The silence before the storm was heavy.
Rei stood still, the battlefield scorched and broken, the air thick with the remnants of Raga's flames. The void elder faced him, calm as ever, his hollow eyes fixed on the young man before him.
The elder tilted his head.
"I absorb nothing from you. Is that what you think?"
Rei didn't answer.
The elder's lips curled into a faint smile.
"We, the Elders, destroyed your village and erased it. My power is erasure, but with all our powers combined, we erased everything you ever loved. And now you know who had the biggest hand in that."
Rei's gaze didn't waver. His voice came out calm, controlled, yet trembling with something deeper.
"Do you want me to rage? Do you want me to scream? What else do you want?"
He took a step forward.
"You call yourselves Elders, gods. You don't give anything except destruction. You don't create peace. You don't bring life. You wear your disgusting robes, hide behind your powers, and call it divinity."
His voice darkened.
"You took my village. My people. Shira. The Sayuri Elders. But now," Rei's eyes began to glow faintly, his aura whispering around him like wind in a storm.
"You won't take anything else from me except this beating and death."
The void smiled again.
"You still don't understand. I am not alive. You can't kill what doesn't live."
Rei's eyes narrowed.
"Isn't that what you all thought?"
The world seemed to tilt for a moment as he spoke.
"One by one, you've all fallen. Every single one of you."
The elder's tone sharpened.
"Fallen to you? Don't delude yourself. They all lost to that demon inside you. Not you. You were never enough. You always came up short. You always failed."
Rei's gaze hardened.
"You're wrong. They all lost to me." His voice deepened, resonating through the air.
"I'm not a vessel for a demon. I am nobody's cage."
He lifted his hand slowly, and the wind began to rise, swirling around him in golden and crimson threads. The air vibrated as if the world itself was holding its breath.
"The demon lives through me," Rei said. "I am Enso-born."
The void flinched slightly at the sound of that name.
Rei's voice grew louder, his presence expanding like thunder.
"Demonic and divine do not mix, but Raga… I am you."
Raga froze within him. His voice faltered. He couldn't believe what he heard, the words he had longed for, the acceptance he thought would never come.
Rei continued, his tone steady, filled with a deep, calm power.
"I thought I was meant to be awakened. I believed in that for so long. But I lost faith, because of you, Raga. Because I thought you were only a curse, a demon chained to my soul. But I was wrong."
The ground trembled softly. The air pressure shifted. Each heartbeat echoed like thunder in Rei's ears.
He closed his eyes, and the light began to bloom.
"I only had fractions of God Enso. But now… I am God Enso in human form."
The ground cracked open beneath him. The sky tore apart.
His Enso blazed, a pure golden light that rose to the heavens, swallowing the black sun.
The radiance burned through the void's senses until even the elder had to shield his hollow eyes.
Then, from within the golden brilliance, a dark red light erupted.
It bled across the sky, twisting with the gold until both intertwined, divine and demonic, light and destruction dancing together.
The entire world began to tremble. Mountains quaked. Oceans roared. Even the heavens seemed to bow.
Every living being felt it, the merging of death and divinity, the rebirth of Enso.
Raga watched in awe. For the first time, he didn't speak. He couldn't. The mortal he once taunted now stood above gods.
The light finally dimmed.
Rei stood in the silence, his body split in two perfect halves.
His right side glowed with divine gold, holding the transformed Blade of Resolve, now pure, radiant, and alive.
His left side was cloaked in deep crimson shadow, holding the Soul Keeper, pulsing with demonic energy.
The two blades pulsed in unison, as if they recognized their true bearer.
The ground still trembled beneath him.
Raga's voice whispered within. "You're using my power, but this, this is beyond me."
For the first time, the void elder looked shaken. His calm demeanor cracked.
"You still can't kill me," he said, but his voice faltered. "I am non-living. You can't destroy what does not exist."
Rei stepped forward slowly, each movement echoing like thunder.
"You say you don't live, yet you move. You breathe. You erase. You think. You exist. Do you know why?"
He raised both blades, eyes glowing brighter than ever.
"Because you have a soul. Then I'll take what even gods can't protect — your soul."
The void's composure vanished. The black sun pulsed violently, pouring power into him.
"I am the void!" he roared. "I am the end of all things!"
Rei's voice dropped into a whisper.
"And I am what comes after."
He vanished.
A sound ripped through existence, sharper than thunder, faster than light.
When the void turned, Rei was already seated, blades resting at his sides.
Ten seconds passed before the elder realized his chest was cut open.
Rei moved again, a flicker of divine and demonic motion, and shattered the void's scythe into fragments of nothingness.
The Blade of Resolve carved through the air, severing the void's form, scattering it like dust.
Rei stood once more, calm, expressionless.
"Your erasure. Your void step. In my form, you will never use them again. You are no more than a puppet to me."
The elder fell to one knee, his body cracking like glass. Rei's presence pressed down on him until he couldn't even speak.
"Your powers are nothing," Rei said softly. "You call yourself nothingness. But you were something, and I've ended that."
He walked toward him with steady steps, raised the Soul Keeper, and drove it into the elder's chest.
There was no scream, no explosion.
Only silence.
The elder's body remained standing, but empty. His soul was gone, erased by the very force he once commanded.
The world went still. The tremors stopped. The light faded.
And for the first time since creation, even the void knew fear.
That was the end of Void.
And the true beginning of Enso.