Then something else appeared atop its right shoulder. A silhouette... He stood with a simple posture, arms crossed, head slightly tilted, eyes glowing like eclipsed stars. His body radiated a suffocating darkness deeper than the void around him. He had no wings, yet space bent around him as if he commanded every particle. This was none other than Nocturnis... The one sealed away for tens of thousands of years. His cloak fluttered in a wind that did not exist as he inhaled sharply. "Oooohhh…" His voice vibrated through galaxies. "That is the freedom I remember." Even the Executioner bowed slightly beneath him. Nocturnis tilted his head to taste the air of the universe he once ruled. Then… He sniffed. Sniffed again. Exhaled in satisfaction. "My son," his voice echoed across worlds as he called out. "Why do you flee?" Falco heart frozd as he stopped mid-flight. E.E clamped onto Falco's arm. "H-He sees us?!" Aildris swallowed hard as sweat stung his eyes. "Falco… what do we do?!" Falco didn't respond immediately. He couldn't. Nocturnis wasn't merely powerful. He was reality-defining. He was an eternal existence. A primeval force. One of the oldest beings to walk the first creation. And now he was free again. Nocturnis lifted a hand lazily, as if waving at an old friend. "Come. My son. Come and greet your father." The Ancient Executioner shook the cosmos with a single step forward and everything trembled. Until suddenly, Nocturnis stopped. His head tilted sharply, like a predator sensing prey. Then the deity's expression changed as his smile disappeared. The amusement faded. His eyes narrowed dangerously. He had sensed something. Something far more important. Something far more dangerous. Something that terrified even him. A whisper of power... A spark... A ripple of foreign cosmic energy awakened somewhere on the farthest edge of the universe... so distant no mortal map marked it. But Nocturnis felt it instantly. His face twisted in fury. "…Impossible." E.E's eyes widened. "What's happening?" Falco instantly knew... Because there was only one being whose awakening could wipe the smirk off Nocturnis's face. Only one being he feared. The Outworldly... Gustav. The sams being who had once sealed Nocturnis himself in the Dark Dimension. A being so powerful he wasn't bound to the laws of this universe. He was regaining his strength. Nocturnis didn't merely sense it... he recognized the energy signature instantly. And he reacted like he'd been stabbed. He snarled with genuine fear. "No. No, no, NO…" The Executioner froze at his master's distress. Falco's blood chilled. He had never seen fear on his father's face. Not once. Nocturnis clenched his fist causing shadows to writhe around him. "He… the Outworldly…" he muttered in wrath. "He is waking up again." The deity turned toward the distant part of the universe where the signature originated. And then, he moved. But the word "move" simply was enough to capture the moment... He vanished, leaving behind a void so intense it sucked nearby debris into miniature black holes. In a fraction of a second, he crossed galaxies. Nocturnis ignored Falco completely. Ignored the Executioner entirely. Ignored everything except one mission: Prevent Gustav from returning to his full power. Because if the Outworldly regained his strength, he would seal the Dark Dimension once again. Or perhaps this time… Erase Nocturnis from existence altogether. Falco watched his father vanish in a streak of cosmic shadow. Falco's lungs heaved in and out in rapid succession as the last flicker of Nocturnis' cosmic presence vanished into the endless currents of space. For the first time since the seal shattered, he could breathe. But the relief lasted no more than a heartbeat. "No…" Falco muttered with a trembling tone. "No, no, no… this is bad." Aildris who was still coughing from the shockwave. "What's wrong now?" Falco's expression hardened in a way they had never seen. "My father isn't chasing us anymore…" His voice cracked slightly. "He's going for Gustav." E.E froze. "We have to warn them!" he barked, almost snarling from sheer panic. "Ria, Sersi, Endric—EVERYONE—they're sitting ducks! We need to reach them NOW!" Falco slowly shook his head as dread settled deeper into his eyes. "We won't get there in time." The words shattered whatever hope the others had begun to gather. "What do you mean?" Aildris demanded. Falco clenched his fists so hard that cracks zig-zagged through the space around them. "This universe… this space we travel through? To deities, it's nothing. Distances that would take weeks or months even while traveling at light-speed—" He snapped his fingers. "—take them seconds." E.E's face paled. "And