The Throne Hall of Black Light dimmed, the great void-chains humming with a deep, ancient resonance as Armageddon's kneeling form lowered his head.
Ashura rose from his throne.
Black Light rippled across his skin like a living mantle, adjusting itself around him, sharpening into a regal halo of dusk and dominion. His footsteps echoed like drums of judgment.
Armageddon lifted his gaze only when Ashura reached the steps leading to him.
"Sovereign," the Guardian rumbled.
His voice no longer destabilized the hall. It bent to it.
Ashura stopped before him.
"Armageddon."
The beast's horns glowed faintly, awaiting command.
"You will protect my world," Ashura said, tone steady, simple—yet carrying the weight of inevitability.
"Earth," Armageddon murmured reverently, as if tasting the word.
"My Sovereign's birthplace."
Ashura nodded.
"My mother is there. My sister. Lysera. My family. My people."
Armageddon's eyes burned hotter, galaxies swirling like stirred embers.
"Then no being—Outer God, Ancient, nor Beast—shall touch Earth while I stand."
Ashura placed a hand on his shoulder. The gesture was brief… but it meant everything.
"Good."
He turned.
The hall darkened, shadows bending toward him like worshippers. The domains beyond the Throne Hall shook—Death, Rebirth, Balance—recognizing their ruler making ready for war.
"Where are you going, Sovereign?" Armageddon asked, though he already knew.
Ashura's back remained to him.
"To the one who thinks he can deny everything."
Black Light flared.
"To the father of denial."
And with a whisper, the void peeled open.
Ashura stepped through.
The passage between realities was not a corridor—
it was a wound.
A slice torn between the mortal frameworks and the Outer Realms. A place where gravity folded into colors, sound melted into pressure, and distant screams of collapsing stars circled like birds.
Ashura walked calmly through it.
Every step carved stability into chaos.
Every breath pushed the void aside.
Every heartbeat reminded creation that the Sovereign of Black Light was not bound by any plane.
At the end of the road, a throne of rusted dimensions awaited.
The Realm of the All-Denying Father.
The moment Ashura crossed the threshold, the sky convulsed.
A dome of churning universes shifted above him—
clusters of dying suns swirling like dust caught in a hurricane.
Beneath them stood thirteen towering silhouettes.
Some with no faces.
Some with too many.
Some shaped like concepts given flesh.
Others like holes in reality wearing cloaks made of screaming stars.
All Outer Gods.
All summoned.
At the center, enthroned upon a dying pocket-universe, sat the All-Denying Father.
He leaned forward, cracking existence beneath his elbows.
"You actually came," he said, voice rusted and sour.
A smile split his cosmic mask. "Alone."
Ashura didn't stop walking.
"I said I would."
A murmur rolled through the Outer Gods.
No mortal. No deity. No diver.
No being born below their tier had ever stood before all thirteen and sounded… unimpressed.
One god, skeletal and dripping void-fluid, hissed:
"This is the creature who stole Armageddon?"
Another, serpentine with three torsos and no head, rasped:
"He reeks of mortality. How did he reach our realm without dissolving?"
A thunderous being forged from storm-cubes cracked its knuckles:
"Let me test him."
Ashura kept walking, hands in his pockets, as casual as if strolling through a city street.
The All-Denying Father lifted a hand.
All fell silent.
The air cracked. A universe died in the distance.
"Do you understand where you stand, Ashura Bellet?" the Father asked.
Ashura stopped at the foot of the throne's staircase.
He looked up.
"I do."
"And you still came?"
Ashura tilted his head slightly.
His expression was unreadable.
"I didn't come to talk."
The Outer Gods shifted.
Some bristled.
One flinched.
The Father leaned back.
"You killed my beast."
"He tried to kill me," Ashura replied.
"You bound him."
"He chose."
"You dare trespass upon my realm?"
Ashura shrugged lightly.
"You think you own this place?"
A ripple of disbelief moved through the gods.
The All-Denying Father's fingers dug into the armrests.
Dimensions cracked like brittle glass.
"You think you understand what stands before you?" Ashura asked calmly.
"You're thirteen," he continued.
"Thirteen beings who twist galaxies like rope, rewrite star-seas, cultivate horrors in the blind spaces between realities."
He lifted his gaze fully, Black Light blooming behind his eyes.
"And I am one."
The Father scoffed.
"Arrogance."
"No," Ashura answered softly.
"Just math."
A few of the Outer Gods took a step back.
Ashura looked at each of them, one by one.
"You create universes.
But you do not govern what comes after them."
His voice grew calmer.
Lower.
Sharper.
"I hold death.
Life.
Rebirth.
Decay.
Emergence.
Balance."
The Outer Gods' shapes warped uneasily.
"And the moment any of your creations die," Ashura said,
"They feed me."
His power pulsed.
Each pulse killed a star in the far heavens.
"You grow by making," Ashura said as the constellations collapsed,
"But I grow when things end."
The All-Denying Father's eyes widened.
A realization dawned.
Ashura smiled faintly.
"That's why you fear me."
The rusted throne creaked as the Father leaned forward slowly.
"We fear nothing," he hissed.
Ashura raised a brow.
"Then why gather all thirteen?"
Silence.
"Why summon the full pantheon," Ashura continued,
"If I was just a nuisance?"
One Outer God—formed from mirrored faces—whispered:
"He sees too clearly…"
Ashura turned his head slightly toward him.
"I always do."
He placed a foot on the first step leading up to the All-Denying Father's throne.
A sound echoed—
not metal, not stone.
Reality shuddering.
The other gods recoiled unconsciously.
"You called them because you know," Ashura said,
"that I am not walking into your realm…"
He took another step.
"…I'm walking toward your end."
The Father rose at last, towering universes swirling behind him.
"You think you can kill me?"
Ashura nodded once.
"I don't think."
He stepped again.
"I plan."
Another step.
"And I follow through."
The Father's aura exploded, tearing open thousands of micro-realities.
Ashura's Black Light responded, quiet but absolute, sealing every crack.
The Father snarled:
"You wish to threaten me?"
Ashura finally reached the last step—
close enough that if they breathed, their breaths would mingle.
"No," he said gently.
"I promise you."
The Outer Gods surged.
The realm shook.
Power roared.
Then—
Ashura vanished.
Black Light swallowed him whole, pulling him back through the Umbral Veil.
In an instant he was seated again on his throne, calm as still water.
Armageddon appeared at his side, kneeling.
"Sovereign… you are unharmed?"
Ashura rested his cheek on his knuckles.
"I spoke to your former masters," he said casually.
Armageddon bowed deeper.
"And?"
Ashura's smile was quiet.
Dangerous.
Almost playful.
"They're afraid."
Armageddon's eyes burned with savage pride.