The Sky Begins to Crack
A massive cloud of dust settled around me, and the students nearby could only stare, their faces frozen in stunned disbelief.
It's not like this is the first time I've seen a scene like this.
The corner of my mouth curled upward as I ignored the squishy sensation beneath my feet and looked ahead. A handsome blond man was glaring holes through me.
Taylor.
The self-proclaimed right hand of Cynthia, and the third-strongest first-year male at Divine Academy.
"Impressive."
"Oh, yeah?"
"Cynthia does whatever she wants. She looks down on everyone around her, treats people like dirt, never listens to a word anyone says, and shoves her own opinions down everyone's throats. But—"
Taylor drew his sword with a sharp ring of steel that echoed across the field.
"—her, of all people, she's allowed to be that way. Because her talent is so violent, so overwhelming, that she earns the right. No matter what she does, she is forgiven."
"You say that, but your killing intent is thick enough to choke on."
"Because she *is* Divine Academy. Her defeat would be our defeat."
Divine Academy students began gathering from all directions, dragging their classmates along, until dozens of them had converged on me.
Unbelievable.
Smiling, I reached out and drew a spare sword—neither Heukcheon nor the Winter Sword. It felt unfamiliar in my grip, but with Sword Instinct (S-rank) working for me, it would settle into my hand soon enough. No problem there.
Can't use Baekhong or the Guardian's Armor either.
Both were simply too broken. Before I'd come here, the priests had confiscated a whole pile of my gear.
Well, fair enough. This wasn't a kill-or-be-killed war against demons—it was an exhibition match.
So how do I play this?
Winning was never in question. During the early days of the Great Rift, I'd cut down upper-rankers like they were nothing. I could dig in and defend while waiting for the others to arrive, or I could detonate everything I had in a single explosive burst and flatten their elite in one blow.
I chose the latter.
"Just wait a little longer! I'll be right there—!"
Erciel's voice carried from far away.
"It's fine. I'll finish this up quick and come to you."
"What?"
Taylor stared at me in open shock.
"Did you just say you'd wipe us out and be on your way?"
"Your Korean's pretty fluent, huh? Yeah, that's what I said."
I rolled my shoulders loose.
"I'm taking all of you myself."
"GET HIM!"
At Taylor's shout, more than a dozen students came charging at me. I leveled my blade.
Sword Instinct threaded through every incoming attack in perfect clarity. My Celestial Sight read every divinity on the field. All I had to do was slip through them and shatter each one in turn.
Whoosh.
I tuned the body forged by Black Divine Martial Arts—starting with my blood flow, reinforcing my skeleton, swelling my muscles. Black essence roared as it vomited up the qi of the reversed heavens.
"DIE!"
Ten attackers crashed down on me at once, their strikes grinding together.
Their coordination wasn't bad, actually. Divine Academy taught less about individual survival and more about channeling divinity in group warfare—many against many, or many pressing down on one.
Vmmm!
I poured the reversed-heaven qi into my blade. A black, unclean power rode up the steel and cloaked it in a pitch-black blade-body, wrapped in waves of dark force.
Sense it spreading wide.
Black Divine Martial Arts. Black Force—Chaotic Slaughter Method.
I clamped down on my strength. This was, after all, still a mock battle. I blunted the edge into something round and wide, driving force through the blade to spread the shockwave across a broad swath.
"Everyone, careful! Even Cynthia couldn't block that!"
"We know!"
FLASH!
Light surged and swirled into a wall as dozens of divinities condensed, layering and fusing into one another.
CRUUUUNCH!
One strike. A single monstrous blow carrying the dark shockwave tore their wall of divinity to pieces.
"That's… monstrous…"
"What kind of mana has that property? Why won't the divinity take?"
I looked past the horrified students, straight at Taylor.
"What are you doing? All that talk—are you too scared to come?"
"Taylor. I'll take this one."
"Raon…"
Raon. Delicate, girlish lines under an androgynous face—but a man, all the same.
I looked down at the sword in my hand and let out a dry laugh. Half the blade had vanished along with that last strike. Heukcheon would have held up fine.
Crack.
A sound like something splitting rang out. I tilted my head back and read the sky with Celestial Sight.
Fissures were spiderwebbing across the heavens, as if the sky itself had been cut with a blade.
"…"
Already?
It was moving fast. Well—of course it was. Among those who wanted to topple the Baekshin War before it began was the God of Beginning and Fate.
The God of Beginning and Fate. The deity who granted the workings of fortune to anything newly begun. They said a good start was half the battle—and when that god stood at your side, you'd already swallowed that half before the fight even started.
Not the time to be fighting among ourselves.
I let the blade fall and took a step forward.
"Hey. I know you're not actually unconscious."
"…"
Cynthia lay perfectly still, playing dead.
"The situation's worse than we thought. The demons are invading."
