Chapter 6 - Deeper Void

Almost hidden. Almost forgotten. But very much awake.

🟪〚MANIPULATION MASTERY [S] 〛

Color: Deep violet, edged in chrome silver. Faint streams of violet thread pulse outward like puppet strings into the surrounding space.

Aura: Precision. Control. Influence without touch. Power through understanding.

Size: Like Lord of the Coins—but thinner, sleeker, like a blade hidden in the folds of a cloak.

Primary Traits:

– Stringweaver: Perceive and interact with hidden emotional, social, and mental threads between individuals.

– Cause & Effect Calibration: Subtly alter thought patterns, body language, and outcomes.

– Tactical Puppetmastery: In combat or negotiation, predict actions three moves ahead.

– Influence Radius: Widen his presence; command without speaking. (Scales with charisma and mental clarity.)

Passive Effect:

– Psychological Drift: Targets within range slowly adjust their tone, posture, and rhythm to match his—mirroring behavior even without realizing. The longer they stay, the more aligned they become.

Hidden Trait:

[LOCKED: Requires Fusion with Strategic- or Psychic-Type Cards]

He blinked, a bead of sweat sliding past his temple.

"How did he not see it…?"

"Almost missed it…"

He stared.

It stared back—if such a thing was possible.

But one thing was clear:

It waited. Intentionally.

Like it knew he'd nearly leave… and wanted to see if he deserved it.

Now it hovered there—not asking to follow.

Just being seen.

His final two tokens burned faintly in his palm.

The gate still waited behind him—blinding. Silent. Immense.

"And..... Why is it purple?....isn't purple for C rank cards?"

[ Incorrect assumption. ]

[ Card color is not strictly tier-based beyond early ranks. While lower tiers follow a defined palette, S-rank and beyond often express their core concept, not their classification. ]

[〚Manipulation Mastery〛manifests as violet due to its psychological and arcane nature. Influence, subtlety, and precision—colors tied to the mind, not the blade. ]

[ Do not judge power by shade. ][ Judge it by how deeply it rewrites the world around you. ]

"So.....Bookish- answer.....nevermind...."

"Follow."

His voice is steady—but his gut isn't.

The Manipulation Mastery card flickers once——not in refusal, but like a smile made of silence—Then slides behind him, joining the others.

As Zero turned toward the radiant gate, his voice echoed through the dark void—calm, but final.

The moment his foot lifts to cross into the Dark Void—

Everything changes.

Not outside—

But behind him.

All four cards began to shake and tremble.

Not violently. Not in panic.

But in instinctual dread.

Their lights flicker in odd rhythms.

Not rejection… not resistance…Fear.

Not wildly. But deeply. As if their very code was resisting something unseen. A tension in the air—thick and ancient—wrapped around them like invisible pressure.

Even 🟨〚Lord of the Coins〛, so steady before… trembled.

⬛〚Extraction〛 pulsed with erratic darkness.

🟪〚Manipulation Mastery〛—normally still—tilted slightly, like a marionette sensing its strings being pulled by someone else.

Even SS-Rank ⬜〚Universa〛is shaking in the presence of what lies beyond the gate.

[ ...Warning: The Dark Void is not a level. It is not a reward.It is a throne room. ]

[ You enter not to take… but to prove you are not prey. ]

Yet despite their resistance… they obeyed.

One by one, they floated behind Zero—hesitant, but loyal—as he approached the gate.

"Must be something powerful here... here we go... hump—"

He stepped through.

The blinding radiance swallowed him whole.

And then—everything changed.

The moment he pass through—

Silence.

No sound. No colour.

Just endless Darkness.

Pure. Flat. Perfect.

But far… so far out—

A single dotof light exists on the horizon. Moving.

~

He begins walking.

At first, it feels like the glowing white dot is just a few steps away—but each time Zero moves forward, it shifts. Not farther.Just… out of reach. As if distance itself were alive.

Mocking him. Testing him.

His legs don't burn. His lungs don't heave. But his will? It stretches. Warps. Thins like a thread tugged across eternity.

He starts forgetting how long he's been walking.

"F**K... HOW FAR IS IT??? CAN'T YOU MAKE ME FLOAT THERE???..."

Silence

"HELLO!!?... SYSTEM??"

No reply.

"...Sh*t."

A month? A year? A heartbeat stretched into infinity?

Time bleeds into Dark.

Dark bleeds into nothing.

And still, he walks.

Then—

A shift. A stop. It's there.

Finally.

Right in front of him.

And now… he sees it in full glory:

Even from over 80 - 100 kilometers away (50 - 60 miles approx), it is visible.

〚 Truth [SS] 〛

Double the size of Universa, which was already the size of two skyscrapers stacked.

But this? This was colossal. Its presence bent the silence. Warped the dark.

As he reached near it.

It didn't float. It anchored. Like the void itself was built around it.

And though it had no eyes—

Zero felt it looking right at him.

The color of its form constantly shifted—from ink-black, to ashen silver, to dim celestial blue, to void-white, to deep crimson—cycling slowly, deliberately… like it couldn't decide what truth looked like.

Its surface was etched with—cosmic geometry, shifting endlessly like a living mandala, not drawn on it… but around it.

