The soldiers could barely take their eyes off him. He moved like lightning, pulverizing and crushing the demon before them, whose skin was as tough as stone shells. With a storm of power and precision down, leaving those who witnessed it trembling in awe. Around them, medics hurried, tending to the injured with careful hands—bandaging wounds, splinting broken bones, whispering prayers over the shattered and the bleeding.
Adam walked alongside them, guided by Rehan, his own presence quiet but undeniably commanding. He reached out, holding the hands of the wounded, feeling the White King's lingering power resonate through him. His aura—a soft, luminous white—pulsed outward, mending shattered bones, knitting flesh back together. The soldiers gasped, standing in awe, their shields raised and crossbows trembling in their grip, sweat running down their temples. Anything could happen at any moment, and they knew it.
Around Adam and the Knight, the aura of white seemed almost alive, emanating strength that felt infinite, exception of adam a core composed of multitudes of forms, essences of universes intertwined. Even as the injured healed, even as the air itself hummed with energy, a shadow lingered at the edge of perception. A knight appeared before them, clad in black coal armor that absorbed the light, thorns curling along the edges of its helmet like dark, crimson shadows. Its voice was rough, strained, filled with disbelief.
"Who are you... Are you a god?"
Adam glanced at him, momentarily aware of the stares. The soldiers behind him were watching, some wide-eyed, some mouths slightly open. And yet here he was, in nothing but a simple hoodie and his red cloak. He couldn't help but feel the faintest embarrassment. What do people think? That I'm a child in a cloak pretending to be powerful?
"I'm not," he said softly, meeting the captain knight's gaze.
The question came again, sharper this time. "Then... are you an angel?"
"Definitely not," Adam replied firmly.
More questions came, rapid-fire, pointed, demanding. The gray knight jabbed a finger toward him. "This being... these ones... they're weak. Even in this form, they can be hurt with ease."
Adam's eyes narrowed. "And does that make you want to control them? To oppress them?"
The knight hesitated, his aura flaring uncertainly around him. His energy stabilized, spreading outward so the soldiers could see it clearly for the first time—a form, immense and raw, yet unmistakably human in its intent. "No," the knight said finally. "It makes me want to protect them... but I don't deserve that. I... I don't know my own will, or if it is right or wrong."
Adam's gaze softened, though it held steel. "You never do anything without thinking," he said. He looked past the knight, at the soldiers, at the broken lands around them. "But that's the truth of living beings. They adapt, they shift... they change depending on where they are. And sometimes... they fail."
The knight's eyes flickered, shadowed in thought. Adam turned his attention back to him. "I need something," he said quietly, voice firm. "Tell me... where is Ashfall?"
A whisper came from among the soldiers, faint, fearful. They stepped back, weapons trembling. "It's... it's a place long ruined... a decade of devastation... the birthplace of the monster," the captain said, his cloak torn and ragged.
Adam's eyes widened. A decade. Could it really have been that long?
Then, something inside him snapped. A sudden surge of urgency, raw and demanding.
"...Wait... WAIT!" His voice cut through the tension like a blade. "WHERE IS IT?!"
He froze as the map was pressed into Adam's hands.
"Here," the soldier said, pointing at a scorched mark carved deep into the parchment.
Adam did not respond. In the next moment, the air fractured—he vanished at sonic speed, the Knight following close behind.
The Knight barely had time to process the movement, confusion flickering through his mind. Where are we going?
The answer revealed itself soon enough.
Ash drifted from the sky, falling slowly from a distant volcano. Below them lay a ruined city, its roads smothered in thick biomass, veins of corrupted flesh spreading across stone and earth. The air churned with flying creatures—small winged monsters darting frantically out of their path, sensing something far too powerful to confront.
Even humanoid entities fled. Twisted shapes that once might have been people scattered instinctively, avoiding the presence bearing down on them.
