Back at the Black Zone:
A small starship landed near a crater , the figure stumbled out of his ship assessing the surrounding area.
"Seems they had quite the party, I'm glad I wasn't too late."
Looking back at his ship a young woman lay inside, her body heavily bandaged.
Just then another being landed near his ship
She stood tall and radiant, four black feathered wings unfurled behind her like shadows kissed by night. Her golden hair cascaded in waves, glowing softly against the darkness of her wings.
Draped in a sleek, flowing red dress that shimmered with every movement, she embodied both grace and fierce power a celestial force impossible to ignore.
"You're late Zeolex, if you're going to hold a meeting the least you could do is show up on time, and this meeting place, why here? This was a fresh battle field, what could you possibly want with me?"
The old man pointed to the young girl in his passenger seat.
"She needs a home and I imagine she would be beneficial to the cause, we all hate the dark star but now we have names, Ventris and Korva, I think she could help us,"
"You want me to take the Ash Lord's child? I have no intention of courting death Zeo, besides what could you offer me that would make me take her in? I've just learnt that a dark star rules my house, if she saw her she'd kill her on the spot."
The woman turned to leave but the old man looked at her calmly
"She's Asura's grandchild, please Garra, you're the only one I can trust with this."
She turned to look at the old man eying him up and down.
"What will you have me do?"
Zeolex smiled awkwardly.
"Ahh it'll mess up the timeline won't it?" Garra sighed
"Fine" she said, taking the child out of her seat and disappearing in a flash of light.
"Ok, now that's out of the way I should-"
Just then a violent explosion rang out, loud enough to cause his ears to bleed, the old man looked up in horror to see the Assiah shattering, great shards of golden light flying all over, quickly jumping behind his ship to take cover as shards of gold light peppered the black zone like a rain of arrows.
"WHEN I GET MY HANDS ON THAT KID I'M GONNA WRING HIS NECK!"
Darkness. Silence. Then, breath.
Yohan's eyes snapped open to the ceiling of a home that wasn't his. The walls were carved stone, the air warm, faintly scented with burning oil. A woman leaned over him, her smile radiant, eyes glistening with tears of joy.
A man stood beside her, pride etched across his face. They were his parents. Not his real parents, not Solaria, not the child he should have been holding, strangers.
His tiny chest rose and fell in panic. His body was wrong. Too small. Too fragile. He was a baby.
Reincarnated.
The realization hit like a blade through the gut. He wasn't stupid, he had read stories, tales of warriors born anew in different skins. And now it had happened to him.
But his wife wasn't there. His daughter wasn't there. The last thing burned into his memory was her blood, their unconscious bodies slipping from his arms, their cries ripped away as the Assiah shattered. He had failed them.
The woman cooed gently, brushing his cheek. "Shhh… it's okay, little one. You're safe and this is your home."
"Safe?"
The word ripped something open inside him. He wasn't safe. He wasn't whole. He was lost.
"F…F…F..." The sound clawed its way out of his tiny throat. His new mother gasped, thinking she heard his first word. His new father's eyes shone with hope.
"Go on," the man whispered. "Say it. Say father."
Yohan's soul screamed. His aura ignited.
"F****************K!!!"
Starlight erupted from his body, shredding flesh, ripping his infant form apart. The world shook. The house crumbled. The land itself split as Yohan's power poured out unchecked, his grief and madness detonating like a dying star.
The planet screamed under his wrath; oceans boiled, skies burned, mountains collapsed into molten rivers. In minutes, the entire world was reduced to dust, swallowed by the void.
Yohan's body disintegrated. His soul was wrenched free once more, flung into the river.
And as the cycle reset, only one thought remained in his fractured mind:
Find them.
At first, Yohan counted.
Each time he died, each time he forced his way through birth and body and annihilation, he marked the number in his mind like tally lines carved into stone.
Dozens. Then hundreds. The centuries blurred. Every time he returned, his strength burned brighter absorbing the kinetic energy from the resulting blasts and unknown to him, the souls of all who fell.
Every time he ended it faster, desperate to push through, to reach the Assiah again, to claw back to his wife and child.
But eternity has teeth.
With each death, his own soul fractured. Pieces of memory began to fall away like ash in the wind. Faces blurred. His wife's laughter grew faint, his daughter's small hand slipping further and further from his mind. Names dissolved. The moments that made him human bled into nothingness.
