The Line on the Water
The dawn air still hadn't cooled. The heat of battle lingered in spots along the walls, rising like breath. Atop the gate. Zan's Breakage curtain breathed quietly. From yesterday afternoon, it hadn't been lifted even once. Not an unfolding that poured out power, just pure maintenance. Yet impurities clung to the curtain endlessly, then fell away. Ashes from burned prayers. Demons' breaths. Blood and water, shattered prayer fragments. The curtain absorbed it all, slowly thickening. Like a line painted without gaps.
Beneath the gate, I looked up. Zan's silhouette stood like a thin line beneath the blood-red curtain.
"Zan."
The curtain rippled lightly. Zan's gaze fell to the base of the gate.
"Yes."
Her voice was hoarse but still firm.
"Today's line is still one step before the gate."
"The gate threshold. One line before it."
"The line we save, the line we abandon."
"All decided there."
Zan caught her breath, then spoke cautiously.
"Today... I'll draw it a little further forward than yesterday."
"I can save a few less from dying."
I cut her off immediately.
"Don't get greedy."
The red curtain trembled ever so slightly.
"Draw the saving line straight."
"Get greedy pulling in the ones doomed to die, and that line blurs first."
Beyond the curtain, Zan's eyes sharpened.
Her breath hitched once inside the curtain. The greed to save more didn't widen the line—it blurred it. A blurred line wasn't protection; it was delayed death. Zan knew that. So she nodded.
"......Yes."
Short. Solid. That was enough.
Screams and clashing metal from beyond the battlefield paused briefly. The shortest breather. Inside Nova, the small war room. The battlefield was overlaid in red lines on the roughly spread map. Nas traced yesterday's marks with blood-mixed ink.
"Current radius from the gate line."
"This section was day one's main combat zone, highest corpse density."
Balrag stared down at the map, arms crossed.
"The ground's already a mess."
"Not dirt anymore—mud, blood, bones, and puddles."
"And we're holding there again today, right?"
I nodded.
"No more predicting and preempting like yesterday."
"Today, we watch what comes down first."
"Then latch onto that pattern."
Nas confirmed shortly.
"Fluid response."
"Right."
I pointed one by one.
"Balrag."
"Yes."
"Ground before the gate."
"You're on it."
"Water or light coming."
"Keep that one line before the gate from slipping."
Balrag's lip twitched faintly.
"From here on, I'll pave the entire ground myself."
"Kama."
Kama flicked his finger at the red line on the map's edge, the flank battlefield. Thin demonic energy spread then vanished from his blood-soaked fingertip. The patterns etched across his body writhed faintly under the light of water and blood.
"Scared or already berserk."
"If the rhythm matches, the blades pull forward on their own."
I recalled that pattern once more, synced with my breath. Not a guy looking up at the battlefield, but one smashing the sky. Parcheon Black Pattern.
"Navriel."
Navriel folded and unfolded her document-folder-like black wings slightly.
"Today, focus on water flows with me, not prayers."
"Where water gathers, where it's empty."
"Record alongside the prayer lines."
"Astamar."
Astamar, leaning as if slumped, straightened her shoulders slightly. Rotten petals fell a few to the floor.
"Just say the word."
"Let a lot of water pool today."
"That water the angels trust like holy ground."
"From tomorrow, it's your field."
Astamar's lip curved quietly upward.
"Won't let good ingredients go to waste."
Before the strategy meeting even ended, heaven answered first. Between the blood-dried night and dawn's edge. Ambiguous light flashed once over the boundary of red sky and black battlefield. Outside Nova's gate. Far on the horizon, thin water streams fell. At first, like rain. But the threads thickened quickly. Thin lines to thick ropes. Thick ropes linking into a wall. Far off, water surged to waist height. White foam shattering on red earth. As if heaven was pouring sanctuary over the entire battlefield.
I said curtly.
"It's coming."
"Everyone to positions."
