Aeren's expression didn't change.
No irritation. No excitement. Nothing.
He simply clenched his fist and stared at Samarth—who now stood unarmed, empty-handed, but unfazed.
"Hm. Why are you explaining things?" Aeren asked flatly.
Samarth chuckled—then laughed, the sound echoing strangely in the tense silence. "HAHA! Yes, you're right. But I wanted to introduce myself properly. So you'd understand what you're really fighting."
As he spoke, divinity erupted from his body, spreading outward in shimmering waves. Endless light. Endless pressure. The purest form of divine energy cloaked him like armor, burning fiercely around his frame.
Aeren tilted his head, unimpressed.
"Is that so? What if I don't care about your useless introduction?"
He punched—from where he stood, without taking a single step. Space shattered like fragile glass. The blow appeared before Samarth's heart in the next instant and struck him directly.
BAM—!
Samarth's eyes widened. He saw the punch—but it was too unexpected to react to. His divinity flared to protect him, but Aeren's blow shattered it like dried leaves under a hammer.
The attack didn't pierce him—but it still blasted him backward, slamming him into the far wall.
"Aeren… oh Aeren," Samarth said, pushing himself off the rubble and standing tall again. "You are still far too young to fight me." On the surface, he looked mostly unharmed. But his expression had shifted—calm replaced by seriousness. Because that punch had hurt him more than he wanted anyone to know.
Aeren's eye twitched.
"You're calling me young? Do you even know how many years I've lived—when you already know I'm reincarnated?" His voice carried cold irritation, as if Samarth had just told a childish joke.
"What are you saying? Of course you're still young," Samarth replied, lifting his chin with quiet pride. "How many lives have you lived before this one? Two? Three? Maybe more? Even if you add them all together, you're not even close to me."
Divinity flickered along his arms as he continued: "I have lived at least one hundred thousand years. And that's only the part I remember. I've lived far more than you and your little collection of two or three lifetimes."
He spoke not only to Aeren—but to everyone in the world watching through magic screens. His words carried authority, dominance, and the weight of countless ages.
He wasn't a brat. He wasn't a mortal. He was something everyone else wished they could become.
Aeren stared at him.
His expression didn't change, but his eye twitched slightly—as if he had just heard the biggest joke in existence.
Confusion. Disbelief. Annoyed amusement.
He looked at Samarth like he was a complete idiot for daring to compare lifetimes with him.
Aeren raised his hand——and vanished.
Samarth saw him move this time. He saw the blur.
He saw Aeren sprinting at him—But before Aeren's body reached him…his punch already had.
Aeren's fist landed squarely in Samarth's abdomen.
There was no wind-up. No warning. Just pure, impossible speed.
Samarth's divinity flared wildly, shining brighter and hotter than before as it struggled to defend him. Light burst outward like an explosion—
This punch was different. Faster. Heavier. More lethal.
Samarth felt the impact through every bone in his body.
BAM—!
Samarth lurched forward, blood spraying from his mouth—but before he could even wipe it away, Aeren was already right in front of him, almost touching him.
Samarth saw him approach.
He understood what was coming. But he could not move. Because Aeren's punch had placed a heavy burden on his body.
Aeren's foot slammed into the exact spot his punch had landed earlier.
The kick was weaker than the punch—yet it still sent Samarth flying far across the hall, crashing into broken marble and debris.
As Samarth skidded to a stop, Aeren spoke calmly, stepping forward:
"Yes… you are right," Aeren said, his voice cold, steady. "I've only lived two reincarnations before this one." He lifted his hand, expression empty.
"And I did not stay long in any of those worlds." Then his tone shifted—slowly, deeply—as something ancient flickered behind his eyes.
"But I don't remember my years. I don't know if it was billions… trillions… or something beyond that." Samarth stared, breath shaking.
"So comparing ages with me," Aeren continued, "is the same as me sparing your life." Aeren's gaze drifted upward—as if looking at something only he could see.
"Where I truly lived before coming here… those places weren't worlds," he said softly. "They were voids. Empty blackness where minds erode the moment they try to comprehend it."
He took another step toward Samarth.
"No freedom. No life. No meaning. Not even nothingness." His voice lowered to a whisper. "Just… the pause between existence."
