of something that had waited an eternity for a familiar mistake.
"Then let us discuss your first prisoner."
The central judge immediately lowered its hand.
"Silence."
The creature looked toward the Traveler.
"Do you know why they separated you?"
The Traveler's expression hardened.
"They were afraid they couldn't control me."
"That is what they told you."
Dark Arafial opened his eyes.
Light turned toward the creature.
The Traveler said nothing.
The creature continued.
"They feared what you might become. But fear was not the only reason."
The central judge's voice cracked across the valley.
"You will not speak of the forbidden order."
The creature ignored it.
"They had already decided that you could not be permitted to exist as one being."
The Traveler's fingers tightened.
"So they divided me."
"Yes."
"And when that didn't solve their problem, they tried to kill the human piece."
"Yes."
The Traveler's black flames rose higher.
"Then why am I still alive?"
The creature looked at him.
For a moment, the enormous face seemed almost tired.
"Because someone disobeyed."
The seven judges moved simultaneously.
"ENOUGH!"
Their combined authority struck the valley.
The black flames around the Traveler's fingers vanished.
His body locked.
He attempted to raise his arm.
Nothing happened.
He tried to move his foot.
The ground beneath it became impossibly heavy.
The judges had not attacked him.
They had simply declared that his movement was no longer permitted.
The Traveler's expression changed.
"What—"
His knees struck the ground.
The impact fractured the platform.
Dark Arafial lunged forward.
"TRAVELER!"
Chains erupted from beneath the earth.
They wrapped around Dark's arms, throat, and torso before he could take another step. His black smoke burst outward, devouring several chains, but new ones appeared faster than he could destroy them.
Light Arafial raised one hand.
A blade of white light formed between his fingers.
He cut through the first chain.
Then the second.
The third chain tightened around his wrist.
A fourth pierced the light surrounding his body, extinguishing it.
Light's eyes narrowed.
The judges had adapted.
They were not merely suppressing power.
They were removing the possibility of resistance before it could become action.
The Traveler tried to stand.
His body refused.
The black flames returned around his fingers, flickering violently.
He forced one hand forward.
The fire stretched toward the central judge.
For a fraction of a second, the judge's robe began to burn.
Then the flame disappeared.
The Traveler stared at his hand.
He had felt it.
The Nihilfire had reached the judge.
And something had rejected the result.
Not resisted it.
Rejected it.
As though the Court had declared that the attack had never occurred.
The Traveler's fingers trembled.
He tried again.
Nothing.
The central judge lowered its hand.
"The human remainder is incapable of executing judgment."
The Traveler slowly lifted his head.
"Keep telling yourself that."
A chain tightened around his neck.
His voice stopped.
The crowned Hunter appeared behind him and forced both his arms backward. Two more Hunters seized his shoulders and drove him against the broken platform.
The Traveler struggled.
For the first time since awakening his purple eyes, he could not even turn his head freely.
The Hunter pulled his arms higher.
The iron restraints closed around his wrists.
Then the chains passed through the ground.
The platform accepted them.
The Traveler was anchored to the forest itself.
The crowned Hunter leaned toward his ear.
"You should have remained quiet."
The Traveler stared ahead.
His eyes were black again.
The Hunter took a step back.
It had expected anger.
Instead, it saw something colder.
The Traveler was memorizing every face.
Every symbol.
Every restraint.
Every person who had touched him.
He would remember.
Even if they made certain that he could do nothing about it now.
### The Two Halves
Dark Arafial's restraints tightened.
The chains had wrapped around his throat so tightly that the black smoke escaping his eyes could no longer spread beyond his face.
He looked toward the central judge.
"You have made a serious mistake."
The judge regarded him without interest.
"You have made that declaration before."
Dark's eyes narrowed.
"Then you should know what happens next."
"Nothing happens next."
The judge closed its hand.
Dark's chains contracted.
His body struck the ground.
The impact split the black stone beneath him, but the restraints remained intact.
Dark tried to summon the Abyss.
Nothing answered.
For the first time in countless ages, he reached toward his own creation and felt only silence.
The forest had cut him off from the realm he had made.
The judge stepped closer.
"Your power is derivative."
Dark slowly raised his head.
The judge continued.
"Your throne is derivative. Your memories are incomplete. Your authority exists only because the original existence once possessed it."
Dark's expression became perfectly still.
"Finish your speech."
"You are not the Lord of the Abyss."
A pause.
"You are what remained when the Lord was divided."
Dark stared at the judge.
Then he smiled.
It was a terrible expression.
"Then why are you still afraid of me?"
The judge did not answer.
It gestured toward the Hunters.
