The Neutral Zone no longer looked like a world.
It looked like the carcass of one.
Shards of plaza floated in the air, some the size of houses, others no bigger than pebbles. They drifted aimlessly, colliding and splitting into dust that hung weightless. The sky was torn wide, red and pale bleeding together, lightning crawling across the horizon.
Time stuttered. A scream would echo twice. A falling rock would hang in the air for a heartbeat, then crash twice as hard.
The system's voice was jagged static.
[ Neutral Zone Stability: 49%. ][ Warning: Collapse imminent. ][ Time Remaining: 1 day. ]
The number meant nothing. The Zone felt ready to die at any moment.
✦
The survivors were cracking faster than the plaza.
The old man stood in the center of the ruin, his eyes wild, spittle flying as he screamed. "It's him! Don't you see? The Zone breaks because of him! He tears holes in the world every time he swings that cursed blade!"
His staff jabbed toward me, shaking. "Hand him over. To Murim. To the beasts. To the gods themselves—I don't care! Just hand him over before he kills us all!"
Kavya cleaned her blades with slow, deliberate strokes. She didn't deny him. She didn't agree either. But her silence was sharper than a scream.
Dev stepped forward, his sword resting across his shoulder. His voice was steady, but there was steel in it. "You hand him over, you hand us all over. Without him, we're already dead."
The old man spat. "With him, we're corpses waiting for the ground to split."
The mother said nothing. She only pulled Arjun close. The boy's staff hummed faintly, sparks crawling along the runes even at rest. His eyes didn't leave me.
Waiting. Watching.
✦
The first howl cut the air.
Then the sound of qi humming like thunder.
Both rifts opened at once.
From the crimson gate, a Beastborn warband stormed through, axes blazing, jaws snapping with flame. From the pale gate, Murim disciples followed, swords drawn, qi flaring like fire.
This time, they didn't glare at each other.
This time, they didn't hesitate.
"Break the Zone," a disciple commanded.
"Kill the fracture," a Beastborn snarled.
And together, they charged.
✦
The impact was chaos.
Kavya spun into the fray, her daggers flashing silver arcs as she slit a wolf-beast's throat, then ducked under a disciple's strike. Dev met two at once, his reforged sword ringing against steel and flame, sparks scattering across fractured stone.
The old man stumbled back, staff raised weakly, screaming prayers to gods who weren't listening.
I met the Inner Disciple from yesterday, his blade screaming with qi as it clashed against the Inkblade. Shadows burst outward, devouring light, but every strike cracked the plaza beneath us.
The Inkblade hissed in my skull.
"…devour both… script and beast… consume until nothing remains…"
I shoved it down, barely.
✦
Arjun's staff flared.
A barrier snapped into place just as a Beastborn's axe came down on Kavya's skull. Sparks flew, the blow bouncing harmlessly aside.
The boy gasped, sweat pouring down his face, but the runes burned brighter.
Another shield flared around Dev as a disciple's qi strike tore toward his chest. The barrier absorbed the blow, shattering with the impact, but saving him.
The staff's light pulsed again, covering his mother, then flickering toward me—weak, brief, but there.
Arjun staggered. His knees buckled.
But the shields held.
✦
The warband pressed harder, axes raining down. The disciples slashed with precision, every blow aimed to crack our defenses. Flames licked the plaza. Qi split the air.
Kavya screamed as her blades slipped, her arm nearly caught by a Beastborn's jaws. Dev roared, his sword cleaving through a disciple's chest, qi exploding in a shower of sparks.
And me—
I drove the Inkblade into the ground. Shadows erupted outward in a wave, devouring flames, forcing the enemy back. The Zone groaned with the strike, cracks spreading wider, lightning splitting across the sky.
The system's voice glitched.
[ Instability accelerating. ][ Collapse probability: Extreme. ]
The Zone wouldn't survive much longer.
And even if we did… neutrality was already breaking.
The enemy wasn't the worst part of the battle.
The Zone was.
Time stuttered mid-strike.
Kavya's dagger froze an inch from a Beastborn's throat. Dev's sword hovered in midair. A disciple's qi slash hung suspended, a frozen wave of light.
Then it all rewound.
The beast lunged again, the strike repeated. The scream I'd already heard tore the air a second time.
A loop.
We were caught inside the Zone's collapse.
✦
The survivors panicked.
Kavya cursed, spinning, her blades sparking uselessly as the same attack replayed. Dev gritted his teeth, his body shaking as he forced himself to resist the rewind. The old man sobbed, clutching his head, muttering prayers that tangled with the echo.
Arjun screamed. His staff blazed brighter, runes pulsing as if fighting the loop. Light wrapped his mother, shielding her from strikes that hadn't even finished landing.
But the staff flickered, dimming with every rewind.
The boy was burning out.
✦
The Inkblade writhed in my grip, shrieking louder than the cracks themselves.
"…cut it open… tear the loop apart… devour the time between…"
The fissures widened beneath me. The whispers pressed harder, louder, until I couldn't tell where my thoughts ended and the blade's began.
And I moved.
I swung into the loop itself.
The Inkblade roared, shadows exploding outward, slicing through the rewound strike.
The world screamed.
The loop shattered.
Time lurched forward in a flood. Dev's sword completed its arc, cutting his foe down. Kavya's dagger slit the Beastborn's throat. Arjun collapsed to his knees, his staff sparking weakly.
The loop was gone.
But the Zone cracked wider.
✦
The system shrieked.
[ Warning: Unauthorized manipulation of temporal instability. ][ Collapse accelerating. ][ Divergence locked. ]
The words bled across the sky, jagged and broken. Then another line appeared, sharp and final.
[ Title evolution condition met. ]
The survivors froze.
The old man wailed, pointing at me with shaking hands. "He's not saving us! He's tearing the world apart!"
Kavya's blades dripped blood, her face pale, her eyes locked on me with something between rage and fear.
Dev didn't move. His sword hung at his side, his gaze steady, unreadable. "You're not just outside the script anymore," he said quietly. "You're rewriting it."
Arjun raised his head weakly, his staff sparking, his young eyes burning.
And he whispered, hoarse but certain:
"You're becoming something else."
✦
The Inkblade writhed in my grip, shadows crawling up my arms, searing into my skin. The whispers howled in triumph.
"…yes… evolution… become the story itself…"
The gods stirred.
[ A god of chains laughs with delight. ][ A goddess of ink whispers: "The page bleeds." ][ A nameless one watches in silence. ]
Their voices pressed into me, heavy as stone, sharp as fire.
And the Zone cracked deeper.
✦
The system's voice stuttered, broken.
[ Neutral Zone Stability: 45%. ][ Collapse probability: irreversible. ][ Time Remaining: 1 day. ]
The Zone was almost gone.
And the survivors looked at me not as a man, not as a leader.
But as something monstrous.
A fracture walking in flesh.