A river whose dark waters navigate in the middle of the night, not knowing where they'd come from, and where they would head.

What was the purpose of the river? Its constant flow and course needed to have some meaning. But, was there something more beyond its predtermined course? Nothing could be changed? The doom destiny of this river to reach the end that it already knows.

An inevitability, marching torwards it. Someday, that river would have to accept its sad end. All things expire and nothing's left. Even their purposes.

That's the universal truth of those whose nihility have long since swallowed in its botomless dark abyss. Roaming amongst the sea of stars to rediscover it.

Nonetheless, no one can escape it. Death and perishment arrives to all.

Even to those who seek to avoid it.


"Hmm..."

Waking up from her short nap, the 'galaxy ranger', Acheron, opens her slumbery eyes to stare at the far wide galaxy on the other side of the mirror. Countless shiny points spread across the astral space, each one representing either planets, stars or other pieces of celestial bodies. She wondered what events transpired in each one of them. Were they recent? Were they dying? How the passage of time has affected them and its people.

She lost count to how many planets she traveled tough by now. Maybe it wasn't that many, but Acheron's hazy mind could not define the certain number. Forgetting how to remember, how to feel, what a sweet or salty food tasted like. Every day fighting against the annihalating impulses inside her that slowly deteriorated her being. If she couldn't find a cure or the Doctors of Chaos soon, her body would be lost in the vast void that was IX. But who knows if that could help her? What guarantees Acheron had that her situation could be salvageable? At this rate, it wouldn't take long before she herself forgot the purpose on why she was on a journey.

Thankfully, there were more recent memories that remained strong in her head. Penacony. The meeting with the Trailblazer and the Astral Express Crew. The events that occured were still fresh to her, having fulfilled her task of the Watchmaker's Legacy. Her visit on that planet and the adventure it was made Acheron experience a joy that nowdays rare to her. Upon seeing the Trailblazer and their struggles, their overcome and resolve, the lone galaxy ranger reminded herself of why people would always fight and live instead of conforming with unjust endings and manipulated paths. That things will always have value no matter how lost they seem to be, always finding it back again. Altough it wasn't medicine, it felt like one that helped Acheron's devouring nihility to be put in a short term slumber, pushing out the gloomy thoughts she had. They would definetly be back as she wasn't cured yet, but it was a nice reliever that the Trailblazer and her passage through Penacony made quiet down.

A little smile escaped from her lips as the Galaxy Ranger stared to the void space, thinking about those moments. "Trailblazer...I sure hope we meet again soon."

However, from afar, Acheron's eyes catched glimpse of giant green light emanating from a relatively close planet to where she was. "Hm? What's tha-?!" A sudden sharp pain bolted on her heart in a beat, sending some shivers throughout her body. The planet itself...it looked so lifeless, devoided from any colour other than bleak grey and the giant green light that erupted from it before dissapearing in the next second. Acheron felt as if it was calling for her, the curiosity spiking up. She could sense something of horrible had happened on that planet.

Inhaling and exhaling a beat, Acheron felt her heartbeat stabilizing quickly. "What just happened?" She murmured to herself.

"WARNING! WARNING! HOSTILE SPACHESHIPS NEARBY! I REPEAT! HOSTILE SPACESHIPS NEARBY!"

"Hm?" Acheron looked up as she heard the alarms of the travelling passenger spaceship she was in going off.

"PLEASE STAY CALM AND REMAIN IN YOUR SEATS! PROGRAMMING UNPLANNED DEVIATION ON THE ROUTE! EMERGENCY INTER-DIMENSIONAL JUMP ABOUT TO BE PERFORMED! REMAIN IN YOUR SEATS!"

The passengers murmured and whispered in worry, sounding very distressed with the situation of being under attack by some sort of space pirates or even worse, The Antimatter Legion. The infamous reputation of that faction of Nanook was enough to strike fear of many defenseless innocents. For Acheron, it didn't matter if they decided to attack her or not. Such disposeble foes could hardly land a finger on her or even make a scratch. A single swing of her sword would be enough to deal with them. But at the same time, she wondered what happened on that planet. Where did all that green energy light came from? What was the reason behind it? The Galaxy Ranger felt the need to investigate it.

"Please ma'am! You've heard the alarms! Sit down and fasten your seatbelt! This spaceship is about to make a jump!" A worker of the spaceship pulled Acheron out of her train of thoughts, calling her out.

"Sorry. My mind was just afloat." Acheron replied calmly despite the situation, going back to stare at the planet she was watching previously. "What is that planet over there? Why does it look so lifeless?"

The worker stared to the same place. "Oh! That's Miseria. A total wasteland I'd tell you."

"Why?" She asked him, her curiosity growing.

"I've heard that it was a planet always on some sort of conflicts and wars, the inhabitants never having known peace. The destruction reached to a point where hardly any life could flourish in it, barely being deemed inhabitable to any lifeform. It's no wonder why it looks so dead and hollow. I would not blame anyone for thinking the planet's state is work of a Stellaron." The worker gave some background of Miseria to Acheron. "Not a place I would like to spend my vacations, not even if they paid me! Now please ma'am, go back to your sea-"

"I'm going there. Could you speak with your capitan to disponiblize one of the pods for me?" Acheron interrupted the worker, stating her intentions, much to the worker's very own shock.

"What?! Haven't you heard what I just said? That planet is a total wasteland! There's nothing of worth going there for! Plus we can't risk to delay the inter-dimensional jump any minute while at danger of being under attack! Miseria itself is dangerous! Who knows what kind of hostilities awaits in a persumably dead planet?"

"I appreciate the concern but spare it if you will." Acheron replied, turning around to face the worker. "I assure you that I do not let any harm come to me that easily."

