Some thought the fortress had been attacked.
Some thought the sky was breaking under an unknown force.
They had no time to think further. A firm hand pushed them from behind, and they submerged into the space passage.
The hand belonged to Third Eye Clone. He had rushed here because Ankit had called him.
Third Eye Clone gazed toward the space outside. There he saw Ankit struggling.
But he didn't go to help. He knew he couldn't. Ankit was far more powerful than him, possessing every ability Third Eye specialized in. If even Ankit was struggling, Third Eye could do nothing.
Ankit had called him for something else.
To take the Beast Continent.
The beast disciples inside were unaware of the destruction. They were still living their normal lives—training, eating, roaring.
But Ankit couldn't hold on much longer. Sooner or later, the Beast Continent would be engulfed by the same force. And unlike the fortress, it had no protective vyuhas. It would be destroyed in a single second.
Third Eye Clone quickly reached out his hands. Space folded around the Beast Continent. He took it with him—along with necessary items: the artifact Ankit had created for comprehending the time element, every puppet, pills, resources, everything vital.
He sent a brief message to Ankit.
Then he stepped through the space passage and left.
Meanwhile, Ankit was pouring every ounce of his strength into maintaining the vyuhas. He filled the cracks again and again using his powers—space, void, essence, everything he had.
But this couldn't go on forever.
He couldn't divert even a fraction of his attention. If he had, he could have transferred everyone inside to the space passage in a single thought. He could have saved the Beast Continent himself. He could have done everything.
But he wasn't able to.
Because if he shifted even a sliver of focus, the people inside would have been destroyed completely.
He would have survived.
They would not.
He stood between the artificial sky and the void outside—inside the fortress's outer defensive vyuhas but beyond the inner false sky. The outer vyuhas were the shield; the artificial sky was the inner layer. Ankit was in the narrow space between them.
When Third Eye Clone sent word that everything was clear, Ankit teleported.
He didn't hesitate. He moved through the space passage.
As soon as he emerged on the other side, he destroyed the passage behind him—severing it completely.
***
Meanwhile, outside the solar system.
The fortress vyuhas could not hold on after Ankit left.
First the vyuhas cracked—thin, glowing fractures spiderwebbing across the invisible barriers. Then the cracks widened, and from them a force emerged.
It moved like wind—flowing, stilling, slowing, rushing again—but it was not wind.
It enveloped the entire fortress from the inside.
Wherever the force touched, that place was violently destroyed. Not shattered. Not burned. Simply… erased. Until nothing remained.
Furniture… gone.
Equipment… gone.
Walls… gone.
Gardens… gone.
Massive gates… gone.
Slowly, the remaining vyuhas collapsed. Their main cores and runes—powerful patterns woven by Ankit's clone himself—were completely destroyed by these forces.
Then the destruction accelerated, as if the forces had grown stronger. They surged into the basement of the fortress and completely enveloped it.
The fortress core inside the basement—the beating heart that had kept the fortress running until now—was also violently destroyed.
But after the core shattered, something strange happened.
The forces that had been attacking chaotically in all directions… suddenly stopped.
They all moved toward the place where the core had been destroyed.
They moved as if they had found something.
Something… delicious?
These forces had no characteristics. No human form. No living essence. They were just like wind—moving, stilling, slowing—but they were not wind.
They were chaotic, with no purpose… but they were not chaos element.
They had no thoughts… but they still reacted. They had some tendency.
A blind hunger.
A mindless pull.
A silent, inevitable convergence
They did not attack with rage or malice.
They simply… consumed.
Wherever they touched, existence unraveled. Not burned. Not shattered.
Erased.
Matter forgot how to hold shape.
Liquid forgot how to flow.
Even the memory of what had once been there dissolved into nothing.
No scream. No explosion.
Only silence after.
And when they reached something rich—something delicious—they paused.
What were they?
They were a question without an answer.
Only Ankit can answer this. He had faced them—even if not directly.
The forces churning toward the core's destruction site began to move more violently, as if someone might snatch the delicious thing away.
Just as they reached the place where the core had been, the forces suddenly stopped again.
They didn't stop because of resistance.
They stopped… because they were savoring the taste of something.
After savoring, the forces seemed to become a hundred times more powerful.
They began violently destroying every inch of the fortress.
In just ten seconds, the whole fortress was…
Gone.
As if it had never existed. Not even a single particle remained.
Not even the essence flow inside the fortress.
All things were gone.
But the forces did not stop.
They began roaming without direction outside the solar system.
Sometimes they attacked the solar system itself.
But nobody knew why they could not come inside.
Some asteroids floated outside the solar system, but those asteroids were also destroyed.
The space outside the solar system boundary was theirs.
Silent.
Endless.
Hungry.
And growing.
***
Thankyou Kiwami803 for your support.