The moment I walked through the front door of my parent's house, a young girl with light blue hair and matching eyes lunged into my arms. "Papa! You're home from work!"
I blinked, confused for a single moment. Then I hugged her and said, "Rose. Did you have a good day with your grandparents?"
"Mmhm! I got spoiled a lot!" Rose giggled and then moved around to stand at my side, happily hugging my right hand.
"Is that so?" I smiled and reached around with my left hand to pat her head. "I'm happy to hear that."
My dad walked over and said, "About time you showed up. I was starting to think you just dumped your kid on us and wouldn't be back."
My mom's voice echoed from the kitchen. "Oh hush, you. Don't pretend like you weren't pampering our little princess there the entire time and going out shopping with her to get whatever she wanted."
My dad's ears turned red and then he looked to the side, coughing into his hand. "I-In any case..." He gave me a once over. Noticing my suit, he said, "Just back from work, huh, Kid?"
"Yep." I scooped Rose up to sit on my shoulders.
My daughter... and wasn't that a strange thought?
Anyway, my daughter giggled and then hugged my head tight. "Wow! I can see everything from here!"
"Glad to hear it, Princess." I smiled and then walked over to the kitchen. "And morning, Mom."
"Hey there, Sweetie!" My mom wiped her hands and said, "Have you eaten yet? And how's Hannah and Flone? They must be busy to not show up... Oh, and how is Claire? Or the other girls?"
My dad walked in behind me and sat at the table, sipping on a cup of coffee. "Other girls... Here we were complaining about Wooseok not having a girlfriend and our Jihu comes home with a dozen... plus a granddaughter."
I sat down across from my dad and shifted Rose into my lap. "They're doing well, Mom. But they're all pretty busy right now. Ah, as for Hannah and Flone... well, Hannah's pregnant, so Flone's helping her right now while she works."
"Pft?!" My dad coughed, spluttering out his coffee. "What?!"
Rose giggled.
Seeing his reaction, I decided to just rip off the bandage all at once and said, "Also, Claire is my official Mistress. Hannah and Flone approved. Seonhwa and I are back together too, and she's probably pregnant? In fact, you should expect roughly... five more grandchildren in the next year? It WOULD be eleven, but we're timing things to not be overwhelmed."
My dad froze, his face going from red to blue to white to a resigned pale hue.
Mom, meanwhile, let out an excited gasp and said, "THAT MANY BABIES! Oh my god, I have to start prepping the onesies! And knitting! And the gifts...!"
Dad looked at me. Then he let out a strained smile and said, "...Congratulations...?"
Rose raised her head up high, a proud smile on her face. Then she said, "Papa is a man among men! I will have lots of little siblings!"
Mom laughed and walked over to scoop Rose up in a hug. "That's right he is! Finally, after all these years, we'll have so many little ones to spoil again!"
Dad sighed. "Well, better from Jihu than Jinhee." He paused, a thought clearly running through his mind. Then he looked at me, a serious expression on his face. "...Jihu. The reason Jinhee is gone right now isn't because you and she-"
"I'm going to stop you right there. Jinhee and I have a NORMAL brother and sister relationship. We are not doing ANY of what you are thinking. And she is just going through orientation as an intern at my company."
"...Right. But what about Seunghae?"
"She doesn't call me Oppa, but instead Ahjussi so it's safe."
"What?"
I stared at my dad and let out a long suffering sigh. "...Oppa. It's a dangerous title to own..."
"...What?"
===
After spending breakfast with my parents, I dropped Rose off with Flone and Hannah. Then I headed back to Paradise to wrap things up.
There wasn't much left to do after all. Just beating up that trashy Sung Shihyun, clearing out any unwanted visitors from Paradise, and then chatting with Roe Scheherazade to organize the rebuilding efforts.
...Oh, and I suppose meeting with Gabriel and the Federation to sort that out too.
But that was later.
Before all of that, I decided to stop in Haramark and check in with Gula first because I was curious about something.
I was fully prepared and expecting to clash with the Martial God, so the fact that he and his wives had already up and left confused me.
So, walking inside Gula's temple, nodding to the priests and priestesses who greeted me, I knelt down in front of her statue and called out.
'Hey Gula. Do you have time to talk?'
Gula's voice echoed in my head, leisurely and light. A contrast from the solemn tone I was used to.
*My child. Of course. Speak whatever is on your mind.*
'Alright. Then, do you know why the Martial God isn't on Earth anymore? Or his wives?'
*Ah. That...*
===
It was a simple encounter.
Jihu had been wanting to live a normal life with his wives.
But due to their exceptional nature, it was bound to clash with the Martial God and his wives.
Jihu, of course, tried to resolve it amicably.
But the Martial God and his wives crossed the line.
Hannah was attacked after looking into one of the Martial God's wives since she was concerned about potential dangers.
Then reality shattered.
A void- No. Space. Not the void, but outer space, just beyond Earth's atmosphere.
There, Jihu floated in the empty expanse, his eyes glimmering with every color of the rainbow before turning a pure white light.
