Xyphira's boots struck the crystal surface with a sharp clack. She held Ichikawa tight, her snowy wings shielding him from the lingering atmospheric friction until they stood steady.
Ichikawa pushed himself upright. He felt light—not the weightless grace of a God, but the terrifying lightness of a hollow shell. Without the siphon of the red ring, his muscles felt human. His breath was short. He looked down at his bare, bloodied hand where the grey ring had once sat.
"I am a Zero," he whispered, his voice low and vibrating with a new, dangerous frequency.
He looked up. In the depths of his sapphire-blue eyes, a sharp red glint flickered like a dying ember catching wind. It wasn't divine mana—it was the raw, concentrated essence of a soul that had lost everything and decided it no longer cared about survival.
"I may be a powerless God," Ichikawa said, his gaze fixed on the horizon where the Unknown Figure had vanished. "I may have been a parasite living on my mother's breath. But I will still find him. I will still kill him. I'll use my teeth if I have to. I'll use the void he left inside me to swallow him whole."
Ruleus stepped forward, his dark, chaotic aura still licking the air like black flames. He didn't look at Ichikawa. He stared at his own hands—hands that had transcended time and space, yet failed to reach out a few inches to save a woman who was like a mother to him.
"Fight until death?" Ruleus muttered, let out a dry, jagged laugh that sounded like glass breaking. "Death would be a deadass mercy, Ichikawa-kun. I'll fight until there's nothing left to delete. I don't care about the 'Story' anymore. I don't care about the 'Gaps' or the 'Balance.'"
He slammed his fist against his chest, his silver eyes bleeding into a dark, abyssal grey. "I hate myself. I hate that I spent five years making jokes while the world prepared to slit our throats. I will not forgive him. I will not forgive the universe. And I sure as hell won't forgive myself until that being is nothing but a footnote in a forgotten book."
Xyphira, seeing the darkness swallowing both men, clung to Ichikawa's arm. She pressed her soft, trembling body against him, her massive blossoms squeezing against his shoulder as if her physical warmth could reignite his cold heart.
"I am with you, Lord Ichikawa," she sobbed, her sapphire eyes filled with a terrifyingly sharp devotion. "I am your mana now. I am your life. I will fight along with you. I will be the shield that breaks before a single hair on your head is touched. I will protect you until my last breath... and even then, my soul will haunt the one who tries to hurt you."
The silence of the Crystal Continent was interrupted by a sudden, chilling thought that struck Ichikawa like a physical blow. He grabbed Ruleus's shoulder, his fingers digging into the silver fabric.
"Ruleus... the Unknown Figure. He didn't just target my mother," Ichikawa breathed, his eyes wide. "He's erasing the 'Narrative.' He's hitting the anchors."
Ruleus froze. The dark aura around him flickered.
"Your parents," Ichikawa continued, his voice rising in panic. "The village. The Academy. If he's cleaning the slate, he won't stop at the Higher Realm. We need to go back. We need to check Ama-no-Gawa Academy. Now!"
Ruleus didn't argue. For the first time, he didn't make a joke about the commute. He reached out, grabbing Ichikawa and Xyphira. His mana didn't feel like a Glitch anymore—t felt like a desperate, tearing force.
"Hold on," Ruleus growled. "This isn't going to be a graceful landing."
VEEOOM.
The space-time fabric didn't bend—it shattered as Ruleus forced a multi-dimensional jump back to the coordinate of their home. They materialized in the center of what was once the most prestigious school in the framework.
The three of them landed in a heap, but the moment they looked up, the air left their lungs.
Ama-no-Gawa Academy was gone.
The grand, white marble towers that once reached for the clouds were now jagged stumps of rubble. The floating islands had crashed into the earth, creating massive craters that smoked with a black, conceptual fire.
But it was the color that broke them.
The pristine courtyards were painted in a violent, visceral crimson. Blood was everywhere—splattered across the broken statues of the founders, pooling in the cracks of the crystal walkways, and dripping from the eaves of the few remaining roofs.
Ruleus froze. His breath hitched in a silent, agonizing gasp.
"No..."
Ichikawa stood up, his legs shaking. He looked at the familiar path that led to Ruleus's family home. The house was a splintered wreck. He could see the interior—the table where they had eaten, the chairs where Ruleus's parents had sat and laughed at their son's antics.
They rushed forward, running through the carnage. They checked every house in the surrounding village. They looked under the rubble of the classrooms where Teacher Yoshiro had once yapped about the hierarchy.
No one was alive.
There were no bodies—only the Stains. The Unknown Figure hadn't just killed them—he had erased the physical forms, leaving only the blood as a cruel reminder that they had once existed. The entire population of the Academy—thousands of students, masters, and innocent villagers—had been reduced to a layer of copper-smelling mist.
Ichikawa stood in the center of the Academy square, surrounded by the red silence. He looked at Ruleus, who had fallen to his knees in the middle of the blood-slicked dirt, his hands clawing at the earth.
He looked up at the darkened sky, the red glint in his blue eyes finally consuming the sapphire light.
"There is no one left," Ichikawa whispered, his voice sounding dead. "Ruleus... he didn't just kill my mother. He killed our world."