Looking at the imposing sword and how Acheron speaked so calmly and collected overall, it made the worker of the spaceship realize he wasn't talking with some random passenger but with someone who definelty speaked from experience. The worker gave some thought into it. "...I'll try and speak of your request to the captain."


"INTER-DIMENSIONAL JUMP STARTING IN 3...2...1..."

With everything set, the giant passenger spaceship flashed out from its current position, having activated the velocity that permitted it to teleport to other point of the universe, moving away from nearby danger. But not before having released a small pod from its main body, launching it torwards the nearby planet known as Miseria. Acheron was its sole occupier, focused on landing and get to discover the motive behind that mysterious green light that appeared suddenly.

Meanwhile, some distance away, a fully fleet of heavily armed spaceships navigated through that part of the cosmos. It wasn't benign forces made to protect the planets and keep the galatical peace. Instead, the entire fleet had been created to serve the nefarious purposes of one villanous young man with far too great ambitions.

"Gwahahahahahahaha! Did you saw the speed of which that passenger ship flew away, Mariella?" A pompous and arrogant young man of short black hair and red eyes, dressed in a space general black outfit and hat, laughed in his chair, at the command room of the flag ship of the entire fleet. "If that ain't respect through fear, then I dunno what it is! Gwahahahahahaha!"

"It was really splendid, Master Zorvik." A young woman with short pink hair tied into a pony tail and an eye patch on her left eye, also wearing a black military uniform, replied serenely to the young man. "Master's grandfather and father would be very proud if they could see Master now."

"I sure know! All of their years of planning and building. It was all so that their wish of colonizing the space could be carried out by me! The soon to be The Great Star Conqueror, Zorvik!" He exclaimed on top of his lungs. "Soon enough, this whole galaxy will be under my empire's rule! And then, the whole existing universe as well! And with such armory, such powerful armada, the magnitude of its weapons that have been carefully projected and constructed upon years and years, who can even stand in our way? The IPC? The Xihanzou Alliance? Pff, they can all come that our fleet will blow them into smithereens!"

"Yay! Way to say it Master Zorvik!"

"You have such way with words, Master Zorvik!"

"I will follow your orders to the end of the universe, Master Zorvik!"

"Such charesmatic leader that you are, Master Zorvik-senpai!"

"MASTER ZORVIK! MASTER ZORVIK! MASTER ZORVIK!"

Zorvik cackled as he watched all of his minions chant his name in complete adoration. Sitting back down on his chair, the young general who aspired to be emperor of the cosmos gave an empty glass to his loyal secretary. "Mariella, go fetch me another cup of tropical wonders juice for me if you will."

"At your service Master." Bowing down respectefully, Mariella grabbed the empty cup from Zorvik's hand and went to do as he ordered.

A malicious smirk on Zorvik's smile as he watched to the other spaceships of his fleet on the giant windows of the command room, having full visibility of the path ahead. "Me and my empire won't be following any wills of prying Aeons. I shall pave a new whole path. The Path of Conquest!"


Landing down on Miseria, Acheron could see what the worker had told her was no exaggeration. The vegetation and soil was as dry and rusty as forgotten old fossils, barely having any kind of greenery in it. The planet was almost exclusively rocks and stones as well as giant plain fields full of nothing but dead sky of the planet was filled with grey clouds, raining almost nonstop. Despite that, Acheron didn't feel the need to open her umbrella to shield herself from the falling water drops. A post-apocalyptic scenario that would indeed fool anyone who didn't knew a thing about Miseria, to believe a Stellaron was the cause of all this.

As she looked around to find any signs that could give any indication where the green light she spotted from the spaceship came from, the Galaxy Ranger spotted what appeared to be an abandoned and destroyed town in the distance.

"Maybe there I will find something." Acheron walked torwards the ghost town, in hopes to find some clue.

Reaching there, all that she saw was a wreckage, debris and leftovers of destroyed buildings of what once used to be a populated area, now filled with nothing but eerie silent, as if Acheron herself was now in a horror movie setting. Everything degraded with age and emptiness with no one to rebuild nor take care of the place. Some broken small house items as clues that people used indeed to live here but not anymore, the mentioned war having probably ended with all that. The watchtowers had long crumbled, same for the town's defense walls. "Perhaps this place was ravaged during an attack." Acheron theorized by the evidences and clues she gathered around the dead town.

But so far, no monster in sight that she had to worry about killing. The Galaxy Ranger even pondered at one point if she was right now the sole living being on this planet currently, as not even the appearence of the smallest of insects had happened. Miseria was maybe truly deceased to the core, no longer a living organism. As more minutes passed, Acheron was getting more sure that she wouldn't find any answer for what she came here for. "Maybe my own mind was playing tricks on me..." She argued to herself, her decision to end the search and leave the planet becoming clearer.

But while her brain was about to go for that choice, a loud thump sound on the ground was heard nearby, as if something big had crashed on the ground. "Hm? Did it came from there?" Acheron looked upwards, spotting a huge cloud of dust rising in the air just behind a small mountain near the town. Going near its foothill, the Galaxy Ranger saw that she would have to take a big go around, so instead, she opted for a more efficient solution. "This planet is already probably deserted. It won't matter the damage I end up doing here."

Wielding her sword, all that Acheron did was to swing her sheathed blade just once to split the mountain apart, making way for her on the other side. As she walked through the artificial valley she herself had created, Acheron ended up reaching to the place where that cloud of dust and smoke came from. And what she ended up finding there, altough it didn't shake her to the very core, made the Galaxy Ranger feel a sharp disturbence on her soul.

"What is...?"

