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Project Infinix

XI — Null

1. Terra Nullius

• A few months later, Philand has become a dystopia where everyone either becomes nullified or gets enslaved or oppressed.
  • Other planets have been hit as well, but the epicenter lies at Philand.
• Portals are still spread through the sky where Null Monsters cross in.
• Cities are fortified with huge walls and are filled with Null Miners as guards constantly persecuting and bullying regular Nyx Miners who are powerless.
• Rural areas are controlled by Null Monsters and scouting Null Miners.
• Ana usually sneaks into the main Citadel to steal supplies.

• While Ed is still imprisoned, his crew is hiding in a Resistance outpost, led by some of Ed’s friends from Zetania and Deltakan, including:
  • Ana, Jake, Prof. Sergio, Jeco, Syrox, Masi, Kate, PS, Bohr, Kika, Mona, Gabi, Mike, Carry, Liam and Josh.

• The Stranded, led by Marcia and brought by Kika, are also part of the Resistance and have provided them with weapons, technology and knowledge.
  • Kate, unable to use her bow and arrow, managed to use her archer aiming skills on her new sniper rifle.
• The outpost has also stables to hold Nyx Worker Bugs, including horse-like Bugs that the Resistance uses for transport, along with cars and other vehicles provided and built by the Stranded.
• The Resistance adopted the Stranded’s ∞ symbol, becoming their brand on walls and in their equipment.
• The Resistance is divided into four main teams. Besides splitting the Stranded into them, they also include:
  • Management team: Prof. Sergio, Bohr, Kika and Gabi
  • Scouting team: Ana, Jake and Josh
  • Guarding team: Masi, Kate, PS, Mona and Mike
  • Engineering team: Jeco, Syrox, Carry and Liam
• It seems that Marie and Lau are situated in Deltakan to investigate the infestation in other planets.

2. Special Privileges

• Only Bohr and Gabi are able to cast their Nyx abilities due to their Broadcast attributes (the Stranded are also Broadcast Miners but they haven’t mastered how to cast their abilities, and Bohr and Gabi haven’t revealed to anyone their discoveries on the matter back in Sigmaran B).
  • Ana is mad that they don’t teach her how to get her abilities so she can rescue Ed.
• Josh suspects that Ana might be way too interested in Ed, but he says he’s just worried about her as she keeps putting herself in danger.

• Talia wanders in the forest, where she faces and kills Ruth, who was corrupted.

Ruth

Null Miner null#51e8b0ff

Shell Sign Kernel Sign Energy Ophiuchus Serpens Null

3. Crossover

• In one of the trips to the Citadel, Ana is unknowingly followed by Josh, who gets captured by Null Scouts.

• Talia finds and joins the Resistance, and she’s also revealed to be Nyx-abled as she’s also a graduated Broadcast Miner.

4. Backup

• The Resistance discusses the opportunity to start an uprising and attack the Citadel as Talia tells them that there’s another outpost with other Nyx-abled Broadcast Miners - her and Ed’s fellow partners from the Radon Guild.

5. Erebus

• Ed seems to be imprisioned on the top floor of the Citadel’s tower.
• Lupus tells him that he planned to host the Infinix Major Tournament in Philand so he could gather the strongest Miners in one place and suppress their abilities.

Lupus

• How could it ever achieve something like this?
• Are you still after it?
  • The mythical Aether.
• You know? Aether is supposed to be one of the primordial deities. Born from darkness and from the night, came brightness and the day. Aether would be the personification of the bright upper sky, the pure, shining, divine air of the heavens that the gods breathed.
• The administrators finally managed to harness Nyx Energy, but the four elements weren’t enough. They were afraid that the needed input wouldn’t be enough to keep up with the current energy output. So there had to be another way.
  • Maybe if their Miners gathered enough XP, they would be able to figure out a new source of energy themselves. So they had to stay motivated.
• But sometimes, you’ve got to do things yourself, and they didn’t like it, because it would go against the System.
• According to the myth, Aether was born from Nyx, so it had to be a form of Nyx Energy. But I had to climb the geneology.
• From Chaos came Nyx and Erebus, and from their union came Aether and Hemera.
• Erebus is the primordial deity that provides the real Quintessence - the source of Null Energy.

Erebus

Deity Energy Erebus Null

Erebus

In Greek mythology, Erebus is the primordial deity of darkness and shadow, born from Chaos. He represents the deep gloom of the underworld and is often associated with the spaces of darkness that exist between the earth and the underworld. Erebus is considered one of the first beings in the cosmos, symbolizing the mysterious and unseen aspects of creation.

• And as of now, he’s about to conquer all of Infinix.

