The freezing edge of the Death Scythe bit into the skin of Rehan's throat. A single bead of bright red blood welled up against the black steel, immediately hissing as the ancient curse attempted to seep into his bloodstream.
Morgath didn't press the blade downward immediately. He savored the moment, his four black-void eyes relishing the tremor running through the young warrior's chest.
"Feel that chill, boy?" Morgath hissed, leaning closer until the sulfuric stench of his breath washed over Rehan's face. "That is the cold grip of absolute finality. No more miracles. No more broken domains. Your little crusade ends under my claw."
Pinned to the crushed earth, his lungs screaming for oxygen under the crushing weight of the demon's foot, Rehan closed his eyes.
He didn't panic.
Beneath the excruciating pain wracking his ribs and fractured meridians, a strange, rhythmic pulse began to surface from the deepest recess of his soul. It wasn't the external, explosive burst of his incomplete Domain.
It was something Master Arshi had warned him about during their final meditation under the frozen falls.
'Rehan... you rely on expanding your aura outward to dominate the world,' the old master's voice echoed through the silent chambers of his memory. 'But true sovereignty does not seek to conquer the outside. When the body breaks and the weapon shatters, you turn the domain inward. You make your own vessel the unbreakable kingdom.'
Rehan's eyes snapped open.
The gold wasn't flaring like wild fire anymore. It had turned into a dense, solid crystalline amber—still, calm, and unfathomably deep.
"You talked about kingdoms falling to forge your scythe, Morgath..." Rehan's voice was no longer a strained wheeze. It vibrated directly through the bedrock beneath them, steady and absolute. "...Par tumne kabhi ek aisi spirit nahi dekhi jo tootne se inkaar kar de."
Before Morgath could register the shift in tone, Rehan's right hand moved.
He didn't grab the scythe. He gripped Morgath's thick, scaled ankle that was crushing his chest.
"Internal Sovereign: Core Compression."
VUMMMM—!
The entire dimensional pocket went dead silent. The golden aura didn't burst outward; instead, every microscopic particle of Rehan's energy collapsed inward, compressing directly into his muscular fibers, bones, and blood vessels.
His physical body underwent an instantaneous, divine hardening.
Snap!
Rehan's fingers dug into Morgath's demonic armor like steel vice-grips, fracturing the dense scales. With an astronomical burst of pure physical leverage, Rehan twisted his hips and hurled Morgath's towering, four-armed body off of him with savage momentum.
Morgath's balance broke. His scythe carved uselessly through the empty air where Rehan's neck had been a millisecond prior.
"What?!" Morgath snarled, his wings of dark mantle stabilizing him in mid-air forty meters away.
Rehan rose to his feet in a single, fluid motion. He didn't pick up a weapon. He stood tall, his bare fists glowing with a soft, impenetrable amber luminescence that silenced the crying souls trapped within Morgath's scythe.
"A weapon forged from crushed souls is only strong against those who fear death," Rehan said, taking a slow, heavy step forward. The ground beneath his boot solidified, the shattered rift stitching itself together under his localized authority.
"Your scythe won't reap my soul, Morgath. Because right now... my soul is the weapon."