The battlefield was still.
Ruined buildings stood like broken teeth on a bleeding jaw, their steel and concrete bones silhouetted against a bruised twilight sky. Fires flickered but dared not grow. The air, once crackling with the war cries of Etoile Sanglante and the Celestial Order, now trembled under the weight of something far older, far darker.
At the heart of the devastation stood Rover Cheon—no longer simply a boy, no longer merely a Vessel.
His feet floated inches above the fractured pavement, shadows coiling around him like loyal beasts. His obsidian eyes—bottomless voids—reflected not the firelight, but something colder: the memory of extinction.
Across the world, the live broadcast continued.
News anchors had gone silent. Crowds watching from public screens whispered prayers or sobbed. Some screamed. Some fell to their knees.
And yet, in that silence, one reckless voice rose.
---
South Korea – Guild: Hell Hounds
Arriving late, arrogant, and loud, the Hell Hounds charged forward, clad in red-and-silver combat suits, their guild crest—flaming fangs—etched on their chest plates.
Kang Do-hun, their leader, stepped forward. A walking inferno, his body pulsed with volcanic energy. Behind him, his top elites readied their most lethal attacks.
"He's just standing there," Kang scoffed, cracking his knuckles. "What's one vessel to a storm?"
He raised his hand. "Hell Hounds—HUNT!"
And they struck.
Waves of destruction tore across the battlefield—flames, lightning, void spears, sonic ruptures, time-slowing fields. Every member fired their strongest abilities.
But the moment they launched—
Rover vanished.
The spells collided with each other, exploding into chaos.
Smoke. Fire. Dust.
The Hell Hounds coughed, scanning the devastation.
"Did we get him?"
No reply.
Just wind.
Then—
"You move like insects pretending to be beasts."
The voice came from behind.
Kang spun around—heart dropping.
Rover was standing right behind him.
His hands in his pockets.
Expression calm.
Eyes void.
"But when gods walk," Rover whispered, "even shadows hold their breath."
Kang instinctively raised his fist, but Rover tilted his head.
"You barked at something you didn't understand."
"You raised a hand to rewrite what was never yours to read."
"So I'll grant you a page… of my scripture."
He held out one hand—slowly—and began to speak.
But not in any known language.
The air turned silent.
The very code of existence vibrated with every syllable.
It wasn't Korean. It wasn't Latin. It wasn't arcane.
It was primordial.
"Ka'therun dei Vural… Zho'Emeth..."
Symbols of black light formed in the air—twisting, ancient, impossible to look at directly.
Hunters watching from around the world leaned forward—confused. Scanners glitched. Translation magic failed.
"What spell is that?" Naomi gasped.
Even Christoff Erickson's eyes widened. "...I've never seen that incantation before."
Kang Do-hun couldn't move.
Rover didn't attack. He simply spoke.
And the Hell Hounds began to fade.
One by one, they dissolved—first their shadows, then their voices, then their bodies—like ashes in a reverse flame, as if the world was quietly rewriting itself without them.
No scream.
No mercy.
Only vanishing.
Until only Kang remained.
Knees trembling.
Alone.
"You are no flame," Rover said, stepping forward.
"You are smoke. Loud. Brief. And born to scatter."
He raised one finger.
A single black glyph floated before him—shifting endlessly like a living rune.
"Fade."
With that one word, Kang Do-hun's body disintegrated into particles of dark mist.
The guild was no more.
Not dead.
Erased.
And then, a second voice echoed from within Rover—darker, older, dripping with malice and laughter.
"That's what you get..." the demon growled. "For daring to interrupt me while I'm speaking."
---
Back on the field, Rover's voice rose again.
But not in rage.
In decree.
"You humans... you cling to your little hierarchies. You crown your strongest. You praise your weakest. You divide yourselves by lines drawn in dirt, by towers risen in hunger, by gods who never loved you."
The silence deepened. Even the wind dared not blow.
"You think you matter to them? To the ones who built this broken cycle? You're nothing but playthings to your so-called gods. Their test subjects. Their entertainment."
He looked up—past the sky, beyond the towers, beyond the clouds.
"To them, you're pawns on a board made of dust and grief. And when the game bores them... they flip the table."
He exhaled slowly. His breath steamed like winter against apocalypse.
"No more."
Rover's arms spread wide, the shadows growing taller, darker, deeper around him.
"I shall erase this generation."
"I shall erase the weakness you've inherited and the hatred you've worshipped. I will burn away the thirst for power, for conquest, for domination."
He looked down again, gaze sweeping over the soldiers, the guilds, the cameras, the cities across the world.
"You live in a world built on blood—bathed in lies whispered by angels in ivory towers. They tell you to climb the tower. They say salvation is at the top."
He smiled, but there was no warmth in it—only finality.
"But the tower was always a cage. And salvation was never real."
---
Christoff Erickson, the mighty commander of Celestial Order, stood frozen.
"He... he's not speaking as a demon," he whispered to Naomi.
Naomi, pale, eyes brimming, whispered back, "He's speaking as a god who remembers."
---
Back on the field, Rover's voice rose again.
"But from these ashes—something new shall rise."
"A world with no hunger for power."
"A world without hatred. Without slaughter. Without kings and killers and false prophets who speak in holy tongues while bathing in blood."
"I will build it. With my own hands. From your ruin."
He paused—and the sky dimmed further, clouds spiraling as if the heavens themselves recoiled.
"There will be no strong. No weak. No chosen. No forsaken."
He closed his eyes.
"Because this world—this game created by your precious angelic gods—is a mistake."
---
Across the globe, guild leaders watched in silence.
Maria del Rosario clutched her staff like a lifeline.
Dmitri Volkov crushed his cigar into steel, his knuckles white.
Ayame Kazehana's winds faltered.
Marcus Brandt's lab cracked from dimensional bleed.
Even the Dark Triad sat in awed stillness.
Mae Lou's voice trembled with excitement. "He's rewriting the world... from will alone."
---
Rover opened his eyes one final time.
And with a voice that crossed every frequency and broke every boundary, he declared:
"This is the end of your age."
"And the birth of mine."
---
To be continued...