Taken by surprise as her eyes widened a bit, Acheron stood mildly baffled as she stared down at a vast field full of human corpses with one corpse of a giant beast in the middle, having been slayed. The scenery itself was disruptive and terryfying, looking like she had just stumbled into the place of a long occured genocide, all the piles of bodies filling the entire field, placed all above each other. Acheron had already seen her fair share of destruction and chaos, remembering of the final moments of her very own home planet. But this level of carnage was brutal, a bit excessive from everything she had witnessed before in her travels. It fazed her to a certain degree even if not by a lot.

Proceeding to stare at the middle where the dead rhino-looking beast was, a person humming in front of the deceased creature while rubbing their hands on the sharp blade of what seemed to be a scythe.

"Another person here?" Acheron wasn't expecting the presence of another living being rather then herself in Miseria at all. It all gave some suspicious feelings, the Galaxy Ranger getting on guard as she decided to enter the field of dead bodies and approach the mysterious person with caution, her hand near to the hilt of her sword, the heels stepping on the dead bodies without much hesitation or second thought.

The person however noticed Acheron approaching, not even having to look directly at her as their back was still turned to the Galaxy Ranger. "Hm? Came here to see the attraction, missy?" The person, a man, speaked, moving his body to stare at the newcomer, stopping from cleaning his scythe. "Sorry to inform ya, but you kinda arrived late to the party." He speaked. The man was quite tall, at least two meters high and good muscular as well. He wore long brown pants alongside a dark and sleeveless ragged mantle with two disconnected belts near the area of the exposed chest and torso and a pointy grim reaper hood that covered his face apart from the mouth and nose. Acheron couldn't be sure of what she was seeing, but looking at the man's shoulders, there seemed to be hand bones sticking out of the mantle.

His overall appearence looked menacing, not giving the impression of a friendly individual. And his weapon, the scythe, didn't helped. From what Acheron observed, it looked almost as tall as its owner, a bigger than average human skull grafted to the top end of the scythe's handle. The mouth of the skull was largely open, and from it it came the sharp and large dark grey blade of the weapon, with what appeared to be dark veins embedded in the metal. There was definetly something dangerous about him, and Acheron knew it, taking caution.

"What happened here?" She asked to the tall mysterious man, wanting to know what led to all these amounts of dead bodies. Her voice firm and still calm as she did not avert her gaze from the man in front of her.

"Well, nothing out of the ordinary you see. Just some nice cult people that asked me for help to kill this bad boy here." The man responded with a cackle, a cunning and sly voice, resulting in Acheron's deduction about him growing.

"These people...who killed them?" Acheron asked in a serious tone. "You or the monster?"

The mysterious man immediatly raised his hands in self-defense. "Heyheyheyhey now. What type of AWFUL accusation is that? This is literally the first time we meet and you already jump the gun like that? Jesus woman, simmer down!" He said in a panicked, overreacting way. "Is it because of my looks? My scythe? The hood? Judging others by appearence isn't a great look on you y'kn-"

"Cease with the gossiping." Acheron cut him off, not being here to support this man's gibberish. "I'll ask you just one more time. Who killed these people?" She grabbed her sword and pointed at the tall man in front of her. "You or the monster?" This time, the question felt like a threat.

Seeing that Acheron was insisting on interrogating him, the man just shrugged his shoulders. "Well, they did asked me for help...Altough I admit none of us wasn't accounting for some 'collateral damages'."

Acheron's gaze locked in with that response, narrowing it. "Then you're the one who killed them, weren't you?"

The man just gave an ambiguous movement with his hand, doing a 'more-or-less' with it. "Uh, when putting like that and taking all things considered..." He moved his head to the other way, sounding uninterested and obtuse. "There's no denying it, is there?" He grinned maliciously and creepishly all of a sudden, staring directly at Acheron with an eerie stare that was concealed behind his grim reaper hood.

The stare of the Galaxy Ranger became rougher. The man had admitted, having no qualms in that declaration, stating without a cre in the world. "Then you're the one who did this. Why so? Does it bring you any glee?"

"Short-term. But in the overall scenario, yes. It does." The mysterious man admited without remorse or regret. No second thinking or precaution on his words. Just like that.

Acheron shifted her glaze to the corpses on the ground for a brief second. Even if their skins were already rooting and decomposing, she could tell they were killed recently by the wounds on the corpses. The looks of terryfying doom on the faces that witnessed the very last seconds of their lives before being cut short. Acheron could even hear the distant screams of horror from their deceased souls. How they cried, how they wheeped, how they begged, how they anguished and suffered. Not a single one spared or showed mercy to. They weren't nor seemed to have been cultists. They were innocents, innocents that were slained down like animals in a moment of despair.

Hearing the constant lamentations and screams of the dead around her made Acheron get a clear answer: the man in front of her wasn't a man. He was scum.

"..." Not saying a word, Acheron went for her oil-paper umbrella and opened it, putting abover her own head while lowing her own sword as the rain had stopped from dropping all of a sudden.

"Hm? Only now you pick up your umbrella now that the rain is gone?" The mysterious man said like if Acheron was some weirdo before laughing at the image of it. "Hahahaha! You must be a fun one eh!"

"..." Acheron didn't uttered a word, just giving him a stoic and unsympathetic stare. One that had no friendly intentions.

The man grumbled dissatisfied at that. "What? Are you sad that I killed people you never met? Or...you actually did." The man pondered amusedly, his hand slowly reaching for his scythe. "Well, in that case..." Grabbing the weapon firmly, the man dashed at Acheron, a large grin on his face as he rushed torwards her. "I'll make you join them!"

...

The umbrella flew on the grey sky amongst its red petals, Acheron now standing behind the man who attacked her, her sheathed sword stretched out forwards. The Galaxy Ranger made sure that a single blow would suffice, the left arm of the man having been sliced out, dropping to the ground.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH! MY ARM! MY ARM! MY ARM!" The man screeched in terror and burning agony, falling down to his knees with blood oozing non-stop from his open wound.