Cobblestone houses stood shattered, walls collapsed inward. Wooden homes had rotted from the inside out, beams hollowed and crumbling. Farms were desecrated, soil poisoned and trampled. Infrastructure had withered away, walls riddled with holes as if something had eaten through them piece by piece.
I hovered at the center of it all.
"Well... that's that," I muttered, staring down at the devastation.
Something burned in my chest—not pain, but a deep, smoldering ache. My heart felt scorched as I moved again, flying forward, guided by fragments of Rehan's images from before. And then I saw what lay ahead.
A massive biomass—an abomination of desecrating flesh—spread across what had once been a forest. It loomed like a mountain, grotesque and swollen, with a colossal sword driven straight through its center, pinning it in place like a failed execution.
Is this really it?
My breathing became erratic. My chest tightened, heartbeat pounding violently as I struggled to draw air. The atmosphere was thick with decay—the stench of a dead monster lingering everywhere. I surged forward, radiant energy flaring, slicing through lingering creatures with beams of light, cutting them down as I passed.
Then the restraint snapped.
"YURUKI!!! WHERE ARE YOU!!!"
The scream tore through the ruins, raw with fury.
There were no words for the misery crushing my chest. No language strong enough to describe how much I hated myself in that moment. Only three days. Just three—and everything had already fallen apart. I hadn't known. I hadn't been there. And that failure burned deeper than anything else.
Then I saw him.
An old man stood amid the destruction. His beard was unkempt, his face deeply wrinkled, his body worn thin by time. A shattered black sword rested against his back, useless and broken, and a backpack hung from his shoulders.
I teleported instantly, appearing before him so fast I barely noticed myself flicker—fading, then stabilizing again.
"YOU—"
He looked up at me, surprised, yet strangely calm.
"Who are you, and why are you here?" I demanded, my voice slicing through the air before he could speak.
"I'm trying to find my son and my daughter," he replied quietly. His voice was old, tired, but steady.
My fury stalled. I forced myself to breathe.
"So... would you," he continued, meeting my gaze, "a being like yourself... allow me to continue?"
I hovered in silence. Above us, the Knight remained in the sky, watching.
"How long?" I asked.
"Twelve years."
Confusion crossed my face. Someone had been searching here for twelve years?
I exhaled sharply, annoyance turning inward. "Don't you think that's been long enough?"
"No."
The world was too vast. In its immensity, countless stories passed unnoticed. Many Lives with there own stories.
Then—
A system hologram flickered across my vision.
My eyes widened.
In the next instant, I accelerated beyond sound, carving straight into the corpse of the monster. Acidic flesh parted around me, layers of mucus and decay forming tunnels beneath the ground. I pushed deeper until—
I saw her.
A thin girl stood at the center.
Her hair was streaked black and white, fading into gray, with yellow forming at the ends. Memories surrounded her—hundreds, thousands—floating fragments of paper and thought. Faces I recognized... and many I didn't. Names, places, lives I had never known.
She hummed softly, emotionless.
She was baking.
A piece of bread rested in her hands. Nearby floated a guitar, piles of books, instruments, scraps of garbage—all sealed within a glowing red orb barely a meter wide. She had aged slowly, unnaturally, like wine sealed in glass.
"How long has it been...?" I whispered.
She didn't answer.
Silence filled the hollow corpse of the world. A silence born from loneliness—of being trapped in a space too small to stand, too small to lie down, too small to exist fully.
Then she spoke.
"Not long enough."
She looked away. Her eyes were hollow. There was no anger. No hatred. No contempt.
Only silence.
Yuruki lay beneath it all.
The inside of the monster was nauseating—layers of dead flesh, coagulated biomass clinging to everything, the air thick and sour. It should have been unbearable. It was unbearable. And yet she lay there as if it were nothing.
She tried to smile.
The expression didn't quite form, not fully, but the effort was there—small, fragile, almost apologetic. As if she wanted to reassure me that this place hadn't broken her. As if everything was fine.
..."hmm..."
...
"Your here..."