Xyphira stood behind them, her wings drooping, the blood of the Academy staining the bottom of her white dress. She looked at the two broken men and let out a low, mournful wail that echoed through the ruins of Ama-no-Gawa.
The silence of the Academy was no longer just the absence of sound; it was a physical weight, a suffocating shroud of iron and salt. Ruleus remained on his knees, his hands buried deep in the blood-soaked dirt of the courtyard. His silver hair, usually a vibrant spark of chaotic energy, hung limp, matted with the dust of his destroyed home.
His eyes, wide and glassy, fixed on a singular, crumbling shack at the edge of the residential district. It was an abandoned shell of a house, half-collapsed even before the Unknown Figure had arrived.
Then, the world around him began to blur. The scent of copper and smoke faded, replaced by the ghost of a warm, golden afternoon from a month ago.
Ruleus was walking toward the main Academy building, his face twisted into his signature deadass grin. He was practicing his newest method of annoying Ichikawa—he had decided that today, he would sneak into Ichikawa's locker every time the boy tried to open it, just to see how long it took for his 'Disaster Partner' to lose his mind.
But as he passed a narrow alleyway, his grin faltered.
A little girl, no older than six, sat on the jagged cobstones. Her dress was a collection of grey rags, torn at the hem and stained with the soot of the lower village. She held a cracked clay plate in her lap, her eyes downcast as she whispered a plea for pennies to the students walking by. Most ignored her, their 'high-tier' noses held high.
Ruleus stopped. His chaotic aura flickered, softening from a sharp silver to a dull, quiet hum. He looked around to make sure no one—especially not Ichikawa—was watching. Then, with a casual shrug, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his entire week's allowance.
Clink.
The sound of gold hitting the clay was loud in the quiet alley. The girl's head snapped up, her eyes wide with shock. Ruleus didn't say a word. He didn't offer a smile. He simply turned on his heel and walked away, his hands in his pockets.
"H-Happy... thank you!" her voice, a tiny, sobbing chirp, echoed behind him.
Ruleus felt a small, genuine crack in his Deadass mask. A tiny smile touched his lips, one that had nothing to do with pranks or power.
The next day, he returned. He wanted to see if she had bought food. Instead, his blood turned to ice. Two high-rank student warriors—brutes with more mana than brains—were hovering over her. They had her gold in their hands, laughing as they kicked her into the dirt. When she reached for her plate, one of them slammed his boot into her ribs, then her face.
Ruleus didn't shout. He didn't announce himself. He simply appeared.
SNAP.
The first warrior didn't even see Ruleus move. He only felt his arm shatter like dry kindling as Ruleus twisted it with a single, cold motion. Ruleus caught the stolen gold mid-air and handed it back to the sobbing girl before turning to the second warrior. The beating that followed was short, brutal, and utterly silent.
As the bullies limped away, leaving a trail of teeth and bruised pride, the little girl clutched Ruleus's boots. She was bruised, her lip split, her tears carving clean paths through the grime on her face.
"Thank you... thank you, Master Silver," she whispered.
Ruleus leaned down, his silver hair falling over his face as he patted her head with a hand that had just broken a man's bones. "Don't cry," he muttered, his voice unusually soft. "I'll buy you ice cream later. It's a promise."
The girl blinked, her brow furrowing in confusion. "What is... ice-cream?"
Ruleus froze. he couldn't process. How could someone not know what ice cream was? He sat on the dirt next to her and spent twenty minutes explaining the sensation of cold, sugary milk and the way it melted on the tongue like a sweet cloud.
The girl nodded enthusiastically, a spark of hope in her eyes. "I will wait! I will wait right here at my house!" she chirped, pointing toward the abandoned shack. She ran toward it, waving her small hand until she disappeared inside.
Ruleus had watched her go, thinking, Next time. When I'm free from Ichikawa's training. I'll bring her the biggest bowl of strawberry ice cream this realm has ever seen.
Ruleus snapped back.
The golden afternoon was gone. The girl's laughter was a ghost.
His eyes were fixed on the blood-soaked threshold of that very same shack. A small, cracked clay plate lay in the dirt, shattered into a dozen pieces. Beside it, a smear of crimson painted the stones—a stain too small to belong to a warrior, but just the right size for a six-year-old girl who had been waiting for a promise that would never be kept.
Ruleus let out a sound that wasn't a sob or a scream. It was a hollow, dry wheeze of pure, unadulterated failure.
"I didn't..." he whispered, his voice cracking. "I didn't bring the ice cream. I... I forgot the ice cream."
He slammed his forehead into the dirt, his body shaking with a violent, rhythmic tremor. The Red Line in his mind wasn't just crossed anymore; it was being burned away by a cold, black fire.
Ichikawa stood behind him, his own blue eyes reflecting the same shattered plate. He looked at the blood, then at Ruleus's shaking shoulders. He didn't offer words of comfort. There were no words for a world where children were erased while waiting for a dessert they had never even tasted.
Ichikawa reached down and gripped the hilt of a broken sword lying in the rubble. His knuckles turned white. The red glint in his eyes didn't flicker—it expanded, consuming the sapphire light until his gaze was a dark, murderous crimson.