Soon, he could no longer remember the color of Solaria's eyes. He could not remember the sound of his daughter's voice. He could not remember the warmth of their embrace.
All that remained was the urge, an instinct carved so deep into him it outlived identity. The urge to find them. The urge to return. It howled at him through every rebirth, guiding him like a phantom.
And so he continued.
World after world, body after body. He erupted like a black sun, annihilating cities, tearing planets into shreds, dragging down millions of lives with him, not because he hated them, not because he was careless, but because killing himself was the fastest way to move forward. A shortcut through eternity.
But the cost was written into his soul. His starlight flickered with cracks, burning ragged at the edges, leaking darkness into the void. What had once been the might of a king now pulsed like the heartbeat of something half-broken, half-mad.
For a time, he forgot who he was. For a time, he existed only as destruction given flesh.
And yet… deep in the ruins of his fading self, the image of them endured. A woman's shadow. A child's cry. Fragile threads that refused to snap, even as everything else fell away.
For centuries, Yohan chased ghosts through fire and blood, his soul decaying, his mind unraveling until the Archangel of Death finally found him.
"FIND THEM save FAMILY must FIND can't fail DIE faster SAVE my child AVENGE hate VENTRIS ZERVAS brother DEAD stop KILL hurting FASTER them DIE innocent DIE FASTER, FIND THEM tired PROTECT you HURRY deserve NOT AGAIN alone ALONE ALONE ALONE ALONE ALONE DIE ALONE ALONE FAILURE"
The voices shrieked in his skull, jagged, endless.
The planet beneath him cracked apart, starlight pouring from his veins, when the phantom of Aurelius appeared. But Yohan didn't even see him as himself only another obstacle. With a feral snarl, he lunged.
"You've lost yourself boy! do you think she would look at you now with the same eyes?" Aurelius tried, wings flashing, claws raised.
"Shut up!" Yohan bellowed, his fist smashing into the phantom's chest. The two clashed in a storm of shadow and flame, every blow cratering the void they fought in. Aurelius tried words between strikes.
"This isn't you! Look at what you've done! You've become worse than your enemies."
Yohan beat him down mercilessly, starlight flaring wild, until the fragment cracked apart into shards of memory and was gone.
Breathing ragged, Yohan raised his head only to feel the air freeze.
"You finally stopped running," came the voice, crisp and heavy as a judge's gavel.
Azrael, Archangel of Death, stepped forward from the rift. Golden hair, short and neatly cut wings like obsidian blades unfolded behind him, etched with runes that pulsed with cold authority. His sapphire eyes locked on Yohan, narrowing at the horns, the aura.
"Aurelius." he said.
Yohan's snarl tore through the silence. "How do you know that name?"
Azrael didn't flinch. He raised his hand, and in his palm rested a delicate hair ornament a tiny blue bow. Its jewel glimmered faintly, unmistakably, with Yohan's own energy.
The feral madness cracked. For the first time in centuries, Yohan faltered. His voice broke.
"So..laria…"
Azrael's tone was measured, businesslike.
"Yes. She entrusted this to me. To give to you, if you ever clawed your way back. She is alive but if you want her, you'll need to face what you've become."
Yohan's eyes widened, desperation blazing. With a roar, he launched forward, hand reaching for the bow. "Give it to me!"
Azrael's wings snapped open, blades of death weaving into his hands. "Earn it."
The clash was cataclysmic. Yohan's starlight burst against Azrael's shadowed flame, fists meeting blades, shockwaves ripping through the void. Yohan fought like an animal, every strike driven by desperation, his voice raw with grief.
"WHERE IS SHE?!"
Azrael parried, his voice steady, relentless. "You've destroyed thousands of worlds. You think you deserve her?"
He slammed a blade across Yohan's chest, sparks flying. "Gods and mortals alike recoil from your name. You are no longer the man she loved, you're a monst-."
Yohan's roar split the void as he grabbed Azrael by the throat and hurled him into the wreckage of a shattered moon. His starlight flared hotter, brighter. He was stronger, but wild, every move reckless.
Azrael pushed to his feet, bow still in hand. His words cut sharper than his blades. "Every innocent you've slaughtered weighs on her heart. Do you think she'd welcome you like this?"
Yohan crashed into him at full force, the collision sending them both into the crust of a barren moon, Azrael coughing up blood as his body made impact.
