The Neutral Zone was bleeding.
I saw it when I woke. Cracks ran across the edges of the plaza like spiderwebs, faint light seeping through them. Whole slabs of stone hovered a few feet above the ground, drifting aimlessly before crashing back with a jolt that rattled teeth.
The sky was worse—red and pale bleeding together, torn by jagged fissures that sparked like lightning. I couldn't tell if it was dawn, dusk, or both at once.
The system carved its warning into the air.
[ Neutral Zone Stability: 78%. ][ Instability accelerating. ][ Time Remaining: 5 days. ]
Five days.
The Zone wouldn't last.
✦
The survivors were already at each other's throats.
The old man ranted, face twisted with panic. "We have to go to Murim! Do you hear me? They'll take us in! They'll—" His voice cracked into a laugh that sounded more like a sob. "They'll kill him instead!"
His crooked staff jabbed toward me.
Kavya didn't argue. She stood beside him, blades spinning between her fingers, eyes like knives. "He's not wrong. Reed is cursed. Every time you break the rules, the world breaks worse."
Dev sat on a broken pillar, sharpening his sword with measured strokes. He didn't look up as he spoke. "And yet without him, we'd be dead already."
Kavya snapped, "So we die slower. That's better?"
The old man spat into the dust. "Better he dies alone than we all follow him into the pit!"
The mother sat apart, silent, her arms wrapped tight around Arjun. The boy clutched his staff, runes faintly glowing even at rest. His eyes never left me.
The air thickened with tension, every breath edged with blame.
And the Inkblade whispered in my skull, eager.
"…turn on them… devour mistrust… silence doubt…"
I ignored it. Barely.
✦
The attack came before the argument could break into blood.
The sound of claws against stone.
From the crimson rift, a fresh pack of Beastborn poured through—wolf-headed this time, leaner but faster, their weapons jagged bone scythes that gleamed with fire.
They didn't hesitate. They leapt the cracks of the Zone as though it wasn't even there.
The survivors scattered, screams ripping the air.
Kavya cursed, meeting one head-on, her silver blades sparking as she deflected the scythe. Dev stood, sword flashing as he intercepted another, steel ringing with brutal force.
The old man shrieked, stumbling backward, staff raised weakly.
I rose with the Inkblade in my hand. Shadows exploded outward, tendrils impaling the first wolf-beast through the chest. Its flame hissed out as the blade drank it dry, leaving ash behind.
But there were too many.
✦
One broke through. It lunged at Dev's back while he fought another, jaws snapping open.
I shouted a warning, but I was too far.
Dev turned too late—
And light burst between him and death.
Arjun's staff flared, barrier snapping into place. The beast struck it, claws skidding across translucent glass. The shield didn't just hold—it threw the creature backward, slamming it into the stone hard enough to crack bone.
Dev froze, sword half-raised, staring.
Arjun trembled, staff shaking in his hands, but the runes glowed brighter than ever. His barrier pulsed once, steady, before fading.
For the second time in as many days, the boy had saved a life.
And this time, it wasn't just his own.
✦
The survivors saw it.
Kavya's eyes flicked between the fallen beast and the boy, her face unreadable.
The old man muttered furiously, "Not natural. Not natural…"
Dev finally lowered his sword, gaze settling on Arjun. For the first time, his expression cracked—not suspicion, not calculation.
Something closer to shock.
"...You protected me."
Arjun swallowed hard, gripping the staff tighter. "I didn't… I just… it moved."
The mother pulled him close, her voice sharp. "He's just a boy."
But Dev's eyes never left him.
A boy with a divine light burning in his hands.
And the gods watching us all.
✦
The fight raged on. I drove the Inkblade into another beast, shadows tearing it apart from within. Kavya slit the throat of hers, blood spraying across the stones. Dev finished the one that Arjun had flung aside, his sword cleaving it clean in half.
The last few beasts hesitated, snarled, then retreated into the crimson rift.
The Zone pulsed faintly, stabilizing for a breath before trembling again.
The system's voice carved itself into the air.
[ Neutral Zone Stability: 76%. ][ Time Remaining: 5 days. ]
We had survived.
But the cracks were spreading.