And as they did, his voice echoed, transmitted to every living creature within the galaxy.
"Let this be a lesson. Kindness with kindness, malice with malice. Karma, the force to rule them all. I have done nothing but good for this world. And yet it still burned me. So perish."
The Martial God floated in Earth's atmosphere. His wives which included Heaven Rank Gods and other entities that were capable of destroying planets...
It didn't matter.
The Martial God- No.
The man, Kim Soohyun, stared up at the entity that had grabbed the entire galaxy to use as a blade. The one whose understanding and control of the fabric of existence had gone beyond mere divinity and into interdimensional collapses.
Conceptual attacks? Conceptual Defenses? A sword that could cut or sever anything?
In the face of an entity who had decided to shatter the entire galaxy and erupt the local spacetime field for trillions of lightyears to absolutely ensure that the people who harmed his family would be unable to escape, what did that matter?
"...You aren't a god."
Kim Soohyun watched the thing that called itself Seol Jihu and realized it.
And Kim Soohyun's Third Eye confirmed it.
A being that was granted power, but did not simply wield it. A mind that had thoroughly dissected and understood the scope of abilities from simple anti-personnel combat to multiverse and omniverse scaling.
And an entity that was determined to escalating to destructing the entire akashic record just to clear the slate of the one who harmed his family. One who had been playing with the veneer of humanity but now had no reason to hold it.
Something that did not wield infinity or omnipotence. But instead, one that wielded finality.
A being that denied the existence of omnipotence, boxed the infinite by folding dimensions and translating coordinates until there was no choice to yield to limits, and who fundamentally removed the providence of divinity by declaring all abilities must be proven by axioms because power and energy alone were insufficient.
A faint blue light flashed. The Zero Code, quiet until recently, spoke up and said, "On the behalf of my owner and his wives, I apologize. This record of existence will be purged. We will not cross your paths. The causal chain leading to this event and the harm to your family will be severed. Is that sufficient?"
The entity who wore the mask of Seol Jihu paused. Then he said, "This will become fiction. And you will become just a memory in this reality."
"...Understood. Then, let it be."
Blue light flashed.
The agreement was struck.
And Gula, the sole witness to confirm the agreement, watched as the entity who called himself 'Jihu' quietly folded himself away, severed the karmic threads and causality leading to this moment, and then removed it entirely to become nothing more than a fragmented record floating in the threads of existence.
===
Gula paused as she considered how to answer Jihu's question about why the Martial God had left. But in the end, she just smiled and said, "He decided it wasn't a fight worth having."
Jihu blinked. Then he chuckled. "I guess that's true. As I am right now, I could probably reach ridiculous heights. Especially if I had no reason to hold myself back."
'...You have no idea, my child.'
Gula remembered how that man had looked. How he had been human, and yet MORE at the same time. A transcendent being who had stepped beyond the metrics of mere 'worlds' and 'laws of existence' into a being of pure will that could fold the pages of existence itself into origami.
'...No wonder his innate ability was
Gula had always thought it was a sibling ability to the Martial God's
But it wasn't.
No.
This was not an 'ability.'
This was knowledge.
Knowledge from a world that had developed a taxonomy of godhood, power-scaling, and existence itself.
A world who did not play at godhood, but had found it lacking, developed thresholds beyond it, and then even made countermeasures to defeat the omnipotent.
And the one who had become Jihu, the entity who had seen this world, found it pitiful, and then sent a fragment of his will inside it...
Although Gula did not know the truth. And though she did not DARE to know the truth.
She had a feeling. An intuition, if a god could be said to have one.
The only reason this timeline persisted was because that entity desired it to. Because he had chosen to see Jihu's story through to the end.
And the only reason that things had gone so smoothly when they had originally been set to immense conflict was because that entity had decided he was tired of it all and just wanted to observe a happy ending for Jihu and those he knew.
So.
Faced with Jihu's levity and playful response.
Gula smiled and said, "Enjoy your happy ending, my child. You deserve it."
"I will, Gula. You take care too." Jihu gave a small salute and rested his hand on his sword. "Now, I'm off to clean up Paradise and wrap things up. Don't worry, I won't break the world in half."
"...How reassuring."
Jihu chuckled and walked off.
Gula sighed.
As she did, the other gods drifted close, watching Jihu walk off.
Ira stared after Jihu the most and then quietly said, "...I suppose it was good that I dropped the issue in the Third level of the Banquet, wasn't it? That... is not a human."
"No." Gula disagreed and said, "He is. Because he's calling himself human, he remains human. Because he's decided to live as a human, that is how his destiny will unfold. But if he ever has a reason to not..."
That scene of the entire galaxy spiraling behind him as a blade. Of dimensions cracking and folding to box in the Heaven Rank 9 and above entities behind the Martial God.
Of the entire spacetime field that contained Earth being severed and set to be shredded after Jihu had already moved all the ones he loved to Paradise...
"...Well." Gula let out a helpless laugh. "Let fiction remain fiction. Let the future stay unwritten. Because the moment that changes..."