• On their way to the outpost, Ana and Jake find X.
  • X is accompanied by a corrupted Josh who attacks Ana and Jake.

Josh

Null Miner null#f1847e0d

Shell Sign Kernel Sign Energy Perseus Pisces Null

• Jake kills Josh.

6. Network Miner

• Ana and Jake have a brutal fight against X.
  • This fight features Ana grabbing X’s katana and piercing both her and X, and that somehow awakens Ana’s abilities as she wreaks havoc.
  • It’s revealed that when they were in Sigmaran, Bohr and Gabi had found out that, not only Broadcast Miners are able to harness Nyx Energy, but also Network Miners, who have a least significant octet of 0x00 in their Nyx ID, with the catch that unleashing their abilities actually makes them completely vulnerable to the System’s control.
    • Ana’s Nyx ID ends in 0xAA00.
    • Back in Zetania, Ana’s nullifying allowed Lupus to control her powers because of this.
    • This vulnerability is shared with the System, meaning that the Miner may also harness the power of the whole system by exploiting it.

7. Call to Arms

• As the Resistance, separated from Ana and Jake, approaches the Radon Guild’s outpost, they’re attacked as the Guild thinks they’re Null Miners. Talia steps in and everyone holds their fire.
• Everyone from the outpost seems to be Nyx-abled.

• Gabi finds Cati and learns she’s a Broadcast Miner.

Cati

Broadcast Miner sigma#6a2f4bff

Shell Sign Kernel Sign Energy Virgo Capricornus Earth

• Cati says she never stopped following the steps of her hero, so she worked hard to become a Miner, having recently joined and graduated from Project Sigma under Radon Guild.
• Will, leading the outpost, and most of their members, refuse joining the Uprising, saying they’d have no chance on breaking in the Citadel.
• Ana and Jake show up with harsh wounds.
• Ana says that they have to rescue Ed.

Will

• I can’t risk it.
• I can’t lose anyone else.

Ana

• Ed told me about his brothers and sisters.
• The ones who supported each other, and the ones who cared about the lives of each other more than their own.
• That they were one for all, and all for one.

• Will heads back inside.
• Sally tells Ana that Will lost one of their Fresh Meat to Null Corp., and he doesn’t want to be forced to face him, because someone will likely get killed.
• Talia tries to talk to Will.

Will

• You couldn’t save Ruth, could you?

Talia

• I had no other choice.
• But that doesn’t mean we should give up on them.
• If we stay here, we’ll just wait for the nulled to come to us. But if we fight, we’ll have a chance to save everyone, because their lives are worth more than our own.

• Will has a moment of thought, then he goes back outside.

Will

• One for all, and all for one!

• The Resistance bears arms and prepares for the Uprising.

8. Uprising

• The Uprising commences - everyone, led by Ana, starts marching towards the Citadel, some with guns and others with abilities; some riding Worker Bugs, some driving cars or bikes and some flying, if they’re able to.
  • Along the way, they’re intercepted multiple times by Null entities, including Scouts, but they manage to take them out.

9. Merge Conflict

• In a conversation between X and Lupus, X doesn’t seem much of a believer of Lupus’s plan.
• Ed tries to convince X to revoke his Null Energy.

• Along their way, the Resistance finds corrupted Juan.

Juan

Null Miner null#9b3d61ff

Shell Sign Kernel Sign Energy Perseus Lynx Null

• Will is forced to face him as Juan is hostile.
  • He tells the rest of the group to keep on marching.
  • Will tries to snap Juan out of his Null Energy, but he doesn’t seem to be having any luck, so they have a brutal fight.

10. The Overworld

• While the Resistance breaks in the city’s walls, Lupus flies towards one of the portals in the sky, which are revealed to lead to the Underworld.

Underworld

In Greek mythology, the Underworld is the realm of the dead, ruled by Hades. It is a vast, shadowy domain beneath the earth, consisting of regions such as the Asphodel Meadows (for ordinary souls), Elysium (for the blessed), and Tartarus (for the wicked and the Titans). The Underworld is reached by crossing rivers like the Styx or Acheron with the ferryman Charon, and it represents the final destination of mortal souls after death.

• X is expecting the Resistance to climb up the tower, so he disables the Nyx suppression field, returning the energy to Miners’ Nyx Cell’s and restoring their abilities.
• The Resistance gets their abilities back, and they burn it all down.
• Ana enters the Citadel’s tower and faces and beats incoming guards.
• As he notices someone climbing the tower, X tells Ed to meet in a specific place once he’s freed up and leaves the building.
• Ana reaches the summit and frees Ed.
• Ed tells Ana to prepare a liftoff to the portals and leaves her to meet up with X.

11. X Marks the Spot

• Talia finds Will’s body laying dead on the ground.
• Ed meets up with X.

