The skies above Aarvanya darkened unnaturally. No clouds moved, no wind howled, yet the very heavens seemed to hold their breath.
Ash stood motionless, the glow of his aura dimmed but not extinguished. Around him, his companions waited—Sarina, Akarshan, Monish, Shiv, Anuj, and Shivam—all trying to process what just happened.
Sarina spoke softly. "Ash… who are the Old Ones?"
Ash looked upward, eyes clouded with memory. "They were once like me… no, greater than me. The First Supreme Beings. They ruled countless realities. But they saw time as a curse. They tried to unmake everything—to return existence to nothingness."
Shiv muttered, "Then… you were made to stop them?"
"I was the last-born," Ash replied. "The only one who created life instead of destroying it. I sealed them in the Void Beyond… but if Naasiru returned, that seal is weakening."
The gods murmured among themselves. Could the Old Ones truly return?
Bhumi Ma approached Ash. "If they awaken, what will they do?"
"They will consume this universe," Ash said. "Not with fire or war… but with erasure. Reality will become memory. Then even memory will vanish."
Anuj stepped forward. "Then we stop them. Together."
Akarshan added, "You're not alone anymore, Ash."
A faint smile touched Ash's lips.
But then the sky ripped.
A thin, silent crack stretched from horizon to horizon. Time itself trembled. From the tear, whispers spilled out—ancient voices, layered in echoes, speaking in no language, yet understood by all:
> He walks again.
The child of rebellion.
Break the wheel. Reclaim the void.
Ash staggered, clutching his head.
Sarina rushed to him. "Ash?!"
"I… I can hear them… all of them… they're calling to me…"
Suddenly, around the world, strange monoliths of black stone began rising from oceans, mountains, deserts—each pulsing with sickly violet light.
Ash's eyes snapped open. "They're awakening. And they're marking this world as their first target."
The Demon Lord Ravanaari appeared in a gust of shadow.
"We must move," she said. "If even one Old One crosses into our reality… nothing will survive."
Ash stood, aura blazing again.
"Then we meet them first," he declared. "Before they reach our world… we take the fight into the void itself."
And thus began the next phase of their journey—not just to save a world…
But to defy eternity itself.
---