"I… don't need peace…" Taufik rasped, each syllable dragging from his throat like glass. "What I need… is to keep moving forward! That's my responsibility… and I'll see it to the end!"

The ground cracked beneath his feet. His katana screamed with dark flame as his hand finally grasped it again.

The entire chamber trembled, light and shadow colliding in a storm that cracked the illusion of stillness.

And for the first time, Belphegor's lazy smile faltered.

Belphegor's half-lidded eyes twitched. For the first time, something shifted in that eternal lethargy. Not anger. Not fear. Just… inconvenience.

"…Ah~ ah~ now that's troublesome," he muttered, his tone still dripping with drowsy disinterest, yet carrying a hint of annoyance. "…Just surrender, won't you?"

The Chains of Apathy rattled and cracked as Taufik's shadows surged. The sluggish sludge beneath his feet hissed, retreating against the flare of Darkness that refused to be swallowed.

Belphegor leaned his chin on one palm, watching with a faint, irritated curiosity. "Fine, fine. You want to move? Then move. Let's see how far your little tantrum carries you"

The mirrors shuddered, their endless reflections convulsing.

From them, hands burst forth, pale, weary hands dragging themselves into the chamber. Some clutched swords of light, others bore faces of his companions twisted into serene, smiling masks. All of them whispered in unison:

"Rest… Rest… Rest…"

Taufik's body screamed to stop, to collapse, but his will burned hotter. His golden eyes flared, searing the whispers, splitting through the stagnant dream.

He raised his katana, its blade veined with writhing darkness and burning gold. "You think Sloth is enough to stop me? Then let me show you… What happens when you chain the Defiant!"

The first wave of mirror-spawn rushed him. Taufik's blade fell. A single strike tore through dozens, the void collapsing behind the cut.

Belphegor's lazy smile returned, but thinner, tighter. "…So noisy"

And then, without moving from his throne, the Sin of Sloth finally lifted a hand.

The entire labyrinth collapsed inward.

Gravity screamed. Mirrors shattered. The air itself bent, folding like glass, dragging Taufik back down toward the black sludge.

Belphegor's eyes narrowed, his words dragging like rusted blades.

"Let's see, Defiant… how long you can keep those eyes open… in my Dream Coffin"

Taufik disappeared into the mire.

The chamber fell silent. A silence Belphegor adored.

"…That's it. I thought the Defiant would be different. *Sigh* Lucifer exaggerates too mu-"

*Crack!*

The sound froze his words.

At first, just one mirror was fractured. Then...

*Crack!*

*Crack!*

One by one, the mirrors split, veins of light spiderwebbing across infinity.

"T-This..."

*Crack!*

Another mirror split. Then another. The fractures spread like veins of light through the endless hall of reflections, crawling and spiderwebbing across infinity.

Belphegor's lazy posture stiffened. His half-lidded eyes opened a fraction wider. "...Impossible…"

The Dream Coffin screamed. The perfect loops of false joy, Kl'lara's laughter, Lembuswana's calm strength, and Basukhi's quiet loyalty all began to distort. The laughter became echoes, the smiles stretched too long, the warmth turned brittle.

And then...

*Shhhhkk!*

A claw, a hand, a thing unshaped, tore through the mirror-world from within. Darkness and gold erupted outward, shredding reflections into shards.

Something stepped through.

A figure, humanoid but not flesh. There, yet not there. A silhouette stitched of absence, its edges veined with molten gold.

Belphegor rose halfway from his throne, disbelief cracking across his tired grin. "…No. No, no, no. This isn't possible. The Dream Coffin consumes all. You're not the Defiant… What… What are you?"

The thing's voice wasn't a sound. It wasn't a voice. Yet it resounded.

"I am everything, and everything is me… I am the Primal, the Living Void"

--------

- A while ago.

When Taufik had been dragged to Dream Coffin, crushed under Sloth's chains, his vision had nearly gone dark.

But in that suffocating silence… he had heard another voice. Not the System. Not his family. Something older.

It was the voice that lived in the cracks of his Concept.

[…Do you understand now?]

His eyes fluttered. "…Who…"

[…You keep calling yourself Defiant. A man. A father. A wielder of blades. But beneath all that, you are something else. Forgotten. Buried. I have not forgotten]

He wanted to answer, but the weight made thought itself sluggish. His heart trembled against the suffocating gravity.

[…You are Darkness, yes. The Eternal Night, yes. But deeper still, you are Void. The hunger between stars. The silence before the first word was spoken. That's why Sloth cannot hold you. What is stillness to nothingness? What is peace to a hollow that devours peace itself?]

Images flickered through him, not memories, but instincts. Black suns collapsing inward. Worlds swallowed by silence. And at the heart of it all: his own hand, his own blade, cutting through eternity.

