Aaron had no idea what this guy's deal was, but he was almost certain he was no god of shadows. Firstly, why was he here? If gods could interact so easily with their world through the barrier, then surely Yendal would have told him so. Or Lenriel, for that matter, who was granting Pentival power as his proxy. Why go to all that effort if they could just appear like this and directly interact with their universe?

  Also, he had felt gods come to him, and he had felt the void. This just all felt so wrong.

  “Julius?” Talia said, as if waiting for an explanation.

  “I was just getting to that,” Julius said, but was cut off before he could continue.

  “So, you’re supposed to be a god? Do I have that right?” Aaron said.

  “What are you getting at, mortal? I warn you to watch your tone.”

  “It’s just… You don’t look like any of the gods I met. You don’t feel like them either. Your aura… It’s weird, but it doesn’t feel particularly divine to me, and I’ve been to a divine realm, so I feel like I would know. Also, what’s with the void energy?”

  “I’m not on your world, mortal! This is why you can’t feel the real power of my aura! You fool! This is the reason for my contract with young Julius here. He is to serve me souls, and in return, I shall protect you and your people once I am free of this place. Don’t test me with your innocent drivel!”

  But it wasn’t just drivel. Aaron could feel the false god trying to weasel its way into his mind, and thankfully, he had prepared himself for such a thing, strengthening his mental resistance. He was also aether running through him, leaning into his spiritual powers to increase his resistance and make his mind more difficult to conquer.

  He glanced over at Talia. She seemed less certain, but in control of herself.

  What are you trying at, you conniving false god?

  Aaron turned to Julius, waiting for his side of the story.

  “That is correct. But do not be alarmed. I would never harm a person. I feed only beasts to the Shadow God. And in return, we shall survive this multiverse.”

  “Beasts? As in living ones?”

  “Unfortunately, yes. They must be caught alive and brought down here. If not, their souls will leave their bodies, and they will be of no use to Maverick. But it is a small price to pay for our protection by a divine entity. I’m sure you can understand this.”

  Aaron couldn’t understand it, well, mostly because he didn’t believe that this was a god. Also, capturing and bringing living beasts down here didn’t sound like an easy job.

  However, whatever this Maverick was, it was powerful, even if it was lying about being a god.

  Then why? Why does this thing go to all the effort of tricking Julius into feeding it living beasts?

  Aaron didn’t really understand. Maybe its body wasn’t presently in the room with them, but he could feel the density of its power, and while void energy wasn’t divine, it was incredibly powerful, and he had little doubt it was stronger than anything from Earth.

  “Yeah, I don’t buy that,” Aaron said after considering his words. “You’re no god. I’ve met too many at this point to have the wool pulled over my eyes so easily. Now, tell me what you really are, and what you’re doing here.”

  “Julius?! Your friend here dares to make demands of me? Maverick the God of Shadows?! What insolence is this?!”

  Talia stepped back, her body tensing up as she summoned her avatar.

  “Sorry, my lord! Aaron, please. Apologize immediately! This is a god you stand in the presence of! You can’t speak to it like that!”

  “Bah. No, he isn’t. I’m guessing you didn’t get a blessing in your short time spent in the trials, otherwise you’d have realized the same. This is a pretender through and through.”

  “Annoying little brat.” Maverick spat, his mood suddenly changing. “I suppose I’ll have to dispose of you myself. Pity, you could have been useful.”

  Suddenly, Julius’ eyes went completely black, and the dark, dense energy flowing out of the void at the room’s end filled him with an incredible power.

  Muscles tensed across the man, and his veins filled black, making him look as if black lines were marked across his skin.

  “It is unfortunate we are unable to work together, Aaron Dober,” Julius said, his voice suddenly guttural and monstrous.

  “Oh, great,” Aaron sighed. “Are we really doing this here? Talia, you know the drill.”

  Talia nodded, ready.

  But there was no answer from the distorting form of Julius; instead, a thick, dark cloud of energy began to flow out of him, and that told Aaron all he needed to know.

  As the void energy coalesced, tendrils of dark energy stretched out from the man, and a cackling laugh grew louder as he tilted his head back.

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  “Not a god? AHAHA! What do you know of gods, infant!”

  “Aaron!” Talia beckoned urgently.

  “I’m fine,” he called back, already reading fate and coming up with an attack plan. “We got a little fighting to do, that’s all.”

  Delving into fate, he could see how this thing lashed out, counting him as he attacked, and Aaron studied several different methods of attacking it before settling on one.

  Rushing forward, he dodged the dark tendrils of energy and threw fists. But it was far more than just an attack that he was throwing out there. As he engaged Julius, he sent his own energy rippling out. He had a plan, and now wasn’t the time to play it safe.

  Julius himself wasn’t particularly strong, but he had a feeling that Maverick could push his body far beyond its normal limits, especially while it was right next to the concentration of void energy. But luckily for him, Zero had attuned himself mightily well to Aaron already, and when he pushed his energy up to its limits, he was sure to alert the wolf.

  With energy filling his fists, his attacks came fast and hard, and he dodged expertly, closing the range, but when his punches landed, it was as if they didn’t hit a solid surface. Like something was cushioning Julius, and absorbing the impact.

