"Zeraphon. Nerzhul…"
Harun stood still, his voice deeper now, wrapped in something more ancient than anger. His eyes glowed a dark, violet-black—burning not with terror, but fury. Pure, controlled wrath. The earth beneath his feet cracked in jagged patterns, the ground reacting to a force it had not known in a thousand lifetimes. The wind twisted unnaturally. Even the sky—eternally distant—seemed to bend and shimmer, as if cowering from what it saw.
Zeraphon snarled, wings flaring in irritation. "So… the vessel wakes."
Nerzhul licked the blood from his cracked lips, tongue stained crimson. His voice was a rasp of madness. "Let's tear him apart—"
They didn't finish the sentence.
A whisper.
> "Impact Violet Die."
The air around Harun distorted. His body blurred. There was no delay. No transition. One moment he stood still, the next—
BOOM!
His fist connected with Nerzhul's chest, and the sound shattered the valley like a divine thunderclap. A colossal violet shockwave rippled out, disintegrating boulders, snapping trees like twigs. Nerzhul's ribcage shattered on impact, splintered bone piercing his own organs as he flew—no, was flung—through mountain after mountain like a rag doll hurled by a god. His laughter turned into a hideous scream of agony.
Zeraphon raised a blazing shield of infernal fire—but it didn't even last a blink.
Harun's voice came again, quieter, deadlier.
> "Grorosal Ovyta."
Black-purple orbs, small at first, spiraled around him, humming like engines of creation. Then, with a pulse, they expanded—into monstrous drills of spiraling dark gravity. They twisted and churned the air, shredding reality itself as they closed in on Zeraphon.
Zeraphon barely had time to scream.
The drills struck from all directions. His golden armor cracked, then exploded. His divine wings, symbols of his celestial rank, were ripped apart—feathers, blood, and fragments rained like meteorites. The ground howled as if alive, the sky above cracking like glass. Even time seemed to stutter—slipping out of rhythm with the rest of existence.
Reality rippled as the force of creation turned into undoing.
Everything fell still.
Harun lifted both hands slowly toward the heavens. His voice echoed—not just in sound, but in essence.
> "Abyssal Universal Core."
A sphere of pure black emerged in the sky above, ringed with floating runes that spun at impossible speeds. Layers of swirling chaos, glowing scripts, and slivers of space-time orbited the growing mass. It pulsed with something greater than magic—the pure will of annihilation.
From the shattered cliffs above, Zoya watched with bloodied lips, barely holding consciousness. She gasped, her own power flickering.
"The world… it's splitting—"
Mountains tore open. Oceans buckled in tidal rebellion. The very continent split beneath the gravity of the Core. Storms screamed. Lightning crawled across the sky like frantic serpents. Birds fell from the air. Dragons retreated into dimensional rifts. The laws of physics cracked and wept.
Zeraphon and Nerzhul—broken, barely conscious—looked up in horror. Their once-immortal expressions warped by raw, childlike fear.
"NOOOOOO—"
The Core descended.
Light vanished. Dark swallowed the world. Sound was replaced by silence—then a pulse.
WHITE.
BLACK.
NOTHING.
---
Silence.
Nothing moved. The battlefield—once the grandest valley of the eastern dominions—was now a crater wider than cities, deeper than canyons. Mountains had turned into shadows. Rivers boiled dry. The sky was cracked open like porcelain, revealing fragments of stars behind the veil of day.
The gods had fallen. The stars were dim.
Only one figure remained.
Harun.
He stood still, body coated in cracked shadow-runes. Not a single scratch marred his skin. His chest rose and fell in slow rhythm. The violet-black in his eyes began to fade, replaced by their natural warmth—soft, thoughtful, weary.
He looked toward the edge of the horizon where the echoes of war had fled.
From deep within, Ahad's voice echoed—not with praise, but warning.
> "You've only used… twelve percent."
Harun clenched his fist. He could still feel the weight of the Core, buried beneath the earth like a god's heartbeat.
"Twelve…" he whispered. "Then let the rest fear what's coming."
He turned, footsteps slow but firm, walking toward the debris—toward a broken form lying motionless among the rubble.
Zoya.
---
Her breathing was shallow. Her once-shining armor shattered. Her skin streaked with dust and blood. Yet even in ruin, she looked powerful. Noble. Stubbornly alive.
Harun dropped to his knees beside her. He touched her cheek, his fingers trembling. A pulse of energy still danced beneath her skin—but barely.
"Ahad," he whispered.
> "You're connected to the Core. You can heal her. But be warned—it will drain you. She may live, but it will cost."
Harun nodded. "Then take what you need."
He placed his hand on her chest and didn't cast a spell from memory, but from something deeper—something ancient, born from the abyss within him.
> "Naros'Velth El'Aysra."
A vortex of violet and silver light enveloped her. Runes—ancient, alien—glowed in spirals around her body. The air shimmered. Warmth spread. Bones mended. Torn flesh stitched itself with threads of ethereal silver.
She stirred.
A breath. Then another. And then—
Her eyes fluttered open.
"…Harun?"
His eyes lit up, and his breath caught.
Zoya slowly sat up, wincing, then looked around the battlefield in disbelief. Her eyes widened as she registered what had happened—the shattered landscape, the twisted sky, the silence of annihilation.
She turned to him, expression softening.
"You… you actually did it…"
Harun gave a weary smile. "Barely."
"I'm a Moksha-level hunter," she whispered, voice cracking. "You knew that. I've fought more demons than most have seen in their lives. But those two… they were different. They weren't just strong—they were impossible."
She looked away, trying to hold back tears. "I followed the pressure I felt—something… something terrifying. I found Leena's body. Torn apart. And then I saw you. Crushed. Barely breathing."
Her voice quivered. "So I fought. Even though I knew I'd lose. I tried to protect you."
She looked back at him, eyes raw.
"But you stood up. After all of that… you stood. You fought them both. You won."
Harun didn't respond. He was too exhausted to speak. But his hand gripped hers gently.
Zoya's face cracked into a tearful smile. "Thank you."
He exhaled slowly. "You've always protected me. Maybe now… it was my turn."
She laughed, wiping her face with a shaky hand. "Then I guess we're even."
They sat in silence, hands brushing.
But this time, the silence was not heavy.
It was calm.
---
Later
They stood at the edge of the impact zone, where the ruins of what once was a city now lay beneath layers of dust and broken magic. The wind blew slow, solemn. Fragments of what had once been homes, temples, libraries—drifted like ash in the breeze.
Zoya turned to him. "You're not just a vessel, are you?"
Harun looked up at the sky—still fractured, still bleeding stars through its wounds. "I don't think I ever was. I think… I was something that had to wake up."
She stepped beside him, close. "Then what now?"
Harun's eyes narrowed. Far in the distance, something shimmered—red eyes blinking in a void beyond reality. The war was not over. It had only begun.
"I need to learn what I've become," he said. "Before something worse wakes up."
Zoya nodded. "Then I'll follow you."
Harun smiled. "You always do."
---
Meanwhile… In the Fractured Veil
A massive mirror floated in darkness, reflecting the image of Harun and Zoya among the ruins.
Surrounding it were twelve thrones. Occupied. Shrouded in shadow.
A dozen ancient voices whispered—layered, old, powerful.
> "The Core awakens."
"The Twelve Percent has breached the seal."
"Prepare the Seven Wards."
"The Vessel is no longer bound."
"He walks the path of Titans."
Across the reflection, cracks spidered outward—rippling into other worlds.
Somewhere beyond time, beyond stars, something began to move.
And in the deepest dark… something smiled.