"Tch! Then you'll have to die first for getting in my way, Jester… Wait, actually—" Riven unsheathed his katana, its curved blade catching the moonlight in a gleam of silver malice. A sick grin slithered across his pale face. "I'll make you watch. Watch as I deflower that bitch and make her my sex slav—"
BOOM.
The earth cracked beneath Key's fist.
A thunderous shockwave tore through the air as the ground exploded, and from the rupture, multiple Void Tendrils surged upward—each moving faster than light, each tearing through the fabric of space like reality itself had been punctured.
They struck before Riven even blinked.
His twisted smile vanished instantly.
Reflexes screamed. Instincts roared.
He vaulted backward with his katana raised, panic bleeding into his pupils. The three High-Class Vampires scrambled to reposition, forming a tight defensive perimeter, their once-smug confidence bleeding into cold, calculated fear.
Then—crack.
Where the tendrils landed, the ground didn't just shatter.
It disintegrated. Like glass under a god's heel, like a dream unmade.
Riven's breath caught. The Void wasn't just strong, it was absolute.
"Don't let them touch yo—!"
SQUELCH.
It was already far too late.
From the shadows, three new tendrils surged out like reaping hands of an unseen god. Silent. Swift. Certain.
Each pierced a vampire's chest clean through, impaling them mid-turn, mid-thought.
There were no last words.
Just wet crunches and the hollow, sucking noise of death being consumed.
Their bodies shriveled, drained of blood, essence, and even their lingering undead will—until all that remained were paper-thin husks of skin that crumbled to dust.
[+3 Void Residues Absorbed]
Riven didn't move.
He couldn't.
His katana trembled in his hand, not from fear, but from the realization that he never saw them coming.
Not their approach.
Not their hunger.
Not their kills.
And that terrified him more than death.
He scanned the battlefield now scorched in black-purple cracks, like the Void itself had reached up and clawed through the world.
Key stood at the center of it. Silent. Still.
Void energy pulsed around him like a heartbeat. His shadow danced with alien life. His smirk returned.
"Apologies," he said, voice cold and casual. "I just figured it would be best not to have distractions."
Riven growled. "Smartass… I'll wipe that damn smirk off your face."
With a blur, he disappeared. Reappearing right in front of Key, katana arcing down like a crescent of wrath.
CLANG!
A Void Tendril intercepted it.
The blade hissed, corroding on contact, chunks of steel turning to vapor.
Riven's eyes widened. "What the hell is this…?"
"I'd love to keep this going," Key said, unfazed, "but I promised I'd fight with her."
He narrowed his eyes.
"You have to die now."
"Not yet…"
Riven's aura surged, scarlet Abyssal Energy compressing around him like a vortex of rage and sorrow.
"I'll burn this whole village to hell… if it means avenging him."
His voice trembled with memory, with grief, with madness.
And for a second, time itself seemed to stop.
Faint images flickered behind his eyes: laughter in the palace, lessons from the King, warmth in a place that now only brought cold.
But—
"Fuck your filler."
A Void Tendril shot upward like judgment itself, spearing through Riven's gut.
His eyes widened, then narrowed.
BOOM.
The world exploded.
Scarlet energy erupted outward in a dome of wrath and self-destruction, a suicidal nova meant to reduce everything to ash.
The village shook. Air warped. Light collapsed into shadow.
But—
The blast never escaped.
Dozens of Void Tendrils wrapped tightly around the detonation, devouring it whole, drinking it like divine wine until the last scream of it was gone.
Silence.
Riven was gone.
Key stepped over the scorched earth, expression flat.
"There can only be one Sasuke," he muttered. "Unfortunately… it ain't you."
[+1 Void Residue Absorbed]
Two tendrils slithered from beneath his arms, lifted him like royalty, and launched him toward the distant palace, where Speedy waited.
And the real fight would began.