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  Far above the mortal skies, nestled within a misty archipelago like a webbed coral reef, stood a palace atop a cosmic Sakura tree.

  It was a place that did not sit, nor did it float-existing in a Sovereign Suspension.

  A hovering ocean surrounded the structure in absolute order, glistening like pearls under heavenly embers.

  Above the waters, in a boat of ancient sandalwood, two primordial figures labored with a jeweled spear like architects of the first dawn oblivious to the coming end.

  Below, towards the depths of the ocean was a sea palace, where a dragon laid asleep inside water's embrace, from there his breaths burst through the palace boiling the water in red and white bubbles of heat.

  Here, silence was not the absence of sound, but a Leashed Discipline wrapped around the throat of existence.

  The white stone embedded on the palace walls stretched into the infinite, polished so perfectly that they could reflect the Destiny of those who believed.

  Vermilion Torii marked the land towards the path of transition from the mundane to the sacred, lined with stone lanterns and ancient trees designed to guide the lost towards the of worship.

  It looked serene yet wrong, because here pillars stood without weight, and platforms existed without shadow.

  In the center of the court, carved out of ephemeral beauty, lay a young man in a loose kimono.

  Beside his outstretched arm rested a shattered white copper mirror, mushed into a pool of Golden Blood.

  He looked radiant, yet cold, pockets of space-time opened and closed as if escaping with each drop of god blood escaping from his wounds.

  The Moon was lying dead, surrounded by seven figures, with each of their bald heads marked with an emblem of luck-kneeling in a ring formation like performing a final ritual.

  At the highest tier of the palace stood a towering feminine form. Her presence felt like a dense beam of autumn light.

  She wore a sun-and-moon headdress, her hair looped in a traditional mizura with magatama beads.

  A ring of fire, frozen in a crescent shape, hummed behind her back. Every breath she drew caused the realm to pulse as if reality itself struggled to maintain its rhythm with her lungs.

  A miko robe draped around her like heat around a starforge, and behind her burned a crescent ring of fire-motionless yet ethereal.

  Around her stood eight million spirits with blades in their hands and storms in their eyes, awaiting the calls of their Goddess.

  Nearby, a gloomy bearded storm-titan, stood with arms crossed.

  His body was humming like the barometric pressure of seven oceans was sealed under the flesh. Thunder cracked beside him-within the sheath of a blade waiting to bisect the heavens, only restrained by the will of his master.

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  He stared at the dead figure sprawled across the floor.

  Above the court-a wound in space opened, making the Earth visible.

  Five slashes tearing a cosmic spell-perfect and surgical.

  White fire burning from the gaps as reality peeled open like skin cut too deep.

  The Chakra of the Void had been destroyed in a blink.

  “The Chakra crushed him and the Moon in a single heartbeat,” the bearded man's voice vibrated with the weight of a raging typhoon controlled in his breath.

  “Our brother is really gone.”

  From the boiling depths of the hovering ocean, a dragon’s head emerged, his vast coils brushing the roots of the sakura tree.

  The eight million spirit army took a step back, unable to bear the leaking dragon's pressure.

  The celestial halls trembled as his voice resonated and his scales made the palace groan under his might.

  “It was not even an attack,” he rumbled, his massive eyes fixed on the spatial wound hovering above the court-the projection of Monster Zayn in the battlefield.

  “The Devourer did not aim at our brother. He did not care about him.”

  “Our brother was only a 3.1D existence, yet he was erased by the mere ruffle of the Void’s passing spell.”

  At the highest tier, the sun-backed figure had not moved. The ring of fire behind started to blaze, spreading towards every spirit soldier at once, draping them with blazing battle armors and weapons.

  Yet her gaze remained fixed on the projection, the ring of fire slowly receded behind her taking its crescent shape and pulsed once.

  Click - Her foot finally touched the first step.

  Instantly, the white stone beneath her feet turned into liquid magma. She slowly stepped down one step at a time and the transition was surgical and absolute spreading like a plague of lava.

  The serenity of the archipelago vanished. The cosmic Sakura tree began to hiss as its roots ignited.

  “That slash,” she said, her voice carrying the cold resonance of a star’s core.

  “It carried a defiance so absolute it ignored the weight of every rule under creation.”

  The dragon shifted his massive claws, he launched to the sky pulling away from the floor as the palace began to liquefy.

  “Defiance of a mortal against the Void, Sister?”

  “Our brother’s shrine was on the Moon and he was not an ordinary existence.”

  “He was the reason the blazing sun did not turn Earth into ashes, he held its equilibrium.”

  “Yet The Chakra absorbed the very light of your Sun before it even rotated.”

  “What could a mortal do against that?”

  She flicked a finger and the projection rewound, slowing to the microsecond.

  It showed Zayn’s grounded sweep and him turning away.

  “No,” she replied, the air feeling mushy due to the sheer heat escaping her.

  “That was defiance against Hierarchy.”

  “Even while the Void devoured my light, that mortal treated the apocalypse like dust on his shoulder.”

  “He is daring every pantheon, to look at his madness to protect his people.”

  “Daring us, to try and bite him and his people.”

  The figure of storm’s clenched his fist sweat running down his brows.

  Lightning bled between his fingers, restrained by absolute will as he floated, he glanced at the entire pantheon burning from ground up.

  “He turned his back?”

  “On a technique meant to erase a world? On the very attack that killed a God outright? By its mere touch?”

  “I do not care about the Void’s victory,” she said, her eyes fixed on the figure of Zayn.

  “This is no longer an inconvenience. It is time for our Judgment.”

  “This is the end!”

  “If that thing keeps climbing the rungs of the dimensions,” the dragon warned, his scales glowing red from the rising heat.

  “It will reach us.”

  The Goddess shifted her stance turning her back to the dead figure.

  The entire blossoming realm strained to hold its shape as the Sakura tree and the hovering ocean began to collapse into ash and vapour as the fire blazed.

  The peace of the Pantheon was being uninstalled by her presence, yet the two figures on the sandalwood boat looked unbothered, still drawing the lines of creation.

  “The mortal already has,” she said.

  “He is half a step away from becoming 3D.”

  “We join the Void,” she declared.

  “We show our allegiance.”

  “The mortal will pay for the death of our own-because he could not let an age die.”

  “And by helping we gain a favour of the void that may hold authority over the pantheons that hesitate to decide faster.”

  “The Sun will rise this time,” she said quietly.

  “To personally become the end of an age.”

  Above them all, the sandalwood boat drifted while the blossoms of their heaven turned to ash beneath their feet.