"Die, Zayyn Illya Kovalenko."
A whisper echoed in his ear as Jay felt every single cell and drop of blood in his body superheating to the boiling point in a fraction of a second by the Divine Hand that pierced through his chest, ready to explode and evaporate it. But before that could happen, suddenly-
"True Cross."
FWUOOOOOM
A sudden burst of black flame engulfed Jay completely, swallowing even Aten's hand. While the Supreme God looked surprised as if he had not seen it coming, despite the future he had already experienced.
'That black flame again...' Aten thought as he retreated dozens of meters back into the sky as he distancing himself from Jay.
He then looked at his severed hand, the wound pitch black as his Divine Sun couldn't even touched it to regenerate himself.
'A denial of regeneration just like the Divine Sun. No, it is more than that. With this, it should be enough to kill me, so why can I not see him in that Convergence Point?' Aten thought as he felt the absence of his hand in this reality entirely.
And without giving it much thought, suddenly, beside him, a golden light erupted and formed another version of himself. In a fraction of a second, the golden sun radiance on his forehead disappeared and reappeared on the new body. And restored his whole body completely.
Meanwhile, Jay watched as the body with the severed hand exploded into radiant light, which was then absorbed into the sky in a flash of light.
"So that is how he survived my first attack," Jay muttered with intrigue.
'That ability is a problem. Can he just move and alter his entire existence at will? No... it shouldn't be possible... There must be a catalyst where he stores his existence,' he thought.
Cough
Blood splattered into the wind as Jay noticed a gaping hole and burning wounds in his chest. He then slowly placed his left hand over it, and void-like energy of Absolute Nonexistence engulfed the injury.
"Law and Concept Nullification."
Then the black grail appeared at his side, and a surge of black light healed his chest instantly, completely overriding the concept of anti-regeneration that the Divine Sun possessed.
Though Aten was not surprised. He had seen it before. He simply stared at the black energy of pure, absolute nonexistence in Jay's hand with indifferent eyes. Though he had witnessed and experienced it, there was still uncertainty about what kind of power Jay truly possessed.
There was a hint of relief in his mind, but also confusion and a fear.
"That power of yours, Zayyn Illya Kovalenko. To possess such power within a mortal body, i would say that i've never seen it before... Just how much has the outside world changed in the absence of us, the Egyptians?" Aten said.
Jay studied Aten's expression. His eyes were indifferent, yet different from his own usual emotionless face.
Jay rarely showed emotion unless he was with those close to him, but the look on Aten's face...
'A detachment...' Jay thought. 'I suppose that's the price that comes from being omniscient and experiencing the past, present, and future at the same time. He has probably already lived through this conversation. But...'
Jay suddenly moved his hand with casual movement and-
SHIIIING
He unleashed a heaven-severing slash engulfed in black flame, aiming to cleave Aten's hand instantly as it tore the space that he occupied. Yet Aten's body flickered with golden light and appeared to the side of the slash, effortlessly dodging it without moving a single part of his body.
Jay's eyes narrowed.
'As i thought, he can't see the black flame engulfing me in his omniscient vision, yet he can still dodge my attack...'
Jay then lowered his sword.
"It's ironic that you came all the way here just to try to kill me, Aten, even though you are the one who unwillingly dragged me into this ridiculous game of yours," Jay said as his dark hazel eyes studied the Supreme God's expression.
"Precisely because you must die in this game is why you were brought here, Zayyn Illya Kovalenko," Aten replied.
Hearing that, Jay smiled.
"Oh? Is that what you saw in your future vision?"
"Future vision? That is a misconception... Did Ra tell you about my power?" Aten asked.
"You tell me," Jay replied.
He continued when Aten showed no reaction.
"But I wonder why you trust your power so much if you couldn't even see my attack coming. Maybe your power isn't as absolute as you think," Jay taunted the Supreme God as his hair fluttering in the wind that breezed through the clouds in the sky.
Though Aten's expression remained calm, Jay could see a faint restlessness behind those divine eyes.
Aten remained silent.
"And this whole game... I've already gathered enough points thanks to the feast of Divine Beasts you summoned earlier. But it seems you wouldn't even give me a fair chance to challenge you in the final fight," Jay continued, pressing him further.
"And not only that, I'm curious... what is even the point of all this? Letting your people kill each other... is that your goal? To become the sole god of this realm? But now that I think about it, you didn't even try to kill them. Bastet, Sekhmet, any of them. Even though you easily could have. So I wonder... what is the future you truly want to bring into existence?" Jay said, narrowing his eyes.