This was a warning Acheron gave him. "Fool." She said, cleaning the blood from her sword before turning around to confront the pathetic man. "For your own good, you better never-huh?" But once she turned, the man wasn't there anymore despite of his blood still being present in place. "Where did he-"

"That was a nice trick you pulled there."

"!?" Moving her head, Acheron could only have time to see the mysterious man appearing by her right, his chopped arm back to the body like nothing happened, before being punched harshly in the stomach, sending her crashing against some nearby rocks. The Galaxy Ranger was caught off-guard.

"But I have tricks of my own as well y'know?" The mysterious man moved the fingers of the hand that punched Acheron, teasing her of the fact he hadn't lost his arm at all as she would've thought.

"Gngh!" Getting up and away from the rocks, Acheron cleaned off the bit of blood coming out of her mouth, her body and clothes now sustaining some minor scratches. "I cut his arm clean off. How could he still have it?" She thought, midly confused but still maintaining her calm posture.

"Hehehe, dumbfounded?" The man chuckled, proceeding to open up his arms, letting his entire chest and body completly open. "Here. You can have some more tries."

"Hm!" The man was trying to taunt and provoke Acheron, being as bold enough to invite her to slash his boy again. The Galaxy Ranger decided to go with something more lethal this time. "You asked for it!" Stepping like thunder, Acheron performed a hundread slashes on the man's body in under a second, doing in such way he wouldn't be able to survive. "These should've done it." She looked behind to the man, seeing his entire body covered in cuts.

And yet, he didn't reacted to the injuries nor the 'pain'. Instead, much to the Galaxy Ranger's disbelief, the wounds begun to diminuish and glow light-green along with some static, slowly dissapearing. No, they didn't dissapeared. The man's skin had just regenerated to a point it healed from all the slashes Acheron delivered him.

"It can't be!" Acheron widened her eyes in pure shock as she saw that. The man should have died. Hardly any creature or opponent she had fought so far through her journey would have survived that. It made her question the identity of her enemie as he checked his own hands and wrists. "Who is-...no." Acheron frowned as the man sinisterly turned his head to look at her, a mallevolent grin on his face as a bright green light from his hiddened eye shinned beneath the grim reaper hood. "What is he?"

"The tries have runned out." The grinning man eerily said.

"Tsk!" Not giving him more time to breath, Acheron jumped torwards him, planning to go for another couple of multiple slashes.

But this time, the man didn't let her, bringing forth his scythe to clash with Acheron's sword. "Getting uneasy already?" The man asked her, chuckling. "Please, we are just getting started!" Exclaiming, he managed to overpower the Galaxy Ranger, pushing her away from the clash.

Able to keep her balance, Acheron quickly moved her head up to see her opponent now being the one to lash at her with his scythe, swinging it at a crazy speed and unpredicable movement. "Fast!" She noted to herself while nimbly parrying the attacks, every hit of the metal from the man's scythe feeling like a vehicle at full speed. It was clear the man had greath strenght behind those arms and swings of his weapon. Acheron would manage to deliver some hits but only to see them having no effect on the enemy whose skin regenerated as quickly as the blows landed. Was he some type of mara-struck? An aberration of Yaoshi? No. His power felt completly different from one who followed the path of Abundance.

The fight continued to drag on, the two always nullifying each other.

"C'mon missy! Is that really your all?" The man said, dodging from Acheron attacks and parrying the next ones. "It's soooooo dissapointing!" He exclaimed, their weapons clashing once again. "Where is your 'A' game eh?"

"Kgh!" Acheron lips twitched as she was now the one having to block her opponent's assault, the metal of her blade shocking with the opponent's scythe repeatedly. Each collision a feeling of overwhelming strenght and of being slowly overpowered.

"Can't you do better? I'm getting bored!" The man said louder, swinging his weapon with more brutality at every attempt, forcefully trying to break the Galaxy Ranger's defense. "I crave entertainment! Life should never have a dull moment!" He exclaimed again, not putting any breaks on his assault. "You're making it dull! Bland! Tedious!"

"..." Acheron cleenched her teeth in a frenetic struggle, still managing to accompain the velocity of the man's attacks altough she could tell to herself her body wouldn't be able to keep with this for much longer. And the words her foe speaked were only poking her mind more and more. "There's no other way! I have to-"

"Is that how you live your life? As a featurless void?" The man grinned wildly as he rised his scythe up high and brought it down, ready to deal a fatal slash on Acheron. "How painfully monotonous!"

"Enough!" Acheron yelled, immediatly gaining a boost of strenght for herself, putting a lot of her will into her sword and proceeding to deflect the man's scythe, much to his bewilderment. And in the same second, Acheron liberated a powerful slash at her open enemy, cutting his body diagonally alongside the mountains and hills far behind him, creating a huge fissure on the planet's surface.


"Hm? What was that noise?" Zorvik heard some roarish sound while sat on his chair in the command room of the flagship.

"It must have been the Master's stomach giving hours." Mariella told him.

"Hmm, perhaps. Today's breakfast wasn't all that great either..." Zorvik murmured while thinking about it. "Mariella! Go order some good lunch for me!"

"Going to do it right now sir." Mariella replied, bowing down before leaving the command room.

Zorvik looked at Miseria through the window, noticing something odd about the planet. "Hm? Has that fissure always been there?"


Acheron panted, sweat falling off from her face. She didn't unsheathed her sword, but this fight really came to close to make her to. She hoped that with this, the man was put down for good.

