Blanks?

After successfully killing the Alien Lord Lazar, Hades, for once, did absolutely nothing. He just lay there playing dead—cough, no, he lay there actively healing his wounds.

Aside from a few deeper cuts that were still faintly greenish-yellow and had not healed, his other wounds had stopped bleeding and scabbed over. His arms and hands, which had suffered minor fractures from the immense force, were also recovering well.

Having just finished a battle, Hades was basically useless, with zero ability to care for himself. On Morava Mountain, Mortarion had carried him down.

After that, he was thrown into the territory's centralized makeshift hospital. But rather than a hospital, it was more like a large converted barn for holding the wounded. Villagers with medical training took turns volunteering for shifts after finishing their farm work each day.

Hades was naturally placed in a small corner. After all, everyone had found him irritating before.

Though people instinctively disliked him every time they saw him, the highly responsible medical staff still treated Hades with great care.

Worried that Hades would not receive more attentive care, Herrela had visited him several times. Each time, she brought homemade "snacks"—

Hades was also curious. Resources on Barbarus were scarce, and the ingredients people normally had access to were quite limited, mostly wheat and White Corn. Yet how did Herrela manage to make such exquisite food from such simple ingredients, with every batch tasting different?

Once most of Hades's wounds had nearly healed, Herrela simply brought him to the little house she shared with her younger sister. The two took turns caring for him.

Hades had nearly recovered in the makeshift hospital, but Herrela's cooking forced him to spend several extra days fully regaining consciousness.

When the fractures in his hands and arms had mostly healed, he fled that place of trouble at the first opportunity.

Of course, before leaving, Hades cooked a meal for Herrela's family. He saw Herrela's younger sister eat until she was nearly in tears...

Stop torturing your sister...

After returning to his remote little cabin, Hades tidied up briefly, then sat at his worktable and began to think.

He had made some rough deductions while recovering, but anemia and poisoning—and later, the food—had prevented him from properly sorting through the information he had gathered.

This battle with Lord Razael made Hades realize something.

Hades unconsciously rubbed his chin. Perhaps he had always overlooked his unusual constitution, merely attributing it to his unpleasant personality.

But was it possible that Hades was a Blank?

The strongest direct evidence for this conclusion was the Psychic Power that had suddenly weakened during his battle with Alien Lord Lazar, as well as the backlash caused by its abrupt disappearance.

If he was a Blank, then many things fell into place—why people instinctively disliked him, especially the obvious disgust the Psyker Typhon felt toward him

—and why any slightly complex mechanical device he touched ended up ruined.

The answer was simple. He was a Blank.

But why had this Blank trait not manifested when he was young? Could it be that this constitution grew along with him?

Hades closed his eyes and carefully replayed his battle with Alien Lord Lazar. Frame by frame, the images emerged in his mind. He replayed them again and again...

The splattering blood, the crackling white flashes, the stone emitting its strange fluorescence.

Then, he "saw" it!!!

The scene in his memories suddenly began to distort rapidly, like an old faded film. Centered on that bizarre stone, Hades's world was fading and collapsing—

He was suddenly standing once more on the winding path of Morava Mountain. Lord Razael roared at him in a twisted shape, and everything seemed to move in slow motion. He watched the world around him darken, turn black and white—

Except for the crackling white light of Psychic Sorcery, and the stone radiating an ominous green aura,

as well as another flicker of flame that suddenly appeared beneath the green stone.

In the end, everything, including his senses, vanished. Even his reason seemed nailed in place. Hades could not think, relying only on instinct.

Hades felt as though he were floating in a void. Something alluring seemed to exist directly before him in that space.

He wanted to step forward and reach for it, but discovered that he seemed unable to move.

But those things... were so alluring. Hades felt like an empty, dark rift. He needed some of that light.

Like a drowning man, he desperately tried to grasp it.

Who knew how long passed? As Hades gradually focused his will on the light he sensed, his position changed—he felt himself transforming.

He felt himself stretching forward. Those lights seemed to tremble and scream—they were afraid, but Hades had no senses, so were they really?

Hades first smoothly submerged the shining white light. Then, greedily driving himself onward, he extended toward the green-glowing source.

But when he drew near, he realized that small fragments of rotten flesh floated around the stone, with pus suspended in the void.

He instinctively grumbled in displeasure, but did not think much of it. He did the same as before and submerged the green stone.

Yet just as he completely swallowed it all—

Hades instantly became alert. In the hidden Great Garden, at the end of a river that eternally flowed with immortal pus, within a crumbling ancient mansion standing at the edge of the world, beside a tattered, endless cauldron of festering sores, something seemed to look over.

He had disturbed Its dream.

He had disturbed Its playtime with Its future toy.

Without a moment's hesitation, Hades instantly pulled himself out. It was as though he had suddenly fallen in a sitting position before his worktable. Overwhelming reality crushed down on him, and clutching his head, he slammed it against the tabletop with a thud.

His suddenly restored senses assaulted Hades. He had been dragged out of a pitch-black room where there had abruptly been no sound at all, then thrown into a mad disco packed with screaming and vomiting.

His brain trembled. Hades clutched his head, his entire body convulsing uncontrollably. The spasms became too violent, and he fell straight from his chair, whimpering and howling endlessly on the floor.

Mortarion, who had been discussing the terrain with the observation team captain, suddenly raised his head from the strategic map and frowned toward the distance.

A chill crawled up his spine.

He felt that some higher existence was watching him.

The observation team captain looked at Mortarion.

"My lord, is there a problem?"

Mortarion blinked. He was certain there was nothing wrong nearby.

Maybe it was an illusion.

A voice sounded in his heart.

Was it really an illusion?

"Nothing."

Mortarion spoke softly. "Continue the report."

When Barbarus's long night had climbed halfway across the sky, Hades, who had been twisting on the floor while clutching his head, finally calmed down.

Hades propped himself up with his elbows, unable to stop gasping for breath.

Now he understood.

That place had been the Warp.

Within the Warp, Hades was an empty tear, slowly and irresistibly devouring all light.

Every time he swallowed a little light, the black void grew a little larger.

He... what he had done earlier... had alarmed ■■.

No, no. He had not felt that way when he swallowed Lord Razael—the stone, it was that stone!

That stone was ■■'s return gift for Lord Razael's sacrifice!!!

Fuck!!!

Hades felt a little better. He roughly wiped the sweat from his face and forced himself back onto the bed.

He looked at his hand. After devouring the stone's Psychic Power, his once-tiny void had suddenly expanded. Now, he seemed able to sense his own void.

This ability had previously been too weak for Hades to even perceive it, but after devouring the Psychic Power within that stone, it had rapidly grown!

He could feel that a part of his body was frantically crying out for him to accept it.

He would... become whole.

But was all of this a conspiracy of the Warp?

A Blank's projection in the Warp resembled a Black Hole.

The protagonist had an ability similar to that of a Blank.