The Neutral Zone woke in death throes.
Islands of stone drifted into the void, colliding and shattering into dust that never fell. The sky was torn wide, red fire and pale mist spilling together into a storm of lightning. Fissures crisscrossed the plaza, glowing veins that pulsed with each heartbeat like arteries ready to burst.
The system's voice came jagged, final.
[ Neutral Zone Stability: 45%. ][ Collapse probability: 100%. ][ Survival dependent on anomaly. ]
The word hung in the air like a curse.
Anomaly.
Me.
✦
The survivors broke.
The old man collapsed on his knees, clawing at the stone, his voice rising in hysterical pleas. "Murim! Take me! I surrender! I renounce this cursed place! Just let me live!"
He turned to the pale rift, groveling toward its light. His cracked staff clattered uselessly beside him.
Kavya's daggers gleamed in her hands as she stepped forward, her expression hard as steel. "Coward."
Her blades lifted.
Dev caught her wrist, stopping the strike. His voice was calm but unyielding. "He's broken. Killing him won't fix anything."
"He'll betray us the second they offer him a rope," Kavya snapped, her eyes blazing.
"Then we watch him," Dev answered evenly. "But he's not our enemy."
Her gaze flicked to me, sharp, accusing. "No. He is."
The silence was worse than her blade.
The mother pulled Arjun close. The boy clutched his staff, the runes glowing faintly even without his touch. His eyes—still burning, still watching—never left mine.
✦
The rifts split wider.
Howls shook the plaza. The air trembled with qi.
From the crimson gate, a Beastborn warband poured through—wolf-headed, lion-headed, scaled monstrosities with weapons dripping fire and bone. From the pale gate, Murim disciples followed, blades gleaming with qi, their robes unruffled even as the world shattered around them.
This time, there was no disdain between them.
Only purpose.
"Break the Zone," one disciple commanded.
"Break the fracture," a Beastborn snarled.
And together, they advanced.
✦
The impact shook the dying Zone.
Kavya spun forward, daggers flashing silver arcs as she slit a wolf-beast's throat, rolling beneath another's axe. Dev met two disciples at once, his reforged sword clanging against qi-sheathed steel, sparks bursting in showers.
The old man screamed, stumbling back, tripping over a fissure as a Beastborn lunged.
Arjun's staff blazed, barrier snapping into place. The beast slammed into it and recoiled, jaws snapping uselessly against light. The boy gasped, his knees trembling, but the shield held.
His mother dragged him back, sobbing, but the boy pushed her away, lifting his staff higher.
The glow spread.
Shields rippled outward, wrapping Kavya, Dev, even me. The enemies' strikes sparked harmlessly against them.
But the runes cracked.
Light spiderwebbed across the staff, as if the wood itself was breaking under the strain.
Arjun screamed, his body shaking with the effort.
The shields held.
But so did the toll.
✦
I roared, Inkblade shrieking as I drove it into the ground. Shadows burst outward, tendrils lashing across the plaza, impaling Beastborn, slamming disciples back through their rift. Blood sprayed, screams echoed, and the fissures widened with every strike.
The system's voice glitched again.
[ Instability critical. ][ Collapse accelerating. ]
The Zone cracked louder, lightning raining from the sky.
And still the enemies came.
✦
Kavya staggered, blood slicking her arm, her blades slipping in her grip. A disciple's sword arced toward her chest—
Arjun's staff pulsed. The barrier flared, blocking the strike.
The boy collapsed to both knees, coughing blood, the runes splintering across his staff.
Kavya froze, staring at him in silence.
For once, her fury was gone.
Only fear remained.
✦
Dev roared, his sword cleaving a Beastborn in two. His chest heaved, blood streaking his face, but his eyes burned steady. He moved beside me, covering my flank as another disciple lunged.
"Reed!" he barked. "We don't last another day at this pace!"
He was wrong.
We wouldn't last another hour.
The Zone was ending.
Neutrality was dying.
And today, we had to die with it—or break everything left.
The battlefield fractured.
Stone islands tore loose from the plaza, spinning upward into the storm. Chasms opened beneath our feet, yawning black and endless. The sky ripped wider, lightning pouring down like veins of fire.
The Neutral Zone was dying.
And it wanted to take us with it.
✦
A disciple lunged for my throat.
The strike froze midair.
Then it rewound.
I saw the same slash again, the same sparks, the same scream echo twice.
The loop had returned.
Only this time, it wasn't just one strike.
The entire battlefield stuttered.
Beastborn howls repeated like a chorus. Kavya's blades flickered the same arc three times. Dev's sword crashed again and again against an enemy he'd already killed.
The Zone was collapsing into itself.
✦
The survivors broke faster than the ground.
The old man shrieked, clawing at his own face, his voice lost in the echo. "We're dead! The world is gone! The gods have abandoned us!"
Kavya snarled, her daggers bouncing uselessly against a Beastborn whose body rewound every time she struck. "I can't kill what doesn't stay dead!"
Dev grit his teeth, forcing himself forward through the loop, blood running down his arm.
Arjun collapsed fully, his staff sparking, the runes almost gone. His mother cradled him, screaming his name, shaking him as his small chest heaved.
The boy's eyes still glowed faintly, weak but unbroken.
And those eyes locked on me.
✦
The Inkblade writhed in my grip.
"…cut it… cut the script apart… devour time… devour fate…"
The fissures widened, light pouring upward, shadows coiling down my arms.
I swung.
The Inkblade screamed, tearing through the loop, slicing apart time itself.
The world shattered.
The echoes died.
And the Zone cracked so wide I thought the ground would split into nothing.
✦
The system's voice broke into static.
[ Unauthorized intervention detected. ][ Collapse accelerating. ][ Divergence locked. ]
The words burned across the sky, bleeding red and pale. Then a final line appeared.
[ Title evolution: The One Who Breaks the Script → ??? ]
The survivors froze.
The old man wailed, pointing at me with trembling hands. "He's not a savior! He's the end! He's the knife that cuts the world apart!"
Kavya's blades lowered, her face pale, her eyes locked on me with something beyond fear.
Dev's voice was steady, even as blood dripped from his sword. "Whatever you are… it isn't just a man anymore."
Arjun's lips moved, his voice a whisper too faint for the storm.
"…the story… is changing."
✦
The gods descended.
[ A god of war howls with joy. ][ A god of silence whispers: "The fracture is reborn." ][ A nameless one presses closer, watching. ][ A goddess of ink laughs softly: "The page tears. A new script begins." ]
Their presence pressed on my chest like chains, fire, and water all at once.
And I couldn't breathe.
The Inkblade roared, shadows devouring light, shrieking into the void.
The fissures burst wide.
✦
The system screamed.
[ Neutral Zone Stability: 0%. ][ Collapse complete. ]
The plaza split apart. Survivors tumbled into the void, clawing for purchase as stone islands broke free.
The old man vanished into the abyss mid-scream.
Kavya clung to a shattered slab, her daggers buried deep in the rock. Dev grabbed her wrist, holding her steady as the ground ripped away beneath them.
The mother wrapped herself around Arjun, the boy's staff dimming, the glow almost gone.
And me—
The void opened beneath my feet.
The Inkblade howled.
And I fell.