Shadows twisted between broken pillars, folding at impossible angles as the floating temple itself seemed to breathe. Light bent unnaturally across the ruins, painting the marble with patterns that made the eyes ache. Reality seemed to ripple with each pulse of energy. Dust swirled in slow spirals, drifting like tiny galaxies across the void.
Something emerged.
It stood nearly ten feet tall, its form refusing to settle—shifting between a humanoid silhouette and the coils of a cosmic serpent. Stars and drifting galaxies flowed beneath translucent skin. Twin supernovae burned where eyes should have been, and within its chest, constellations spiraled inward, pulled by a gravity that seemed alive. A low hum, like the universe itself vibrating, echoed across the marble.
The temple groaned.
Eon: "You have broken the orders that once governed existence. You are anomalies that unmake what others built."
Asura's phantom arms flared crimson, sparks hissing where his heat met the cold void. Heat rippled outward from him, warping the air. His six fists trembled, anticipation and fury coiled tightly within each movement.
"Another cosmic judge preaching balance," Asura snarled. "Step in my way and you'll find how consequence feels firsthand."
Kratos tightened his grip on the Leviathan Axe. Frost curled along the runes, whispering in the void. He noted how the light around Eon bent unnaturally, how the very gravity of the platform seemed to tilt toward the figure. He did not flinch.
"What… are you?" he asked, voice low but steady.
Stars above slowed, then lurched backward, grinding against the flow of time. Eon's form shimmered, galaxies within him twisting, pulling the light around them into spirals that made the void feel impossibly deep.
Eon: "I am Eon. Arbiter of convergence. Keeper of the Chrono-Scepter. I have observed worlds collapse under rage, and I have measured the cost of unchecked will. You are not gods—but your wrath carries the weight of destruction."
Asura stepped forward, sparks leaping off his fists."Then come see what that weight feels like."
Kratos exhaled, frost coiling like smoke along the axe."I do not kneel to forces that hide behind balance," he said. "I do not yield because someone claims the authority to judge."
Eon raised the Chrono-Scepter. Light twisted, gravity warped. The floating platforms shuddered under forces that should not exist, stone dust spiraling upward. The air thickened, vibrating with power older than memory itself.
Time screamed. Stars reversed their burn, light collapsing inward before snapping forward. Marble columns flickered—ancient ruin to pristine perfection and back again—as centuries passed in a single heartbeat. The void itself buckled beneath the pressure.
A sphere of energy formed atop the scepter, glowing with the intensity of dying suns. Gravitational waves distorted space around it, pulling debris into slow, spiraling arcs. The hum of raw energy grew deafening.
Asura's eyes met Kratos's. Rage, resolve, understanding. Words were unnecessary.
Kratos shifted his stance, frost crackling along the axe."Stay out of my way."
Asura's grin was feral, anticipation blazing in every phantom arm."Only if you can keep up."
Eon's voice thundered, no longer merely observing but declaring inevitability."So be it."
The sphere detonated.
Light tore through the temple. Reality buckled as a scream of raw power ripped across the void. Platforms swayed like driftwood on a storm-tossed sea. Marble, dust, and energy spiraled together, the boundaries between space and time shredding with every pulse.
For a heartbeat, Kratos and Asura simply stood—two forces of wrath aligned yet separate, bracing against the impossible. Then the universe itself seemed to groan in response.
And the trial had truly begun.