Ikki took a deep breath as he floated in the midst of the Sea of Chaos.
Then, it happened.
Fragments of Apophis's existence began to detach themselves from nothingness and be drawn into him.
His [Conceptual Void] devoured them without hesitation. Like a bottomless black hole, it absorbed every particle, every trace of power that once comprised that primordial entity. And, in that instant, Ikki felt it.
His mind violently expanded. An ocean of knowledge crashed within it.
He saw.
He understood.
Concepts once distant and abstract were now crystalline, as natural as breathing. The flow of time, the threads of causality, the structure of the Duat itself—all revealed before him, no longer as a mystery, but as a truth inherent to his being.
He had crossed a new frontier.
The completion percentage of his [Conceptual Void] rose to 15%.
And this mere increase… was enough to shatter his perception of reality.
Time ceased to be linear. The space around him seemed to bend to his will. Chaos, Darkness, Night, Destruction, Death—he became the personification of each of these concepts. His form shifted, taking on that of a colossal serpent, identical to Apophis, but infinitely superior. He was now the Lord of Isfet, the very concept of injustice and wickedness, the absolute opposite of Ma'at, the order that kept the universe balanced.
But, deep down, Ikki knew. One could not exist without the other.
He sighed softly, allowing his mind to adjust to his newfound understanding. Slowly, he crossed his legs in the air, assuming a meditative posture, as if the chaos around him were nothing more than a distant breeze.
And so, several months passed in the blink of an eye.
He had successfully turned eighteen, surpassing the entire prophecy that dictated the end of Olympus at the hands of one of the Big Three or Salvation.
The change was undeniable.
His appearance had fully matured, without a single trace of childishness or adolescence.
He had reached a level that transcended any concept of mortal or divine beauty. He was now an entity, an absolute force, something that defied reason and crushed any notion of resistance.
His features were so perfect that they couldn't be described in words without them seeming empty and insufficient.
A mere glance at him was enough to draw involuntary sighs, to make hearts beat at a frantic pace, and for any rational thought to dissolve into an ocean of wonder.
Men who had never felt attraction to another man found themselves questioning everything they thought they knew about themselves. Women who had never believed in love at first sight became prisoners of a passion so overwhelming that existence itself without him seemed an unbearable torment. Even those who possessed no emotions, who had trained their minds to be cold and impenetrable, found themselves completely at the mercy of his beauty.
His skin was a masterpiece of impossible perfection, immaculate, without the slightest imperfection, without the slightest blemish or flaw. Its tone was like white gold, sometimes seeming to reflect the brilliance of the sun, sometimes assuming the silvery splendor of the moon. To the touch, there were no words that could describe it—it wasn't just softness, nor just firmness. It was the apex of what flesh could be, something beyond comprehension, addictive at the slightest contact.
His hair wasn't simply strands of keratin. It was an infinite black ocean, moving as if it possessed a life of its own, as if it carried within it the secrets of the universe. It was long and smooth, seeming dense, yet at the same time weightless, floating around him as if space itself revered it. Each strand seemed to absorb the surrounding light and reflect hidden stars, a subtle shimmer that hypnotized anyone who dared to observe him for too long.
Every detail of Ikki's face was a masterpiece of absolute precision, as if the very concept of beauty had materialized.
His eyebrows were perfectly drawn, arched just so to accentuate the magnetism of his gaze. They weren't too thin, nor so thick as to appear rustic—they were a perfect balance between delicacy and masculinity, a trait that added an irresistible intensity to his expression. Each movement of his eyebrows, whether a subtle raise or an almost imperceptible frown, carried a mesmerizing weight, as if the universe bent to his will.
His eyelashes were perfect, possessing a devastating effect, making his gaze even more captivating, as if each blink were a silent spell that ensnared anyone who watched him. Each lash seemed to have been drawn by hand, granting him an almost cruel charm, a touch of softness in an overwhelmingly intense presence.
