The air crackled with intensity as Aayam took a cautious step back, his mind racing to comprehend what had just occurred. The seemingly incapacitated Yugasura had appeared behind him, his cold grip snatching the wireless from Aayam's belt with an eerie calm. Aayam's eyes darted between the battlefield and Yugasura. The devastation he had unleashed moments ago—gone. The chaotic portals, the molten glass, the creatures—vanished as if they had never existed.
"What are you...?" Aayam demanded, his voice shaky but firm.
Yugasura's smile widened, and he calmly replied, "I'll explain later. For now, survive."
Without hesitation, Yugasura extended his hand and conjured a swirling black hole no larger than a baseball, but its pull was ferocious. Aayam felt its gravitational grip tugging at him, dragging sand, stones, and even the light from around them into its void. The knowledge of its destructive capacity chilled Aayam; this was no ordinary attack. A black hole of this density could consume mountains with ease.
Reacting swiftly, Aayam blasted into the air, flying at the speed of sound to escape the black hole's range. His mind raced for a countermeasure. While dodging Yugasura's escalating attacks—smaller black holes materializing in rapid succession around him—Aayam focused his energy, and with a powerful gesture, he opened another portal. This one was immense, its golden edges shimmering above Yugasura like a celestial maw.
The portal widened, radiating a foreboding energy that even Yugasura could sense. He glanced up, curiosity giving way to alarm, his grin faltering.
But Yugasura wasn't finished. His black holes multiplied, spinning in chaotic orbits around Aayam, each one a potential death sentence. One grazed Aayam, tugging him dangerously close to its center. The strain was unbearable; the crushing pull threatened to disintegrate him molecule by molecule. In an act of desperation, Aayam teleported himself just in time, reappearing on the edge of the battlefield.
Above them, the massive portal Aayam had summoned pulsed with unimaginable power. And then they arrived.
Reality eaters.
To the citizens of Ditivas, the sky above the portal remained an empty void. But to Yugasura and Aayam—beings who could perceive the higher planes—the reality eaters were terrifyingly visible. Ethereal yet monstrous, they defied comprehension, shifting and reshaping in ways that broke the rules of physics. They emerged from the 7th dimension, their translucent, ungraspable forms warping the very fabric of space as they moved. Their presence wasn't just a threat; it was an existential horror. These creatures didn't destroy; they erased, unmaking reality itself.
And there was Aayam, riding atop one of them like a triumphant commander. His expression was fierce, his will unwavering as the reality eaters turned their incomprehensible gazes toward Yugasura.
Yugasura's face drained of its confident composure. For the first time, a flicker of fear crossed his features. He turned, retreating across the battlefield, his black holes disintegrating as he focused solely on evading the entities now pursuing him.
The tide of the battle seemed to turn once more, with Aayam commanding these otherworldly forces. For every step Yugasura took, the reality eaters closed in, their incomprehensible forms consuming everything in their path. Even Yugasura, a being of immense power, could not suppress the instinct to flee from their void-like presence.
The ground beneath them trembled as Yugasura ran, his every move now dictated by survival rather than conquest. To Zede, Diego, and Kylan, who watched from the cave, the sight was simultaneously awe-inspiring and terrifying. Though they couldn't perceive the creatures, the sheer intensity of the battle shook them to their cores.
For now, it seemed, Aayam held the upper hand, wielding the unimaginable as his weapon against a foe who had underestimated the lengths to which Aayam would go to protect his world.
Yugasura's scream echoed ominously through the distorted battlefield as the reality eaters surged forward, their unfathomable forms lurching toward him in relentless pursuit. His movements, now calculated with a cold ruthlessness, betrayed a singular purpose: survival at any cost. A tentacle-like appendage from one of the creatures lashed out, striking Yugasura mid-flight, spinning him violently through the air. Another reached to engulf him entirely.
For a fleeting moment, Yugasura paused. His chaotic energy simmered, his eyes narrowing as he looked toward the lands of Ditivas below. The memory of his family flashed before him—a bitter moment of humiliation, the sting of betrayal that had driven him to power. He closed his eyes, his face hardening with resolve.
When his eyes reopened, they burned with determination. With a sharp, defiant kick, Yugasura propelled himself upward, crushing one of the reality eaters' spectral heads with precision. But the creatures were relentless, their tentacles swarming, their unyielding hunger for existence pressing on. Yugasura's black holes shot outward, engulfing portions of their massive bodies, yet even these were insufficient to slow the monstrous entities.
Above the battlefield, Yugasura made his stand. Hovering mid-air, he unleashed a series of portals, each glowing with the ethereal light of fractured dimensions. From these gateways emerged grotesque, gnarled branches—manifestations of alternate realities, twisted and raw. Yugasura directed them like weapons, hurling them straight into the insatiable maws of the reality eaters. The creatures faltered briefly, devouring the branches with an almost desperate frenzy.
Aayam, still riding atop one of the creatures, leaped down and landed deftly on the ground below. He gazed up at the chaotic scene, his expression grim. As the reality eaters consumed fragments of alternate realities, their writhing forms began to distort further, their shapes collapsing and reforming in unnatural ways. Aayam could feel the destabilization of the dimensional planes rippling outward, threatening the balance of existence itself.
"What are you doing, Yugasura?" Aayam's voice cut through the noise, sharp and commanding. "Even by your twisted standards, this is madness. You're tearing apart realities—you're betraying your own ideology!"
Yugasura, floating amidst his storm of collapsing dimensions, turned to face Aayam with a smirk. His laughter resumed, louder and more manic this time. "My ideology?" he sneered. "These are the realities where every living soul, on every planet, pledged their undying loyalty to me. *This* is their reward, Aayam. They save their god, their master. Their sacrifice is justified."
His voice grew louder, carried by an unsettling mix of pride and contempt. "I am not betraying my ideology. I am enforcing it! They exist for me, and now, they cease to exist for me."
Aayam clenched his fists, his teeth grinding as he glared at Yugasura. The arrogance, the disregard for countless lives—even if they were alternate versions of the same universe—was revolting.
"Pathetic," Aayam muttered, his tone dripping with disdain. "You're not a god. You're a coward clinging to scraps of power."
Yugasura's laughter ceased abruptly. His expression darkened, the playful malice giving way to an unbridled fury. The tension between the two was palpable, the air crackling with the remnants of distorted energy. Above them, the reality eaters continued to devour the alternate branches, their forms twisting into grotesque parodies of existence.
The battle was far from over, but Aayam knew that Yugasura's actions were setting in motion a catastrophe that neither of them might survive.