Clara was known to the world as the Spear Master.
It was a convenient misunderstanding.
Titles had a habit of attaching themselves to the first thing the world noticed, and in Clara's case, that had been the weapon she carried when she first began carving her name into the battlefield. A spear had been in her hands during her earliest victories—during the first dungeon clear that placed her name on international watchlists, during the first time she killed a demon lieutenant alone, and during the battle that earned her S-rank recognition.
The world saw the spear.
So the world named her.
But the weapon had never been the source of her strength.
Clara had mastered every melee weapon she had ever touched.
Swords.
Axes.
Halberds.
Twin blades.
Heavy glaives meant for cavalry charges and compact daggers designed for assassination.
She had trained with weapons built for soldiers and weapons designed for monsters.
Some she had studied for years.
Others she had mastered within weeks.
What mattered was not the weapon.
What mattered was experience.
And Clara had more experience than any living human should have possessed.
Because Clara had lived four lives.
And she alone remembered the future of Earth.
First Life — The Age of Ignorance
In her first life, humanity died screaming.
The Gates had appeared suddenly—violently—ripping open the sky across every continent. At first, they had been treated as disasters. Strange phenomena to be contained, studied, perhaps even exploited.
Humanity had believed it could adapt.
Humanity had been wrong.
Monsters poured through the Gates like floodwaters. Entire cities vanished overnight. Superhumans awakened across the globe, but their numbers were small, their coordination nonexistent. Governments argued. Guilds competed. Nations hoarded information instead of sharing it.
Then came the Demon Kings.
Seven of them.
Each embodying one of the Seven Deadly Sins.
And the one that destroyed the world—
Was the Fifth Demon King who burned the earth.
Wrath.
Clara remembered the sky burning red the day he arrived.
There had been no dramatic herald.
No prophecy fulfilled.
Just a sudden surge of pressure across the entire planet—an invisible weight that made every superhuman instinctively understand something catastrophic had entered the world.
Then cities began to disappear.
Not fall.
Not burn.
Erased.
Ira descended upon the world like a god of annihilation. His armies followed behind him—waves of demons that turned continents into battlefields.
Humanity resisted.
Superhumans fought desperately.
Armies mobilized.
Guilds formed alliances.
But Ira did not slow.
Weeks passed.
Then months.
And humanity began to collapse.
Clara had been young then.
Not yet S-rank.
Not yet a master.
She fought because there was nothing else to do.
She survived longer than most.
But survival meant nothing.
Because the world itself was ending.
And when the final war began—when the last surviving superhumans gathered to confront Ira—
Only one man stood long enough to become a legend.
Sky Fist.
Clara still remembered watching him fight.
He stood alone in the ruins of a shattered continent, fists raised, silver mask reflecting the burning sky.
Ira's presence bent reality itself.
Mountains collapsed when they clashed.
Oceans split apart under the shockwaves.
The air itself screamed under the force of their blows.
Sky Fist did not win.
No one did.
But he fought—
Until the world itself ran out of time.
And when everything ended—
Clara died.
Second Life — The Search
Clara woke again.
Years earlier.
Memories intact.
The Gates had not yet appeared.
Humanity was still ignorant.
And Clara understood immediately what had happened.
Regression.
A miracle—
Or perhaps a curse.
She had been given a second chance.
This time, she refused to repeat the same mistakes.
Her plan was simple.
Find Sky Fist.
Help him.
Coordinate with him.
If humanity's strongest warrior had support from the beginning, perhaps the future could be changed.
She searched everywhere.
Records.
Guild archives.
Government databases.
The Heavenly Network.
Every rumor.
Every whisper.
Every unexplained battle.
Sky Fist was nowhere.
No origin.
No registration.
No early combat record.
It was as if the man had appeared from nothing the moment the world needed him.
When Clara finally crossed paths with him years later, it was during a catastrophic dungeon break.
He appeared suddenly.
Silver mask.
Black armor.
Unstoppable.
She tried to speak to him afterward.
He barely acknowledged her.
Sky Fist was not a hero.
He was a weapon.
And weapons did not explain themselves.
They crossed paths several times after that.
Never long.
Never friendly.
He never removed the mask.
He never revealed his identity.
And despite Clara's efforts—
Humanity still died.
But before the end, she learned one thing.
One tiny fragment of truth.