His nose was the personification of harmony. Neither too large nor too small, perfectly proportional to the rest of his face. The bridge was straight and defined, the nostrils delicately sculpted, and the tip possessed a natural lightness, without exaggeration. It was the kind of detail that would go unnoticed in anyone else, but in him, it seemed to be an essential piece of a puzzle that formed absolute perfection.
Everything about him was an invitation to desire and ruin. Every feature, every detail, every nuance of his existence made resistance impossible. It was cruel and relentless, a charm that no one could avoid.
And the worst part?
It wasn't intentional.
His existence was simply perfect; he wasn't *trying* to be perfect.
And then there was his mouth. His smile.
His lips possessed a red hue like fire or freshly spilled blood, like desire made flesh. There was nothing anyone wouldn't do to see them curved into a smile. There was no fate they wouldn't accept, no life they wouldn't surrender, just to receive a single smile from him.
"I'm an adult now, huh…" he murmured softly without opening his eyes or moving from his position. A sigh escaped his lips as he realized his voice had changed. His voice wasn't just beautiful, it was an enchanted melody, each syllable carrying such absolute magnetism that it could bend realms and make the heavens themselves tremble.
His body was an affront to the laws of creation. No artist could sculpt something so perfect. No god could conceive of such an absolute form. Every line, every muscle, every curve was carved in ideal proportion, without excess, without flaw. He wasn't an ordinary warrior, he wasn't a king, he wasn't a god. He was the personification of desire, the apex of existence.
And the most terrifying thing of all?
There was no resistance.
There was no escape.
No matter how strong the mind, how powerful the being. Once under his influence, there was no recovery. There was no escaping the enchantment of his appearance without forever carrying the pain of his absence. A man would abandon his throne, his empire, his honor. A woman would wait for him until her hair turned white, until life itself was extinguished.
Ikki was a poison without an antidote.
An addiction without a cure.
Eternal ruin.
Despite noticing the change in his voice and body, he didn't rush.
There was still more to absorb.
As the months passed like mere moments, his [Conceptual Void] continued to devour the Sea of Chaos. Each wave, each fragment of primordial destruction was dissolved into the absolute darkness that existed within him. The universe itself seemed to hesitate before that relentless force.
And then, finally, it all vanished.
There was no explosion. There wasn't a final roar of Chaos. Just… silence.
The Sea of Chaos, which had existed since the beginning of time, was no more.
What remained was nothingness.
Ikki floated in the absolute void, feeling the vastness of his new existence extend beyond human comprehension. The silence around him wasn't merely the absence of sound, but the negation of reality itself. Time and space no longer held meaning there. And, in that moment, he opened his eyes.
His eyes…
They weren't just beautiful. Beautiful was too weak a word, too limited a concept to describe the immensity reflected in his gaze. They were an endless ocean, a mirage of sapphires or agates that seemed to contain within them the entire universe. No jewel, no star, no work of art could compare. They were impossibly deep, as if they could suck the soul from anyone who dared to gaze into them for too long. The vibrant blue pulsed with living nuances, reflecting the birth and destruction of galaxies, the eternal cycle of creation and ruin.
But, at the same time, they were gentle. A perfect paradox between enchantment and perdition. As if each blink were a silent invitation to the unknown, a call to dive in and be lost forever.
He smiled. A slight smile, almost imperceptible, but enough in itself to make hearts waver.
It was in this instant that the Sea of Chaos returned.
At the exact moment his eyes shimmered, nothingness gave way to primordial chaos.
The infinite ocean that had once existed there reformed itself, churning like a living being, filled with the primal energy that predated the order of the world. And, along with it, rose the Obelisk Tower, resplendent and imposing, sealing within it a new shadow of Apophis, identical to the one that had been imprisoned before.
New garments materialized on his body instantly, shaped by his will alone. As he adjusted the sleeves with a casual gesture, his mind wandered over all that he had received by consuming the Sea of Chaos.
He hadn't just absorbed power.
He had absorbed the concept of origin. The primordial chaos, the raw and uncontrollable force that existed even before the gods. The foundation upon which Ma'at and all of reality had been built. The absolute opposite of order, and, at the same time, its inseparable counterpart.
And that had changed everything.
