Time didn't move.
It unraveled.
The Nullwing Widow rose into the air, its wings folding and unfurling like a priestess opening scripture. It shimmered—not brightly, not violently—but with a dim, haunting glow. A glow born from the ancient marriage of bioluminescence and ruin.
It looked harmless.
That was its deception.
It was no larger than a moth, but legends were never measured in weight.
Only in consequences.
The Nullwing Widow—an insect mistaken often for a firefly.
But where fireflies beckon lovers under moonlight, the Widow lures death beneath silence.
It is a parasite.
A biological betrayal.
A miracle by some god who mistook cruelty for creativity.
It secretes a phosphorescent light—faint, almost beautiful.
But to stare into that light is to invite ruin. Even with gear, even with preparation, even if you avert your eyes—it finds its way in. Not through skin. Through thought.
It numbs the mind.
It severs instinct.
And when it lands?
Its toxin makes silence permanent.
The files called it "the most dangerous insect ever documented."
But files can't measure fear.
Only the body can do that.
And my body should've been terrified.
Yet as the light bathed me,
I felt calm.
No burning. No blindness.
Only clarity.
As if reality itself… had stopped lying.
I didn't flinch. I didn't blink. I stared straight into the Widow's glow—welcoming it like a prophet welcomes fire.
Not because I was fearless.
But because I needed to know.
Would the promise of the Great Existence hold?
"As I brought you here, I have chosen to bestow protection upon you. No mutant life shall harm you."
A week ago, I would've doubted.
Even if I believed the words, I would have resisted the fear.
But now?
Now I understood.
Because I remembered the question I'd once asked, kneeling before a throne of impossible gravity:
"If fate decides everything… then where does ambition go to die?"
The silence that followed… wasn't empty.
It was sacred.
Then came the answer—
Not spoken.
Etched into the soul like rust into iron:
"It dies in the hearts of those who dream without suffering."
"It rots in the minds that survive but do not shatter."
"It withers in men who live long… but never become otherworldly."
At the time, I'd thought I understood.
But now?
Now, with the Nullwing Widow's light blooming before my eyes—
a dying star sealed in the body of a parasite—
I saw what it truly meant.
That question I once asked—
"If fate decides everything... then where does ambition go to die?"
—was not rhetorical.
It was prophecy.
And this was the answer:
Ambition does not die.
It decays.
In the soft hands of those who want the crown, but not the weight.
It drowns in those who chase greatness but fear its consequences.
And for those who survive?
It calcifies.
Hardens into comfort.
Turns men into statues—frozen in potential, hollow in legacy.
But for the few…
The cursed few…
Ambition does not ask for sacrifice.
It is the sacrifice.
Not something you chase.
But something that devours you.
A fire that doesn't warm—it burns names off bone, until only necessity remains.
"To walk beyond men, you must be willing to become less than human."
I understood it now.
You don't walk toward greatness.
You let it unmake you.
To touch what lies beyond,
you must become something that can never return.
Not a man.
Not a monster.
A necessity.
And in that moment, I smiled.
Because for the first time, I wasn't afraid of the unknown.
I wanted to eat it.
I didn't want to understand the impossible.
I wanted to hollow it out—carve it, consume it—until the universe had nothing left to hide.
I didn't even realize the Widow had moved.
It floated past me. Silent. Searching.
Then—
It chose.
The villain never saw it coming.
One moment, he was observing me with measured disdain.
The next, his posture snapped back—frozen in dawning horror.
The Widow had landed—on his shoulder.
It did not strike.
It settled.
As if it had found something worthy to feed upon.
"So… this is your trump card?"
His voice quivered—not in volume, but in soul.
"Not bad. Better than your last one. Still…"
He stepped back. Swallowed hard.
At first, he tried to remain calm. He shifted his shoulder slightly, as if to brush the Nullwing Widow away. A flicker of false bravado crossed his eyes. He believed—perhaps for one brief, desperate moment—that he could tame it.
"It's just an insect," he muttered under his breath. "I control worse. I've bent beasts with fangs longer than my forearm. I've ridden storms. I can handle this."
He raised his hand slowly, cautiously.
But the Widow did not move.
Its legs gripped tighter—not violently, but with an eerie patience. A pressure just light enough to mock, just heavy enough to warn.
And then... his breath hitched. His skin paled. The air around him thinned, as if the atmosphere itself was waiting for a scream that never came.
He felt it. Not on his skin—but in his mind. A thread unraveling. A whisper where no voice spoke. Not pain—something deeper. An understanding.
He was not the wielder.
He was the offering.
Panic flickered behind his eyes. He twitched again. The Widow remained.
The illusion shattered.
"If I have to go down—don't think I'll go alone."
His voice no longer rang with defiance.
It rang with fear disguised as fury.
He thrust a hand into the soil. Spoke with fury:
"The Call of the Burrowing Choir!"
The ground shook.
Cracks spiderwebbed across the jungle floor.
Then they came—
Mutated ground hogs, each the size of a full-grown man, burrowing beasts with bloodstained claws and yellow, molten eyes.
Ten of them. Then twenty.
They burst forth, snarling. Ready to shred.
But then…
They stopped.
Mid-sprint. Mid-snarl. Mid-instinct.
Stopped.
But then…
They stopped.
Mid-sprint. Mid-snarl. Mid-instinct.
Stopped.
Not because of me.
Not because of the Widow.
But because of the truth whispered by a throne beyond stars:
"No mutant life shall harm you."
And truth, once spoken by that throne, was law.
His eyes widened in terror, not just at the death crawling on his skin—but at the realization:
His power meant nothing.
"H-how… how the hell did you stop them?"
His voice cracked into a whisper.
"Who the f\*ck are you?"
I let out a slow breath.
My body ached. My limbs trembled. But my soul?
It had never stood taller.
I leaned back against the root of a tree, resting like I had just woken up from sleep.
Then I looked at him.
I didn't glare.
I didn't grin.
I didn't gloat.
I simply spoke.
"I am… what rises when ambition doesn't die."