[…So, my Vessel… my Child… shall we wake?]

And then...

The Chains of Apathy shattered.

The mirrors splintered.

And from beyond, the Primal Void stepped through.

The combined essence of Darkness and Night.

The Primal, the Living Void.

The beginning.

The end.

The source of all.

... The Void.

- Back to now.

The figure stood between Belphegor and the crumbling mirrors, its form formless, a silhouette stitched of absence, veins of molten gold streaking through its edges. It radiated no aura, no power, nothing at all, and yet its presence crushed louder than any Sin's.

Taufik's voice echoed from within it, layered, distorted, yet unmistakably his: "You asked what I am? I told you. I am the Defiant… but I am also what defiance is made of"

The ground beneath him bled into black emptiness, the labyrinth trembling like a cornered animal.

Belphegor finally rose fully from his throne, his lazy composure shattering into something sharp and brittle. His slouched body straightened, his half-lidded eyes snapping wide open.

"…Void…" His whisper was not lazy this time. It was fear. "You… you're carrying that inside you?!"

The Primal silhouette tilted its head, golden cracks gleaming across its face where eyes should be.

"No, Belphegor. I'm not carrying it. I am it"

The throne of Sloth splintered. The chains writhed. The mirrors collapsed into dust.

For the first time, the Sin of Sloth, Belphegor, eternal sleeper, eternal dreamer, took a step backward.

Belphegor's throat worked as though swallowing sand. The Sin who had yawned through armies and smothered gods now stood rigid, trembling beneath the weight of nothing.

"…You shouldn't exist," he whispered, voice taut with panic. "The Void was erased… long before Hell was carved. Buried. Sealed. Forgotten. Something like you shouldn't, cannot, exist!"

The formless silhouette tilted its head, golden fissures widening like cracks in reality itself. Taufik's voice rippled from within, layered with something deeper, something older:

"And yet, here I am"

The ground collapsed into absence. Not destroyed, simply unmade. The sludge, the mirrors, the coffins, all dissolved into not-being, devoured by the quiet hunger radiating from the Void's body.

Belphegor staggered, his lazy calm fracturing into outright alarm. He threw out his hand. "Chains of Apathy!!"

The tar-black chains erupted upward, hundreds, thousands of them, each one thick with the essence of Sloth. They whipped toward the Void, hissing with the will to smother, to choke, to still.

The silhouette did not move.

The chains touched its form... And unraveled.

Not broken. Not resisted. Simply… gone, erased as though they had never existed.

Belphegor gasped, sweat rolling down his pallid face. "N-no… That's not… That's not possible… My Concept cannot be undone-"

The Void's voice boomed, calm yet merciless, carrying the weight of the first silence that had ever been.

"Your Sloth is rest. But what rest exists in Nothing? Your chains cannot bind me, Belphegor. For what is peace to that which devours peace itself?"

The labyrinth of mirrors shook, screaming like glass under pressure. Belphegor's own throne crumbled to dust beneath him as he stumbled back.

"…S-stay away…" The Sin of Sloth's words were fractured, jagged, nothing like his drowsy lullabies before. His once-lazy grin twisted into horror. "If the Void awakens here, then Hell itself-"

The silhouette stepped forward. Every step erased distance, devouring the space between them, until Belphegor found himself face-to-face with the eyeless, mouthless presence that wore Taufik's will like a crown.

"…Defiant…!" Belphegor shrieked, slamming his palms together. The Dream Coffin roared, collapsing inward, trying to consume itself, trying to crush the Void in an implosion of eternal sleep.

But the Void only whispered:

"... Wake"

And the world broke.

Belphegor screamed, stripped of his lazy lullaby. "No! VOID IS A FORCE THAT NO ONE CAN CONTROL!! IT'S TABOO!"

But the silhouette tilted its head, golden fissures grinning where no mouth should be.

And then came laughter. Not Taufik's. Not human. Not even godly. A laughter so hollow it scraped at existence itself, so vast it rattled the bones of Hell.

"Ahahaha~…" the sound echoed, every note erasing light, erasing silence, erasing being.

The mirrors, the throne, even the sludge quivered and crumbled into nothing.

The laughter finally stilled. And Taufik's voice, layered with the Void's endless chorus, answered:

"Taboo? That's why they call me the Defiant… remember?"

And with that, the Primal Void raised its blade, and the Dream Coffin, Sloth's eternal sanctuary, split apart like paper.

....

...

..

.

# Reminder: As a God, Taufik possesses six Concepts: Night, Darkness, Blood, Life, Death, and Eternity. Though he most often wields only Darkness and Death, every use of his Concept Power alters his form. This time, however, his transformation takes on something far greater: The Primal Form, the Living Void, a manifestation born from the fusion of Darkness and Night.