There are moments in war when silence becomes heavier than destruction itself.
At the end of Day Two, the void was still trembling from the last collision between Ashura Bellet and Armageddon. The beast, wounded yet unbroken, stared at Ashura with all four of its heads lowered—not in submission, but in a primal calculation older than the universe.
And then it did something neither gods nor mortals expected.
It fled.
Not out of fear.
Not out of surrender.
But out of hunger.
The beast's qilin legs bent low, kunpeng wings folding inward like a collapsing star, and then—
SHRKKK—
It tore open a spiral fissure, ripping a tunnel through layered space-time and vanishing into the cosmic ocean beyond.
Ashura stood alone in the drifting debris of the Underlight's shattered veil, his hair swaying like black flame.
He watched the spiraling fissure close.
He smiled.
"…So you want more power," he murmured.
His voice didn't echo.
It didn't need to.
The void heard him.
Ashura turned his back to the collapsing battlefield and lifted a hand.
The Throne of Black Light materialized behind him—
a colossal obsidian structure with veins of soft twilight flowing through its frame, a seat carved from primordial dusk and lined with reincarnation sigils that flickered like dying stars.
This throne wasn't a symbol.
It was authority incarnate.
And Ashura sat.
Floating above a dead dimension, legs crossed, one hand resting lazily on the throne's armrest, he gazed outward into the infinite.
Armageddon had until daybreak.
Far across the stellar sea, on a distant planetary system with four moons, life blossomed in lush jungles.
Armageddon arrived.
The fissure tore open mid-sky above the world, and the beast's four heads emerged—
dragon jaws dripping molten ether,
phoenix flames screaming across the clouds,
qilin horns crackling with cosmic qi,
kunpeng wings slicing the firmament into strips.
The world's inhabitants—an advanced civilization of crystalline beings—looked up in uncomprehending awe.
They didn't scream.
There wasn't time.
The dragon head inhaled.
The entire jungle, mountains, and oceans began shaking as their essence was pulled upward, gravity snapping.
Forests lifted like dust.
Cities floated as glowing embers.
The planet's core cracked like an egg.
And then—
CHOMP
The beast devoured all life, all matter, all history.
Then it moved on.
One planet.
A second.
A third.
From each, it consumed everything—flesh, spirit, atmosphere, memory—letting the stolen energy carve its body into something new.
And then, on the seventh world, when its belly swelled with the fuel of civilizations, its body shuddered—
—and collapsed inward.
Bone twisted.
Flame folded.
Wings compacted.
Light streaked across its skin.
The beast shrank, condensing its cosmic bulk into a humanoid figure now standing atop the broken continent it had just hollowed out.
Tall as a mountain.
Skin like burning obsidian.
Hair like drifting stardust.
Eyes like four galaxies fused into two.
Claws replaced by fingers sharpened into talons.
Four horns curling back like black fire.
A perfect humanoid predator.
The wind died around it.
The beast raised its head and sniffed the void.
"Ashura Bellet…"
Its voice rumbled across the ruined planet.
"We continue."
And it disappeared again.
The Eternal One sat motionless.
He had not moved for hours.
His throne glowed like a dying star, pulsing with ancient authority.
His blade Kuroha rested across his lap, humming softly, attuned to his heartbeat.
Black Light drifted off his shoulders in subtle ribbons, extending outward in thin lines that spiderwebbed across the void.
Those ribbons were feeding him.
Every death across billions of worlds.
Every birth across trillions of realms.
Every soul transitioning through the reincarnation cycle.
All their movements flowed into him as strength.
He felt the universe breathe.
He felt existence ripple.
And he felt Armageddon returning through the layered fabric of creation.
Ashura opened his eyes.
"…There you are."
The stars bent.
A single streak of burning obsidian light tore across the void like a divine spear.
It approached with enough force to crack the orbit of a frozen dwarf galaxy nearby.
Armageddon—now humanoid—landed on the battlefield with a shockwave that sent fragments of dead stars drifting away like dust.
The beast stood tall, towering, humanoid form radiating an aura that shook the cosmic horizon.
Ashura stayed seated.
Armageddon's four horns flared.
"You waited," the beast growled.
Ashura tilted his head, one finger tapping the throne's armrest.