Two of them seized Dark by the arms.
They forced him upright and locked a black collar around his throat.
The collar flashed once.
Dark's eyes returned to their ordinary darkness.
The smoke vanished.
His power was sealed.
He did not struggle again.
Not because he had surrendered.
Because he was watching the Traveler.
And the Traveler was watching him.
Neither spoke.
They did not need to.
Light Arafial's capture was quieter.
He examined the chains around his wrists, then looked at the judge approaching him.
"You've changed the restraints."
"You recognize them?"
"I recognize the principle."
The judge stopped before him.
"Explain."
Light's eyes remained cold.
"The chains aren't suppressing our power. They're suppressing the conditions under which we can use it."
The judge tilted its head.
"Continue."
"You don't prevent me from producing light. You remove the possibility that the light can affect anything."
A pause.
"You don't prevent Dark from reaching the Abyss. You declare that the Abyss cannot answer him."
Light looked down at the black collar in the Hunter's hand.
"And you don't prevent the Traveler from attacking you."
His eyes returned to the judge.
"You declare that his attack cannot become an action."
The judge remained silent.
Light's expression hardened.
"Who taught you to do that?"
For the first time, the judge seemed to consider the question.
Then it answered.
"The one who taught us how to divide you."
Light stopped moving.
Behind him, Dark Arafial's expression changed.
The Traveler raised his head.
The judge continued.
"You were not the first existence we divided."
It gestured toward the ancient creature.
"And you were not the last."
The Hunters forced Light to his knees.
The black collar closed around his throat.
His remaining light vanished.
The three pieces were now restrained.
The human vessel.
The Light half.
The Dark half.
All three stood—or knelt—under the authority of the Null Court.
The central judge turned toward the ancient creature.
"The fragments have been secured."
The creature had not moved.
It watched the Hunters bind the three pieces.
Then it looked at the judges.
"Fragments."
The central judge raised its symbol.
"You will be returned to confinement."
The creature looked down at the broken rings around its throat.
Then it looked at the Traveler.
The Traveler struggled against his chains.
He could not move his arms.
He could barely breathe.
But his eyes remained fixed on the creature.
He wanted answers.
He wanted to know why it had protected him.
He wanted to know what the Null Court had hidden.
Most of all, he wanted to know why something that had been imprisoned for an eternity was now the only being in the valley capable of acting freely.
The creature understood.
It lowered its enormous head.
"Forgive me, my Lord."
The Traveler's eyes widened slightly.
The creature turned toward the seven judges.
"I should have ended this before they reached you."
The central judge raised its hand.
"Execute the forbidden order."
The six other judges responded simultaneously.
"Confirmed."
The forest went silent.
Every Hunter stopped moving.
Even the chains around the three pieces became still.
The ancient creature's expression changed.
For the first time, the Traveler saw something other than indifference on its face.
Recognition.
And beneath that recognition—
Grief.
The creature closed its eyes.
"So you have finally decided to use it again."
The central judge spoke.
"The forbidden order was authorized before the division of the original Arafial."
Light Arafial's eyes widened.
Dark Arafial stopped struggling.
The Traveler stared at the judges.
The central judge continued.
"Its purpose was never to defeat the forbidden remainder."
A pause.
"Its purpose was to ensure that no existence could ever protect Arafial again."
The Traveler felt something cold pass through his chest.
The ancient creature opened its eyes.
The seven judges extended their hands.
A symbol appeared above the valley.
It was not one of the seven symbols carried by the Court.
It was a symbol the Traveler recognized.
He had seen it in his dreams.
He had seen it in the white emptiness.
He had seen it in the memory of his own separation.
A circle divided into three unequal pieces.
The original Arafial's symbol.
The Traveler's chains began to glow.
Dark Arafial's collar tightened.
Light Arafial's body flickered.
The creature roared.
For the first time, its voice shook the entire forest.
"DO NOT COMPLETE THE ORDER!"
The central judge answered without hesitation.
"The order cannot be revoked."
The creature stared at the symbol above the valley.
Then it looked at the Traveler.
"My Lord."
The Traveler strained against his restraints.
"What is it?"
The creature's voice became quiet.
"They are not going to kill you."
The Traveler's eyes narrowed.
"Then what are they doing?"
The creature looked at the seven judges.
And answered.
"They are going to make certain that the original Arafial can never exist again."
The symbol descended.
The chains tightened.
Light Arafial's eyes turned white.
Dark Arafial's eyes turned black.
The Traveler's eyes turned purple.
Three colors.
Three pieces.
One original existence.
And somewhere beyond the forest, something that had once been Arafial began to forget his own name.