The earth around him was unrecognizable. Mountains lay flattened, rivers ran dry, and the land itself seemed to shudder under the weight of their battle. Soldiers—mortal and divine alike—were scattered across the battlefield, motionless.
He collapsed to his knees. Light bled from his wounds, searing through his body like molten gold. Feathers, once radiant and proud, were torn from his wings, drifting into the wind.
The Wolf of Heaven could not comprehend what had struck him. Or perhaps… he could not remember.
"The Wolf of Heaven has fallen."
"Let darkness consume his light."
The Heavens had spoken. They had forsaken their weapon.
As his wings crumbled to ash and his radiance dimmed, he saw...
Her.
The Anomaly—the mortal who defied the Heavens, the one he was sent to destroy.
She stood there, unflinching, bearing no hatred, no hostility.
"No mortal could hold such power," he whispered, clinging to consciousness.
She smiled, faint but unwavering.
"I am no mortal."
The Wolf raised his gaze, words echoing in his mind, reverberating like distant thunder.
"Tell me, Wolf of Heaven… what comes before the Heavens?" she asked.
The last of his feathers scattered into the wind, carried like whispers of a dying star."I… do not know," he admitted.
For all his centuries of servitude, for all his might, he was without answer. He was a weapon, nothing more.
The Anomaly stepped closer. Behind her, eleven figures emerged from the smoke, their eyes glowing with different hues, like fragments of the cosmos.
She stepped fully into the light. Her silver hair shimmered, catching the wind like threads of moonlight.
"Before the Heavens... comes Choice."
The words hung in the air, resonant and heavy."…Choice?" he murmured, voice broken.
She extended her hand.
"Come, Wolf of Heaven. Let us create a world that breathes."
He thought of defiance, of reaching for Heaven's Halberd one last time—but the weapon lay fractured, beyond reach. His heart cried out for the Heavens, but only silence answered. His body had failed him. His purpose had vanished.
He drew in a ragged breath, summoning the last of his strength. His hand reached for hers.
When their fingers met, the world itself seemed to shudder. Reality splintered, time fractured. Then, void.
Absolute nothingness.
And then—light.
The Old World ended.
The New World began.
He awakened.
The sky was a muted grey at the brink of dawn, heavy with a stillness that pressed against his chest. The air itself felt thick, almost viscous. Without the Heavens, Arcana settled upon the world, finding a new equilibrium.
His wounds were gone—healed as if they had never been—but beneath his skin, something pulsed. A strange heartbeat, alien and alive. He drew in a breath. The cold air cut at his throat, sharp and unfamiliar.
He reached out for Arcana as he had countless times before. Storms bent to his will, mountains quivered under his roar, light itself obeyed him. Now… nothing. Silence answered. The world did not recognize him.
Not yet.
Another breath scraped past his teeth. Raw. Human. Alive.
The Arcana here moved like a wild sea, thick and unrefined, without direction, without song. No longer did it carry the voice of Heaven. No longer did it call him Master.
He turned to the horizon. The world stretched endlessly, a blank canvas. Mountains rose where clouds willed them. Rivers carved paths where gravity demanded. Creation stumbled in infancy, clumsy, untamed, yet free.
And above it all—silence.
No Choir.
No Command.
No Light of Judgment.
He tried to summon his weapon. Nothing stirred. Not even the wind. The attempt hollowed him, tearing through chest and soul alike.
For the first time in eternity, he felt it—disconnection.
A loneliness that no divine decree, no storm, no Arcana could fill.
The Wolf of Heaven was gone. Only a man remained, untested, untethered, and entirely alone.
He remembered her—the Anomaly.
Her hand. Her eyes. Her voice.
"Let us build a world that breathes."
He wondered if she had survived the shattering. If the others—the Eleven—had found their place in this world as he had. Or if this, too, was punishment: to awaken alone.
A gust of wind passed, brushing against him like a whisper, as if calling his name.
He took a step. The ground responded with a low hum, acknowledging his existence—not in fear, not in reverence—but recognition.
And so he walked. Until the air warmed. Until the sky, once gray and silent, flushed with the blush of dawn. And there, in that newborn light, he saw them.
Twelve figures, standing on the edge of creation, where land still steamed and the seas had not yet chosen their borders.
And at their center, she stood. The Anomaly.
Her eyes glimmered—not with divine fire, but with something alive, enduring, human. She smiled—a small, tired, knowing smile, warm enough to still the wind.
"You came," she said softly.
He stopped a few steps away. Was it welcome, or accusation?
"The Heavens cast me down," he replied, his voice rough, raw, mortal.
"There was nowhere else to go."
She nodded, as if she had expected that answer long before he spoke it.
"Then you chose right."
The Eleven watched silently. Warriors, saints, monsters, gods reborn in forms too human for their old names.
"This world," she said, turning toward the horizon,
"will not remember the Heavens. No thrones. No angels. No chains of worship. Here, even gods must live, breathe, and bleed like men."
Her words hung in the air, heavy as law. The Arcana itself seemed to bend around her voice, weaving it into the newborn fabric of the world.
He looked at his hands—trembling, fragile, human.
"And what of the Wolf of Heaven?" he asked quietly.
"What becomes of him in a world that does not know his name?"
She stepped closer.
"Then he sheds it," she said.
"Names are cages of memory. This world needs not the Wolf of Heaven. It needs a man."
She brought her hand to her chest.
"My name is Asuna Saki."
Then her hand pressed gently to his chest.
"And your name is Matsuo Kazuki."
The world shifted. The wind stirred. Somewhere beneath them, the Arcana roared once, recording the name in its endless current.
Light flickered within him—not divine, not radiant, but warm. Human.
For the first time, he bowed—not in reverence, not in defeat—but in acceptance.
"Matsuo Kazuki…" he whispered, tasting the name like a promise.
One by one, the others stepped forward. Saki turned to them.
"We are no longer gods," she said.
"We are witnesses. Builders. Sinners, perhaps."
Her gaze returned to Kazuki.
"But this time, we begin again—with names that belong to us, not to Heaven."
As the sun rose over the forming land, thirteen shadows stretched across the birth of the new world—beings neither divine nor damned, timeless yet fragile, something in between.
The Thirteen Unknown Gods.
And among them, the Wolf reborn as a man.
Matsuo Kazuki.