And now, Dev stared at Arjun as though seeing him for the first time.
The plaza shook even after the beasts were gone.
The cracks in the air didn't fade. They grew.
Fissures spread like veins across the Neutral Zone, light spilling through them in steady pulses. The sky above flickered, red and pale blurring into something wrong.
The system's voice returned—but it was no longer steady.
[ Neutral Zone Instability: 74%. ][ Warning: Unauthorized faction remains unresolved. ][ Correction Protocol: Initiating. ]
The words bled across the air like ink smeared on wet paper.
And then the world buckled.
✦
The ground split under our feet. Shapes crawled from the fissures—not beasts, not men. Shadows twisted into half-formed bodies, glitching with static, faces melting and reforming.
They weren't invaders.
They were the system itself.
"Correction," the things rasped, voices overlapping, distorted. "Join. Align. Bow."
The old man fell to his knees, sobbing. "Yes! Yes, I'll bow! I'll take the oath!" His words dissolved into broken laughter.
Kavya spat, blades flashing. "Like hell I will."
Dev moved beside her, his sword humming faintly as he raised it against the phantoms. "Stay behind me."
But the things weren't focused on them.
Their eyes—all of them—were locked on me.
✦
I felt the pressure before they struck.
A weight, crushing and absolute. My knees buckled under it. The Inkblade writhed in my grip, shadows exploding outward like it was fighting the pressure too.
[ Correction Protocol: Submit. ][ Correction Protocol: Align. ]
The words weren't sound anymore. They were inside my skull, pressing, tearing, trying to grind me down into obedience.
The Inkblade screamed.
"…tear them apart… devour the script itself…"
I roared and swung.
Shadows slashed through the first phantom, tearing its body into shreds of static. It collapsed with a shriek, dissolving into nothing.
The others lurched forward, shrieking as one.
✦
Dev cut one down with a furious strike. Kavya ripped another apart, blades moving faster than I could follow. But more kept crawling out of the fissures, each one whispering in broken voices:
"Bow. Bow. Bow."
The old man clawed at the ground, dragging himself toward them, eyes wild. "I'll do it! I'll do it! Take me, not him!"
Kavya kicked him aside, fury flashing in her eyes. "Shut up before I shut you up for good."
Arjun clung to his mother, his staff trembling in his hands. The runes sparked wildly, brighter with every whisper that pressed into the air.
And then—
He screamed.
The staff erupted with light.
✦
A wave of energy burst outward, clashing with the phantoms' distortion. The air rippled. The whispering voices stuttered, glitching, fracturing.
The staff's glow wrapped around me too.
For a single instant, the crushing pressure vanished. The system's voice faltered.
[ Error. Interference detected. ]
The phantoms hissed, their forms unraveling under the radiance. One by one, they shattered into static and smoke, consumed by the boy's light.
Arjun collapsed to his knees, gasping, his mother grabbing him before he hit the ground.
But the staff still glowed faintly, as though shielding me even without his strength.
Not just him.
Me.
✦
The system's words came one last time, glitching, jagged.
[ Correction Failed. ][ Instability increased. ][ Neutral Zone Stability: 70%. ]
Then silence.
The fissures closed—for now.
But the cracks remained.
✦
The survivors stared at the boy in shock.
The old man whimpered, backing away from him. "Monster…"
Kavya's blades stilled. For once, she didn't curse. She only watched him, expression unreadable.
Dev's gaze lingered longest. Not suspicion, not hostility. Something else.
Recognition.
As though he finally saw the truth behind the boy's light.
✦
The system wasn't the only one watching.
The air grew colder.
A whisper slid through the silence, words not meant for mortals.
[ A distant god mutters: "This one was not meant to exist." ]
Another voice followed, low and curious.
[ A new gaze lingers on the boy. ]
The Inkblade pulsed violently in my grip, shadows writhing as if snarling at unseen rivals.
Arjun clutched his staff tighter, staring into the sky as though he could hear them too.
For the first time, I wasn't sure if the gods were only watching me.
✦
[ Neutral Zone Stability: 70%. ]
[ Time Remaining: 5 days. ]
The Zone trembled around us.
And in the cracks of this broken world, the gods had chosen new pieces to move.