Stars Plummet and Gates Shatter
Malec roughly wiped the foam from his lips and dashed toward where the observers' representative was. It wasn't far. Unlike other guild leaders or representatives who occupied the top floors, Seira used a modest office on a convenient floor so that any observer could visit her at any time. Thanks to that, he arrived quickly.
Bang! Malec flung open the office door and shouted.
"Lady Seira!!"
"Is that you, Malec?"
The office was surrounded by floor-to-ceiling glass on all sides. Seira, sitting with her eyes closed in serene repose, responded.
"Speak."
"Th-th-th-the st-star, st-st-stars... Shooting stars! The constellations...!"
"Calm down. Take it slow and tell me clearly."
"The Constellation True Mountain Hermit. That is, the constellation of 'Hassan-i Sabbah' is falling... And others too, other constellations' stars..."
Seira opened her closed eyes and turned to gaze at the night sky blackened like ink. The constellations in the night sky rippled as if an earthquake had struck a still pond. Starting with Hassan's constellation, Rahab, Tannin, Abaddon, Moloch, and more... The constellations of Christian-aligned malevolent entities were plummeting one after another. Because of that, the surrounding constellations were scattering in all directions, as if fleeing imminent disaster.
"Ah, aah..."
Malec's legs gave out, and he collapsed to the floor, a pious lament escaping his lips.
"Lord..."
Not only that, but Cain's constellation, belonging to a fairly high-ranking entity floating higher up, was flickering as if its light might extinguish at any moment. Far higher still, Leviathan's constellation—which commanded countless A-rank apostles and nine S-rank ones—was crashing down without even becoming a shooting star.
Where the constellations fell, nothing remained but the darkest, deepest black sky. Was that what the Prophecy of the Black Sky foretold? A deep sigh escaped Seira's lips.
"...I've confirmed it."
The time of the prophecy left by the Lord of Inevitability, who winds the clockwork of the universe, had arrived.
"We must prepare for the end times."
Seira squeezed her eyes shut and handed over a document stamped with her seal.
"Notify the representatives of observer outposts everywhere to initiate the Polaris Project."
Only malevolent constellations had fallen. So in the end, it should be good for humanity, but it was too early to conclude that.
Lord, what future awaits our humanity...?
Seira prayed to her own Constellation as always, striving to glimpse the future that had vanished since her Constellation fell into slumber.
Korea was thrown into utter chaos as well.
A staffer burst into the Association President's office and shouted.
"President! Simultaneous breaks have been observed across the nation!"
"...Tell me calmly."
The president, who had been preparing to meet the genius who suddenly appeared in Seoul, took off the heels she was about to put on and slipped back into sneakers. Handling the simultaneous breaks took priority over the genius.
Should I just change out of this skirt?
She pondered briefly but figured there wouldn't be time, so she decided to go as is. If it was urgent, she could just punch through a wall.
"So... Seoul, Gyeonggi, Gangwon, Chungcheong, Gyeongsang, Jeolla... Gate breaks nationwide. The measured ranks started at F and keep rising... They've reached A now...!"
"How many in total?"
"Th-that was 10 minutes ago when I got the report, so now it's just under five thousand..."
"Haa..."
Should she nitpick the 'now'? The 'five thousand'? The 'just under'? The president swept a hand over her face against the pounding dizziness.
"They're still increasing?"
"...Yes."
"And the ranks are rising too. All breaks simultaneously."
"Y-yes."
Was Korea doomed to perish without seeing tomorrow's sun? The thought crossed the president's mind unbidden. But she couldn't give up.
She roughly swept back her long hair and pulled on leather gloves. She'd hear the details on the way.
"Estimated start time for the breaks?"
"The observation devices aren't responding."
"Unobservable, then."
Another sigh escaped the president's lips. Just then, the office door—which had been slightly ajar—burst open again with a clamor.
"President! China is requesting info on Yoo Haneul the hunter! They confirmed her using forbidden secret arts from the Namgung Clan without permission—"
That report didn't finish. A new staffer interrupted.
