A golden portal tore open in a region of space that should not have been silent.
Layla felt it before she saw it — the wrongness. The absence. The way existence itself seemed thinner, as if reality had been scraped clean.
She frowned and turned to Striver.
Then she looked back into the void.
This place had once been alive. Not metaphorically — literally. Stars had burned here. Galaxies had spun in slow, elegant spirals. Light had traveled for ages just to paint the darkness with meaning.
Now there was nothing.
No stars.
No galaxies.
No echoes.
Only emptiness — vast, silent, and final.
"They're gone," Layla said quietly.
Striver didn't answer.
Both of them expanded their senses at the same time, pushing outward with care, threading perception through the ruined fabric of the universe. Their awareness stretched across dead sectors and collapsing systems, searching for anything — anyone — that remained.
What they found made Layla's breath catch.
Life still existed.
But barely.
Scattered fragments. Fleeing remnants. Civilizations reduced to whispers hiding in distant corners of space. And moving through it all — like a blade cutting through cloth — was a presence so vast it distorted everything around it.
Ultimate.
He was still destroying.
They felt him erase a system before they could even finish sensing it.
The moment Layla realized he had noticed them too, she recoiled instinctively.
So did Striver.
For a heartbeat, fear threatened to surface.
Then the void changed.
A presence filled the emptiness — not physical, not temporal, but absolute. The silence bent under its weight.
A voice followed.
Majestic.
Ancient.
Powerful.
And beneath it all — sorrow.
"You have definitely grown."
The Creator.
His awareness brushed against them, gentle yet immeasurable. Layla felt exposed — not judged, but seen.
Striver scratched the back of his neck and smiled awkwardly.
"Well," he said, forcing lightness into his voice, "when you're fighting thousands of those monsters, growth kind of becomes mandatory."
The Creator did not respond immediately.
Layla didn't smile.
Her gaze remained fixed on the void where stars used to be. Her chest felt tight, like something vital had been torn out of the universe — and her along with it.
"What happened?" she asked, urgency slipping through her calm. "You said we would be back in time."
For a moment, the Creator was silent.
When he spoke again, grief bled through his words.
"It has barely been two seconds since you entered my mindscape," he said. "Yet Ultimate moved through galaxies and timelines like a spear cast by inevitability. He destroyed nearly everything in less than a second."
Layla felt her hands curl into fists.
Two seconds.
They had always known Ultimate was powerful. They had fought powerful beings. Creatures that twisted reality, entities born from concepts, horrors that thrived in places where logic failed.
But this was different.
This was speed that mocked causality.
Strength that nearly outran time itself.
They had trained, bled, and nearly died within the mindscape. Some encounters had pushed them beyond what they believed they could survive. Yet even at their worst moments — even staring down annihilation — nothing had felt like this.
Nothing had felt final.
Silence settled between them.
Striver broke it.
"What now?"
The question echoed longer than it should have.
Layla didn't know the answer.
Yes, they had grown. Their control had sharpened. Their power had deepened. Their understanding of themselves — and the universe — had expanded beyond what they once believed possible.
But was it enough?
Ultimate was not an enemy she wanted to face.
Yet even as the thought crossed her mind, she knew the truth.
There was no path where they didn't meet him.
"Stop him."
The Creator's voice came faster this time — strained.
The shift startled Layla.
The Creator had always been calm. Distant. His emotions surfaced rarely, like ripples across a boundless sea. But now his composure fractured, revealing something raw beneath it.
Fear.
Not for himself.
For his universe.
For his creations.
For life.
Striver didn't hesitate.
He turned to Layla.
She met his gaze.
There was no speech. No reassurance. Just shared understanding.
She nodded.
They vanished.
—
Ultimate did not slow.
He did not hesitate.
He did not reflect.
Galaxies died behind him as naturally as footsteps fading in sand. Planets ruptured seconds after he had already crossed into another sector. Civilizations vanished without ever knowing what ended them.
Destruction followed him — not as chaos, but as consequence.
The universe itself shuddered.
Space warped, tore, repaired, and stabilized all at once. Laws bent under stress but did not break. The framework of existence endured, even as its contents were stripped away.
Planets fell.
Stars collapsed.
But the universe remained.
By the time Ultimate paused to measure it, the count had passed a billion.
Then something brushed his awareness.
Two auras.
Approaching fast.
He stopped — just long enough to acknowledge them — then continued forward. One galaxy remained now, isolated at the edge of a distant void. The last meaningful concentration of life.
He surged ahead, crossing thousands of light-years in mere seconds.
Just before he reached it —
Space split.
A portal opened beside him.
A fist shot through, aimed directly for his head.
Ultimate shifted slightly, catching the arm and throwing it aside — but the instant he did, space locked around him.
A vacuum sealed shut.
Movement vanished.
With no room to evade, he braced.
A kick slammed into his stomach.
The force carried through completely — not just impact, but intent — launching him backward far enough to tear a visible scar through space.
Ultimate landed, boots scraping against nothing.
He straightened.
Smiled.
"That was a good kick," he said calmly, brushing imaginary dust from his clothes. "For a girl, of course."
Layla's jaw tightened.
Every instinct screamed at her to attack again — to break him, to silence that voice forever. But she restrained herself.
Rage without clarity would get her killed.
"Why do you fight?" Ultimate asked suddenly.
His gaze drifted — searching.
Looking for Striver.
The question struck Layla harder than the insult.
Why did she fight?
The thought slipped past her guard.
Why had she learned these arts? Why had she sharpened herself into a weapon? Why had she killed, again and again, across years that blurred together?
She had once known.
Hadn't she?
Survival became necessity. Necessity became habit. Habit became identity.
At some point, the reason faded.
Why is he asking this now?
She stepped into a fighting stance.
Ultimate watched closely, reading the micro-changes in her expression.
"Do you know why I am still superior to you in martial arts?" he asked.
Layla raised a brow.
"Because I possess will. Reason. Conviction," he continued. "Things you currently lack. Not that it will save you — but that is why you fall behind. In skill. In power."
He paused.
Then his presence sharpened.
"I will not hold back this time," he said. "I will kill you. Then I will break Striver — and make him choke on his hollow righteousness."
Two blades formed in his hands — dark, compressed, devouring light like fragments of a black hole given shape.
They vanished.
Sparks tore through space as the battle ignited — and somewhere beyond sight, Striver finally moved waiting to assist Layla if she was being overwhelmed, he couldn't help but sigh .