The Basilica of Null was a grand hybrid of Gothic and Cyclopean architecture, forming a structure more imposing than the Vatican. Spanning ten kilometers across and rising five kilometers in height, it resembled a church-city rather than any single building.

  Its facade bore deliberate obsolescence as an act of reverence toward the Null. Materials used in building the gargantuan basilica is designed to resist the understanding by any conventional means, suggest the structure is older than time itself and once a residence of the unknown race before humanity. The interior warps human perception, topography, and time where the several of compartments of basilica are spatially distorted by hyperplane which very hostile or fundamentally incompatible for any 3D lifeforms if someone attempt to explore the boundary unless they undergo Rites of the Null, also the Interlopers are lurking there.

  Its dome and walls were adorned with intricate Byzantine style mosaics featuring Haemanthus motifs and abstract artwork depicting the six god-suzerain figures: Matriarch Despair, Patriarch Futility, Emperor of Origin, Sovereign of Chaos, Potentate of Order, and Philosopher of Enlightenment. Sarah entered the church carrying a specialized metal containment box, embedded with high-purity voidstones mined from Crimson Waste, this strange stone have properties to seal the metaphysical interference and defy any known law of physics.

  A towering elderly man named Cardinal William Fontagne who held one of the highest clerical position in church had welcomed her. She bowed deeply before him, and William returned the bow before offering his blessing.

  "Do not let the light lead you astray. Seek the salvation of the Void."

  Sarah took off her robe and stood firm naked, reached for her stiletto, and drew it across her wrist. She extended her arm, holding it steady as the blood dripped onto the floor, and began to recite the Oath of the Null.

  "My obedience to the Void is eternal. I offer my body, soul, and mind to the Lake of Oblivion. Salvation through annihilation, hope through obliteration. Death to the ego!"

  Her blood seeps to the floor as she receives violent whispers from unknown sources, nearly snapping her sanity. Her body writhes in agony, nerves bulging, and her skin begins peeling like parchment. More blood pools on the floor, turning into a strange dark liquid that flows backward as her fully exposed muscular tissue seeps it outward. Her skin then starts regenerating at an unprecedented rate that violating the conventional rules of biology, until she is completely restored to her original state.

  Sarah gasps for breath, trembling erratically. William immediately injects a sedative into her neck to calm her mind, and she stands still, staring at herself. Flushing with shame, she suddenly grabs the robe and throws it on. William chuckles and teases her.

  “You've been doing this for many years, yet you're still embarrassed about being naked, compared to your skin literally being torn apart. That's understandable, because there is nothing Null cannot reach, not even the deepest corners of our perspectives, perceptions, and thoughts. Anyway, follow me to the laboratory. We have an analysis to conduct.”

  Sarah carried the large metallic box and followed William. As they walked through the spacious corridor, William asked her about the situation at the Great Wall of Despair, since any digital technology inside of basilica doesn't work, relied solely in analog and electromechanical technology, and physical letters only be delivered by Null blessed homing pigeon to reduce the contamination risks of mnemonic infection from Null's corruption.

  "Sarah, how are things at the wall? If they aren't going well, I may need to petition His Holiness for a deployment."

  She smiled, retrieved a letter from her robe pocket, and handed it to him. William tore the wax seal and read through it, visibly surprised by the situation in the Crimson Waste. The frequency of Interloper attacks and incursions had dropped drastically compared to the previous year and months prior.

  The part that piqued William's interest most was the emergence of new humanoid Interloper variants, similar to what Sarah had encountered. What alarmed him, however, was that these variants were shaped by a delayed evolutionary mechanism with conditions that could potentially allow them to develop abilities surpassing even an Inquisitor's hyperadaptive reflexes granted by Null's blessing.

  The incursion by these post-evolved variants had been successfully repelled and destroyed by hypersonic missiles blessed with Null's power, as Interlopers are known to be immune to conventional weaponry. These new variants were extraordinarily powerful, capable of camouflaging with their environment, assuming any form at will, and maintaining spatial awareness regardless of terrain or distance. William's expression darkened, and his anxiety grew heavier than ever.