"K-Keh...Hehehehehe...N-Not bad, not bad..." As the dust slowly vanished, the man was still standing altough the huge cut he suffered from Acheron almost split his body apart, going from near his neck all the way to the tight, the two pieces of his body barely holding together. "I knew-blurgh!...I knew you had it in you..." The man smirked weakly as he coughed blood from his mouth. "T-This was more like i-"

Cutting him off, Acheron advanced and cut off his head from the body, making sure she guaranteed his death with that before he could go back to regenerate his body. The head just flew speechlessly and hit the ground, with the body falling the part and collpasing shortly after. it was arduous, but it was done. Acheron even took a look to check if he was really dead, seeing the moveless corpse still on the floor. Looking at it for a few more seconds, the Galaxy Ranger considered her enemy dead for good. Taking a deep sigh as she closed her eyes and calmed her own mind and heartbeat, she begun to walk away.

.

*crack*

.

"!" But when she heard the unnerving sound of a snapping bone, Acheron immediatly turned around in a hurry. Unfortunately she wasn't able to react in time enough to block the quick slash of the scythe in the left side of her abdomen. "Kkghr?!" Letting some blood out of her mouth, the Galaxy Ranger protected herself from the second blow however. Yet, her expression was of terror and pure startlement. "What?!" Looking ahead, she saw the body of the man all patched up despite not having the head back, going balistic torwards her, moving and swinging his scythe around like some wild animal, the ferocity and unpredictability of the attacks catching Acheron by surprise, almost losing her balance. "I cut off his head! How could he still be alive even after that?!"

Slashing her on the shoulder, the headless body stepped back, stopping its wave of attacks on Acheron for a moment. "You couldn't even let me finish, could you?"

Acheron's iris shrinked in shocked as she heard the echoes of the man's voice around her.

"Ruining someone's mood like that. How cold of you." The man's voice 'lamented' as some green statistic begun to come out from the place where the head had been decapitated. "But I suppose not everyone flows the same." From the half missing neck, particles begun to gather, forming into bones. Then strings of meat begun to grow as well, developing into muscles, expanding more. "Anyways, I think you've provened worthy of my amusement." The skull was already formed, the green glowing circles of the eye cavities staring deeply at Acheron who was watching it with some dreadful but also curious gaze. "Truly, we only live once, right?" The man's voice came back to normal as the skull got enveloped by the muscles and the skin reappered, the head coming back to its place, the man grinning at Acheron. "So we have to make the most of our lives be one hell of a time, don't you agree?"

"You're crazy." Acheron simply replied, eyeing him with some disgust.

"Crazily happy. And that's all that matters." The man replied, his face fully restored, the appearence finally revealed to Acheron. "Life is more impressive through lenses many refuse to use." His eyes were sharp and cold deep blue, a gaze of a natural born monster and killer. A brown faux hawk haircut with sideburns, having the appearence of an adult man in his mid-30's.

"That way might be unique but is also dangerous. There are paths in the whole cosmos that people should never follow." Acheron replied, not agreeing with the things her enemy said. "Such perceiving of life can be self-destructive."

The man by the contrary, looked very amused by the sound of it. "Ooooooooh! Where do I sign up?" He asked, gesticulating with his arm.

Acheron just sighed. There was no point in rationalizing with someone like him. "Your doom then." She said before dashing at the man, about to slice him with her sword.

However...

"K-Kill meeee..."

"?!" Stopping, Acheron halted her own blade, being centimeters away from the skin. Not of her enemy but instead of one of the poor corpses that got up from the ground all of a sudden, seeming to have ressurected. "What the-"

"Kill me..."

"Please end me..."

"This pain...it hurts a lot..!"

"Put an end to us..."

"?!" From the ground, Acheron noticed arms rising up and trying to grab her legs. The Galaxy Ranger avoided it, stepping back as much as she could, observing the corpses who were once deceased come back to life. Well, almost, as they did not rather look fully alive but in a state beetween. Like zombies. All groaning and begging for Acheron to kill them.

"Like it? I decided to add a few extras to participate on our fight." The man replied with a grin on his face. "Even dead people are allowed to have some fun, no?"

"Kgh!" Reluctantly but aware there was no other choice, Acheron begun to slice down the half-dead people. They were definetly different from the mara-struck. They looked more miserable, more fragile, more weak and in suffering, their constant whinings filling the air as they marched torwards the Galaxy Ranger. And to make matters worse, Acheron was almost caught off-guard by a large bone stake that broted from the ground, almost impaling her.

"And deal with these as well while we're at it. Nothing you cannot surpass." The man said with a playful smile, watching Acheron dodging and cutting down the countless bone stakes that would appear from the ground to attack her as well as having to also watch out for the nearby half-dead people.

Acheron wasn't a person to get upset. She hardly remembered the last time she ever felt true anger and irritation. But this entire thing was pushing her to that limit. She knew that these people have been killed and now resurrected against their will only to be forced to die again, resulting as nothing more but a tactic to piss her off. And it was working.

"Well, while you are occupied with that, lemme talk with one of our special guests here." The man said, reviving a corpse near him back to life and picking it up by the head before he and the revived man sat on two chairs near a table that appeared all of a sudden. "So buddy, what's your name?"

"This person..!" Acheron gave him an appalled and infuriating look, perplexed at the man not taking the fight seriously, treating the torment of the people he killed as an absolute joke and doing a stunt while she was fighting off against other people who clearly had no intention to fight her but couldn't do anything else. For her enemy, this was all just some sick-twisted comedy.

"A-Ah...aahhh..."

" 'Ah'? Unusual name to have here pal, but definetly not the first one I heard." The man replied humorously to the poor half-dead man's pain. "Planet you came from?"

"P...Plea..."