12. Swords Dance

• Ed and X face each other in a brutal duel of katanas, without abilities.

• Ed finally wins, breaking X’s mask.
  • The masked man is reveled - Zeke.

X Zeke

Nyx Miner phi#0b5f2eff

Shell Sign Kernel Sign Energy Orion Hydra Water

• Zeke, now snapped out of Null Energy, agrees to help Ed beat Erebus in the Underworld.

---

13. X

Zeke's flashback

• After the supposed suspension of Null Corp. in Zetania, Lupus was planning on making Null Energy harnessable without Nyx Cells, as well as planning on making Nyx Cells inoperable. Having heard of Project Sigma, and how it could make Broadcast Miners independent of Nyx Cells. X was then unmasked, un-nullified, and got his memory erased, so he could be accepted in the project.

14. X2

Zeke's flashback

• After graduating from Project Sigma, Zeke was hunted and then kidnapped by Null Corp. while traveling with Talia in Philand, after leaving Ed. Zeke got his mask back so he could join Null Corp.’s ultimate operation to take over Infinix.

15. The Underworld

• Ana is forced to be left in Philand while Broadcast Miners (Ed, Zeke, Talia, Sally, Helios and Mello) travel to the Underworld, as Ana’s vulnerability to raw Null Energy could doom her and everyone.
  • Ana is mad that she’s once again separated from Ed.
• The Underworld features a planetary system similar to Infinix’; however, planets are hollow, with dark, shadowy, glitched and foggy atmosphere environments, with their surface being actually within the planet’s hollow interior, upside-down like Deltakan’s arenas. This makes leaving planets impossible except through existing spread-out portals that act like tunnels, placed at the counterpart locations of volcanoes. Altitudes are actually inverted compared to their overworld counterparts, so valleys/depressions are replaced with mountains and mountains are replaced with valleys/depressions. Water is replaced with corruptive liquid Null Energy in rivers, lakes and oceans, and lava is replaced with wormhole matter; this turns volcanoes into teleportation pits and the said tunnels to other planets’ Underworlds.
  • This scenery is actually similar to the one PS saw while being punched across the Fire Titan’s rifts.

16—17

• This Underworld is the only place where Ed never notices the presence of Overseers.

Zeke

• Although it must be destroyed, Erebus is the only thing capable of exploiting the Infinix OS and its restrictions; so, destroying it might unveil mysterious, and possibly dangerous capabilities of the System.
• It’s still the right thing to do as Null Energy corrupts morals, ethics and souls of whoever it possesses, leaving them out of control and leeching their lives.
• And Ed, if you really want to reach Alphantia, you must get rid of it.

• It’s revealed that Water Energy is the best conductor of Null Energy. Which is why Zeke, Ana, Josh and the Water Titan were some of the best subjects to corrupt. Fire Energy, on the other hand, is the worst conductor, as seen during Jake’s attempt to be corrupted.
• Zeke says that Erebus’s goal is to replace all Nyx Energy with his own corruptive energy, and although he managed to build an Underworld for all 24 planets, there’s a 25^th body that he must conquer - the core of all Nyx Energy - the Kernel, so he’s building another tunnel; that’s why he orchestrated the invasion in the overworld, so enough Null Energy could be harvested to build the tunnel.
• The crew spots some oddly looking lab outposts (as if they were from Earth due to their appearance, but no one knows what is Earth, so they’re clueless) with bodies of dead Overseers and dead people with military camo outfits and hazmat suits (both Earth-looking); some bodies are also seen near conventional guns.
  • Ed finally reveals he has been being observed by those men.

18. Garbage Collector

• The crew faces a violent storm with glitching hurricanes that seem to contain artifacts from the overworld. Mello realizes that the Underworld is Infinix’ garbage collector, where deleted objects are sent to.
  • The crew struggles to pass through the storm.

Garbage collector

Garbage collector - a component of a programming language runtime or operating system that automatically manages memory by identifying and reclaiming blocks of memory that are no longer being used by a program. Instead of requiring programmers to manually free memory, the garbage collector tracks which objects are still reachable and safely deletes the rest, helping prevent memory leaks and certain types of bugs (though sometimes at the cost of performance pauses).

19. Aleph-Null

• The crew enters one of the pits to fly to Alphantia’s Underworld, where Erebus is said to reside.
  • Alphantia’s Underworld is filled with broken statues and pillars made of obsidians.
• Zeke faces a Null Monster - Cerberus - a three-headed dog.
  • As Cerberus slays one of Zeke’s Hydra’s heads, two new heads take its place, and a third katana is summoned - an ability that Zeke had already previously mastered that surprised the crew.
  • Having three katanas, another of Zeke’s abilities is levitating them and throwing them to his targets, like spears.
  • Cerberus is killed.

