The match took place in the Obsidian Colosseum, a massive crater in the Iron Spire territory. Thousands of Malphas's demons sat in the stands, their roars sounding like the crashing of stormy seas. On one side stood Malphas, a demon draped in gold and arrogance. On the other side stood Rudra's team, calm and lethal.
"The first round begins now!" a herald cried.
From Rudra's side, his brothers Sai and Jaswanth stepped forward. From Malphas's side, two nightmare-tier demons emerged: Jagan and Nani. These weren't ordinary demons; they were "Soul-Eaters," elite warriors who had lived for a thousand years.
The Clash of Brothers
The fight began with a deafening explosion of energy. Sai, with his agility, and Jaswanth, with his defensive prowess, charged. But Jagan and Nani were faster than they expected. Nani moved like a flickering flame, his claws leaving trails of corrosive acid in the air, while Jagan used a massive war-hammer that distorted gravity with every swing.
Sai and Jaswanth found themselves on the defensive immediately. They were fighting well, their Ace-rank logos glowing bright, but they were not in sync. Jagan's hammer slammed into the ground, creating a shockwave that sent Sai flying. Before Nani could deliver a killing blow to the mid-air Sai, Jaswanth moved.
"Block!" Jaswanth roared, creating a shimmering hexagonal shield of pure energy. He took the full brunt of Nani's acid claws. The shield hissed and cracked, but Jaswanth stood his ground, protecting his brother.
"Get up, Sai!" Jaswanth gritted his teeth, his arms trembling under the pressure. "We are the brothers of the King! We don't fall here!"
The Power-Up: Singularity and the Sun
The desperation of the moment triggered something deep within their bloodlines. The 20% resonance from Rudra's presence in the arena began to fuel them.
Sai's eyes turned a piercing white. He felt the space around him warping. "I've got it, Jaswanth. Move!"
Sai unleashed his new skill: Singularity. He focused all his energy into a single point in front of Jagan. The air began to split as he attempted to "Split" the demon's very molecular structure. It was a terrifying move, but Jagan was an elite. He slammed his hammer into the ground, calling forth a Thunder Attack.
Huge bolts of black lightning erupted from the hammer, intercepting Sai's Singularity. The collision created a vacuum that sucked the oxygen out of the arena. Jaswanth, seeing the lightning heading for his brother, threw himself into the path of the bolt.
The black lightning hit Jaswanth directly. He screamed in agony as the electricity fried his nerves, but instead of dying, his temper—the famous Rudra-line rage—took over.
Jaswanth's body began to glow. Not with the dim light of an Ace, but with the blinding, searing radiance of a Miniature Sun. His rank flickered, momentarily touching the border of Commander.
"You want to play with light?" Jaswanth's voice was distorted, sounding like sun-flares.
In a heartbeat, Jaswanth moved. He was no longer just fast; he was faster than light. He became a golden blur that the demons couldn't even track with their twelve eyes. BOOM! A punch landed on Nani's chest, vaporizing his armor instantly. CRACK! Another strike broke Jagan's hammer into a thousand pieces.
Jaswanth was a whirlwind of solar fury, his fists raining down like meteors. The demons, Jagan and Nani, were being beaten to the verge of death, their immortal bodies shattering under the heat.
The Tragic Collapse
But the "Antham" energy Jaswanth was tapping into was too much for his current vessel. He hadn't mastered the soul-control that Rudra possessed. As he prepared for the final, killing strike, his golden glow suddenly sputtered and died.
His energy levels hit zero. The "Sun" vanished, leaving Jaswanth standing in the center of the arena, his muscles torn and his eyes glazed with exhaustion. He fell to his knees, his chest heaving.
Sai, also exhausted from the Singularity, tried to reach him, but Jagan—bleeding and broken but still alive—snarled.
"You ran out of fuel, little sun," Jagan hissed, his eyes filled with a psycho-hunger.
The two demons, driven by a primal need to recover their strength, didn't use their weapons. They reverted to their beastial forms. They lunged at the helpless Jaswanth. Before the horrified eyes of Rudra, Isha, and the team, the two demons began to eat Jaswanth alive, tearing at his shoulders and chest with their fangs.
"JASWANTH!" Sai screamed, trying to crawl forward, but the black lightning had paralyzed his legs.
The demons growled as they bit into Jaswanth's flesh, the sound of tearing muscle echoing through the silent Colosseum. Malphas laughed from his throne, enjoying the sight of a "King's Brother" being consumed.
Rudra stood up from his seat. The ground beneath his feet turned into liquid glass. His aura didn't just grow; it became an absolute vacuum of death.
The first round was not over, but the price of the battle had just become too high.The iron-scented air of the Obsidian Colosseum was pierced by a sound that made even the most cold-blooded demons shudder. It was the sound of Sai's heartbreak. Watching his brother, Jaswanth, being torn apart—flesh from bone, soul from vessel—snapped the final thread of Sai's restraint.
