The God of Nothing.-Chapter 20: The Awakening of Rejection

In the space in front of Caelith's hand, a shockwave emerged. A small, insignificant shockwave not even noticed by Caelith himself.

It reverberated through the area around him, the forest, the country, the world.

It was so small and insignificant it couldn't even be detected at a molecular level. As if it was forewarning the universe that it was here, that it existed once more.

Everything seemed to still. Caelith's newly adjusted eyes stared at the space in front of him. His breath caught for a second in shock.

A flock of crows cawed in the distance. Despite the dead of night, the forest became more eerie.

In front of him, held together only by his concentration, was a basketball-sized area devoid of the sprites that had filled Caelith's eyes before.

The ball both existed and didn't. Its shape was discernable only by its lack of substance as if a ball of nothing had been superimposed onto the world.

This ball gave Caelith a grave sense of dread...

'What the hell...'

Then, his concentration lapsed.

Just as suddenly as the ball had formed, it was gone. And then came Caelith's second shock.

The space, which was now devoid of the colorful sprites, was not long for this world. As if its existence was rejected as well, the sprites immediately flooded the once-empty space.

One sprite, two, three... they swarmed it without repose, instantly and overwhelmingly with great speed. The space had nothing to stop them. Their momentum was unhindered.

Some sprites exited from the other side of the sphere. Some stayed within it. However, the flood never stopped.

First, it was one collision, then it was thousands. Thousands of sprites rammed into each other, colliding, destroying, and returning to zero.

They moved like air flowing from high pressure to low pressure. The same happened within a nanosecond to the sphere, only seen by Caelith's strange eyes.

The higher density of sprites outside the sphere entered and collided with each other, releasing mana at an instantaneous rate.

What followed was violent, uncontrollable, and inexplicable.

The world flashed white, and Caelith was sent reeling through the air.

This was Rejection, not of the gods, but his own, to the gods.

A deafening explosion wrung out, forcing blood out of Caelith's enhanced eardrums.

Collecting himself, Caelith sucked in a short breath. So many questions, so many things that needed to be addressed, and so many things had happened in such a short term that Caelith was overloaded with thoughts.

However, he no longer had the luxury of time to sort them out.

The noise and light would attract monsters, and who knew what monsters wondered this deep in the forest at night?

As Caelith prepared himself, something happened far, far away.

In a plane of utter darkness, seen by no one, an eye opened.

The air was thick with the scent of damp earth, rotting leaves, and something deeper—unfamiliar.

Caelith stood in the heart of the forest, the world around him still reeling from what had just occurred.

Trees bent at unnatural angles, their bark peeled away in jagged streaks.

The soil was disturbed, ripped apart as though something had been forcibly removed from existence.

The explosion had been real.

His power—Rejection—was real.

And now, the world around him seemed to recognize it.

The silence that followed was wrong.

The forest should have been alive with the chirping of crickets, the rustling of unseen creatures, and the distant howls of predators on the hunt. But there was nothing.

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Not even the wind stirred the branches.

Then, a whisper of movement.

Caelith's instincts screamed.

His fingers twitched toward his sword; it wasn't there. Then his eyes shot to the tree it was lodged in.

His enhanced senses caught the faintest ripple in the air. It was a presence—something shifting between the trees, watching.

Something that wasn't afraid.

A low, resonant growl slithered through the clearing.

Caelith's muscles tensed, and without hesitation, he shot forward. His hand wrapped around his blade, and he landed. He had crossed a clearing of 20 meters in under a second.

Caelith turned sharply, his grip tightening around the hilt of his blade as his gaze locked onto the darkness ahead.

His heartbeat slowed, his breathing steady despite the creeping tension crawling up his spine.

And then, it emerged.

A Duskrend Strider.

Not just any—a mature one.

Its body was impossibly sleek, a shifting black mass that swallowed the moonlight whole. Muscles rolled beneath its shadowed fur as it moved with unnatural grace, each step silent, calculated.

It was studying him.

Not attacking.

Not yet.

A one-star predator that knew it was at the top of its food chain.

Caelith's lips pressed into a thin line.

The way it moved, the eerie silence that followed it—it wasn't just relying on instincts. It was thinking.

Calculating.

This wasn't like the beasts he had fought before.

This was a challenge unlike ever before.

Fine.

Let's see who breaks first.

Caelith shifted his stance, his grip firm but flexible. His body felt different, stronger, sharper.

His very perception of the world had changed—he could hear the minute shifts in the leaves beneath the beast's paws, he saw the way the mana in the air rippled ever so slightly around it.

The Strider tensed.

Then, in an instant, it lunged.

It was fast. Faster than anything Caelith had ever encountered.

A shadow streaked toward him, a blur of death and hunger.

Caelith moved.

Not with panic, not with desperation—but with purpose.

His foot pivoted, his body twisting at just the right angle, letting the beast's claws swipe through nothing but air.

But the Strider was already adapting.

It shifted mid-lunge, twisting unnaturally to correct its attack.

Its jaws snapped toward his side—too fast.

Now, there was panic.

Caelith's body might have become vastly different, but his mind was the same.

Caelith's hand moved, not with thought, but

on instinct.

Rejection.

A sphere of nothing formed in his palm, a void in the fabric of existence itself.

The Strider's body entered its edge—and reality shattered.

The mana in the air flooded into the empty space all at once.

An explosion tore through the clearing.

Caelith was thrown back, his body crashing through branches, the force unreal.

Dirt and leaves scattered in every direction as he skidded to a halt against a tree, knocking the wind out of him.

his breath came in ragged gulps.

The beast had been obliterated. Its upper half was completely eviscerated, leaving just its posterior.

Caelith's mind raced.

He should have died there by in all means, if not at least injured.

But now, he had power.

Real power.

It was wild. Uncontrolled.

He had barely understood what he had done, let alone replicated it with any precision.

But it now existed, his path to life - his path to vengeance, and now there was a direction to the madness.

He clenched his fists.

This wasn't enough.

His mother was dead. His family had betrayed him.

And this power—this Rejection—was his only path forward.

But how did he control something that rejected everything?

His thoughts turned inward.

The day had been impossibly long, he had still not worked through his loss.

First—his mother.

The rage, the helplessness—it burned inside him like an open wound.

He had done nothing to save her.

Nothing.

His mind replayed the scene again and again. The look in her eyes, the way she had smiled at him despite the pain, despite knowing what was about to happen.

It ate at him.

If he had been strong enough—if he had unlocked this power sooner—would she still be alive? If he had been different, he had been more... maybe, just maybe, he could have saved her.

He exhaled sharply, pushing the thoughts aside.

His emotions wouldn't bring her back.

But his vengeance would make them pay.

Them.

His "family."

Alaric. Vaerin. Selphira. Elowen.

They had discarded him, thrown him to the wolves without hesitation.

They had killed his mother.

They had lied to him.

They had betrayed him.

And so he would give them something to fear.

Caelith then focused on his body.

He felt that he was roughly 180 cm; strangely, his weight had not changed at all. Whatever had happened to his body had used his stored fat to create new muscle and bone tissue.

Speaking of muscle, Caelith felt that the amount of muscle on his body hadn't changed much, rather, it was structured differently - more efficiently.

Finally, he prepared his mind for what he had to do before he could move on.

Walking over to the stone slab, he kneeled next to his mother's mutilated body. Tears ran down his cheeks. However, his expression did not change.

He retrieved her body and head, holding back the flood of emotions. Then, he proceeded to steel himself.

Walking a few