The world outside the Daeva Expanse erupted. Screams clawed at the air from the Darvaza students, distant and thin even through the shattered barrier. Navid didn't spare them a glance. Above him, the winged colossus cast a shadow over the entire Darvaza Bastion, blotting out the terraces. Javad, his transformed body rippling with dark Prana, merely smiled, a predatory stretch of inhuman lips. “Beautiful, isn’t it, Navid?” Javad’s voice was a low growl, layered with strange harmonics. “The beginning of the end. And you get a front-row seat.” Navid ignored him, spinning to face Kamran, who was a quivering mess on the cracked ground. The senior prodigy stared blankly upward at the monstrous silhouette, his chin slick with drool. He looked like a child who had seen the boogeyman come to life. “Kamran,” Navid’s voice cut through the air, sharp and unyielding, a tone Kamran had never heard from him before. “You see that colossal horror up there? That’s your fault, for being a gullible idiot. But that’s a conversation for another day. Right now, listen closely.” Kamran flinched, snapping his gaze to Navid’s face, indignation warring with panic. “What—what are you even doing? How are you talking to me like this?” Navid stepped closer, his voice dropping to a low, venomous hiss. “Mitra. My sister. She’s out there, somewhere in the panic. You are going to find her. You are going to protect her. And if even a single strand of her hair gets singed, if she gets a single scratch, I will spend every second of eternity, down to the last femtosecond, moving every piece of furniture in your dorm two inches to the left. Then I’ll move it two inches to the right. Then back. Forever. Do you understand?” Kamran’s face went from pale to sickly green. The petty, mundane torture Navid threatened, delivered with such cold intensity, seemed to cut through his terror more effectively than the looming apocalypse. He imagined an eternity of stubbed toes and crooked frames, swallowing dryly at the prospect. “Two… two inches?” he stammered, glancing up at the sky-cleaving beast before snapping back to Navid. “You… you can’t! That’s… that’s just evil!” “Try me,” Navid said, his expression flat. “Now go. And don’t disappoint me.” Kamran scrambled to his feet, a sudden, desperate energy coursing through him. The threat of perpetual domestic inconvenience, more than the giant Daeva, spurred him into action. He scrambled toward the student quarters instead of the main gates, sprinting on rubbery legs. Soraya, who had been watching the exchange with a mixture of awe and utter bewilderment, finally spoke. “Navid, you just… threatened an apocalypse survivor with minor home decor adjustments? And it worked?” “Petty grudges are best served perpetually,” Navid replied, turning his attention to Javad, who was now conjuring massive spheres of concentrated void-Prana. “Alright, scholar. Calculations. Give me everything.” Soraya, despite her initial shock, snapped into focus. Her gaze tracked the colossal fiend, then darted down to Javad. ““The beast isn't fully anchored yet. Its core remains tethered to Javad. The void-Prana spheres it’s projecting are unstable but immense. They’re designed for area denial, not precision strikes. Javad is essentially a conduit, amplifying its power, but he’s also its weak point. The behemoth's attack vectors are predictable—large, sweeping arcs, like a sledge. Slow. Javad, however, is nimble, using its chaos as cover for his more insidious spells.” “Good. Give me the openings,” Navid commanded, already shifting into a low stance. As Javad unleashed a barrage of dark energy orbs, Soraya’s voice became a rapid-fire torrent of data. “First major strike, coming high, right flank! You have a 0.7-second window before impact for a full time-skip. Javad is moving left, setting up a Prana-snare at your nine o’clock. Counter with an instant phase-shift! His next attack will be a ground-rupture, 0.4 seconds after your return!” Navid moved, a blur of motion, a ripple in reality. He flickered out of existence as a void-orb the size of a carriage tore through the space he'd occupied. He reappeared behind Javad, not close enough to strike, but just enough to disrupt the nascent Prana-snare, forcing Javad to grunt in frustration. Then, before the ground could buck and shatter beneath his feet, he vanished again, reappearing on a jagged pillar of rock, high above the fray. “Remarkable,” Javad hissed, his eyes glowing with malevolent amusement. “But you’re only prolonging the inevitable. The Red Moon will rise, and this world will burn. You can’t stop it, Navid. Not alone. And your little friend is only delaying the end of *her* pathetic life.” Javad spread his hands, and the very air around Navid began to shimmer, vibrating with a complex network of temporal energies. A cage of amber light, humming with intricate runes, locked into place around him. It was a time-lock ward, designed to freeze a target outside the flow of reality, a spell so sophisticated only a handful of Void-Touched masters could even attempt it. “A stasis field, Navid,” Javad sneered, his chest puffing out. “Crafted by primeval Chronos-Daeva. Unbreakable once locked. You’ll watch this realm shatter while frozen in place.” The amber cage locked around Navid. Javad laughed, a harsh, guttural sound that echoed through the Expanse. Soraya drew in a sharp breath, stiffening. But Navid didn’t struggle. He didn’t panic. He just… stared at Javad, then slowly, a wide, relaxed smile spread across his face. “This?” Navid’s voice was calm, almost bored, as he tapped a finger against one of the shimmering amber bars. The bar flickered, the runes momentarily losing their intensity. “Oh, Javad, my friend. This old trick?” Javad’s smile faltered. “What are you talking about? It’s unbreakable!” “You really think I wouldn’t recognize your signature Prana weaving?” Navid chuckled, a genuine, mirthful sound. “You used to practice this spell in your sleep. Literally. All those nights you were ‘meditating’ on the dormitory roof, I was there. Just, you know, a few microseconds ahead of you, observing. It took me three years, but I’ve been casually unweaving this particular ward for you, thread by thread, in my off-hours. It’s surprisingly simple once you master the baseline flow.” With a flick of his wrist, Navid walked through the amber bars as if stepping through mist. The elaborate time-lock ward, Javad’s ultimate trap, collapsed into dust, the trapped Prana dissipating into wisps. Javad stared, his monstrous face contorted in disbelief. “No… that’s impossible! No mortal can dismantle that seal!” Navid landed softly before him, his eyes now devoid of all humor, replaced by cold, patient venom. “You hurt my sister, Javad. You broke my trust. And you set this… this abomination into motion.” He raised a hand, Prana swirling around his palm, coalescing into a shimmering blade of pure, concentrated time-energy. “It’s time to pay your dues.” He lunged, the blade arcing with terrifying speed towards Javad’s chest, ready to erase him from existence. But just as the tip kissed Javad’s mutated flesh, the very air ripped open. Not the fragile, shattered barrier of the Expanse, but a gaping void of true reality, darker than the deepest night. From within that nascent rift, something truly enormous emerged. It was not a Daeva, but *the* Daeva. A towering construct of jagged obsidian and raw malice, its silhouette unknown to any Bastion manual. Its eyes, twin pools of pure void, locked onto Javad. A massive, clawed hand, each digit as thick as a carriage, shot out, seizing the cultist. Javad shrieked as the hulking titan seized him, siphoning the traitor's corrupted Prana straight into its black stone carapace. The winged beast overhead shrieked in triumph, its outline locking solid against the ruined clouds. The sky bled. And then, from the rift, stepped a figure wreathed in shadows and burning with the Prana of a hundred dead worlds.

The Petty King