Sky Fist—
Was from Malaysia.
It was almost nothing.
And yet it was the only clue she had ever obtained.
Third Life — The Foundation
In her third life, Clara stopped chasing ghosts.
Instead—
She built something new.
A foundation.
Humanity's greatest weakness in the first two timelines had not been strength.
It had been cooperation.
Guilds had fought each other.
Governments had hoarded information.
Superhumans had competed instead of uniting.
So Clara changed tactics.
She gathered people.
Not the strongest.
Not the most famous.
But the most reliable.
Superhumans who valued cooperation over ego.
Strategists.
Researchers.
Combat specialists.
She built networks.
Intelligence channels.
Funding pipelines.
Safehouses.
Training facilities.
Slowly.
Painfully.
She created something that had never existed before.
A coordinated global force.
And through that network, she gained access to something she had never possessed before.
Heavenly Eye.
A powerful intelligence system capable of tracking nearly every registered superhuman on the planet.
And eventually—
She found him.
Not Sky Fist.
Isey.
A civilian.
A husband.
A father.
Completely ordinary.
His records showed no legendary battles.
No overwhelming feats.
Nothing remarkable.
For most of that life, Isey was simply… there.
Invisible in plain sight.
Until the world began to burn again.
Then Sky Fist appeared.
The same mask.
The same overwhelming power.
Clara approached him carefully this time.
She knew too much.
And Sky Fist trusted no one.
Their cooperation was fragile.
Tense.
Before the final battle with one of the Demon Kings, he gave her a condition.
"If you want my trust," he said, voice calm behind the mask,
"sign a contract."
"One you can't break."
"And give me collateral."
Clara agreed.
Because she already knew the outcome.
Even with her preparations—
Humanity still lost.
Fourth Life — The Unknown
Now Clara lived her fourth life.
This time—
She moved immediately.
No hesitation.
No wasted years.
She spent exactly one year preparing.
Building resources.
Gathering allies.
Securing leverage.
And then she went directly to him.
Not Sky Fist.
Isey.
This time, she brought something new.
A supreme-grade contract.
Forged by Contract Meister Rodrick himself.
A binding so absolute that even SS-ranked superhumans could not escape it.
The terms were simple.
For five years, Clara would obey Isey's orders—
As long as those orders did not endanger her life or betray humanity.
No hidden clauses.
No traps.
No loopholes.
In effect—
She was offering herself as a voluntary slave.
Isey read the contract once.
Then signed it.
And everything went wrong.
Not catastrophically wrong.
But unpredictably wrong.
He did not command her.
He did not demand information about the future.
He did not ask what she knew.
Instead—
He introduced her to a new organization.
Ultimatum.
And then—
He ignored her.
Two full years passed.
Isey never called on her.
Never questioned her.
Never even hinted that he suspected her knowledge of future events.
In fact, Clara never even saw him fight openly during that time. He maintained his façade as an E-ranked superhuman with perfect consistency.
Clara waited.
And waited.
Trying to understand.
Until the truth detonated everything she thought she knew.
Isey—
Was Sky Fist.
But not the same Sky Fist.
The revelation struck harder than any Demon Lord.
Because it shattered every assumption she had built across three lives.
Ultimatum had never existed before.
Isey's abilities were completely different from the Sky Fist she remembered. In previous timelines, Sky Fist fought valiantly—but he was never restricted.
There had never been a Joker-ranked classification of abilities.
And worst of all—
He was unpredictable.
He used his ultimate skill to kill a Demon King almost on a whim—something the previous Sky Fist had never been able to achieve so cleanly, so decisively.
Clara stared at the man she had bound herself to.
The man she believed to be humanity's final weapon.
And realized something terrifying.
Regression no longer gave her certainty.
The future was broken.
Unpredictable.
Unmapped.
Isey was stronger than Sky Fist had ever been in previous timelines.
Yet he had obvious weaknesses.
Obvious vulnerabilities.
This was a path no previous timeline had followed.
No memory could guide her.
No experience could guarantee survival.
Standing at the edge of certainty, Clara felt something unfamiliar tighten in her chest.
Fear.
Not of demons.
Not of death.
But of the simple truth—
That for the first time since her power awakened—
Even she no longer knew how the world would end.
And in that uncertainty—
For the first time across four lives—
Clara understood what it meant to face the future
Without control.