The sky had completely drowned in dark grey storm clouds.
These were not natural clouds,
nor the kind that carry rain;
they hung in the air like a final verdict—
heavy, lethal, and belonging entirely to someone.
The air pressure was so immensely heavy that it felt as if space itself was being compressed—
as if the atmosphere and the sky had mutually decided to choose the side of darkness.
From the ruined jungle below,
the sounds rising upward were no longer screams;
they were the harrowing sounds that emerge only after the screaming has completely stopped.
The earth itself seemed to be grieving, and upon that fractured cliff,
two forces stood across from each other whose existence in the same space defied the very laws of nature.
The survivors pressed themselves flat against the cold,
jagged rock face of the cliff.
Ali, Yusuf, and Fatima.
They were not running,
nor were they moving;
they were merely watching this nightmare unfold with wide, terrified eyes.
There was nowhere left to run, and after a long night of fleeing for their lives,
the sheer dread inside them had finally decided to stay and witness the ultimate conclusion.
"What… are they going to do…?"
Ali asked, his voice cracking through stuttering,
ragged breaths.
Fatima did not answer the terrified question,
for she herself did not know,
and in this frozen moment,
no answer she could have given would have been adequate.
The space around Jabar began to distort unnaturally.
This was not merely a visual change;
the bodies of everyone present registered the horrific compression before their eyes did.
It felt as though the air around him was being slowly, agonizingly consumed.
The light approaching him bent and warped,
as if passing through an entity that did not belong to the physical world.
His shadow aura leaked outward like thick black smoke from a fire devoid of any warmth—
claiming everything it touched.
That aura transformed the surrounding air into a suffocating abyss.
Jabar's deep, dark red eyes were locked exclusively on Aslam.
The purple locket resting at his chest pulsed once, then went dead still.
"Who the hell are you...?!"
Jabar's voice echoed through the heavens,
a terrifying concoction of unbridled rage and absolute disgust.
"What right does a man seeking death have to stand amidst this destruction?!"
Not from the physical weight of his body,
but from the crushing pressure of his mere presence,
the ground beneath his boots began to violently crack.
A horrifying dark pressure erupted into the air—
a wave of abyss energy that shattered the surrounding stones and violently threw the survivors to the ground.
A deafening crack of lightning split the heavens.
The 'Thunder Spear' gripped in Aslam's hand hummed with a low, continuous vibration.
This was not noise;
it was the sound of a power that had already decided its lethal course of action.
Aslam stood exactly where he had descended from the sky.
His long white hair whipped through the heavily electrified air,
and his green eyes were deadly calm and utterly still.
The divine seals etched into his silver-dark armor glowed faintly,
as if recognizing an ancient enemy.
He looked at Jabar not with fear or surprise,
but with the absolute,
chilling focus of an executioner who had just been handed his target.
"I am Aslam,"
his voice was low, steady, and unyielding.
His thunder aura expanded slowly,
radiating outward with the immense weight and patience of a tidal wave.
"Thunder Eagle of Divine Discipline."
The divine seals on his armor flared one shade brighter.
"I am part of the Divine Disciples…
The army created by the Gods,
whose sole purpose is to erase darkness and the Abyss like you."
"The angels of the Gods do not ask a devil for permission, Jabar.
They arrive, and they balance the scales of destruction."
Aslam took his first deliberate step forward.
"I did not come here to fight."
He took a second step, and the entire cliff trembled beneath his weight.
"I came here to erase you."
A strange, heavy silence fell over the cliff—
the kind of absolute stillness that exists in the fraction of a second between a lightning strike and its thunder.
Then, Jabar laughed loudly and genuinely.
"Hah… erase?"
Jabar tilted his neck,
and his shadow aura surged like a predator answering a challenge.
"Do you view me as a mere insect beneath your boots?
I am that fear…
the kind that makes souls tremble and perish just by hearing its name!"
Aslam's cold, cutting voice sliced right through the laughter.
"If only souls tremble…"
Aslam took one more step.
"Then you are not death;
you are merely living fear.
A false god, whose final day on earth is today.
That's all."
"NOW DIE!!!"
Jabar screamed in pure,
unadulterated rage.
The ground suddenly exploded as dozens of black spikes fired through the air like missiles in a devastating
'Shadow Spike Burst'.
"Do you think you can escape my chains?
Darkness is everywhere!
How far will you run?!"
Jabar roared.
But Aslam did not flinch; he simply vanished.
'Storm Step'—
instantaneous movement at the speed of lightning.
The spikes violently pierced his fading afterimage,
completely shattering the cliff wall behind it,
while Aslam reappeared five meters away, entirely unbothered.
