The world did not end all at once.
It unraveled.
Cracks raced across the realm like veins splitting open, light bleeding through fractures that should not exist. The abyss howled—not in pain, but in outrage—an ancient thing being denied its dominion.
Shou Feng stood unmoved at the center of it all.
Darkness coiled around him, obedient, alive. It bent toward his will the way lesser beings bent their knees.
Anna struggled against his grip. "Shou Feng—listen to me. This place isn't your enemy."
His eyes lowered to her at last.
Black. Endless. Unreadable.
"You speak," he said, "as if this realm has the right to exist after touching you."
Her breath hitched. "You don't own me."
Silence.
Not explosive.
Not loud.
The kind that sharpened blades.
Slowly, he leaned closer, his presence suffocating, voice dropping into something almost intimate—almost cruel.
"I do not need to own what already answers to my reach."
The words should have terrified her.
They did.
And yet, beneath the fear, something else trembled—recognition.
The chains behind them shrieked again, snapping apart as a massive section of the realm collapsed into nothingness. The abyss convulsed, folding inward like a dying lung.
Shou Feng released her wrist at last, but stepped in front of her instead, cloak flaring as debris rained down and dissolved before it could touch her.
Anna stared at his back.
At how instinctively he placed himself between her and destruction.
"You're going to tear reality open," she said. "This isn't a battlefield."
He glanced over his shoulder, expression cold, almost bored. "Everything is a battlefield."
A shockwave rippled through the realm as Renji burst through a rupture in space, landing hard on fractured ground. His aura flared, death-energy crackling like restrained lightning.
"Enough!" Renji shouted. "This realm was never meant to be breached. You're destabilizing the seals across three planes—"
Shou Feng turned fully now.
The air bent.
Renji froze mid-step, veins of shadow wrapping around his limbs, pinning him in place without a single visible motion.
"You speak," Shou Feng said calmly, "as though I require permission."
Renji gritted his teeth, struggling against the invisible force. "This isn't about authority—it's about consequence! Even gods fall when they confuse obsession for—"
The word never finished.
Shou Feng's gaze sharpened.
The pressure increased.
Renji dropped to one knee with a strangled gasp, cracks spreading beneath him.
Anna moved without thinking. "Stop!"
The shadows hesitated.
Just for a breath.
Shou Feng did not look at her, but the force holding Renji eased slightly—enough to let him breathe.
Renji noticed.
His eyes widened.
Interesting.
Dangerous.
"You protect him now?" Shou Feng asked Anna, tone flat.
"No," she said. "I'm stopping you."
That finally made him turn.
Fully.
His expression was unreadable, but something dark flickered beneath the surface—annoyance, perhaps. Or curiosity.
"You should not interfere," he said. "You were not forged for this."
"I wasn't forged at all," Anna replied. "That's the point."
For a moment, the god of destruction simply studied her, as though trying to decide whether she was fragile… or foolish.
Then the realm screamed again.
A colossal presence began to rise from beneath the shattered land—an echo of the abyss itself, enraged, wounded.
The entity returned, larger now, its form splitting into multiple shifting silhouettes. "You would defy the laws written before your creation," it roared. "You would burn eternity for a mortal?"
Shou Feng laughed.
Low.
Soft.
Terrifying.
"You mistake her for the reason," he said. "She is merely the variable."
Anna's chest tightened. Variable.
The entity recoiled. "You lie to yourself, Destroyer."
Shou Feng lifted one hand.
The darkness answered instantly.
"No," he said. "I deny you relevance."
The abyss-entity shattered—its scream cut short as it was pulled apart, compressed into nothingness, erased so completely the realm trembled at the absence it left behind.
Anna stared, breathless.
Renji felt it then.
The shift.
This wasn't wrath.
This wasn't conquest.
This was pursuit.
Shou Feng turned back to Anna, the collapsing world reflected in his eyes.
"This place can no longer hold you," he said. "Neither can any that follow."
"And if I don't want to go with you?" she asked quietly.
The ground split between them.
Flames and shadow surged upward, held back only by his will.
His voice dropped. "You will."
Not as a threat.
As a fact.
Kiyoshi appeared again at the edge of the dying realm, flute trembling in his hands, face pale. "Shou Feng… if you take her beyond this point, fate will twist. Paths will close."
"Let them," Shou Feng replied.
The sky above them folded inward, forming a spiraling gateway of black and crimson light.
Anna felt it then—something pulling at her chest, at the healing power inside her, reacting to him.
"Shou Feng," she said softly, "you don't know what you're doing."
He stepped closer, stopping just inches away.
His voice lowered, dangerous and quiet. "I know exactly what I am doing."
For a heartbeat, his gaze lingered on her face—longer than necessary. As if searching for something he refused to name.
Then he turned, extending a hand—not asking.
Claiming passage.
"Come," he said. "Before this realm finishes dying."
Behind them, Renji watched in silence, realization settling cold and sharp in his chest.
This was no longer about power.
And Shou Feng was already too far gone to see it.
Anna hesitated—
Then the world gave way beneath her feet.
And she stepped into the dark with the God of Destruction.
---
To be continued.