Nocturnis…" Falco continued, "…is far faster than any deity." The silence that followed felt suffocating. Each second that passed could already be a second too late for Gustav. "Then we go NOW!" E.E growled. "I refuse to sit here and do nothing while Gustav gets—" A shadow moved causing a strange tremor to sweep through space. Falco stiffened. "No…" From the horizon of space, the massive, world-splintering silhouette of the ancient executioner shifted and then its entire cosmic bulk turned toward them. The creature's single, burning eye refocused from the torn planet remains… to Falco. The ancient executioner rumbled in its primordial tongue so deeply that it vibrated inside their bones. The translation echoed directly in Falco's mind: "Your father commands it. I am to keep watch over you. You are not leaving this place." The executioner raised its hand which was larger than ten planets combined. "Oh crap… RUN!" E.E shouted. Falco didn't need to be told twice. He grabbed both Aildris and E.E and sped backward at a velocity that shattered light-speed in multiple increments, weaving through spatial cracks and gravitational distortions. Behind them, the executioner's hand tore through the void. KRRRRRRRHHHHHHHH!!! An entire star system collapsed into itself just from the force of its movement. Aildris' eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets. "Falco, it's catching up!" "I KNOW!" Falco yelled with a strained voice. He knew this executioner very well. The fourth ranked among the five ancient executioners. One of the weakest, yet still capable of erasing galaxies. It had no emotions. No hesitation. No compassion. Only obedience to Nocturnis. Vast swirling wave of dark energy surrounded him and yet even with all his inherited power, even with the blood of shadows coursing through him… he knew the truth: He couldn't defeat this being. He couldn't even scratch it. He was Nocturnis son but his level of strength was still far from any of the Ancient Executioners. "We can't beat it," Falco muttered through clenched teeth. "We can't outrun it either…" "Then what do we do!?" E.E growled. Falco didn't have an answer... But far away… in another corner of the universe… Nocturnis appeared without warning. One moment the ritual location was empty except for the few who had been there these past couple of weeks... The next moment the universe itself bent inward in his direction. His arrival was so catastrophic that the planet beneath trembled violently, as if it were begging not to be crushed under the pressure of his presence. A tremor of cosmic force exploded outward, swallowing everything in its path... Mountains, plains, stone arches and everything from the other planets in the same orbit was greatly affected. Fortunately, the force had greatly reduced when it reached the transparent like platform of the rutual. Nevertheless, it was still coming... Ria reacted instantly, shielding Sersi with a burst of red-hot aura. Sersi eyes widened in confoundment as the violet clouds overhead twisted into spirals from the shockwave. "What… what is that!?" Sersi screamed. But even before Ria could answer— BOOOOOMMMM!!! The force of Nocturnis' emergence rippled outward again, sending both of them flying like rag dolls. Endric who seemed to have been taking a break after watching Gustav all this time suddenly snapped his head up as reality itself seemed to fold. He realized what was happening to late when he saw a silhouette floating directly behind Gustav. A silhouette with horns like spiraled voids. A silhouette surrounded by liquid darkness. A silhouette made of pure, cosmic malevolence. Endric's lungs seized as every cell in his body vibrated in panic. His subconscious screamed for him to flee as danger alarms like he had never felt before, rang in his head. Because this silhouette was none other than... The deity of shadows. Nocturnis leaned forward slightly, examining Gustav's unconscious state with detached curiosity. "Still recuperating, are we?" he murmured. His voice was deep enough to shake atoms. He could tell that Gustav hadn't regained his full Outworldly energy and this gave him a sense of relief. "No…" Endric whispered as his eyes widened. "This cannot be—" Ria tried to stand as blood rushed from his temple. Sersi gasped for air as her chest trembled. Despite every fiber in his body warning him not to move, Endric didn't think twice before charging forward the moment he saw that Gustav was in danger. Telekinetic force exploded beneath his feet as he propelled himself toward Gustav with his arms outstretched. He didn't know what he could do. He didn't know if he could stop Nocturnis. But he knew one thing: He had to reach Gustav first.