  "The Crimson Sage's predictive analysis was right. The Beyond is now prioritizing quality over quantity. Bring this specimen to him soon, and don't forget to bring along some books or the latest academic papers."

  The metallic box Sarah carried contained the remains of an Interloper's body parts. They descended to the first layer of the floor, turned right, and arrived at a dead end where the corridor wall was inscribed with complex esoteric mathematics in circular form. Beside it, a non-deterministic Turing machine had automatically come online, the read/write heads moving in maglev rails at breakneck speed, processing and punching lines of code in nanofilm tapes looping indefinitely at an unprecedented computing speed. The sleek analog monitor printed out a line of text.

  "Welcome, your reverence. OracleOS is initiating cryptographic analysis. Please stand by for 10 minutes before the door opens. Thank you for your understanding and patience."

  William had almost forgotten to ask about Sarah's encounter with the new variants of the Interloper.

  "Did you notice anything strange about those Interlopers you encountered recently?"

  She stared deeply at the wall, pondering her thoughts for a suitable answer. Unfortunately, skepticism still clouded her personal judgment, and she provided only a broad overview of her analytical assessments.

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  “First, they are similar to us when it comes to biological structure, hominid in nature with nothing distinctly alien about them. Second, these new variants can mimic human emotions, learn social norms, and interact just like any ordinary humans. And the last thing, my dear Frater, now assigned to Sector 217, told me they have the capacity for rational and complex thinking, enough to argue about morality, demonstrate competence in adaptive military planning and basic combat procedures, and they also possess their own sets of technical abilities that allow them to effectively navigate hostile situations.”

  He nodded in agreement with Sarah's insight as the esoteric mathematical inscription began emitting light and the tangent space of the wall shifted, changing form into radial geodesic curves. The alien spatial manifold distorted the boundary between established and foreign planar orientations. They proceeded to enter an impossibly spacious room where the concept of bounds or edges simply did not exist.

  A humanoid entity was repairing a lab instrument inside, the Gray Scholar, a researcher and daughter of the Null Reverends. She appeared to have already finished analyzing countless species of Interlopers, some of them native to the Crimson Waste while others had originated from entirely different dimensions. Turing machines clacked and punched loudly, processing large volumes of data, papers printing and stacking into towering piles. The machines stopped printing and began redirecting their output to the Gray Scholar, serving as an interpreter for her language. She greeted them, and a visible excitement overtook her the moment she spotted the metallic box. A line of text appeared on the analog monitor.

  “Welcome, your Reverend. Oh, it seems you've brought something interesting. That thing is quite a good and rare catch.”

  Sarah placed the metallic box on the lab table and the Gray Scholar extended her translucent appendages, carefully aligning the sequence of voidstones. William could feel the metaphysical contamination radiating from the box was incredibly strong, but the space was well protected by Null's power, filtering out any interference from Beyond. The telemetry on the analog monitor pinged loudly as the metaphysical contamination rose exponentially, and the tensor field simulation of the spatial manifold showed the space stretching into a hyperbolic paraboloid. The Gray Scholar was quite intrigued and postponed opening the containment box.

  “This new variant is the most powerful Interloper I have ever harvested from any dimension. It is time to put my experimental lab machine to the test.”

  The surrounding space trembled and warped violently around them as they arrived in a new spatial compartment, one that only the Gray Scholar could access. Sarah and William were left disoriented and vomiting from the instantaneous spatial travel, but something eye-catching quickly seized their attention.

  A floating, gargantuan interferometry machine loomed before them, looking something like a ridiculous Dyson sphere particle accelerator, with each of its massive beam pipes connected to an centrifugal ultra-high vacuum chamber at the center. The overall materials used to construct the machine were made of exotic metals sourced from different dimensions, strong enough to contain the exceeded conventional power of the new variant, and to analyze and decrypt its esoteric nodes.