  Following up his own attacks almost immediately was Talia. She wasn’t far behind, and energy wrapped around the sword of her avatar as it mimicked her movements, and she swung her scepter at Julius. The massive sword came down, but it was stopped short of her target by tendrils of black void energy that shot out at it from all around.

  Her attack might have been stopped, but it was revealing. He might have been willing to take Aaron’s normal punches, but Maverick didn’t want to be hit by that, and seeing it, Aaron followed up with a [ Soul Shattering Strike ]. However, he didn’t manage to reach the possessed man.

  He had been fighting carefully, following the threads of fate, and trying to get good reads before completely committing himself to a strategy. But he hadn’t seen what happened when he tried to use [ Spectral Rush ] through one of the tendrils. And what he found was that the void energy slammed straight into him, even in his incorporeal state, and it flung him back against the vault wall, like a shadowy octopus swatting a fly.

  “Now you see, don’t you? Now you see what I have become. I’m no longer a simple prisoner. And to think, this is only the beginning. Now die!” Maverick roared, his guttural voice sounding more twisted than ever as it came from Julius.

  In an instant, a cloud of black energy came over the possessed form of Julius, and he flew forward, Aaron with incredible speed.

  But a flash of silver light intercepted him on his path, clashing with Julius and sending the consuming dark in retreat as it knocked him away.

  Then, in the blink of an eye, the silver light flashed away, and Zero was beside Aaron, howling.

  “Good boy. But the two of you,” Aaron said as he got to his feet. “You'd better stand back. Hit him from afar whenever you get a chance. But let me tank the shots.”

  Fueling himself with a burst of adipose energy, he threw everything into his attack, increasing speed and power all at once as he flew toward Julius. He was sick of this intruder, and he was about to make it pay.

  Even if his incorporeal state didn’t work against the void attacks, he could still dodge, and he closed the distance, weaving through countless tendrils of void energy to land an earth-shattering combination that started with his soul-crushing special attack and ended with too many strikes to count.

  The dizzying array of attacks was devastating. The link between Julius and the void was temporarily broken as he beat down his energy organs and reserves, and for the briefest of moments, he saw the color return to the man's eyes.

  Another powerful strike sent him flying backward, but before Julius hit the far wall, he exploded in a burst of black smoke, and then, less than a second later, he appeared at the other side of the void energy concentration, laughing.

  “AHAH! Good one! But it’ll take far more than that to stop me!”

  It was at that moment that Aaron remembered something. The void energy was what constructed the trials, and if void energy could be twisted into resurrecting people within the trials, could it be used in a similar fashion outside of them?

  He hadn’t more than a second to stew on the thought, as Zero was already on the attack, shooting a beam of silver energy at the reformed Julius, but a burst of void energy countered it and consumed the attack entirely. But just as it did, a blinding light came down upon him. It was Talia’s avatar; the massive sword it wielded cut straight through Julius, splitting him in two.

  His face went blank, and the two halves of Julius fell to the ground, but before hitting it, they exploded in black smoke again, and less than a second later, he reappeared.

  Aaron was on him, though, not wanting to give him a chance to recover, and he laid down a vicious combination of punches and [ Soul Shattering Strike ], crushing the man’s newly formed body before he could even mount an offense or defense.

  But again, as a final blow crushed what little life he had left, his body exploded in smoke again.

  In a second, he reappeared just in time for Zero’s maw to clamp around his head and yank it straight off.

  A second later, a sword strike impaled him, and after that, a haymaker blew apart his head.

  Remembering the color he saw in Julius’ eyes, he went after him with renewed vigor, using [ Soul Shattering Strike ] several times in a row, opening to bash Maverick straight out of him. But unlike the first time, the dark void never left his eyes, and Maverick respawned his body, laughing louder and more mockingly than ever before.

  It wasn’t just his failed plan that made his nostrils flare with irritation. Aaron was starting to understand what it must feel like to fight against himself, and it was thoroughly annoying.

  Within a few minutes, they had killed Julius more than a dozen times, and there seemed to be no limit to his resurrecting power.

  But then Aaron remembered the void well he had conquered back with Oozagh, and he stared into the dense pocket of void energy at the room’s far end.

  Void tarnished? He remembered Oozagh saying something like that, and he had survived such an encounter once already.

  What he was thinking was beyond stupid and reckless, but they couldn't just keep hacking Julius down forever, could they? And what would happen to this energy if he did what he did back in the cave with Oozagh? Could he purify it by pouring his energy into it as he had back then? The void energy didn’t feel any stronger than it had then, and if anything, it was weaker, but back then, it still took multiple days for him to finish. Then again, he was more powerful now, too. And it didn’t look like the three of them were going to be able to hold this being off for too long while his source of power remained intact.

  “Talia, Zero!”

  “What is it?” Talia said as she hacked Julius down again.

  “Keep doing what you’re doing. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  He had a feeling she would protest if he told her his plans, and so he kept them for himself, but her eyes followed him as he walked toward the void.

  “What are you doing, Aaron!?”

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