Though it seemed like Jay was speaking just for the sake of it, his Avesta ignited, analyzing the mechanics behind Aten's power. And the catalyst that allowed him to shift his soul, spirit, and entire existence at will into a new body formed from pure Divine Sun.
After a long silence, at last, Aten spoke again as his voice ruffled by the sounds of winds.
"You wouldn't understand, even if I explained it to you..."
Suddenly, an enormous aura surged down from the sky, pouring into Aten as if supplying him with an endless amount of Divine Energy.
"So... just die already, and let the future take hold," Aten whispered coldly, his voice vibrating through the desert air.
And almost immediately-
SHUUUUUUUNG
A blast of Divine Sun Ray Burst shot toward Jay at the speed of light, threatening to scorch his very existence. But with a simple clasp of his hand, the black flame instantly enveloped him.
FWUOOOM
Aten narrowed his eyes as Jay vanished completely from his future. As the Divine Sun Ray Burst that blasted toward the Draconic DeusSlayer turned to drifting ash, and almost immediately after that, a faint ripple in space caught Aten's attention.
And with godly reflexes, his body flickered with golden light and shifted-
SHIIIIING
A heaven-severing slash, cloaked in black flame, tore through space itself, carving a void and reducing everything in its path to ash. Yet it failed to even graze the Supreme God's afterimage, striking nothing but empty air and the space Aten had already abandoned.
Jay stepped out from the sphere of black flame and blinked toward Aten, studying the Sun God with thoughtful eyes.
'I see... even if I use the black flame, and he cannot perceive it in his future vision, he can still dodge it in real time as long as he's fast enough. Then I can't give him time to react. I need to erase myself from his perception while delivering a sure-hit strike of nonexistence, one powerful enough to kill him completely,' Jay thought as Aten reformed once more in the distance.
'Should I stake everything on one minute and a half...?'
But the moment Jay revealed himself from the black flame that blazing around him, a sphere of blazing sun formed right in front of his face and fired instantly-
SHUUUUUU-
FWUOOOOM
The blast turned to ash at once, blocked by an eruption of black flame. Aten narrowed his eyes.
Then, from the space behind him, a hand wreathed in black flame emerged.
"Hm?" Aten raised his eyebrows.
As a silent whisper of desire echoed across the sky.
"Stay there."
As Jay saw Aten freeze under Alichino's command, unmoving for even an instant-
FWUOOOOM
The black flame that engulded on his hand that emerging from a rift in space immediately burst forward and shot toward Aten. But as if the desire had no effect on him at all, Aten's body flickered in gold and vanished instantly, leaving Jay's attack to strike nothing but empty air and a fading afterimage of the Supreme God.
Jay's eyes widened, but before he could even process what had just happened-
FWUUUUUUUUNG
SPLURTTTTTTTTT
In the very next instant, as the black flame surged forward and left his hand exposed, a blast of golden Divine Sun Ray Burst shot downward and severed Jay's right hand completely, evaporating it into the air as anything would upon contact with the surface of the sun.
Even though the black flame prevented Aten from seeing its future, he could still perceive it in the present. He simply could not predict its movement, as it did not exist within his future vision.
Jay's eyes widened as he pulled back his severed right hand.
'Alichino, how can your desire have no effect on him at all!?' Jay thought.
Master... it is because that man, purely in terms of power, is far superior to you. That is why the desire you used cannot affect him.
'How much stronger...'
That-
Their exchange was cut off as Jay felt the space within the sphere of black flame surrounding him begin to heat up.
And-
FWUUUU-
FWUOOOM
Jay immediately suppressed Aten's attempt to burn him within the black flame, countering the Divine Sun's heat by igniting another burst of black flame and enveloping himself completely inside it.
'I can't sustain the black flame like this throughout the entire battle... I guess there's no other choice,' Jay thought.
Meanwhile, Aten waited for Jay to emerge, realizing it was futile to attack him in that state. After a while, the black flame surrounding Jay slowly began to dissipate, as he did not want to waste all of his energy remaining purely on the defensive.
Seeing this, Aten immediately raised his hand.
"I, who rule over the sky and earth, over life and death..."
And then, a radiant sphere of sun formed above his palm. It then expanded, and expanded, and expanded, feeding on divine energy pouring down from the sky.