  They stepped onto the plate, which began levitating and carried them toward the vacuum chamber. The door opened automatically, and the containment box was placed onto a pedestal inscribed with experimental and unfamiliar esoteric mathematical equations. The seal latched and robotic hands initiated the alignment of the voidstone sequence. They left the chamber immediately and returned to the control panels.

  The Gray Scholar activated the lockdown sequence. The interferometry machine spun at relativistic speed as a black hole began forming around in center, isolating the metaphysical interference within the event horizon. The Turing machines clacked and punched non-stop while the telemetry display showed impressive results, the tensor field simulation growing increasingly clear and comprehensive as the spatial manifold chaotically compressed across different topographies. Surprisingly, this new Interloper variant from Beyond was incredibly energy efficient, expending only a fraction of what was expected to bend the curvature of spacetime.

  Sarah was left dumbstruck. To her, it was entirely impossible. She had studied nuclear and theoretical physics for many years, yet she had never witnessed anything like it, where the energy conservation of the first law of thermodynamics was being upheld so efficiently through extreme spatial compression without any violation, achieved by exploiting predictable nodes within the uncertainty gap of quantum chromodynamics. Even so, it represented invaluable data, with potential applications for making fusion reactors more energy efficient, engineering stronger supermaterials, and exceeding the Carnot efficiency limit without wear. Before long, she would write a dissertation on it and submit her findings to the Imperial Academy of Sciences and Engineering, once the offensive in Crimson Cross was behind them.

  The Gray Scholar placed two strange crystal tablets onto a translucent metallic pedestal as robotic manipulators fired dark matter beams, etching esoteric nodes directly into the molecular structure of the crystals. Once the process was complete, she handed the crystal tablets to William and offered him a warning.

  "Don't you dare read the contents of those tablets. Deliver these results to my dear brother, let him interpret the data, and don't forget to present a bribe for him. You'd better leave the box here as well. I need to study it further to develop a more robust and comprehensive framework."

  She paused for a moment, and the atmosphere grew tense, oppressive, and ominously suffocating.

  "A simple piece of advice: capture that group of Interlopers bearing the Haemanthus brand on their hands, as they are faithful servants of my parents. I would rather not risk their wrath over the fact that my parent's test model of anti-Interloper products was mishandled through your own foolishness, William. And you, Sarah, rather than carrying yourself like a befitting buffoon, I know you recognized the Null equation from them, yet your rigid militarist instincts only made things worse. I will forgive you this time, but there will not be a next time if you repeat the same mistake."

  William and Sarah went pale with fear and prostrated themselves together to apologize, but the Gray Scholar only looked at the two with complete indifference before promptly escorting them to a translucent round platform and telling them to clear out. The space warped around them and the two finally found themselves back in the main hall of the basilica. William was sweating profusely from the pressure and immediately issued Sarah a new directive regarding the stray Interlopers in Area 217.

  "We have a change of plans. Instruct your brother to capture them alive, and there is no time to play around from this point forward. I did not expect the Null Servants to appear at this time. They are supposed to only surface at the end of a millennium, which means our Lord is systematically restructuring a new strategy against Beyond. I am sorry, Sarah, this was my fault we got reprimanded by our Magister, but you had better leave early for now."

  Sarah bowed deeply to him and left the basilica immediately. Her brooding skepticism only grew heavier, her animosity toward the so-called Null Servants intensifying alongside a wave of self-criticism. She began muttering to herself as she walked out to the road, venting her frustration over the costly miscalculations she had made.

  "I'm so goddamn stupid. I'm going to break that lowly vermin again and repurpose his wretched body into a personal living punching bag to vent my emotional issues. If I had only captured that one, none of this would have happened today. Never mind, I need to stay focused for the offensive next month."

  Sarah stepped into the quadcopter, fle w off toward Sector 217, and prepared herself to face an old nemesis once again.