"Hmm, Plea, Plea, Plea. I think I've been to a place call that somewhere." The man rubbed his chin, reflective. "Your occupation?"

"Aaahh...ah..."

"I see that you're not one to talk very much." The man replied, completly ignoring the person's suffering. "But I know what might cheer you up!" He smiled before changing his gaze to Acheron. "Hey missy! I think our friend here wants to-"

"YOU FIEND!" Acheron lost her patience, slicing all of the half-dead people near her at once with one single swing, getting open way torwards her enemy, sprinting torwards him. Such sadistic and vile monster couldn't be let to live. She couldn't allow one more monstrosity to terrorize the cosmos.

But as she came closer, the man only grinned in reaction before a colossal skeleton with horns and chains erupted from the ground below them, putting the man up high as he looked down on Acheron from above, standing on the giant skeleton's skull.

In response, Acheron quickly jumped from bone to bone until she reached the creature's skull and clashed with the man.

Seeing her slight anger was a delight for him. "What's the matter? You mad?" He said provokingly before winning the clash, pushing Acheron down to the spinal cord of the skeleton before joining her.

Standing on top of it, both the two stare at one another for a second, with Acheron taking a stance with her sword and the man doing a quick spin with his scythe before signaling for Acheron to come at him with his hand. And so, their fight continued, their weapons creating sparks and vibrations at each hit. Acheron was more on the offensive while the man only resorted to dodge and block the attacks, predicting each of Acheron's attacks while movings, as if he was two steps ahead of her.

"He has some good insight!" The Galaxy Ranger couldn't help but note that before having her attacked parried by the man who then attacked her back, hitting Acheron on the chest and sending all the way down from the colossal skeleton.

"Hmmm, can we get much better than this?" The man smirked as he looked down on Acheron, ignoring the aching of her own injuries while getting up.

Seeing the giant creature in front of her, the Galaxy Ranger decided that this was it. She would unleash her power. "Time to end this." Taking a deep breath, Acheron grabbed the sheath of her sword.

"Hm?" The man lifted an eyebrow at that.

And so, time itself slowed down, almost paralyzed.

"Dusk's rain..."

Upon revealing the true metal of her blade, unsheating her sword for good, Acheron's purple color swapped to white, her eyes and arms becoming a deep bloodish red with equally red flowers brooming from her arms. This power made things insignificant. The closest she had ever stood to nihility. With it, her sword now carried the destruction to slice everything and nothing at the same time. Even the endless void would not escape from it. A slash that spelled doom to all things.

Concepts such as time and space itself.

"...it too shall fall."

"!"


Meanwhile, Zorvik was peacefully drinking his tea when a giant slice flashed through his eyes, dissapearing in a second and leaving a huge explosion behind that scared him and all of his minions present in the command room.

"W-What the hell was that!?" He screamed, almost falling from his chair.

"I-It seems to have been some sort of thunder with high-density quantum and concentration, sir! I-It teared even the space in front of us!" One of the operators in the command room informed, shocked at what he was seeing through the monitor. "It can't be!"

"What?! What it can't be?!" Zorvik questioned, alarmed.

"The Behemoth War-Ship: M.A.R.S has been completly destroyed and slice in half as well as Combat Ship 05 LEGION and Combat Ship 06 JINZHA!"

"What?! But h-how?!"


Back to Miseria, the planet became even more of a wasteland than before, the slash Acheron performed obliterating grand part of it. Entire mountains and areas worht of terrain gone. And alongside it, her enemy and the colossal skeleton, reduced to ashes. Or perhaps not even that.

She was forced to do it. There was no other way but to unleash the power of IX in order to defeat him. When her sword was unsheathed, no matter the opponent, victory was guaranteed to her side. And now, as the dust settled, the emotionless Emanator of Nihility stared to the open sky and the fissure she opened in the space, having little thought of it. The battle was over and probably she would even forget there was even a battle in the next minute. That all of this even happened as the recent memories would be wiped out.

Or so she thought.

Abruptly, giant green thunders shocked and trembled the ground behind Acheron, the Emanator of Nihility stopping in her tracks, not one least surprise by now. Even if she had reduced him to an atomic level, this man simply seemed to get back from the dead, his body restoring itself by the gathering of the left-over particles.

"Hehehehehe, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! YES! YES! THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!"

Reappearing like a demon that had climbed his way out of hell, the man's entire body regenrated from bones, meat and skin. A nightmare that no matter how hard Acheron could try, it would never go away, coming back yet again.

"Good lord if this was amazing! I knew it! I knew you had the face of someone who could pull it off!" The man exclaimed almost in a state of euphoric happiness.

"..." Acheron did not replied, just blandly stare at the scenario.

"This cold and daunting sensation of being close to death...It's phenomenal!" The man exclaimed with a crazed grin. This time, he was looking slightly different. His brown hair was brushed back and had grown, becoming long and wide to the lenght of his back while two single strings of hair stood forward. Some of his skin was now covered by purple lines around the body except his left arm that didn't had a trace of skin left, instead being only livid flesh and muscles with a black leather belt strapped around it. His only clothes now was a mere long and ragged cloth skirt of white and some pale blue design. It looked more...divine? Or maybe unholy would be a better description.

Altough silent, Acheron's mind couldn't help but wonder: "Is he...an Emanator too?" It became clear to her that this man wasn't a mere lunatic or random evil guy. He was, much, but much more than that. Something else. Something grotesque. She could tell it by the posture, the eyes, the grin, the scythe, the appearence and atmosphere around...The overall sensation that the enemy she was fighting was of a different nature, almost akin to an Aeon. Such vileness she could feel from the man. A sort of hornless devil.