And within seconds, the sphere grew so vast that Aten's divine body looked no larger than an ant before an elephant below it, as the immense mass of pure Divine Sun radiated its overwhelming presence across the entire realm.
The air around it superheated before forming a vast vacuum that stretched for tens of kilometers as the Supreme God began his chant across the world.
"Starfall, Sun, and Genesis..."
"...let all things perish, be reborn, and burn within this holy land."
The moment Aten caught a glimpse of Jay's body emerging from the fading black flame, he made his move, while Jay's dark hazel eyes illuminated with pure divine light as he saw a literal star just meters in front of him-
Aten then raised his hand and commanded the very sky, as the sun descended upon Heliopolis.
"Ennead Neteru."
Silence-
SHUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUNG
A colossal blast of Divine Sun erupted, incinerating, burning, and evaporating all matter in its path as it pierced through Jay and the black flame surrounding him at the speed of light. Anything it touched was rendered beyond restoration by a pillar of pure solar energy that tore through the heavens and the earth alike.
"Burn and die..." Aten whispered, certain of his victory as the attack struck Jay the moment his body was exposed.
But-
"Ayin."
SHUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-
And in an instant, the descending sun and the overwhelming blast vanished completely.
Aten's eyes widened in shock.
'The future... is changing again-'
The Supreme God then sensed a ripple in the air behind him. Before he could fully react-
+++
"Wha-"
Aten's words were cut short.
As he stared in pure horror as everything from just below his eyes down to his feet vanished, erased into absolute nonexistence instantly. Only by shifting his body upward at the last possible moment did he avoid being completely obliterated by the surge of pure, Absolute Nonexistence.
And behind him, Jay stood with the black Habakiri raised, having nearly unmade the Supreme God in a single strike.
His entire body was now enveloped in Absolute Nonexistence.
The final form.
Ayin.
Seeing that something of Aten still remained, Jay raised his left hand. But in the distance, hundreds of meters away, a new body made of Divine Sun already formed, while the golden light around Aten's severed head faded-
Before-
+++
Another blast of pure nonexistence completely annihilated what remained of Aten, yet Jay clicked his tongue as he realized that Aten had already shifted his existence hundreds of meters away in his newly formed body.
Jay tightened his grip on Habakiri, the blade wreathed in black flame.
'One minute and twenty seconds,' he thought. The remaining time left in this form.
Meanwhile seconds before that, Aten analyzed Jay's current state, his form now entirely consumed by pure black void of Nonexistence.
Then, another vision of the future surfaced in his mind.
"That form..." he muttered.
Yet a thought crept in, unbidden.
A fleeting hope that the future might change, that he would not be fated to kill the young man standing before him.
'No... he is still not there... I still cannot see him there, and I still see him die in this future, in this very fight. I cannot run. The waiting of 3,673 years cannot be undone now, even if i don't want to... No... I must kill him. That is what I have experienced. That is what must happen.'
Aten fell silence for a brief second.
'But what is this uneasy feeling within me?'
A faint realization began to take shape.
'This form... is this the reason he never appeared in that future? He must have fought me like this at that convergence point... No, that cannot be. I know he faces death after this battle. It should have been that way.' Aten thought.
'Yeah... what am I even thinking? It should have always been this way,' Aten said, his eyes shifting slightly as he stared at the young man.
"Zayyn Illya Kovalenko, this is not your fault... Perhaps I should even apologize for what is about to happen, that this is simply how the future must unfold," Aten murmured, his eyes carrying a trace of regret and pity as he looked at Jay.
Then, the Supreme God's body was engulfed in radiant Divine Sun. The golden sun above his head drifted forward and burned brighter than ever.
"...a future without conflict between gods within this beautiful Land of Sun."
A future he had never experienced.
A future beyond even his sight.
The future at that convergence point.
The future of-
"My inevitable death."
A radiant mark of the sun appeared upon Aten's forehead. And behind him, a vast, shield-like construct of solar energy manifested, while his body shone with blinding brilliance. His black hair transformed into streams of golden light as he shed the limits of physical form and became the very aura of the Divine Sun itself.
Behind his back, the living Eye of Ra and the Sun Disk fully manifested.
In the silent divinity of his transformation, the Supreme God revealed his true form, one hailed as the strongest god in the entire supernatural world, surpassed only by the Hindu Trimurti.
The embodiment of the Sun Disk itself.
Aten whispered,
"True Divine Form."
This is-
Heliopolis.