The stars wept over Than'Quar, a dying world orbiting three black suns. Entire continents vanished in silence as a dark shape blotted out the sky—a shape without form, without emotion, without mercy.
The Sky Eater.
A cosmic beast older than language, born from the void between creation pulses. It didn't kill for pleasure. It simply devoured. Suns. Worlds. Souls. Even memories. It erased existence wherever it moved. Prime gods once tried to seal it beyond the 9th Realm. They failed.
Now, it had returned. And no one could stop it.
Except Zayn.
He didn't come for justice. Or revenge. Or the billions of screaming mortals praying for salvation.
He came because something that big?Something that unfeeling, that powerful?
"I want to see if it can crack my jaw," he muttered.
Zayn hovered above Than'Quar's last remaining sky island, watching the beast tear through layers of atmosphere. Its body was a tangle of moving darkness, thousands of eyes blinking across its flesh, each the size of moons. It didn't roar. It simply hummed—a lullaby from the end of time itself.
Most would tremble. Zayn grinned.
"Now that's a proper warmup."
He clenched his fists. Aether flared around him in sharp violet pulses. Mountains below him shattered just from his energy stabilizing.
The Sky Eater turned.
It noticed him.
The void around the beast bent—as if reality tried to flee from the thing's attention.
"That's right," Zayn whispered. "Come at me, nightmare."
The Sky Eater struck first.
Its tendrils came fast—quicker than light, wrapped in anti-matter and void flame. Entire zones of space were erased in their path.
Zayn vanished.
Not dodged. Not blocked.
He simply wasn't there anymore.
He reappeared atop the beast's back, crouching, fingers pressed to the obsidian hide.
"You're big… but you're not smart."
He drove a fist down. The universe shook.
The Sky Eater recoiled for the first time in its infinite life.
It screamed—not out of pain. Out of confusion.
"Yeah," Zayn chuckled, landing in front of its colossal core. "That was just my left."
He raised his right.
Aether surged, swirling like a star collapsing into itself. His eyes turned white-hot.
"Fade into Aether."
He launched forward.
The punch didn't just connect—it broke the dimension they were standing in.
Light shattered. The beast split in half. And with a final low hum, the Sky Eater unraveled into nothing.
Silence fell.
Than'Quar stopped dying. Its sky slowly turned golden. The three suns began to breathe again.
Zayn exhaled and sat cross-legged midair, arms behind his head.
"Fun... but still not enough."
Far beyond, in the halls of the Prime Pantheon, a goddess watched him through a mirror of starlight.
Lyra.
She clenched her fist, her heart thudding against her will.
"He's getting stronger…"
Behind her, the oldest god—Mal'Zor, Warden of Order—spoke without looking.
"If we don't act soon, he won't just destroy enemies…He'll destroy the balance."