The scouts descended like falling stars.
Their wings burned with pale light, feathers slicing through the fog as they dropped into the ruined streets. Stone shattered where they landed.
Akari's soldiers formed a shield wall instantly.
"Hold the line!" she commanded.
Blades clashed with divine light. Every strike rang like a bell of judgment.
Hiroto stepped forward, forcing his shadow to rise again.
But it twisted.
Not outward.
Inward.
Pain exploded behind his eyes.
He staggered. "…No… not now…"
Yui grabbed his arm. "Hiroto, your shadow….."
"It's rejecting the land," Akari realized. "Or the land is rejecting it."
The Watcher raised his cracked hand.
Black symbols crawled across the ground, forming a wide circle beneath the scouts.
"This place devours belief," he said.
"So let it feast."
The symbols ignited.
The light around the scouts flickered… then thinned… then died.
They screamed as their wings dissolved into ash.
The Broken Lands swallowed their divinity.
Goro stared. "That was… not normal."
Akari narrowed her eyes. "You're draining god-power."
The Watcher nodded.
"This land remembers being ruled. It resents it."
More scouts poured from the sky.
Hiroto clenched his teeth.
"Then I'll give it something else to remember."
He let go.
The shadow did not spread.
It collapsed inward, wrapping his body like a cocoon.
Yui screamed his name.
The cocoon cracked.
From it, Hiroto emerged with black veins crawling up his neck and jaw, eyes reflecting the warped sky.
He moved.
Not fast.
Instant.
He appeared among the scouts and crushed one with a single grab.
Another was torn in half by shadow claws.
Light and darkness collided again and again, but this time the darkness wasn't fighting heaven It was feeding on its failure.
Akari watched in shock. "…He's changing."
Hiroto grabbed a scout and slammed it into the stone.
"Go back to your gods," he growled,
"and tell them this land does not kneel."
The last scout fled upward, wings flickering.
Silence returned.
Hiroto swayed.
His shadow lashed wildly.
"Stop—!" Yui cried.
The Watcher stepped forward.
He pressed two fingers to Hiroto's forehead.
Symbols flared.
The shadow recoiled like a wounded beast.
Hiroto collapsed to his knees, gasping.
Yui caught him.
"…You almost lost yourself," she whispered.
Hiroto shook. "…I felt… something else guiding me."
Akari approached slowly.
"This land amplifies what you are."
She looked at the Watcher. "What is this place?"
He turned toward the twisted horizon.
"A scar," he said.
"Where a god once died."
Everyone froze.
"…A god?" Goro asked.
"Yes," the Watcher replied.
"Killed by mortals."
The wind howled across the ruins.
Akari's grip tightened on her spear.
"So this is where god-killers were born."
Far away, in divine halls of light…
A throne cracked.
A voice thundered:
"He bleeds in forbidden land."
Another answered:
"Good. Let the shadow rot there."
But the land itself trembled.
Not in fear.
In recognition.
The War of Faith had found a weapon older than belief.
To be continued…