"So..." The man said in a deep and husky voice, tilting his neck left and right, snapping the bones in it before staring at Acheron with a wide stare and grin, a bit of transparent skin showing his own skull. "Will you be the one?"

Acheron didn't answered. Perhaps she didn't even heard the question or the motive why the man asked her that. She just pointed her sword at him, ready for the final showdown.

"Good." The man smirked, satisfied with her 'answer'. That's what he wanted. For Acheron to give her all.


"How could this happen..?"

"Is the Master alright?" Mariella asked to Zorvik, handing him a cup of water to her distressed master.

Zorvik just couldn't understand the sudden attack that decimated a percentage of his military fleet. "I...My father and grandfather spent ages...Ages! Countless years planning and building these ships!" The young man shouted in fury, trohwing the cup to the floor. "And I not only lose some of them but countless men even before my conquest on the stars starts?!"

"Please, calm down Master." Mariella tried to pacify him. "I'm sure whatever it was, it was an accident! All of those fallen men wouldn't want to see Master upset or sad! The cosmos will still be for Master ton conquer!"

"But...such loss..." Zorvik said with frustration before looking to his secretary. "Do you think I can still do it, Mariella?"

"I do, Master Zorvik." Mariella smiled to him. "Everyone here believes as well."

"She's right, Master Zorvik!"

"We will follow Master Zorvik until the end!"

"Cheer up Master Zorvik! The Master can still do this!"

"For the glory of Master's Zorvik Empire!"

"Master Zorvik! Master Zorvik! Master Zorvik!"

Upon hearing the chants of support, Zorvik felt his morale going up, revitalized by them. "Yes...You're right. You're all right!" Zorvik said, getting up from his chair. "The cosmos are still mine for the taking! I can give up after some small setback, can I? No! I have to honour my father and grandfather's memory! Our entire lineage and dream! I shall be the one to carry the ambitions of my family!" He exclaimed, inspired. "The Path of Conquest will still be made! I'll make sure that this empire enters to the annals of his-"

And then another explosion happened, shaking the entire ship they were in, Zorvik almost losing his balance as the alarms started to sound.

"What the hell is it now?!" Zorvik screamed.

"C-Crap! Our ship has been damaged on the front! Plus, Behemoth War-Ship: A.R.E.S is also down!"

"WHAT?!" Zorvik yelled. "WHAT WAS IT THIS TIME?!"

The operator checked his monitor. "We are detecting two signals at the ship's front! They seemed to have been the cause of it! It's-"


"Ah. Now this is an ideal scenario for a fight." The man smirked as he and Acheron both stared at each other as a destroyed ship of the fleet burned and exploded in front of them. "Ready?" He asked her, scythe in hand.

Acheron just shrugged her shoulders, bringing her sword up. And so the final round begun.

Both going at it, delivering and trading blows between them. And every attack, every clash of their weapons would end up in dozens of ships of the fleet being sliced and destroyed, reducing the sheer power of the fleet, erasing it by little altough it wasn't neither intention of the two who were only focused on fighting one another.

Their agility, strenght, power and even skill were equally on the same level, being evenly matched. Jumping from ship to another since it would end up being destroyed in just a matter of seconds. It didn't took too long for the other ships of the fleet begun to try and point their artillery at the two, awfully missing the targets and begin a chaotic scenario of crossfire in desperate attempt to eliminate the duo.

Meanwhile, Zorvik was watching everything his entire family had built for generations vanishing in a tragic and shocking way right in front of his eyes. "It...It can't be..."

"Master, our flagship has been hugely damaged!" Mariella told him, the interior of the command room falling apart. "We must evacuate now!"

Snapping out of his dread, Zorvik stared to his secretary. "O-Oh..! Y-Yes! We must leave immediatly!" And so the two runned to the area of the evacuation pods of the ship, dodging loads of rubble and wreckage along the way, finally reaching it.

"Look Master! There's the pods!" Mariella exclaimed, seeing a soldier guarding an evacuation pod and waving at them.

"Master Zorvik! Miss Mariella! Over here! Escape through this-aaagh!"

But then an explosion occured within the room, two figures having busted in.

"Hehehe. This has been great so far." The man smirked, the dust settling down as he stared to Acheron in front of him. "Even you cannot deny it."

And he was right. As the dust also went away from Acheron's face, a smile was present, transmiting how even she was feeling something with this. How such adrenaline and rush of fighting against a foe like him made her felt...alive. As if in that moment, her life had found a destraction from the nihility that plagued her.

"Q-Quick, Master Zorvik! Miss Mariella! I'll hold them back while you escape!" The random soldier told to the other two as he pointed his gun at the grinning man. "Die you-ergh?!"

Having grabbed the soldier's head with his left, flesh arm, the man lifted him up without much effort while still staring at Acheron. "But even then, all that is good comes to an end." He said, starting to drain vital energy from the soldier he caught, the soldier's skin becoming dry and old before being dropped on the ground, lifeless. "All things do."

Acheron continued with her smile, not caring if this fight would be over soon or not. She just wanted to make sure to pleasure it as much of it while still possible. In the confines of her almost empty mind, a single thought appeared on her head. "I'm enjoying this..." If it was indeed her or her sunconscious speaking, Acheron couldn't make sure of it. But that didn't matter. What mattered, was the fight she was having right now.

As the two continue to battle and turn the room to shreds, Zorvik and Mariella managed to reach one of the escape pods and open the door.

"Alright Master! You first!" Mariella told him, prioritizing Zorvik's safety first. But before she herself could enter, she hesitated a bit, her heart pounding inside. "Master Zorvik...I know it's not the most appropriate time for it now but...I want to confess that-huh?" Looking forward again, she saw the door of the escape pod close.

Zorvik gave her a clueless look at her on the other side. "Oh...I thought you were inside already." He said with a dead pan face.

