Ten Lucky Draws: I Became OP - Chapter 365: Nine Boxes of Doom - The Goddess of Nothingness
Chapter 365: Nine Boxes of Doom – The Goddess of Nothingness
The instant Ash’s words concluded, the two Horrors began to move, their compliance not a matter of choice.
Their bodies lurched forward, like marionettes suspended on unseen strings—or more precisely, bound by the inexorable chains of the True Reality script.
A radiant glow intensified around them as Ash’s “one sight” inexorably drew them across the gleaming stage floor.
Regardless of how defiantly Numbers 200 and 199 attempted to glare, resist, or exert control over their movements, their efforts proved utterly futile.
Observing their forced progression, the host whirled toward the cameras with unrestrained, almost frenzied delight, microphone raised triumphantly.
“Ohhh folks, look at that! Our contestants are charging straight toward the Nine Boxes of Doom! From this point there will be no refunds, no escape, and no mercy! Give them a roaring round of applause for their boundless enthusiasm!”
SNAP!
Ash snapped his fingers once.
Clap!
Clap!
Clap!
Then from nowhere, a thunderous wave of applause erupted—thousands of illusory voices cheering, stomping, whistling—as if an entire stadium of spectators had materialized just for the spectacle.
The sound swept over the stage like a living wave, rattling the neon signs and triggering the confetti cannons to erupt again in festive bursts.
Golden neon lights flashed ROUND 1, while a shower of gold sparks rained down from the cannons.
Ash lounged in his throne, crunching popcorn, golden eyes gleaming with amusement.
—–
Box 1 was the first to open—pried apart by Number 200’s reluctant hand—unleashing a blinding wave of sickly green light.
PUNISHMENT: MORTAL LOOP
In that instant, the black-haired Horror felt his whole being twist.
His immense, otherworldly form collapsed in on itself—bones snapping, skin sagging—until he was nothing more than a frail, ragged man. Every nerve in his new body buzzed with unbearable sensitivity.
“Oh noooo!” the host cried in mock horror.
“He’s just an ordinary guy now! Every paper cut, every stubbed toe will feel like a supernova going off in his frail body. And the best part? This loop will repeat every sixty seconds for the next ten thousand cycles! Let’s see how long our tough mercenary can endure as a mere mortal!”
The moment his banter ended, time in this place warped by an immense degree.
With Divinity and Oculus Unus, Ash pushed ten thousand full cycles into just one hour of outside time.
To the cameras, the host, and even Ash, it was nothing more than sixty minutes in the real world.
For Number 200, it was an endless stretch of torment.
The first loop slammed into him like a sledgehammer.
Boom!
He stubbed his toe on the stage floor…. but to him it felt as if a star had been dropped onto his foot.
The pain exploded through every nerve—searing, relentless—as though his entire foot had been thrust into the heart of a blazing star.
He tried to scream, but not a single sound escaped.
For the next ten minutes, at one-minute intervals, each toe on both feet was stubbed in turn. With every strike, the agony intensified, and still, the silent horror could not force out a scream.
Immediately afterward, thin paper shuriken flooded the stage.
SHK!
SHK!
The Horror once again found himself trapped in a loop with the same unchanging rhythm.
Yet the shuriken never ceased, only shifting in their effects.
Sometimes the cuts would melt his skin to the bone before reforming to repeat the torment.
Other times, his blood would literally freeze from the inside out, leaving him frozen solid beneath the coldest temperature imaginable.
He dropped to his knees, scratching at his own skin, unaware that his misery was just one of countless episodes to be aired on entertainment networks in the future.
As he endured, the roar of audience applause only grew louder.
Over and over, ten thousand loops of the same sixty seconds played out—stubbed toes morphing into shattered bones, paper cuts into torn flesh, every small ache magnified until his nerves burned with endless, escalating agony.
By the three-hundredth cycle—still only minutes in the outside world—he was sobbing openly, curled into a fetal ball.
By the thousandth, his mind had shattered, memories of his life as a Horror flickering like dying embers.
By the five-thousandth, he was just a trembling husk, drooling, eyes wide and vacant, each reset washing over him with fresh waves of suffering his mortal mind could no longer comprehend.
The host leaned toward the cameras, his voice dropping into a tone of dramatic wonder.
“Take a look, folks… our once-mighty Horror, brought this low. Ten thousand cycles of relentless mortal agony crammed into a single hour. And we’re just on Box One!”
—–
While Ash was occupied with torture and recording for future amusement, the woman he had just saved—his new wife—was adjusting to her newfound powers.
And obviously, it didn’t take long at all.
During her time with this new family, she’d noticed something curious about those around her: they didn’t fight the way she thought they would.
The only moments their battles looked anything like what she knew were when they came across something truly worth their effort.
Otherwise, she had only seen them wreaking havoc through breathtaking, destructive displays.
As she battled—effortlessly erasing entire legions of Eldritch with a mere lazy flick of her wrist, reducing Reapers to black dust and Curators to blank parchment that vanished from existence—a passing thought drifted through her mind.
’Hmm… is being over-the-top this family’s motto or something?’ She almost laughed to herself at the idea.
’No, it couldn’t be… right?’
The thought faded the instant she spotted Sylvie.
The white-green-haired constellation was strolling calmly through the heart of the Second Inversion, sword floating lazily ahead of her like a polite guide, tip pointed straight forward.
She wasn’t dodging.
Hell, she wasn’t even looking at the hordes.
Not a single attack managed to touch her—they all somehow failed by…. sheer luck.
Every Reaper’s stillness field crumbled the instant it neared her.
Every Curator’s causality-erasure turned inward, wiping out its own sender. And each missed strike, in some twisted way, ended up taking millions of lives in the collateral damage.
Morgana shook her head, a low chuckle escaping her lips.
“That’s completely unfair… I wonder which of his women is the strongest?”
With that, she soared higher into the sky—bronze skin gleaming, midnight hair streaming behind her.
Like all wives, she wore a necklace marking her as Ash’s, and she carried a sub-nexus that granted her the power of the codex.
As she drifted higher through the clouds, she smiled, ready for her true introduction—not as Morgana Nox, but as Morgana Originat, Goddess of Nothingness.
She spread her arms wide.
HUMMMMM!!!!!
[A/N: Even though the divinity isn’t flowing from the outside, it just feels nicer to add this HUM…]
Divinity poured out of her in an invisible tide—pure, cold, and absolute.
It spread across the entire Second Inversion in a single heartbeat, covering every mile, every mountain, every black plain and inverted sky like a silent blanket of nonexistence.
|Anchor|
|Wave of Absence (Tier One)|
Both powers were completely new to her; like the others, she could use Anchor, but Wave of Absence came from the codex.
The wave burst forth without sound, light, or warning.
It was unseen…. and it was unstoppable.
A flawless sphere of nothingness burst outward from her at the speed of thought, sweeping through the Inversion like the gentlest, quietest end imaginable.
Wherever it touched, the Eldritch vanished without a trace.
The Reapers’ dark bodies collapsed into dust that had never existed, and the Curators’ parchment bodies unfurled one final time, erasing their own histories from being… or not being at all.
Entire legions—millions upon millions—were gone in an instant, caught mid-step, mid-fold, leaving behind only faint snarls that dissolved before they could fully form.
The wave rolled on, unstoppable, covering the entire layer in seconds.
Morgana lowered her arms, dark crimson eyes glowing with quiet satisfaction.
She glanced down at the freshly cleansed Inversion—now more firmly anchored in existence than ever—and smiled.
“That felt… nice.”
“Hey!” Madison appeared with a raised brow. “Who said you could steal all the fun?”
