Step.
Aarav crossed the threshold.
The moment his foot touched the ground beyond the archway, the world ripped apart.
He barely had time to react before reality twisted.
The sky turned inside out. The ground cracked like shattered glass, revealing a void beneath—not empty, but writhing, alive.
And then—
He fell.
The sensation was nothing like before. This wasn't just a fall through space—this was a fall through existence itself.
Memories flashed before his eyes.
Not his own.
A battlefield drenched in crimson. Soldiers screaming as titanic beings clashed above them. A figure stood at the center of the carnage—an emperor crowned in fire, wielding a blade that split the sky.
Then—
A temple buried beneath the roots of a tree older than time. Hooded figures chanted, carving symbols into their own flesh, their voices rising in a prayer not meant for mortal ears.
And then—
A single throne in a hall of silence. Someone sat upon it. Their face was hidden, but their presence was suffocating—like a god who had devoured his own kind.
Aarav's body convulsed. What the hell is this?
The visions burned into his mind, branding themselves into his soul.
He was not just seeing the past.
He was becoming part of it.
BOOM.
Aarav crashed onto solid ground. Pain lanced through his spine, but he ignored it, forcing himself upright.
The world around him had changed.
He was standing on a bridge of black stone, suspended in an endless void. A chasm stretched below, swirling with shadows that had no form, only hunger.
And at the end of the bridge…
A gate.
Massive. Towering. Its surface was carved with symbols he recognized.
Not from books. Not from legends.
From his own mark.
Aarav exhaled. So this is it.
The Gate of Unmaking.
The point of no return.
A voice, deep and inhuman, rumbled from behind the gate.
"Who walks this path?"
Aarav rolled his shoulders, the golden fire in his veins surging to life.
"Someone you should fear."
Aarav's words echoed across the void.
Silence.
Then—
BOOM.
The Gate of Unmaking trembled.
From within, a presence uncoiled.
It wasn't just power. It was something far worse.
A weight that crushed reality itself, bending time and space around it. The bridge beneath Aarav's feet cracked, the void below seething as if anticipating his fall.
Then the voice came again, ancient and terrible.
"Fear?"
The gate pulsed, its symbols twisting, rewriting themselves.
Aarav clenched his fists. He had felt fear before—when he fought men stronger than him, when he was on the streets with nothing but his fists and his anger.
This was not fear.
This was something else.
Something older than gods, older than war.
Something that had been waiting.
Aarav took a step forward. The moment he did, the gate reacted.
Screams erupted from the stone.
Not one. Not dozens.
Thousands.
Agonized wails, voices crying in languages long dead. The echoes of those who had come before him.
Aarav's pulse thundered. He could feel it.
They had failed.
They had stood where he stood now, faced what he was about to face—
And they had been unmade.
But that was them.
Aarav wasn't here to fail.
His golden mark blazed, responding to the whispers clawing at his mind. The energy inside him surged, coiling around his arms, his legs—his entire being.
The presence behind the gate shifted.
It had noticed.
Aarav exhaled, his breath coming out in a slow, steady fog.
Then he spoke, his voice carrying across the void.
"You're in my way."
The gate shuddered.
A deep, rumbling laugh—inhuman and infinite—rose from within.
And then—
The Gate of Unmaking opened.
The Gate of Unmaking opened.
Aarav braced himself.
The void howled—not with wind, but with something far worse.
Memories.
They tore through the air like phantoms, twisting and shrieking, their forms shifting into broken faces, skeletal hands reaching out from the abyss. They were the remnants of those who had come before.
The warriors who had stepped beyond this gate.
And failed.
Aarav felt a force tugging at his mind, whispering in tongues older than time. Join us. Fade with us.
No.
His golden mark flared, its light defying the abyss. The wraith-like figures recoiled, shrieking as if burned.
A shape loomed in the darkness beyond the gate.
Not a man. Not a god. Something else.
It stepped forward.
Towering. Shadow-clad. Its form shifting, never fully taking shape.
A single eye burned in its featureless face, vast and depthless—an abyss within the abyss.
Then it spoke.
"Another fool."
Its voice was not a sound, but a command. The bridge beneath Aarav's feet cracked, disintegrated—
And he fell.
---
Falling.
Not through space. Not through time.
Through existence itself.
The abyss swallowed him, deeper than the sky, deeper than light, deeper than death.
Then—
A shift.
His fall stopped.
He landed—not on stone, not on earth, but on something pulsing, something alive.
A vast, endless battlefield stretched before him.
But the corpses were not of men.
They were gods.
Broken. Hollow. Forgotten.
Aarav exhaled, his breath misting.
This was not a graveyard.
This was a warning.
The voice returned.
"Your defiance means nothing here."
Aarav rolled his shoulders. His muscles ached, his mark burning like a sun beneath his skin.
He smirked.
"Then let's put that to the test."
The abyss rumbled.
And the battle began.
The abyss lurched.
Aarav felt it move—not like the shifting of land or the trembling of earth, but something deeper, something primal. The battlefield of dead gods breathed, as if aware of his presence.
And then—
The first corpse moved.
A skeletal hand—larger than a war elephant—rose from the dust. Its fingers, armored in shattered divinity, flexed with unnatural precision. The ground beneath it groaned, cracks forming as the ancient being dragged itself upright.
Aarav's instincts screamed.
Move.
He launched himself backward just as the colossal fist slammed down where he had been standing. The impact sent a shockwave across the field, obliterating everything within its reach.
Aarav skidded to a halt, his feet burning against the shifting ground.
His golden mark pulsed, reacting to the energy in the air.
More figures were rising.
Titans of the past.
Gods who had once ruled the cosmos—now nothing more than husks, puppets of the abyss.
Aarav clenched his fists. This is what lies beyond the gate?
The air cracked. A second titan rose. Then a third.
More.
The battlefield roared to life, a graveyard waking from its slumber, and Aarav was the only living thing standing among them.
A deep, cosmic voice echoed from the darkness.
"Kneel."
Aarav smirked. "Come make me."
The first titan lunged.
Aarav reacted on instinct.
His mark flared, golden veins of power exploding across his skin.
He dodged, twisting through the air as the titan's arm tore through the battlefield, shattering ancient remains into dust.
Aarav landed on the creature's wrist. Without hesitation, he surged forward, sprinting up its colossal limb.
The titan roared, its hollow eyes burning with abyssal fury.
But Aarav was faster.
With a single leap, he launched himself into the sky—right toward its skull.
His fist, wrapped in golden fire, crashed down.
BOOM.
The titan's head detonated, fragments of divine bone scattering into the wind. Its body collapsed, shaking the abyss itself.
Aarav exhaled.
Then he turned.
The other titans were coming.
A wall of forgotten gods, moving as one.
His heart thundered.
This was his trial.
He cracked his knuckles.
"Let's see how many gods I can kill before I get tired."
And then—
He charged.
---