The crater still smoked.
At its heart, Rei stood like nothing had happened.
His coat was untouched. His hair, rustled slightly by the impact wind, settled quietly back to his shoulders. Dust clung faintly to his boots — but there wasn't a single scratch. Not even on the ground beneath him anymore. The impact had cleared the debris into a perfect circle, like a divine seal.
Ailith just stared.
Her face was still.
Her lips didn't move. Her hands didn't twitch.
But her heart—
It was loud. Too loud.
> That... that wasn't human.
Her skin had gone pale beneath the faint hue of her demon blood. The firelight in her eyes dimmed, replaced by something deeper: disbelief. Horror. Wonder.
She had seen Level 7s fight before.
Once.
They fought like monsters. Their speed, their power, their ability to rend the world in brief bursts of dominance — that much she understood. But this...
Rei hadn't even fought.
He simply flew. And vanished.
> I didn't see him ascend. One moment he was here. The next... gone.
She swallowed.
> And he came back... from space.
She had seen where he fell from. That burn in the sky—the very sun stared him down. And yet, Rei had returned without injury. No physic damage. No shattered bones. No cracks in the ground around his landing zone — except for the crater made by sheer force.
> This isn't just power. This is something else.
Her eyes finally moved—slowly. Tracing the still figure in the smoke.
Rei looked up.
Casually.
As if nothing strange had occurred.
"What are you thinking?" he asked, his voice flat and calm.
Just like always.
That voice — so clean. So human. But it didn't match the thing standing in front of her anymore.
Ailith's breath caught.
> I saw him. I saw him descend like a star. And the earth received him without protest. As if... as if it knew him.
Her legs didn't move.
Her tail twitched once, out of instinct.
Her mouth opened slightly. Then closed.
> That was not a human. Not even close.
Rei was still staring.
Expression blank.
He tilted his head slightly, waiting for an answer.
Ailith forced her lips to part.
"So... can you control flying now?"
Rei gave a small smile.
Not a wide one. Not arrogant. Just a slight shift in his mouth, like someone acknowledging a joke only they understood.
> But even that smile, Ailith thought, looked wrong now.
It didn't reach his eyes.
Those eyes weren't dull. But they weren't glowing either. There was no rage. No thrill. No chaos.
Just stillness.
Stillness so deep it hurt to look at.
Like a bottomless pit wearing a human face.
Rei said nothing back.
He didn't nod. He didn't deny.
He simply existed in that smoke — a crater at his feet, dust clinging to him like the world was trying to remember he was real.
Ailith's mind spun.
> Not human. Not demon. Not devil.
> A god?
> No... not even that word fits.
> I don't know what to call him anymore.
Her mouth was dry.
Her thoughts wouldn't stop.
And Rei — still half-smiling — said nothing.
The fire had died. The woods around them were still. Birds had stopped singing. Even the wind held its breath.
She could feel it now.
The separation between her and him.
Not in strength.
In nature.
He wasn't something higher.
He was something else.