"President, Yoo Haneul—the hunter you had a meeting with today—is reportedly trapped in a break. Here's the footage. We have testimonies from on-site hunters and reporters, so please review."
The staffer who received China's contact stared in bewilderment at the newcomer. It could have ended there, but of course it didn't.
Staffers poured into the president's office, which normally no one but her could enter. From different departments, but all bellowing loudly alike.
"G-gate breaks! Reports say it's similar to the massive Cairo catastrophe! No, maybe even worse... President! You should evacuate to another country now...!"
"Breaking news!! President! The gate breaks that swelled to 8,000 have all vanished simultaneously! W-we're all safe!! Uwahahaha!! We lived! We li—"
"President! The break vanishings are fake news! N-new observations say what we thought vanished merged into one! Break rank is... Huh? Disaster-grade or higher...?"
A chill silence descended. Disaster-grade or higher. At a rank beyond words, everyone's mouths snapped shut.
But even that silence didn't last. The president's messenger app blared obnoxiously.
She pulled out her phone to check... It was a message from the observers: the time of the prophecy had arrived.
The president finally collapsed onto the sofa.
"...What the hell is going on."
She couldn't comprehend the situation at all.
"This won't do..."
Still, she forced herself up, tied her hair tightly, and strode past the staffers.
"Remaining staff: summon all S-ranks. Anyone with time, request cooperation from nearby Masters. Last reporter, stick by my side and report any new updates immediately."
Mountains of incomprehensible events, but as president, she had duties to fulfill and had to move.
"Phew! A perfect 17 out of 10!"
At that moment, the culprit behind all the chaos, Haneul, completed a stable landing and looked around.
A space where everything was ash-gray. Beneath her feet swarmed monsters numbering easily in the billions.
"Prepping to spill out during the break? Or just storage since the divine realm isn't complete yet?"
Where was this, anyway? It felt like she'd dropped into another space after smashing Leviathan's divine realm.
She couldn't tell if it was the gap between divine realms or another deity's domain. Normally she'd assume the former, but since some deities in Leviathan's realm got swept up in her explosion, the latter wasn't impossible.
"Just crack open a door and peek?"
She could open it if she wanted—gate, door, passage, whatever. She could make an exit and return to Earth.
But doing so would send all these swarming monsters surging out at once. Killing them all would take massive power, which might wreck this divine realm and its overseeing Constellation along with it.
Jerks like Leviathan she didn't mind killing, but she didn't want to off any good deities. That was Nyx's request, after all.
The ones swept up and killed in Leviathan's realm? They ran in the same circles, so Leviathan's pals were bad news by default. Fine to kill.
So why not pick them off one by one and leave? Too annoying. There was a limit to "just the right amount."
"Constellation? Deity? Anyone, come out!"
In the end, Haneul decided to find this realm's overseer. Chat it out, and if they sucked, focus her earlier trick on a narrower area and boom.
"Over here! Hey you! Look here! You there!"
No matter how she zipped around calling, no overseer appeared. One hour, two hours passed the same.
Not even any intelligent monsters among them—just drooling, mindless things.
"Nobody? No one? Gone? I'll do it then? Yeah? Blow it up?"
After four hours, Haneul resolved. She'd nail the tuning she botched earlier.
It had been ages since she felt this drive to improve. Mastering it perfectly might even elevate her realm.
625 billion years lived, and still room to grow? Even she didn't know. Just a hunch.
"Alright."
Brimming with excitement, Haneul rubbed her palms together. White and black flames ignited, twisting, clumping, blending into a murky gray.
"Huh."
She recalled it then. Her lack of talent.
It had taken her over 5,000 years just to molt—when others did it in about 1,000.
In other words, failure again.
The orb exploded, power backlashed, light flashed. Haneul got tossed this way and that.
"Uwahahaha...!"
Still, she succeeded in wiping the monsters and opening the door, so her cry mixed laughter and scream.