His divinity had now advanced to twenty percent completion. And, with that, something within him transformed irreversibly.
His innate abilities… no longer existed.
Not because they had vanished, but because they no longer made sense as separate abilities. [Right Hand of God], [Archmage], [Warlord], [Divine Sense], [Almighty]—all of them had intertwined with his existence so deeply that they were now part of his very nature. He no longer activated them. They simply happened.
Before, he was like a warrior with an arsenal of divine weapons at his disposal. Now, he had become war itself.
If before his abilities were like gears that needed to be triggered, now he was the very flow of the universe within him. A river that didn't need a beginning or an end, it simply flowed.
He had ceased to be a mere player on the board of reality. Now, he *was* the board.
Finishing adjusting his sleeves, he cast a casual glance at the Sea of Chaos recreated by his authority. And then, he turned towards the Obelisk Tower for a moment. Ikki cracked his neck, feeling the tension dissipate as he dispelled the translucent barrier over the Sea of Chaos. The instant the protection vanished, his consciousness expanded, traversing the layers of the Duat as if they were veils of mist.
To his surprise, upon probing the timeline of that dimension, he realized that barely two hours had passed since he'd parted ways with the Kane siblings. His eyes shimmered slightly as he recognized the absurdity of this discrepancy. Within the Duat, he had spent entire months—absorbing, evolving, transcending—and yet, for the rest of that plane, it had been but the blink of an eye.
His eyes narrowed. As the very embodiment of Isfet within the Duat, his understanding of that reality surpassed any other existence. He comprehended its laws, its layers, its primordial essence.
And yet, the temporal distortion intrigued him. It didn't take long, however, to identify the cause: the Sea of Chaos itself. Upon being absorbed by him, the vastness of energy had collapsed, trying to stabilize. The remaining chaos, resisting assimilation, distorted the perception of time.
Ikki simply shrugged.
Without hesitation, he vanished. His body dissolved as if it had never existed.
In the next instant, he appeared in the Land of Demons—a layer of the Duat dangerously close to the Sea of Chaos, where even the most powerful could be sucked into eternal perdition if they ventured beyond its boundary.
The landscape around him was a ceaseless illusion, impossible to comprehend with mortal eyes.
In the distance, a chain of imposing mountains rose to the sky, only to, with a step forward, reveal themselves as mere hillocks he could leap over effortlessly. A shallow puddle beneath his feet suddenly expanded into an endless abyss, forcing him to move before the landscape consumed him.
Immense Egyptian temples crumbled like sandcastles, only to rebuild themselves moments later, as if some invisible entity were playing with colossal blocks. Monstrous statues, carved into limestone walls, emerged from nothingness—empty eyes swiveling to stare at him.
And then, there were the demons.
They were countless. Creatures ripped from the most primal nightmares. Bodies covered in open wounds. Limbs twisted at impossible angles. Insect wings beating in a dissonant rhythm. Some had multiple arms. Others, black tentacles that moved like living shadows.
Their faces? Aberrations. Jackals, crocodiles, serpents—or forms so distorted they had no reference in the mortal world.
The Land of Demons was an eternal battlefield.
Hordes spread across the shifting horizon. Some raised colossal fortresses, only to see them destroyed minutes later by the chaotic instincts of their own kind. Combat was incessant, and, within his sight, at least a dozen large-scale battles raged simultaneously.
In the skies, winged demons tore through the smoke-filled air, diving without warning to capture the weaker ones, dragging them to unknown fates.
Ikki took a single step—and the darkness moved with him.
Dense shadows emerged from his left side, extending like an endless abyss, studded with white-toothed maws. They expanded, hungry, engulfing everything around them.
The chaotic landscape vanished.
The unstable temples, the ruined fortresses, the warring demons—all were swallowed, devoured by the insatiable hunger that flowed from him.
The screams and roars of thousands of demons echoed for an instant. Then, silence.
The very ground, mutable, unpredictable, was assimilated, as if that realm had never existed.
Ikki remained motionless.
He felt the newly acquired energy burning within him, each fragment of demonic essence merging with his being. But his expression remained unchanged.