"You didn't keep me waiting too long," he said lightly.
Armageddon snarled.
Its humanoid arm flexed, burning with devoured suns.
The beast crouched.
Then—
FLASH
It moved.
At speeds surpassing galaxies.
Armageddon's punch shattered the dimension.
Ashura caught it with one hand.
The space around them fractured into a ring of exploding nebulae.
Dust spirals spun outward.
Fragments of reality spiraled like broken mirrors.
Armageddon roared and unleashed a rapid barrage—
punches, claws, kicks, wings, flames.
Each blow could've erased continents.
Each strike could've shattered a universe in its infancy.
Ashura parried with Kuroha, each movement so calm, so precise, it looked almost lazy.
"Faster," he murmured.
Armageddon growled.
It blurred behind him—
Ashura already had his blade touching the beast's neck.
It retreated—
Ashura stepped through space itself and stood in its path.
The beast roared in fury, flames bursting along its arms.
"You… mock… ME!"
"No," Ashura replied, voice quiet.
"I acknowledge you."
Armageddon's roar shook the stars.
The beast's humanoid form ignited—
cosmic flame, phoenix fire, black qi, stellar venom, primordial storm, ancient qi from the qilin lineage.
The four energies wrapped around its body.
Armageddon crossed its arms—
—and tore open a final form.
Its skin cracked.
Its bones glowed.
Its heart burst into four simultaneous suns.
Its eyes became supernova cores.
The universe dimmed.
Armageddon's voice overlapped, four tones speaking as one.
"ASHURA BELLET—ETERNAL ONE—
TODAY YOU FALL."
Ashura rose from the throne, slowly, almost peacefully.
His hair drifted behind him like a shadow made of starlight.
He lifted Kuroha.
"Show me," he whispered.
And Armageddon obeyed.
The beast unleashed everything—
an attack so powerful distant galaxies dimmed.
It was the type of attack that cosmic myths were built on.
But Ashura…
He walked through it.
His robe burned away.
His skin cracked.
His flesh tore.
Then healed.
Then strengthened.
Because every death happening across existence fed him.
Every soul entering the cycle replenished him.
Every beginning strengthened him.
Ashura stepped through the inferno until he stood directly in front of Armageddon.
The beast's eyes widened.
Ashura smiled faintly.
"You fought well."
He swung Kuroha.
Once.
Just once.
The void went still.
No light.
No sound.
No movement.
Armageddon stared at Ashura—
or tried to.
Its torso split open from shoulder to hip.
Its humanoid form ruptured, splitting into four overlapping silhouettes.
Its internal suns flickered like dying candles.
The beast made a sound—
not a roar.
Not a scream.
A whisper.
"…End?"
Ashura placed a hand on its chest.
Black Light seeped into the wound.
"No," he murmured.
"You begin."
And with that—
Armageddon collapsed.
Its body dissolved into billions of fragments of primordial essence, drifting outward like glowing black dust.
Then—
those fragments swirled toward Ashura.
He didn't consume them.
He directed them.
Toward the Throne Hall of Black Light.
Toward the dominion that governed death and rebirth.
Toward his realm.
A beast born from apocalypse…
became his guardian.
Its soul—vast, cosmic, primal—settled into the throne hall like a chained storm, kneeling beneath the eternal dusk, roaring once before obeying its new lord.
Armageddon…
had been bound.
Across a realm beyond realms, where the Outer Gods plagued the infinite heavens, the All-Denying Father sat on his monument of rusted chains.
He had no face—
only a mask of infinite void.
His head turned sharply.
"…Impossible."
His voice cracked the realm.
The Outer Gods trembled.
Their soldiers froze.
Their commanders collapsed to one knee.
Because they felt it too.
The beast they had sealed.
The beast they failed to control.
The beast meant to destroy Ashura…
was no more.
And worse—
It had become part of Ashura's dominion.
A guardian.
A servant.
A weapon.
The All-Denying Father raised one of his endless arms, voice shaking with an emotion he had not felt since creation first ruptured:
Fear.
"THE ETERNAL ONE…"
the Outer God rumbled,
"…HAS TAKEN MY MONSTER."
His voice deepened until the realm itself split.
"…AND HE WILL COME."