Samarth's eyes widened.
"That is where I spent most of my time," Aeren said. "A place where time doesn't even exist. You cannot tell how long you stayed. You cannot feel days or years."
He stopped walking.
"It is simply… a pause," Aeren murmured. "A stay. An empty stay. The opposite of nothingness." His voice carried across the silent battlefield.
Aeren walked toward Samarth—slow, deliberate steps echoing through the ruined hall. Each footstep was a drumbeat of death. Samarth stared up at him, wide-eyed.
Shock twisted into fear. Fear twisted into something worse. Death wrapped around him like a suffocating fog. His composure—centuries of calm, pride, and divine confidence—crumbled in seconds.
The realization struck him: He is bleeding. His divinity is thinning. His consciousness flickering. He had never bled before. He had never wept before. Tears slipped down his cheeks as panic consumed him.
His mind shattered.
"D-Don't come near me… y-you monster," Samarth whispered.
Then he screamed.
"DON'T COME CLOSE TO ME, YOU FUCKING MONSTER!"
He crawled backward, palms scraping across broken marble as Aeren's footsteps grew louder—echoing in his skull like a heartbeat he could not escape.
Aeren's blood stained the floor. Samarth could smell it. He could smell death—his own death—approaching.
"YOU MONSTER! STAY AWAY FROM ME!" he shrieked, his voice cracking as terror swallowed his mind. But Aeren kept walking.
Step.
Step.
Step.
Samarth's breathing hitched. Time distorted. The world blurred. His vision trembled. He screamed for help.
"PLEASE! SOMEONE HELP ME!
I—I'm Daksh! Your hero! You all called me legendary!
Please—please—I saved you! I protected you!
N-Now it's your turn—SAVE ME!"
He begged the air. He begged the world. He begged anyone, anything, any god that once praised him. But there was no answer.
Only Aeren's footsteps—steadily approaching through the fog of his collapsing sanity.
***
On the other side of the ruined hall…
Olivia and Nil watched.
They watched the man they had put all their faith in—their last hope—fall apart in front of Aeren. Samarth, the one they believed could save the world, was now reduced to a trembling, pleading wreck.
Neither of them had ever imagined they would see such a sight. Not in their worst nightmares. They blinked again and again, hoping the scene was an illusion.
Hoping their eyes were deceiving them. But no matter how many times they blinked, the truth remained. And terror rose inside them like a tidal wave.
They could sense it. The slaughter. The end.
The world's fate collapsing into a single point—Aeren. Even though they were witnessing everything, neither Olivia nor Nil could lift a finger.
No—"lift a finger" was too generous. They couldn't even think about moving toward Aeren. The moment such a thought even brushed their minds, an instinctual terror crushed it into dust.
They would die before their hope died. That was the truth. And this was Aeren at his weakest—bleeding, one-armed, half-conscious.
Even so… this was what true despair looked like. "What… what do we do now?" Olivia whispered, tears streaming down her face. Her voice cracked, her features contorted so badly her beauty vanished completely.
Hope drained from her eyes, replaced with raw, agonizing despair. They had relied on divinity. They believed divinity could harm Aeren.
But after a few hits… divinity had stopped working. Aeren simply grew past it. And now the end was all they could sense.
"Hic… hic… sob… sob…" Olivia broke.
Her cries turned into silent screams, a suffocating, soundless sobbing that tore at her chest. Her heart pounded—not with life, but with the awareness of death approaching.
She cried harder. If anyone could save them—anyone at all—she would have begged. But she knew the truth.
If Samarth couldn't stop him… no one could.
Nil, beside her, could only stare forward, unblinking.
She searched desperately for—anything. Anyone. Any possibility. Any sign of change, rescue, or escape. But there was nothing.
She had seen this once before—a glimpse of Aeren's true nature in a past life. Back then, he didn't let others feel fear. He killed quietly. But now…
Now he let the world feel it—and that truth shook her soul to the core. Her vision blurred. Her breath trembled. Her consciousness drifted. And fear—that pure, suffocating fear—finally crushed her.
Nil's eyes rolled back slightly. Her body slumped. She died without pain.
Not from injury. Not from magic. She died because her heart could not survive what she was watching.
A death caused by fear alone.