Sai's legs, previously paralyzed by the black lightning, began to smoke. The electricity didn't fade; it was being absorbed into his marrow. Tears of rage streamed down his face, evaporating before they could hit the ground because of the sheer heat radiating from his skin.
He didn't just stand up; he defied the very gravity of Hell.
"Stop... touching... my brother!" Sai's voice wasn't a scream. It was a distorted frequency, a vibration that cracked the stone floor beneath him.
The two demons, Jagan and Nani, looked up with blood-dripping maws, laughing. "What will you do, little fly? Your sun has set. Now we will eat his heart and then yours."
Sai didn't blink. He closed his eyes and reached into the deepest, most microscopic level of his consciousness. He remembered Rudra's lesson: The End is not a punch; it is a fundamental correction of reality. Sai found his Command.
"Antham... Kanalavu, loni shetty!" (The End... The internal strength of the atom!)
The Smallest Power in the Universe
Suddenly, Sai disappeared. He didn't move fast; he simply ceased to be visible to the naked eye. Using the Antham property of his command, Sai had shrunk his physical presence to a sub-atomic level while retaining the mass and kinetic energy of a King-rank warrior.
To the audience and the demons, it looked like Sai had vanished into thin air. But Jagan and Nani suddenly felt it.
Slice.
Nani's arm fell off, cut as cleanly as if a laser had passed through it.
Slice. Slice. Slice.
The two demons were being disassembled. Sai was moving through their bodies at a molecular level, splitting their atoms as he passed. Jagan and Nani were being split like apples, their flesh falling away in perfect, geometric layers.
"REGENERATE!" Jagan roared in agony, his demon blood boiling as he tried to heal the massive gaps in his torso. His immortal cells knitted together at a furious pace, but Sai was faster.
Sai reappeared in the center of the ring, but he was no longer the younger, weaker brother. He was glowing. It wasn't the warm, solar glow Jaswanth had exhibited; this was a Blinding Supernova. Sai's aura was 10,000 times more powerful than the energy Jaswanth had reached. He looked like a god made of pure, white-hot plasma.
The Black Aura of Deletion
"You think you can heal from the End?" Sai whispered.
He unleashed his Black Aura. It wasn't fire; it was a field of absolute entropy. He flew toward the demons, landing punches that sounded like cannon fire. Every time his fist touched them, a section of the demons' bodies didn't just break—it turned into Ash.
Sai was no longer just fighting; he was performing a ritual of deletion. He hit Jagan with a flurry of a hundred strikes in a single second. With each blow, Jagan's screams grew weaker until his massive frame began to crumble into grey dust.
Nani tried to flee, but Sai moved like a localized singularity. He caught Nani by the throat. The white glow of Sai's power merged with the black aura of his "Antham."
"For Jaswanth," Sai growled.
With a final surge of energy, Sai triggered a molecular explosion within Nani's chest. There was no blood, no gore—only a flash of light so bright it blinded Malphas's spectators. When the light faded, the two demons were gone. Not a single cell remained to regenerate.
Round 1: Winners – Sai and Jaswanth.
The King's Mercy
Sai's glow faded as he collapsed next to the mutilated body of Jaswanth. He pulled his brother's head into his lap, sobbing. Jaswanth's breathing was a wet, rattling sound. His shoulders were gone, his chest a hollow ruin where the demons had feasted.
The arena went silent. The demons in the stands were paralyzed by the display of power they had just witnessed from a "human."
Rudra stepped down from his seat. He didn't walk; he glided across the arena floor, the ground turning to glass under his feet. He reached his brothers and knelt beside them.
Isha and Pooja ran to join them, but Rudra raised a hand. "Wait."
Rudra placed his palms over Jaswanth's horrific wounds. He tapped into the 20% ancestral power he had recently awakened. He whispered a reverse-command, a healing property of the Antham law—the end of pain.
A soft, violet light flowed from Rudra's hands into Jaswanth. Before their eyes, the torn muscle began to regrow. The skin stitched itself back together, covering the exposed bone. The color returned to Jaswanth's face as his heart rate stabilized.
Jaswanth opened his eyes, coughing out a bit of dark blood before looking up at Rudra and Sai.
Rudra helped both of them stand up. He placed a heavy, proud hand on Sai's shoulder and grabbed Jaswanth's arm firmly.
"You both did it," Rudra said, his voice deep and filled with a rare, genuine warmth. "You didn't just win a match. You survived the darkness of the abyss. Jaswanth, you showed the heart of a sun. Sai, you showed the power of the void."
Rudra looked into their eyes, his own stars shining with pride. "You are no longer just my younger brothers. You are Soldiers of the End. I am proud of you both, my brothers."
Sai and Jaswanth leaned on each other, their bond forged in the literal fires of Hell. They had looked into the eyes of death and didn't blink.
Malphas, watching from his golden throne, was trembling. His plan to humiliate the King's family had failed. Instead, he had just witnessed the birth of two new monsters.
Rudra turned his gaze toward Malphas, his eyes turning cold again. "Round one is ours. Who is