"…Even if demons invade, we'll win. You're underestimating America."
Pride rang through every word. And no wonder—its root was the existence of a hundred gods. Backed by beings who could stand toe to toe with Transcendents, confidence like hers came cheap.
But.
Some of those gods had turned against them.
America was headed for a future where no one could trust anyone else's faith, and the nation would rot away from the inside. The witch hunts that once raged across the medieval world would erupt on American soil, drowning the country in chaos.
And that, we cannot allow.
America had so much left to do—so much left to give.
I quietly stretched my hand forward.
Come forth, Heukcheon.
FWSH!
From the vault where my belongings were stored, Heukcheon erupted upward. Perhaps because I'd sent her my intent, she brought every last piece of my equipment along with her.
Maybe it was my audacity, but the battle had ground to a halt, and every eye in the field swung toward me.
"What's your angle? Using those weapons is obviously against the rules—you'd be disqualified."
"I told you. The demons are coming."
Level as still water, I lifted Heukcheon.
"Is that for real?"
"…Well, you do get moments like this."
Erciel came to stand beside me.
"Can you really see the future?"
she whispered, low enough that only I could hear. I gave the faintest nod, and her smile deepened just a touch.
With a thought, I donned the Guardian's Armor, layering on the rest of my armaments, and pointed up at the sky.
Cracks were blooming one by one across it—a sky that had no right to exist that way.
"The sky… it's broken?"
"…I've heard of this. One of the Seven Evils, the one called the Cruelest—rumor says his sheer *strength* lets him interfere with space itself and shatter the sky…"
The students spoke with hollow, dumbstruck faces.
Beneath my feet, I felt Cynthia squirming harder than ever.
"Will you believe me now?"
"Get your foot off me first. I don't believe anything I haven't confirmed with my own eyes."
The moment I lifted my foot, Cynthia thumped me twice on the back and rose, gazing up at the fractured heavens as if nothing at all had happened.
"…That's sacred ground, watched over by the gods. And *demons* dare—"
Coming from a girl who'd been wriggling under my boot a moment ago, her grandeur carried all the weight of a wet paper towel.
"So what's it going to be?"
"…So even you find the demons too much to handle. Coming to *me* for help. Well, it can't be helped. Facing an enemy like demons, we must join forces. So understand—this is a one-time arrangement…!"
Cynthia declared it with all the tragic gravity of a war hero.
I scratched my cheek.
"Sorry, but I'm going my own way."
"What… did you say?"
What an absolute idiot—
Before Cynthia could get another word out, I turned my back on her.
"Seo Gayeon. Hong Yuhwa."
I called the two of them. Seo Gayeon looked up at me with a face full of quiet resolve. Hong Yuhwa wore an inexplicably satisfied smile.
"Will you come with me?"
"Yes."
"…I never said where I was going. The place I'm headed is the most dangerous of all."
"That's fine. If it's Seoha, I'd walk to the end of hell with you."
It was a reassuring thing to say—and, in some odd way, a little terrifying.
"I don't mind either. My rival has to be there, after all."
Hong Yuhwa looked at me with a contented smile.
"Right. Thank you."
"Hoo… this feeling. Not bad at all."
"…"
Seo Gayeon eyed Hong Yuhwa with a strange look.
"In exchange, take one photo of me first."
"…A photo?"
"Yeah. I'm going to hang it in my room."
"…Why would you need a photo of Seoha?"
"Because he's my rival, obviously. My grandfather always said—for a fair and honest rivalry, you must burn your opponent's image into your eyes at all times. So I'm going to tape Seoha's photo to my ceiling and endure every hardship with the heart of one savoring my enemy's liver."
"I'm pretty sure you've misunderstood what 'sleeping on brushwood and tasting gall' means."
Having said her piece, Seo Gayeon turned to me.
"Then take one of me with Seoha too."
"…Fine."
"What about Seong Hanbyeol? Aren't you calling her?"
"She's our senior, Yuhwa."
"…So you're not calling Senior Seong Hanbyeol?"
"No need."
Because that woman would already be there.
Seong Hanbyeol was always like that. Gifted with a talent that gnawed away at her own lifespan, she still spent every ounce of it for the sake of others—as if the only reason she lived was so that someone else could survive, she unfurled her power again and again.
And that is why Seong Hanbyeol dies.
In every branch, every route, every timeline the story offered, she died—so reliably that you might as well have called it a certainty. No method of saving her existed. None at all.
But if this is reality…
Then perhaps, just perhaps, she could live. I turned my gaze to Seo Gayeon.
To save Seong Hanbyeol, I needed Seo Gayeon. And I needed Hong Yuhwa, to usurp that girl's talent—if only for a fleeting moment.
I looked up at the sky. The fissures that had begun as thin, scattered lines had multiplied until the heavens resembled a sheet of shattered glass.
And then.
The sky came falling down.