Xyphira stood between them, her wings drooping, the tips of her feathers dragging through the blood of the Academy. She looked at the shack, then at Ruleus, and finally at Ichikawa. She realized then that the Story had truly ended. This wasn't a cleanup job anymore. This wasn't an adventure.
This was a funeral for the entire Multiverse.
"Lord Ichikawa," Xyphira whispered, her heavenly voice now a jagged blade of grief. "Tell me who to kill. Tell me whose soul I must erase until not even the memory of their existence remains."
Ichikawa looked up at the purple, weeping sky. He didn't look like a student. He didn't even look like a God. He looked like the end of the world.
Ichikawa said, his voice as cold as the void. "We start with that bastard. And we don't stop until the ink of his reality runs dry."
Ruleus stood up slowly, his silver eyes now completely black. He didn't look at the house anymore. He looked toward the horizon.
Strong slays weak, and the weak die to the strong, Ruleus thought, his internal voice sounding like the rasp of a blade against stone. Is that the only law that actually matters? Is that the 'Grand Design' everyone's so obsessed with?*
He stared at the blood-stained threshold of the shack. His mind, usually a chaotic whirlwind of "deadass" jokes and spatial shortcuts, was suddenly, terrifyingly linear. He began to see the world not as a playground, but as a slaughterhouse where the 'Authors' simply chose who got to be the butcher and who had to be the meat.
I can step through dimensions, Ruleus's thoughts spiraled. I can ignore the concept of distance. I can treat time like a suggestion. And yet, I couldn't outrun the most basic, disgusting rule of existence. The strong take what they want, and the weak pay for it with everything they have.
He thought of the little girl. She didn't have a High-Tier Mana Core. She didn't have a Story that mattered to the Higher Realm. She was just a girl who wanted to know what ice cream tasted like. And because she was weak, she was nothing more than a minor casualty in someone else's grand narrative.
Is there no end to this cycle? he wondered, his silver eyes darkening until they looked like polished obsidian. Is empathy just a glitch in the system? A bug that the 'Unknown Figure' is currently patching out? We call ourselves Gods and Warriors, but we're just predators with better vocabularies. If all the 'Strong' have is the power to erase, then the 'Strong' are just cosmic trash.
A cold, jagged realization settled in his gut. He had spent his life laughing because if he didn't laugh, he'd have to look at the blood on the floor. He had used his 'deadass' persona to mask the fact that he hated the hierarchy as much as Ichikawa did.
I promised her ice cream, Ruleus thought, a single, hot tear carving a path through the dust on his cheek. I gave her a reason to stay in that house. I gave her hope, and all hope did was make sure she was exactly where the monster could find her. My empathy didn't save her. It just set the table for her execution.
Ruleus stood up. His movements weren't the fluid, effortless transitions of a teleporter; they were heavy, deliberate, and full of a murderous weight. The dark, chaotic aura around him didn't flare—it compressed, wrapping around his body like a suit of black armor that hissed as it touched the oxygen.
"Hey, Ichikawa-kun," Ruleus said, his voice devoid of any emotion. It was a flat, terrifying sound.
Ichikawa turned, his own crimson-glinted eyes meeting Ruleus's dark ones. For the first time in five years, there was no annoyance between them. No rivalry. No Disaster Partner banter. There was only a shared, hollow understanding.
"I'm done with the cycles," Ruleus whispered, his silver hair flickering with a violent, black static. "I'm done with the 'Strong' and the 'Weak.' If the only way to protect the weak is to be the most disgusting, powerful monster in the room... then I'll accept the role."
Ichikawa nodded once, his hand gripping the air as if he were already holding the Unknown Figure's throat. "He thinks he's the Author of this tragedy. He thinks he can just delete the characters he doesn't like."
"Then let's break his pen," Ruleus replied.
Xyphira stepped between them, her sapphire eyes reflecting the two men who had just abandoned their humanity. She reached out, her hands trembling as she touched both of their shoulders.
"The scent of death is heavy here," she said, her heavenly voice now carrying the weight of a funeral dirge. "The Figure didn't just kill them. He took their 'Endings.' He robbed them of the peace that death is supposed to bring."
She looked at the ruined Academy, then back at Ichikawa. "My Lord... the portal the Figure used. It left a 'stain' on the reality here. I can sense it. It leads to the Core of the Erasure—the place where he is gathering the stolen stories."
Ichikawa looked at Ruleus.
"Lead the way, Xyphira," Ichikawa commanded.
"Wait," Ruleus said, stopping them for a moment. He walked over to the shattered clay plate. He picked up a single shard, his fingers bleeding as he gripped the sharp edge. He tucked it into his pocket—a reminder of the ice cream that would never be served.
"Alright," Ruleus muttered, his dark aura erupting in a sudden, violent burst that shattered the remaining crystal ground around them. "Let's go find this 'Strong' being. I want to see if his throat screams the same way a 'Weak' person's does."
Ruleus or that little girl. Neither of them know eachother's name. Strong or weak, in the end, their body would burried in same way as others.