"Changing the future… is the future as well."
The angel's voice was calm—too calm—as he uttered the divine law. The glowing cube in his hand ignited with radiant power, flooding the cave of crystals with waves of white light so pure, it felt like it could sear through time itself.
The air crackled.
The ground beneath them shifted, groaning as if reacting to something primordial—something not meant to exist in this world.
Bhishma froze—not in fear, but in recognition.
His young eyes, ancient in experience, widened with clarity.
"That technique…" he whispered, taking a half-step back. "That's… Kalavartana. The lost oath-art. The one yet to descend from Lord Shiva to Parashurama…""How do you—?"
The angel didn't answer.
His cube spun slowly in his palm, each rotation distorting possibility itself. His wings—feathers of light, not flesh—remained still. He didn't need to move. The future moved for him.
Atama, leaning on a large shard of glowing crystal, casually tossed a piece of that weird fruit he'd been eating into the air, caught it, and shrugged.
"Even with infinite thoughts in a second… that?" he muttered, eyebrows raised. "That's not much beyond me."
His tone was relaxed, but his eyes were narrowed now—calculating, like someone watching a storm approach from the edge of reason.
Seko, still recovering from his earlier dodge, stared at the scene in silence. His vampire senses were ringing. That cube… it wasn't just altering outcomes—it was threading future timelines together, weaving them into a script that couldn't be broken unless—
Unless someone moved outside the script.
Kiyomi, arms out, had just finished forming the shield that protected them from the initial burst of divine energy. But her focus was locked on Bhishma—no, not as a child anymore, but as a being far older and sharper than he appeared.
Bhishma moved.
Fast.
Too fast for what looked like a ten-year-old.
His movements were ancient: he spun a half-forgotten staff-form from the Mahāvidya schools, transitioned into an airborne kick that mirrored Yuddha Kalari, and invoked a mantra burst with his bare hand mid-air.
The angel dodged them all—not with effort, but effortlessly.
"I've already seen this happen," Luzriel said flatly."You are brave, but you are bound."
The cube glowed again. A ripple passed through Bhishma's body as if destiny itself had been rewritten mid-sentence. His next step fumbled. His balance wavered.
Seko's pupils narrowed.Time... had corrected him.
Kiyomi gritted her teeth.
"He's not just predicting… he's editing."
The battle continued, and Bhishma—despite his experience and skill—was losing ground. Not because he lacked power, but because every decision he made was already anticipated.
And then… Bhishma stopped.
His chest rose and fell slowly.
He closed his eyes.
And smiled.
"You win because you know what I'll do," he said softly, lifting his head to face the angel."But tell me this, divine one…What do you do when someone chooses the future even they don't know?"
Luzriel's glow faltered for a moment. The cube slowed its spin.Even the air felt heavier.
Atama's eyes widened.
"No way," he said aloud. "He's not about to—"
Bhishma let go.
Of logic.Of form.Of calculation.Of structured art.
He began to move with pure instinct, without rhythm, without reason.
His steps were wild, unpredictable.His body twisted unnaturally, awkwardly even.But in that chaos—he became untrackable.
Seko whispered, barely audible:
"He's… blindfolding fate…"
He struck.
And this time—Luzriel dodged late. Not by much. Just a few millimeters. But it was enough for Bhishma to graze the divine cube with his blade.
The light dimmed.
Not vanished—just hesitated.
Luzriel stepped back, raising an eyebrow.
"So… this is how you fight the future," he said, voice calm, but layered with newfound respect.
"You abandon it completely."
And in that moment—the battle changed.
The divine cube flickered.
Then—
CRACK.
The sound wasn't loud, but it echoed across all possible moments at once, like something that didn't belong in time had just… snapped.
Luzriel's eyes widened—not in pain, but in existential confusion.
Bhishma looked up, confused himself. He hadn't landed that blow yet. His strike was still winding, mid-arc. And yet—
The cube—
Was fractured.
Small shards floated away like stilled starlight, disconnected from the divine structure of fate.
Seko stood behind Luzriel, eyes cold and focused, a piece of the cube's shattered edge in his hand.
"This was done in every future, wasn't it?" he asked softly, almost mockingly."Yet somehow, I'm not in any of them…"
Luzriel didn't respond.
He couldn't.
Because suddenly—nothing made sense.
He scanned timelines—billions of them in less than a second. Every path, every thread of reality, converging and diverging around Bhishma, Atama, Kiyomi—
But not Seko.
"You didn't happen in any…You weren't in the variables…Why weren't you ever there?What is going on in this reality…?"
His thoughts spun wildly, attempting to recompose divine logic.
But that hesitation—That single vulnerability—
Was all Bhishma needed.
His blade, guided now by instinct and the void left by uncertainty, drove forward and—
Pierced Luzriel's chest.
No blood.
No sound.
Only light—pouring out of the wound like a dying star exhaling its final breath.
Luzriel's body disintegrated not violently, but gracefully—like existence un-writing a mistake.
He was—
Deleted.
Gone.
The light faded. The cave dimmed.Silence ruled.
And then—everything froze.
Time stopped.
Again.
Everything.
Except Bhishma.Except Atama.Except Seko.
Kiyomi stood still, mid-motion, shield half-raised.Crystals hung motionless in the air, frozen mid-fall.The cave no longer echoed. Even sound had abandoned them.
Bhishma exhaled slowly.
"It's happening again…"
He looked to Atama, who wasn't even looking surprised—just annoyed, as though someone had paused his favorite meal again.
"I swear, if the universe doesn't stop freezing time every damn week…"
But his voice trailed off as a faint ringing filled the stillness.
Not a sound. A presence.
Seko stood perfectly still, eyes narrowed, like a predator sensing an incoming god.
Then—
A voice.
Not loud. Not booming.
Just present.
"That wasn't supposed to happen…You, Seko…You were never supposed to exist outside my scripts."
The light in the cave dimmed further, as if the concept of control itself was retreating.
And then—
A ripple.Reality itself shivered.
Bhishma clenched his fists.Atama's usual nonchalance finally gave way to focused silence.
Seko didn't blink.
"Then I guess your script needs a rewrite."
And deep, deep beneath the world—
Something woke up. Something Eternal, It didn't take much time for all of them to shiver in complicated feelings, They were confused, including Atama which was rare.
Then-A figure appeared, radiating with divine energy, His skin black like the sky when it was raining lightly. The figure was Omnipresent.