The silence was suffocating. Not because the battle paused—but because something deeper stirred.
The silver-haired boy, still bound in cracked divine chains, opened his eyes—and the very world winced.
Ash stood still. His breath caught. There was no mistaking it.
Those eyes…
They weren't mortal.
They weren't divine.
They were his own.
Or rather… they were what he used to be.
Before reincarnation.
Before the cycle.
Before mercy.
The boy sat up as if the chains meant nothing. They didn't burn him, they melted off like threads in rain.
The cultists backed away, trembling. Even the antlered man faltered, his smug smile flickering.
"Ash," Akarshan said behind him, voice shaking, "Who… who is he?"
Ash didn't respond. He couldn't. He just stared.
The boy rose, glowing cracks spreading across his arms. Power surged from his body—clean, raw, and older than this universe.
And then the boy spoke.
"You shouldn't be here."
Ash blinked. "…What?"
"You came back too soon," the boy said. "Before you were healed. Before the memory purge finished."
He walked forward, and with every step, the void around him twisted unnaturally.
"You forgot the final seal, didn't you?"
Ash's heart dropped. The final seal... The one the Goddess of Time placed at the last moment… But he didn't remember what it was.
The boy stopped just feet from him now.
"You were never meant to wake in this cycle."
Akarshan and Shiv stood frozen, weapons lowered. Shivam muttered, "This... this doesn't make sense... Is he another Supreme Being?"
"No," Ash said quietly. "He's me."
Everyone froze.
The boy nodded. "What I was. What you locked away."
He raised his hand, and the symbols in the air responded—not to Ash, but to him.
"Your mercy was your weakness. Mine is gone."
A tear rolled down the boy's cheek. Not of sorrow—but of regret born from millennia of pain.
"You created them. You loved them. But you also cursed them, Father."
Then the boy looked past Ash—to the goddesses, standing atop the ruins in the distance. Watching. Weeping.
"And now they've created me—to stop what you've become."
The sky thundered as two opposing forces collided in presence alone.
Ash, the reborn Supreme Being.
The boy, the sealed wrath of his ancient self.
The future was no longer certain.
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