Cerberus

In Greek mythology, Cerberus is the multi-headed hound who guards the entrance to the underworld, preventing the dead from leaving and the living from entering without permission. Usually depicted with three heads, a serpent tail, and snakes along his back, Cerberus serves Hades faithfully and symbolizes the impenetrable boundary between life and death.

20—22

• Back in Philand, as Null entities keep attacking, Prof. Sergio sacrifices himself to save Jake.
• Back to the Underworld, Talia notices a mysterious archer from afar, and she believes it’s either a Null Miner or a Null Monster.
• After being ambushed by Monsters and taking them down, Talia notices the archer’s shadow approaching her, so she fires an arrow.
  • Talia’s arrow is split in half mid-air by the archer’s arrow.
• Rui, with both of his arms, reveals himself to Talia, telling her he’s on her side.
• Rui and Talia reunite with the crew, and Ed is very surprised. Both him and Zeke are the only ones who recognize Rui.
  • Rui was already aware that Zeke was X.
• Rui explains that he has been imprisoned in a spaceless and timeless dimension - the Abyss - by the Lords of Time, as a punishment for disobeying the Laws of Causality, but he says that if he hadn’t done what he did, Infinix would’ve collapsed.
  • The Lords of Time released him in exchange for cleaning up the mess of the Underworld, therefore Erebus must be destroyed.
• Rui seems to know what’s going to happen to everyone, but he’s not allowed to reveal it.
• The crew flies towards the deepest pit there is - 12 km deep, containing a glitching wormhole mist in the bottom.
  • Zeke says that the mist is not a tunnel, yet. That’s Erebus’s lair.
  • Erebus is waiting for Alphantia’s rotation to align the pit to the Kernel’s zenith position, so the tunnel may be built.
• Zeke is kidnapped by Lupus and is placed in an Earth-looking lab.
• Lupus says that the System tried to conquer the Underworld, but their forces were no match for Erebus. Still, they showed him that they need a taste of their own medicine, so now it’s time to conclude the conquest from his side, to rebuild Infinix from scratch and free it from the System, back to its raw, jailbroken potential.
• Lupus reveals that Erebus’s Underworld and Infinix are only two of many layers of Chaos, and that there’s always a bigger fish.
  • He also mentions that Ed has an important role in this set of layers, and that soon he’ll find that out.
• Lupus says he’s going to nullify Zeke and that his mask’s purpose was to isolate Null Energy from the rest of his body, making it easily and naturally reversible.

• Zeke is re-nullified without his mask, chained to a platform from his limbs, forming an X shape.

Zeke

Null Miner null#0b5f2eff

Shell Sign Kernel Sign Energy Orion Hydra Null

• Zeke isn’t released, though. This platform is connected to the pit’s wormhole spring, so his Null Energy can be harnessed to build the tunnel.

23. Foul Beast

• Talia shoots an arrow to kill Lupus, and the ground starts shaking due to an emerging earthquake that destroys the lab.
• Erebus appears - a giant shadowy Titan-like monster (the same one from Zeke’s nightmare in Sigma 2.0).
• Ed and his crew are in the pit, near the lab, and also witnessing the earthquake.
  • A fissure emerges on the ground, and Ed falls, finding himself alone with Erebus, who grabs a giant five-meter obsidian sword.
  • Ed challenges the foul beast by himself.
• Wormhole matter starts following, and the zenith is approaching.
• Zeke, resisting his corruption, is freed from his chains.
• Ed and Zeke face off Erebus.
• As Erebus keeps cutting Zeke’s Hydra’s heads, it reaches a maximum of nine heads, arming Zeke with nine levitating katanas.
  • Eventually, Erebus manages to cauterize the Hydra’s necks to prevent them from regenerating heads.

24. Null Pointer Exception

• As Zeke’s Hydra’s heads get down to one, he manages to levitate Erebus’s giant sword.

• Erebus grabs Zeke’s last katana and pierces his heart, while Zeke sacrifices himself by getting both him and Erebus impaled by the latter’s sword, hitting and cutting Erebus’s head, killing them both.
• Ed gives Zeke’s sparing katana, covered in Zeke’s blood, to Talia.
• Mysterious rifts are rapidly drawn and extend the whole sky, as if it were about to be ripped apart.
• Rui sees the Lords of Time and Kronos.

Kronos

• We’ll take it from here.

• Rui tells everyone to leave immediately.
• Ed and his crew leave the Underworld before it collapses. Rui stays .
• Null Energy has been eradicated from Infinix.

• New quest unlocked:
  1. Reach Alphantia.
  2. Find Aether.