Darkness.
Silence.
Ash.
Inside the endless void,
Asura floated.
Broken.
Shattered.
Breathing — barely.
Around him, the world he had created —
the world he had destroyed —
drifted in pieces.
Fragments of cities.
Ashes of mountains.
Echoes of dreams.
And within the silence,
something stirred.
Not outside.
Inside.
A memory.
The boy he once was.
Small.
Weak.
Crying in the rain outside the Academy gates.
Begging someone, anyone, to see him.
He turned away from the memory.
It followed him anyway.
Visions swirled around him:
The mothers he failed.
The children he abandoned.
The innocents he crushed beneath the weight of his dream.
He clenched his broken fists.
Or tried to.
His body refused.
Even now, it betrayed him.
The Abyssal Genesis System flickered weakly in the back of his mind:
[System Error.]
[World Collapse: 100%.]
[Reconstruction: 0%.]
[Warning: Core Degradation Imminent.]
He could survive.
If he clung to the abyss.
If he embraced the silence.
If he let the world stay dead.
He could live.
Alone.
King of nothing.
God of ashes.
But then…
He remembered her.
Arin.
Bleeding.
Fighting.
Refusing to fall.
He remembered the way she had looked at him.
Not with hate.
Not with vengeance.
With sorrow.
She had seen the boy buried beneath the king.
Even when he had forgotten him.
And now…
now he saw the truth too.
He hadn't wanted to destroy the world.
He had wanted to be saved from it.
And when no one came…
He burned it all.
But maybe…
Just maybe…
There was still a choice.
A price.
A sacrifice.
If he gave up what little life force remained inside him…
if he surrendered his core…
if he poured himself into the shattered soil of this dead world…
It might heal.
It might begin again.
Without him.
He would die.
Truly.
Finally.
No rebirth.
No resurrection.
Only silence.
But maybe…
Maybe that was enough.
Maybe that was all he could offer now.
A final gift.
A final apology.
A final act of mercy.
He drifted in the void,
staring at the broken stars above.
And slowly, painfully,
he reached inside himself.
Found the last fragment of his power.
The last ember of the abyss.
The last whisper of the boy who once dreamed of being a hero.
And he smiled.
A broken, sad, peaceful smile.
"Let it be better…
This time."
He closed his eyes.
And let go.
His life force exploded outward —
not as fire, not as shadow —
but as light.
It spread across the ruins,
touching the broken stones,
the dead rivers,
the ashes of forgotten dreams.
The void shuddered.
The stars trembled.
The first heartbeat of a new world echoed in the silence.
And Asura…
faded.
Not as a king.
Not as a god.
Not as a monster.
But as a boy.
Who dreamed of something better.
And gave everything to make it real.