The water filled the distant battlefield first. Demons fighting there sank to their waists first. The water looked clear. It shimmered cleanly, holding light. But flesh brushing inside rotted instantly on contact. Water mixed with protection and the authority of water. Near holy water for angels, it was flesh-corroding poison for demons.
"Fall back!"
A demon yelled from somewhere. But the rear was already flooding. Water surged from all sides. The only gap left pointed to the gate. Neither retreat nor advance. Outside the line was just death. Water wasn't an attack—it was terrain. Heaven was folding the battlefield with water. Not making paths. Erasing them, funneling into one line. Outside the line wasn't holding—it was melting away.
Before the gate. The Ironblood Shields raised their shields. As the ground before the shields threatened to slip, Balrag pinned it down.
Boom—!
Nova's entire gate rang once. Invisible weight spread across the whole battlefield ground. Dirt, bones, blood—all crushed and stuck flat. Under the shields wasn't "ground" anymore—it was nails.
Balrag said to the front line.
"This ground won't budge."
"Push it? Shove this ground aside first."
The current rose to thighs. Demons' legs and tails flailed in the water. But the Ironblood Shields under Balrag's pressure stood unmoving, like stakes driven into the earth.
I looked up at the gate.
"Zan."
Zan drew a short breath inside the curtain.
"One line before the gate."
"Draw one more line ahead of it."
The curtain quivered slightly. Zan stepped once on the red prayer shards at her feet atop the railing.
"Yes."
The curtain descended slowly from above the gate. Red-shattered prayer shards wrapped the gate like ankles, spreading thin and wide over the Ironblood Shields' heads. The barrier filtered water, light, and blood once. Covering doomed demons with a red line like a shroud.
Zan murmured.
"Only the ones worth saving... I'll delay once more inside the line."
"Those crossing outside... I won't hold anymore."
The red curtain advanced a bit further before the Ironblood Shields. One more red line born atop the flood.
On the opposite flank, shadows stirred in the battlefield's darkness. Kama's voice laid down quietly.
"Sync breaths."
Water rose at his feet too. The patterns drank in the screams and terror like ink blackening. Demonic energy faintly rose then vanished from the back of his sword-grip hand.
"Two."
"Three."
Water flow, heartbeats, angels' footsteps, shield clashes—all woven into one beat.
"Now."
Shadows burst from the dark. Kama sliced the current first, ripping open the front line. Light wall flanks. Between shields. Armor joints. Blades stabbed only gaps. Demonic energy forced into flesh-armor slits. Didn't go deep. Pulled out before tips reached organs.
"In—"
"Out."
Blood and water dragged out together. No single deep pierce. Shallow, repeated. Those wounds became water's entry paths. Shadows didn't swarm. Two or three at a time, stab and scatter.
Kama said low.
"Don't cut deep."
"Shallow slices, keep gnawing."
"Just bleed them out."
Rhythm set the tempo across the battlefield. Part of the angels' front wavered. Red water seeped deeper into the gaps. Water like heaven's sanctuary mixed with hell's blood, turning a color belonging nowhere.
As time crawled slowly overhead, the water walls curled inward from both battlefield sides. The flood encirclement's skeleton completed. Behind the Ironblood Shields, corpses piled like hills. Demons who fell and didn't rise. Those lost in the encirclement. Nas eyed the battlefield center.
"There. An encircled zone."
"Pull them out now—"
I cut her off before she finished.
"That zone ends here today."
Nas glanced at me briefly.
"Go rescue, and."
"The rescuers wash away too."
Demon screams cut short over the water. I looked up at the gate.
"Zan."
Zan drew breath beneath the curtain.
"Not the saving line."
"Draw a binding line."
The red curtain stretched thin over the distant encircled zone. Not a saving line. A line binding collapsing demons and flood-swept corpses in one area. Zan's voice cracked faintly.
"......Yes."
Still, the line didn't waver. The red curtain sliced the battlefield precisely there. Saving line. Abandoning line. Binding line. Today's battlefield rolled only on lines drawn over water.