Performing ./gradlew assembleRelease and hit the issue of this. Below shows the entire error log...

> Task :app:mergeDexRelease FAILED
java.nio.file.NoSuchFileException: /Users/path/Desktop/project/android/app/build/intermediates/external_file_lib_dex_archives/release/out
        at java.base/sun.nio.fs.UnixException.translateToIOException(UnixException.java:92)
        at java.base/sun.nio.fs.UnixException.rethrowAsIOException(UnixException.java:111)
        at java.base/sun.nio.fs.UnixException.rethrowAsIOException(UnixException.java:116)
        at java.base/sun.nio.fs.UnixFileSystemProvider.newDirectoryStream(UnixFileSystemProvider.java:412)
        at java.base/java.nio.file.Files.newDirectoryStream(Files.java:472)
        at java.base/java.nio.file.Files.list(Files.java:3699)
        at com.android.build.gradle.internal.tasks.DexMergingParams.getAllDexFiles(DexMergingTask.kt:502)
        at com.android.build.gradle.internal.tasks.DexMergingTaskRunnable.run(DexMergingTask.kt:423)
        at com.android.build.gradle.internal.tasks.Workers$ActionFacade.run(Workers.kt:335)
        at org.gradle.workers.internal.AdapterWorkAction.execute(AdapterWorkAction.java:57)
        at org.gradle.workers.internal.DefaultWorkerServer.execute(DefaultWorkerServer.java:63)
        at org.gradle.workers.internal.NoIsolationWorkerFactory$1$1.create(NoIsolationWorkerFactory.java:66)
        at org.gradle.workers.internal.NoIsolationWorkerFactory$1$1.create(NoIsolationWorkerFactory.java:62)
        at org.gradle.internal.classloader.ClassLoaderUtils.executeInClassloader(ClassLoaderUtils.java:98)
        at org.gradle.workers.internal.NoIsolationWorkerFactory$1.lambda$execute$0(NoIsolationWorkerFactory.java:62)
        at org.gradle.workers.internal.AbstractWorker$1.call(AbstractWorker.java:44)
        at org.gradle.workers.internal.AbstractWorker$1.call(AbstractWorker.java:41)
        at org.gradle.internal.operations.DefaultBuildOperationExecutor$CallableBuildOperationWorker.execute(DefaultBuildOperationExecutor.java:416)
        at org.gradle.internal.operations.DefaultBuildOperationExecutor$CallableBuildOperationWorker.execute(DefaultBuildOperationExecutor.java:406)
        at org.gradle.internal.operations.DefaultBuildOperationExecutor$1.execute(DefaultBuildOperationExecutor.java:165)
        at org.gradle.internal.operations.DefaultBuildOperationExecutor.execute(DefaultBuildOperationExecutor.java:250)
        at org.gradle.internal.operations.DefaultBuildOperationExecutor.execute(DefaultBuildOperationExecutor.java:158)
        at org.gradle.internal.operations.DefaultBuildOperationExecutor.call(DefaultBuildOperationExecutor.java:102)
        at org.gradle.internal.operations.DelegatingBuildOperationExecutor.call(DelegatingBuildOperationExecutor.java:36)
        at org.gradle.workers.internal.AbstractWorker.executeWrappedInBuildOperation(AbstractWorker.java:41)
        at org.gradle.workers.internal.NoIsolationWorkerFactory$1.execute(NoIsolationWorkerFactory.java:59)
        at org.gradle.workers.internal.DefaultWorkerExecutor.lambda$submitWork$2(DefaultWorkerExecutor.java:198)
        at java.base/java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:264)
        at org.gradle.internal.work.DefaultConditionalExecutionQueue$ExecutionRunner.runExecution(DefaultConditionalExecutionQueue.java:215)
        at org.gradle.internal.work.DefaultConditionalExecutionQueue$ExecutionRunner.runBatch(DefaultConditionalExecutionQueue.java:164)
        at org.gradle.internal.work.DefaultConditionalExecutionQueue$ExecutionRunner.run(DefaultConditionalExecutionQueue.java:131)
        at java.base/java.util.concurrent.Executors$RunnableAdapter.call(Executors.java:515)
        at java.base/java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:264)
        at org.gradle.internal.concurrent.ExecutorPolicy$CatchAndRecordFailures.onExecute(ExecutorPolicy.java:64)
        at org.gradle.internal.concurrent.ManagedExecutorImpl$1.run(ManagedExecutorImpl.java:48)
        at java.base/java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1128)
        at java.base/java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:628)
        at org.gradle.internal.concurrent.ThreadFactoryImpl$ManagedThreadRunnable.run(ThreadFactoryImpl.java:56)
        at java.base/java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:834)

w: Detected multiple Kotlin daemon sessions at build/kotlin/sessions

FAILURE: Build failed with an exception.

* What went wrong:
Execution failed for task ':app:mergeDexRelease'.
> A failure occurred while executing com.android.build.gradle.internal.tasks.Workers$ActionFacade
   > java.nio.file.NoSuchFileException: /Users/path/Desktop/project/android/app/build/intermediates/external_file_lib_dex_archives/release/out

Some story

During the debugging of this "multiple Koltin" issue, I found out that my NDK wasn't install. Hence I went to SDK Manager and install the NDK (Side by side). Then issue of toolchain occurred, shown as below.

No toolchains found in the NDK toolchains folder for ABI with prefix: arm-linux-androideabi

Fixed was done by downloading older NDK version, android-ndk-r19c and pointed the NDK path in my local.properties.

Local.properties

sdk.dir=/Users/path/Library/Android/sdk
ndk.dir=/Users/path/Library/Android/android-ndk-r19c

TLDR

What I've tried

./gradlew clean && ./gradlew assembleRelease
Appending the following code + Step 1

# FILE 1: Gradle.properties
org.gradle.jvmargs=-Xmx4096m -XX:MaxPermSize=1024m -XX:+HeapDumpOnOutOfMemoryError -Dfile.encoding=UTF-8

# FILE 2: app/build.gradle ( under android{} )
dexOptions {
        incremental true
        javaMaxHeapSize "4g"
}

My project env

react: 16.13.1 => 16.13.1 
react-native: 0.63.2 => 0.63.2

My Project Structure

Any idea what causes this issue and how to fix this? 🆘