"MASTER ZORVI-" But before Mariella could tell him to open the door, the flames of Acheron and the man's fight engulfed her, with Zorvik not taking time to hesitate and immediatly press the button which launched the escape pod away from the decaying unstable ship into the space.

"Oh god! Oh my god...That was close..." Zorvik panted and sweated, greateful for having escaped the total annihialation of the fleet and survived.

But it still wasn't the end.


Breaking the ceilling, Acheron and her enemy both came out of it, back to the exterior once again. Their bodies injured but still with fuel to fight, emboldened by the spectacle this fight was being for both of them.

The man cackled. He had lots of fight before. But only few could be compared to the one Acheron was providing him. However, like he said, sooner or later this would have an end, with only one of them coming out alive.

"I flatter ya, miss." The man gave a reverence to Acheron, bowing. "It's been some time since I felt this much alive!" He said, cackling in the middle of his words.

"Likewise." Acheron simply said, her overall emotions having to thank the man as well for making her feel plenty of things in such short time. It would be a bit of a pity if she survived due to possibly forgetting that all of this happened. She wanted to make sure all this battle and the animated feelings it created inside her would stay in her memory forever. But first, she had to kill him for that to happen.

"Come." The man incitivated her. "Come and show me how meaningless death is to you!"

Hugely captivated to do so, the emotions inside her going high, Acheron smiled even more, bringing forth her unsheathed sword once more. Perhaps this was the meaning of her life.

"Dusk's rain..."

But the man wouldn't let it be easy. Quite the contrary, if he was going to die, it would be in the hard way. Grabbing his scythe with both hands, the man grinned as a yellow eye revealed itself in the middle of the scythe's blade. The entire space around them then was transformed into an infinite dark place, being only illuminated by an invisible pale blue light. A floor only composed of shallow water and thousands if not millions of skeletons scattered across the endless area, forming piles and piles of it.

"Death..."

Sprinting torwards Acheron the same way she was sprinting at him, the man put his scythe upwards, the yellow eye giving a domming stare as the blade of the weapon burned in green and dark flames, the imagery of a monstrous skull appearing behind him. A figure that spelled doom and final to every life form that ever existed on the universe. Everything and everyone were the same before him. The closure to all, even nihility itself. The thing were all of existence reunited once it ended as none could avoid it.

True finality.

"...it too shall fall!"

"...minutes in decimal!"


A clash so calamitous that shaked the entire galaxy and other's nearby, the trembling feeling through the entire cosmos, decimating whatever planet or stars were nearby. It then evolved to an explosion to the potency of a supernova erupted, swallowing and erasing the entire fleet in a bright sphere.

From his escape pod, Zorvik witnessed the explosion quickly catching up to him.

"N-No! This can't be my end! IT CAN'T!" In panic, the young man set up the velocity of the escape pod to maximum, already configuring and Interdimensional-Jump. "I'm Zorvik! Zorvik Jugh dammit! 32ยบ ruler of the Juno Empire!" He punched the commands, not accepting this to be his demise. "Son of Edward Jugh and grandson of Forrick Jugh! By my own will, I shall survive and make our empire the strongest nation across the-..."


"Cold and ending..."

Acheron's body floated in the middle of a dark void.

"Can't feel...a thing..."

No energy to continue fighting.

"No thoughts...no emotions...no... sensation..."

Approaching to the ever rotating black hole.

"Nothing to care...Nothing to value...Just...meaningless..."

Her life had ended. She lost. And so as consequence, her body was now entirely for the Aeon of Nihility to consume.

"Meaning...meaning...life..."

And in face of the indiffirent void, the Emanator just accepted her demise and fate, slowly closing her eyes. This river would reach the end of its course.

"A...meaningless life..."


"AH!"

But then, Acheron's eyes opened up all of a sudden as she gasped for air. Involuntarily, she begun to cough, her senses coming back to her. The Galaxy Ranger couldn't perceive well what just happened but... "I'm...alive?"

"Your time ain't up yet." The man said in front of her, back in his dark mantle and grim reaper hood, walking away from Acheron who now was just standing on some random remains of the destroyed fleet floating in space. "Still too soon." He said, almost enigmatically.

Lifting up her torso from the ground, Acheron stared at the man walking away, puzzled. "He...Did he revived me?" The Galaxy Ranger couldn't quite comprehend it. As she just been pulled out from the claws of nihility by the man himself? But why? A question that now occupied her brain.

"Looking forward to meet again." The man stopped walking, turning around to give Acheron one good last sinister sin. "You can search for me that I'll be waiting." He said in a guttural tone, as if he knew that was what Acheron would do.

"..." She didn't said nothing, just watching the mysterious man and previous enemy getting further from her.

Before dissapearing however, the man looked up to the countless stars and celestial bodies across the cosmos and feeling exuberant by it, the man stretched up his arms in the air and exclaimed. "For as long as there is life, so will death and its endless pursuit!" He yelled with a psychotic grin to then vanish right in front of Acheron's eyes.

Alone, the Galaxy Ranger stood up on her feet. Tired but with her injuried healed. However, that wasn't what troubled Acheron. What did, was the identity of the man she met and fought. For long she had traveled the cosmos on her long journey and met with many interesting and remarkable people, but nobody as peculiar or bizarre as that grinning man. His face, the fight. All of it stayed etched in her mind. One of the few memories that would be hard, if not impossible to forget. And the emotions she felt. They were some of the realest she had ever felt in a long time. A moment where her own life seemed to have found meaning again.

Which was why as Acheron stored her sword and walked away, her first thought wasn't about how to get off from the immense junk of scraps of the destroyed fleet but instead another one: She had to find that man again.