The moment Ashura and Armageddon stepped through the portal, reality itself seemed to warp.
The space before them wasn't a universe—it was a rift, a realm born of the residual auras of the Ancient Greys, left to fester after countless millennia. Infinite layers stacked like sheets of existence, each one crawling with conceptual monsters, the kind that weren't born from flesh or magic, but from raw ideas of destruction, fear, and chaos.
Stars burned sideways in the distance. Dark voids pulsed between the layers of space, like the lungs of some colossal, slumbering creature. The very air—or what passed for air—was heavy with the pressure of untold existence compressed into an endless pocket dimension.
Armageddon's wings spread wide, brushing across layers of rift-space with impossible precision. His humanoid form gleamed in the dim glow of the conceptual chaos, white lightning crackling along his form as he surveyed the swarm. Even by his standards, the sheer scale of monsters was staggering.
"They've multiplied since we arrived," Armageddon said, his voice low and cold.
Ashura did not respond immediately. His eyes, deep and crimson-black, scanned the rift. Every shadow, every faint ripple in the impossible landscape, could be a predator. Every pulse of darkness, a trap.
"This is no ordinary dimensional rift," Ashura said at last, voice calm but carrying an undercurrent of authority that vibrated the very rift around them. "These are conceptual monsters. They do not obey normal laws of physics or reality—they exist because the idea of destruction exists. They evolve, adapt, and manifest the strongest traits of their kind. Some are dragons, others serpents, some are… the end of things. But they are mine to deal with."
Armageddon bowed slightly, the gesture almost reverent. "Sovereign… shall we begin?"
Ashura smirked. He allowed himself a rare, cold laugh, the sound echoing across layers of warped space.
"Let's get warmed up, Armageddon."
He raised his hand, and Kuroha appeared, the blade humming in the unnatural gravity of the rift. Its edge seemed to slice not just matter, but possibility itself, distorting the space around it like the ripples of a black hole.
Ashura stepped forward. The monsters surged toward him like a tidal wave of thought made flesh. Dragons with translucent scales revealing their heart cores; serpents with nine heads, each exhaling elements from fire to void; gigantic humanoid monsters with broken wings and teeth that gleamed like black stars; beings that had no physical form, only impossible angles and surfaces that shouldn't exist but did, nonetheless.
With one fluid motion, Ashura swung Kuroha.
A single vertical slash cut through the layers of space. The monsters in its path did not scream—they ceased to exist, their concepts unraveling like threads being pulled from an ancient tapestry.
Armageddon moved beside him with equal precision. Lightning flared across the battlefield as monsters lunged, struck, and evaporated before they could complete their attacks. One swipe, one strike, and a cluster of serpents disintegrated mid-air. A god-eater monster, its maw spanning the size of a mountain, was cleaved in two without a sound, leaving behind only the faint trace of corrupted auras dissipating into nothingness.
Ashura took a step forward.
"The more you spawn, the stronger you think you are," he said, voice carrying through the rift, resonant enough to shake the layers of space themselves. "It doesn't matter."
And more came. Stronger, more resilient, more vicious.
Dragons now had multiple wings, serpents added additional heads, and the god-eaters regenerated partially before being sliced again. Among them, a towering creature known as The Pinnacle of the Monster Race—the Monster King—manifested, radiating a power so dense it bent the conceptual space around it.
Ashura narrowed his eyes.
He didn't panic.
He never panicked.
He advanced. Every step warped the rift-space beneath him, black light crawling along the edges of reality. Kuroha thrummed with power, slicing through layers like they were made of paper.
Armageddon followed flawlessly, disintegrating creatures mid-leap, turning waves of attack into ash with lightning faster than thought.
Ashura's eyes gleamed. "Let's see how far you can go."
The monsters roared, the rift screamed, and yet, Ashura walked forward, unyielding, each slash of Kuroha erasing hundreds at once. Each motion radiated authority—the authority of the Eternal One, the Sovereign of Black Light.
And as the monsters began to regroup, shifting into newer, deadlier forms… Ashura smirked, tilting his head toward Armageddon.
"This is just the beginning. Shall we dance?"
The rift trembled under his presence. Space itself seemed to bend, the very fabric of existence shivering as if acknowledging a being beyond comprehension.
And with a single, fluid swing of Kuroha, a portion of the strongest monsters—dragons, nine-headed serpents, god-eaters, and the monstrous pinnacle—were erased entirely, leaving faint echoes of their auras behind.
Yet, as Ashura expected, the rift spawned more, stronger than before.
"Perfect," Ashura whispered, eyes glinting like molten crimson and gold. "Let's warm up."
Ashura now standing in the heart of the rift, Kuroha gleaming with absolute power, the monsters advancing endlessly, and Ashura's aura spreading like a black sun.
"Let's see what you're truly made of."
The Dimensional Rifts had just met their Eternal One.