"No" Elizabeth's sharp tone cut through the silence that came after Null's request.

She had fought...well, attacked Null before and every attack she made was instantly nullified.

So, based on what she'd heard, Reid had only just advanced to Platinum rank—which meant the chances of his attacks doing anything meaningful in this "spar" were virtually zero.

But unlike in the briefing room with commander Ajax, it seemed Null had no intention to listen.

Rather than being stubborn, he was just curious enough in Reid to ignore her words, for now.

Reid, admittedly, also wanted to gauge his strength against Null. Sure, his monarch could handle Malrath but that was only a duplicate and it was only based on the data Evo collected on it.

Null on the other hand, felt like a lot more accurate gauge of his strength. Besides, he felt this shard was a lot stronger than Malrath's.

"It's fine," Reid looked at Elizabeth as he replied, "I also want to test myself against him."

"Perfect," Null said with a smile before turning to Elizabeth, "then there should be no problems now right?"

Elizabeth looked at Reid with a frown before asking, "are you sure?"

She couldn't exactly stop him if that was what he wanted but she was sure her grandpa wouldn't be pleased if something extreme happened to him.

Reid simply nodded before he summoned Rusty to take Marcus out of the arena and back to the observer's stand since he was still a bit gassed out after his fight with Reid.

Rusty quickly did so with a single skip before returning to Reid's side, ready for the upcoming fight with Null.

"Fine," Elizabeth let out a sigh, "but I'll be the ref and you'll stop when I say so, understand?"

"Yes""of course," both Reid and Null responded together.

Elizabeth narrowed her eyes at the two of them, especially at Null, who returned her look with a smile that only served to annoy her further.

She raised her hand. "Then begin when my hand falls."

Both fighters stood across each other, their eyes locked. While Reid was a bit on edge, Null was visibly relaxed, almost as if he wasn't about to be engaged in a spar.

True to his words, he was only interested in seeing if Reid was the reincarnation of a certain mortal he knew and if he was, that would be really interesting.

Elizabeth looked at both of them before her hand slowly dropped, signalling the start of the match.

None of the two moved for the first fe minutes, choosing to observe the other for any opening... Or at least Reid was anyway.

Null on the other hand seemed to be waiting for him to make his move, which was exactly the case.

"You're free to make the first move," he said.

Reid could see that it wasn't really taunt as he could feel Null's aura even with how relaxed he seemed.

Without hesitation, he summoned Beel, making this spar a 3 v 1 but Null's expression remained the same, just plain curiosity.

"I'm curious," he voiced out, "how can you tame multiple of those beast whilst I've only seen Elizabeth and her grandfather use only one."

Before anyone could reply, he shook his head, "it doesn't matter, I'll ask again after our spar."

With that, he went back to his relaxed pose, waiting for Reid to make his move

"He looks dangerous papa," Beel, in its humanoid fairy like form, said as it looked at Null.

"I know," Reid answered, "so let's try to quickly end this."

"Got it!" Beel replied. It and Rusty were visibly fired up.

On his mental command, Rusty immediately used [Absolute Pause], stopping every single passage of time in a bubble around Null and it seemed to work... For a moment at least.

There was suddenly a visible crack in space before the invisible time bubble around him shattered, allowing for movement of time again.

This caused Reid to frown, but he wasn't done yet, it was now Beel's turn.

Using one of the abilities it had copied, Beel's mouth expanded unnaturally wide, its jaw unhinging as if reality itself bent to accommodate the attack.

A torrent of compressed plasma-light, hotter than the sun's surface, surged forth like a cannon meant to erase anything in its path. The blast roared across the arena, swallowing Null whole in a blinding inferno.

The shockwave shock the reinforced walls of the training hall, sending a vibration through the stands that forced Clara and Lisa to shield their faces.

Even Owen, who looked like he was only an eyelid close away from sleeping, raised an eyebrow as his chair creaked under the force.

"Damn…" Marcus muttered, leaning forward despite his exhaustion. He knew that there was a massive gap between him and Reid, but this was a whole other level.

The whole training room was covered in smoke and both Null's and Reid's figure were no where to be seen.

Elizabeth's eyes widened at the attack. This definitely wasn't something a newly ranked up tamer was capable of.

T-this was something at her level and she was above most platinum tier tamers. But even with all the light show displayed by the attack, having knowledge of Null's ability, she doubted the attack would do anything.

And soon enough her thoughts were proven correct because as the smoke cleared, the figure standing in the center of the arena was untouched.

Not a speck of ash on his clothes, not even his hair was out of place.

Null's relaxed posture hadn't changed at all. His hands were still clasped behind his back, and he tilted his head slightly.

"…Fascinating," he finally said, his voice calm and annoyingly genuine. "That carried enough concentrated energy to melt through this planet's crust. And yet—" his eyes, black and endless, glowed faintly, "—it would all be useless against me."

Reid frowned, if it wasn't obvious enough from his name, it definitely was now.

"Your ability is to nullify attacks isn't it," it was more of a statement than question.

Null's smile deepened at Reid's deduction. He raised a finger in the air as if demonstrating.

"Correct," he said simply, his tone carrying no arrogance—just fact. "Attacks, abilities, even concepts themselves… if they stand before me, they're snuffed out."

He slowly put his finger down as he looked at the silent Reid, waiting for him to make a move.

Unlike what he expected, Reid sent both Rusty and Beel back to his inventory. This caused Null's expression to take on a disappointed one as he asked, "are you giving up after only failing twice?"

"Far from it," Reid said with a smile, "since any attacks against you would just be nullified, then why don't I just even the playing field?"

His words intrigued Null, even more so when he suddenly summoned his void moth, Nyx.

"Interesting," Null said with a look of interest both at the fact that Ethan had summoned the third forged beast and also at the fact that he sensed something familiar from this one.

But the surprise wasn't done yet.

A wave of purple aura burst outwards before pulling back in and cocooning itself around Reid and Nyx.

A blinding light covered them and when it cleared up, Reid wasn't standing there anymore.

In his place was the monarch of void with its sword in hand and a smile on its face as it said, "let's try this again, shall we."