Strange patterns orbited near its edges—

not bound to the card, but floating, rotating, breathing like sentient equations.

Each line glowed faint red-gold.

Each rune pulsed with ancient rhythm.

They weren't decorations.

They were guardians.

Scripts of logic…

And yet, the object at the center remained still. Waiting. Watching.

As if it knew Zero was coming.

Lord of the Coins quietly moves behind Extraction, who slides behind Manipulation Mastery.

Even Universa—usually bright and proud—dims her light. Not out of fear. Out of instinct.

They aren't just trembling. They're hiding. Shielding themselves…

Like prey in front of a predator that doesn't need to roar— because everything already knows.

Zero stands still.

This isn't just a card.

It doesn't pulse. It doesn't shine.

It breathes insight. It bleeds meaning.

And now—at last—TRUTH makes no sound.

But in that silence—it breathed understanding. It bled something deeper.

And then—without sound, without system cue—

Lines began to burn into its surface. One by one.

As if reality itself was writing them.

"Everyone lie. All power bends."

"Only Truth remains."

"Not to serve. Not to obey."

"But to witness."

'eh- why does it sounds like it is a child....'

Then—

The glowing script faded.

And in its place…a new set of words began to form:

🌀 〚 TRUTH [SS] 〛

Type:Conceptual Absolute 

Status:Unbindable by Force | Unlockable by Will

Size:Monumental — beyond normal SS parameters

Nature:Adaptive / Reactive / Non-Linear

Visual State:– Constantly shifting colors and designs: glass, gold, void-stone, neural grid, royal tapestry, even mirror.– Every pattern feels like it's showing you a part of yourself.

Presence Effect:– All lesser System Entities enter Reduced Output State in proximity.

Affects Karma, Perception, Logic Trees, and Emotional Layers of bound cards.

Prevents lying in its presence.

Passive Traits:–

 Cognitive Strip: See through manipulations, illusions, and false constructs.

 Origin Sight: View foundational truths behind objects, people, and Systems.

 Reality Alignment: Automatically recalibrates perceptions closer to objective reality—at risk of emotional overload.

Active Function:–

 Revelation Pulse: Forces an area or individual into absolute cognitive clarity for a short time.  — Cooldown based on moral conflict, not time.

Below all of this, a simple rectangular field flickers to life beneath the details:

~

〚TRUTH〛 begins to write...

The letters form themselves, as if etched by intention alone.

"You have walked through illusion and hunger."

"You seek control, mastery, wealth... escape."

"But beneath it all, you crave one thing."

"Honesty."

"With the world. With power. With yourself."

Then it pauses… the cursor blinking.

It continues:

"I cannot be held within a single bind."

"To carry me is to carry weight beyond power."

"If you truly want me—"

"—you must surrender two of your five paths."

"One, for me."

"And one… to remain forever empty."

Your vision shudders.

The cards behind him flinch. To embrace Truth, Zero must give up not just one card—But the space for another that will never come.

"Soo..... in short.... you want me to choose you right now and use 2 slots or leave?"

TRUTH responds simply—

"Yes."

No flattery. No persuasion.Just confirmation.

Zero stood still, eyes locked on the pulsing letters.

"Hmm... now that's a problem," he muttered, voice low. "I walked this far... just to get nothing? No..."

The silence thickened again.

A pause.

A flicker in his gaze.

A shift in his thoughts.

'Hmm… should I try that…?'

His eyes narrowed slightly. A different kind of light sparked in them now—Not desperation.

Strategy.

A long silence follows.Not empty—watchful.

〚TRUTH〛 floats before him, motionless. It doesn't shake. It doesn't resist. Because it doesn't need to.

Zero's eyes narrow—calm, sharp, calculating.

"So… to the one even my other SS-rank card trembles before…"

His voice deepens.

"YOU WILL NOT FOLLOW ME, HUH?"

〚TRUTH〛 doesn't move. It doesn't flinch.

It simply is.

Its surface keeps shifting—symbols folding, colors bending, geometry evolving like it's solving the fabric of reality itself.

It doesn't answer him. Because it doesn't have to.

Zero's hand clenches. He breathes in once—slow. Not desperate. Not afraid.

Defiant. Mad. Determined.

Then, with a voice that shouldn't exist in this place, that shouldn't even be allowed to command—

He speaks.

"...Be so then. COMBINE. YOU. ALLL!!"

The void shakes violently. The cards behind him freeze.

The system which was quiet till now, popped a message.

[ UNSPEAKABLE COMMAND REGISTERED… ]

[ ERROR—NOT A FUNCTION... NOT A PERMISSION... NOT A POSSIBILITY. ]

And yet—The universe listens.

The void erupts.

Lord of the Coins jerks upward, golden circuits bursting from its surface—streams of ancient currency and divine law spiraling around it.

Extraction screams without sound, bursting into black shards that swarm upward like intelligent knives, locking into the golden streams.

Universa resists—just for a moment—but then all her white glyphs light up at once, and she too ascends, glowing like a dying sun being restructured.

Manipulation Mastery breaks apart into threads—thousands of violet strings, slithering upward and intertwining through the others like the veins of a living god.

All four—

Ripped from their forms.Spun into the core of 〚TRUTH〛.

And then—

〚TRUTH〛 reacts.