"What in the 99 heavens is this guy!? I knew he was strong but this is ridiculous, I think my wrist is broken."
Azrael looked at the man in front of him and realized that this was not going to be easy, in fact for the first time in eons he would have to fight for his life.
Yohan's fists hammered down again and again, forcing Azrael back, pressing into him and as he was about to lose consciousness, he looked into the eyes of the wild beast in front of him that showed no signs of easing up and in that moment really felt as if his life was about to end.
Sparks and fire cascading with each blow. But his strikes grew uneven. His vision blurred. And when his eyes locked on the bow again, dangling on the angel's limp hand memories slammed into him, Solaria's laughter, her voice calling his name, the warmth of her hand.
The feral rage cracked.
Yohan staggered mid-swing, chest heaving. His claws trembled in the air inches from Azrael's throat. Tears welled, unbidden, as the voices in his head sputtered and faltered.
"Sol, Val…" His voice broke into a sob. "I… I just wanted to see them again…"
Azrael, trying to regain his composure, stilled his heart that had not raced like this in eons. He fixed his now broken glasses and raised the bow so the jewel's glow met Yohan's tear-streaked face.
"Then stop running. Stop destroying. If you want your family back, find them as the man they remember, not the beast you've become."
Yohan's knees hit the ground, his aura dimming from storm to ember. For the first time in centuries, he wasn't screaming. He wasn't destroying. He was simply crying, hands trembling toward the bow.
"Help….me."
Azrael knelt, placing a hand on his shoulder, tone soft but firm. "You are strong enough to stop this cycle. Strong enough to be more than a curse. The choice is yours, Yohan."
And in that stillness, the madness finally loosened its grip.
Yohan knelt in silence, the shimmer of his starlight flickering like dying embers. His fists shook as the weight of centuries pressed down the screams of billions he had silenced, the endless deaths, the futility of it all.
Azrael didn't let go of his shoulder. His tone remained even, professional, the kind of voice that dealt with absolutes.
"I knew you the moment your broadcast began, that was the first time I had seen a god act with such… humanity. I found it compelling. When Solaria appeared in my office after the Assiah fractured, I understood why."
"She was broken. Her soul wounded by primordial blood magic. Even for me, the wound made by a primordial God was beyond full repair. I let her recover in my office for years, refusing reincarnation in the hope you'd arrive, she's a strong woman, holding out for four centuries..."
His hand lifted the blue bow again, letting its jewel pulse between them.
"When she realized I could not find you because you were killing yourself faster than I could reach you, she gave me this. Proof. A promise that if you ever crawled your way back, I would guide you to her."
Yohan's tears burned hot down his cheeks. "Four hundred years… she waited?"
Azrael's voice was quiet, but precise. "Yes. And eventually, her soul could no longer hold together. I healed what I could, if she reincarnated, she risked losing her memories with such a fractured soul. Still… she was confident."
"She did always have faith in me…more than even myself," Yohan whispered, almost choking on the words.
"Yes she told me that you suffered with self confidence but she was convinced that no matter what, even if she lost her memories, you would make her fall in love with you again."
The words shattered something inside Yohan not rage this time, but the chains of despair. His hands clenched in the dirt, his aura sparking faintly again, not wild but steady.
Azrael continued, "She has already been reborn. I know the world she now walks, though it is not my place to hand her to you. If you want her, if you want to be worthy, you'll need to find her yourself."
Yohan's head bowed, his voice raw. "And my daughter?"
For the first time, Azrael hesitated. His wings twitched, shadows folding in. "…She was not with Lady Solaria when I found her. We have searched, but her trail is veiled even from me and now I have temporarily taken her place as the god of death."
Yohan's jaw clenched, but the madness didn't return. His starlight aura flared low, steady, like a heartbeat.
Azrael stood, drawing himself to full height, wings spanning wide in grim authority. "This is the last chance you will have, Yohan. I can place you in the next cycle, on the very world she has chosen. But the rest… is on you."
Yohan rose slowly, wiping the dust and tears from his face. His voice was hoarse but filled with iron. "I'll find her. No matter what it takes. Even if she doesn't remember me… I'll make her fall in love with me again."
Azrael extended his hand, the bow's jewel pulsing softly between them.
"Then stand Ash Lord. Enough destruction. It is time you start building again."