In the vacuum beyond all creation, deeper even than the Origin Zone, where no concept nor consciousness had ever dared to exist, The First Silence blinked.
Not with eyes, for it had none.
Not with thought, for it predated cognition.
It was the absence before birth, the hush before the first sound, and now—it was aware.
---
As Ash drove his burning lance of truth into Agaat's infinite form, his heart skipped a beat. A pressure—subtle but absolute—washed over his soul.
His divine senses, expanded across galaxies, halted.
A whisperless weight settled over the battlefield.
Even Agaat paused, sensing something unnatural.
> "What… is that?" he murmured, looking beyond the layer of void.
Kaalketu's eyes widened in horror. "No. No, it's impossible. That thing was sealed beyond all cycles!"
Iravati, her voice shaking, said, "We called it 'The First Silence.' It is not a being. It is the unmaking of being."
A fracture appeared in the Origin Zone sky—not a crack, but a stillness that broke motion itself.
---
In the mortal world…
Sarina collapsed again, eyes blank. Anuj, Akarshan, Monish, and the others gathered around her.
She suddenly whispered, "Something is coming that even Ash fears…"
Shivam clenched his fists. "We need to go to him!"
But Monish shook his head. "We're humans. We can't even comprehend what's happening there."
Shiv stood silently, his eyes burning with something new—resolve. "Then we must ascend."
---
Back in the Origin Zone...
Ash turned slowly, wings fully extended, gaze fixed on the sky now folding inward.
> "I knew something was missing," he whispered. "A memory… no, a warning."
He remembered now—before he became mortal… before he gave the goddesses their roles… he had stood before it.
He had sealed it.
And now, his awakening had awakened it too.
> "The First Silence… has returned."
The Supreme Beings panicked. Even Agaat recoiled, his hunger silenced.
Zoraan's echoes became disjointed. "It… unmakes concepts. If it reaches us, we will forget what it means to exist."
Ash extended his hand, conjuring a dimensional veil, trying to slow the stillness. But the veil collapsed before it even formed.
Time didn't move. Causality unraveled.
Then the sky opened—and it stepped forward.
It had no shape. No voice. Just the absence of everything Ash had ever created.
Ash shouted, "ALL OF YOU, FALL BACK!"
He launched toward the silence, invoking a forgotten authority—
> "CODE: ZERO—PRIME OVERRIDE!"
A symbol appeared behind him—a sphere wrapped in wings, burning and black.
It was a power only the first of the first could wield: The Genesis Lock.
Ash held the Lock toward the Silence and spoke a command no living thing had heard in nineteen billion years:
> "IN THE NAME OF LIFE… I REJECT UNBEING."
The Lock struck the silence—and for a moment… it paused.
But not stopped.
Just aware now… of Ash.
And it began to reach toward him.
---
Elsewhere, in the divine realms…
The goddesses of Life, Fire, Earth, Void, and more gathered in shock.
The Goddess of Creation whispered, "He remembered the Lock… but that means…"
The Goddess of Life, trembling, said, "If he uses it completely… he will vanish too."
---
Ash braced himself.
"If I fall," he whispered to the Silence, "then I'll fall protecting them all."
And the battle began—not of power.
But of existence itself.
---