"Your speed is like that of a blind man,
Jabar.
All noise, zero accuracy.
Too slow," Aslam stated calmly.
Jabar's eyes tracked him emotionlessly as he summoned a 'Shadow Giant Hand' from the earth—
a massive construct of pure darkness the size of three men,
its fingers forged like heavy chains.
"CRUSH!!!"
Jabar commanded.
Aslam instantly pivoted and fired
'Divine Judgment'.
The Thunder Spear blazed like a falling star;
blue-white lightning compressed at the tip and fired—
BOOOOM!!!.
The lightning drove directly through the black hand from base to fingertip,
tearing the darkness apart from the inside like shattered glass.
Jabar recoiled in a mixture of shock and fury.
"This power...?!
NOW TRY TO SURVIVE THIS!"
He raised his hands and unleashed an
'Abyss Bullet Rain'.
Thousands of compressed dark bullets blackened the sky,
raining down from every conceivable angle.
Aslam rapidly spun his spear—
'Chain Lightning'.
The electric arcs spiraling from the blade detonated the thousands of bullets mid-air long before they could reach him.
"You call this an attack?"
Aslam spoke while walking completely unbothered through the endless detonations.
"This is nothing but the noise of your desperate screams."
Without pausing,
Aslam executed a
'Thunder Spiral Spin'.
He drove his spear violently into the ground,
and a massive electric tornado erupted outward,
slamming directly into Jabar's chest.
IMPACT!!!
Jabar was blasted backward through the air,
his boots dragging against the cliff and leaving scorching burn marks on the stone.
He skidded to a halt.
For the very first time in this battle,
Jabar was breathing heavily.
"ARGHHH!!!"
Jabar screamed in pure, uncontained rage.
He looked down at the searing burn mark left on his arm.
"You... you are burning my flesh?!
You are actually hitting me?!"
His dark aura became deeply unstable,
flickering wildly in the air.
Aslam continued walking forward,
closing the distance.
"This is not an injury.
I am not hitting you,"
Aslam corrected.
"This is the decree of your death that I am reading.
I am executing your end."
"I will break you..."
Jabar's voice began to freeze over.
"Try," Aslam challenged.
The two stood face-to-face,
less than ten meters apart.
The air between them was literally cracking under their absolute pressure,
creating hairline fractures in reality itself.
The wind had completely died.
Ali gripped Fatima's arm in sheer terror,
"What... are they...?"
They possessed no words to describe these forces.
"You do not understand..."
Jabar whispered.
"I did not come here to understand,"
Aslam's voice was absolute.
The ground was already shattered.
The residual power of lightning and darkness continued to violently clash.
"Hm... interesting,"
Jabar laughed,
his aura slowly recalibrating.
"You are not just noise...
you can actually cause damage."
"Your darkness won't last long,"
Aslam warned,
as micro-tremors of electricity pulsed from his spear.
'Shadow Pressure'—
Shadows slithered from the ground like serpents, firing dozens of dark bullets at Aslam.
Aslam didn't move an inch; he simply manifested a
'Thunder Shield'.
CRACK
CRACK
CRACK!
Every single bullet detonated harmlessly against the electric barrier.
"Fast reaction..."
Jabar noted, instantly utilizing
'Shadow Step'
to appear directly behind Aslam in a single breath.
'Devil Chains'
snapped forward like the jaws of a predator, aiming for Aslam's neck and wrists,
but Aslam used
'Storm Step'
to instantly dodge.
The chains crushed only his afterimage,
finding nothing but empty air.
"He is reading my movements..."
Jabar set his ego aside and began to calculate.
Aslam reappeared on the left and struck with a
'Thunder Spiral Spin'.
Jabar was forced to retreat.
The confident smile on his face faded for the first time.
"Strong,"
he admitted quietly.
A heavy silence descended.
Both had tested each other's limits.
"Will you get serious now...
or are you still testing?"
Aslam asked.
"I wasn't testing,"
Jabar's eyes grew impossibly dark.
"I was measuring."
'DARK SHIFT' —
'Shadow Armor'
activated fully.
This was no longer just smoke;
it felt as though the surrounding reality had chosen to side with him.
Seeing the rising pressure,
Aslam unleashed the
'God Voltage'
of his armor.
The divine tattoos across his body flared to life like burning text.
Both charged forward with pure force.
GOD VOLTAGE COLLISION.
Lightning and Shadow slammed into each other—
BOOOOM!!!.
The shockwave was so devastating that boulders flew into the air,
and the survivors were thrown to the ground.
Chapter End