The carriage was a gilded cage, and inside, the atmosphere was rotting. For four grueling hours, the only sound was the rhythmic, agonizing groan of the wooden wheels grinding against the dirt path. I sat there, trapped in Kenji's skin, feeling the cold sweat pool at the small of my back. Opposite me sat Hina and Yumi, their bodies tense, leaning away from me as if I carried a plague.
Beside me were the two maids. Elara, the senior observer, sat with her back perfectly straight, her eyes fixed on me like a hawk watching a wounded rabbit. Every time I shifted my weight, I felt her gaze calculating the micro-movements of my muscles. Then there was Mina, the younger maid, whose soft whimpers were the only break in the silence. She was trembling so violently that the tea set beside her rattled incessantly, a frantic metallic heartbeat.
Opposite me sat Kiran, the Azure Knight. He was motionless, a statue of sapphire and steel. The air around him was perpetually cold. I tried to close my eyes and run my own calculations—The detective's habit. I needed to map out my survival, but the psychological weight in this carriage was a fog I couldn't clear. I had survived the Palace's scan, but I could feel it—the girls didn't trust me. They didn't see Kenji; they saw a stranger wearing his face.
'If I survive this border,' I thought, staring at my reflection in the dark window, 'it will be a miracle.'
The Screech from the Void
"We are entering the outskirts of the border village, Sirs!" the driver shouted from the front. His voice was supposed to bring relief, but it only brought a new wave of dread.
Suddenly, the horses let out a panicked neigh, and the carriage lurched to a violent, bone-jarring halt. Before any of us could utter a word, a sound erupted from the horizon.
It wasn't a noise. It was an assault on the soul.
A high-pitched, vibrating screech tore through the sky, so intense that the very glass of the carriage windows began to spiderweb. It felt like someone had plunged a red-hot needle through my eardrums and into the center of my brain. I collapsed onto the floor of the carriage, clutching my head, my teeth baring in a silent scream of agony. Beside me, Mina shrieked and fainted, and even the stoic Elara was forced to her knees, her face contorted in pain.
I looked at Kiran. Even he, a Rank 7 Legend, had his hands pressed tightly against his ears, his mana flaring in a desperate attempt to shield his nervous system.
"Out! Everyone out!" Kiran roared, his voice barely audible over the receding echoes of the shriek.
As we stumbled out of the carriage, the air hit us—it smelled of copper, ozone, and burnt hair. Our heads were throbbing, a rhythmic pulsing pain that made every footstep feel like walking on broken glass. And then, we felt it. Three distinct, gargantuan auras erupted from the distance. They were so heavy that the gravity in the area seemed to double. It was the feeling of a predator so large that the prey simply stops breathing.
"The forest..." Yumi gasped, her voice trembling. "It's... it's screaming."
The Azure Knight's Ballet of Blood
The jungle before us was a graveyard of splinters. The lush greenery had been pulverized into a gray, ashen wasteland. And from the shadows of the broken trees, the Demons emerged.
They were horrific, orc-like monstrosities whose skin looked like charred obsidian. Black, oily smoke leaked from their joints, and their eyes were pits of violet fire. There were hundreds of them, crawling out from the earth, their claws clicking against the stones.
"Get back!" Kiran commanded, pushing us toward the driver. "Stay behind the line of my mana!"
I watched, frozen, as Kiran drew his Azure Blade. The steel hummed with a celestial blue vapor that seemed to freeze the very air it touched. He didn't charge like a common soldier. He shifted his stance, his body low to the ground, looking like a professional sprinter at the starting blocks.
Flash.In a blink, he was gone. He moved with a speed that bypassed the human eye's ability to track. I saw a streak of blue light, then a pause of exactly three seconds where the air seemed to hold its breath.
Slash.
A dozen demon heads took flight in a single, horizontal arc of blue fire. Kiran didn't stop. He pivoted—left, right, diagonal—leaving behind a zigzag of glowing blue scars in the air. Every time he struck, the demons didn't bleed; they shattered into glowing embers and vanished into dust.
It was terrifying. He was a god of the battlefield, a reaper of shadows. Within minutes, the immediate clearing was nothing but a field of settling ash. Kiran stood in the center, his sword clicking back into its scabbard with a sharp, final sound.
"Your turn," Kiran said, turning to us, his eyes cold and demanding. "I want to see the 'Divine Heroes' in action. Clear the remaining path."
The Illusion of Power
Hina stepped forward first. Her jealousy of my new power had fermented into a desperate need to prove herself. She raised her arms, her Crimson Mana swirling into a massive, roiling sun of fire above her head. With a primal scream, she threw the sphere into a cluster of demons hiding in the treeline.
BOOM.
The explosion was a pillar of fire that incinerated everything within fifty yards. Yumi followed, her hands pressing into the dirt. I felt the earth hum, and massive, thorn-covered roots erupted from the soil, crushing the shadow-beasts like they were made of dry straw.
Then, Kiran's gaze settled on me. "Sir Kenji. The Triple-Element. Show me the Earth that shattered my scan."
I stepped forward, my heart hammering against my ribs. I tried to remember the feeling of the Earth element from earlier. I visualized the density, the weight, the logic of the soil. 'Strike! Move! Break!' I shouted in my mind.
Nothing. Not a single pebble moved. I stood there like an idiot, my hand outstretched toward a group of demons that were slowly circling back.
"What's wrong, Kenji?" Hina sneered, her eyes filled with suspicion. "Is the 'God' having trouble with some minor trash?"
"I am saving my essence," I lied, my voice dripping with Kenji's trademark arrogance to hide my mounting panic. "I do not waste my 'Triple-Soul' on creatures that my subordinates can handle."
Yumi and Hina exchanged a look of pure disgust. They didn't believe me, but the fear of my aura kept them silent.
The Village of the Damned
We hurried toward the village, the driver weeping as he saw the devastation. But as we entered the main square, the horror reached its peak.
The village was a charnel house. Smoke rose from the ruins of the tavern and the chapel. The streets were paved with the bodies of the villagers, their faces frozen in expressions of such pure agony that even I, a detective who had seen dozens of crime scenes, felt my stomach turn.
Yumi immediately dropped to her knees, her green light flickering as she tried to heal a few dying survivors. Hina moved through the burning houses, her flames seeking out any hidden demons. I drew my heavy iron sword and found a stray demon feasting on a corpse. With a surge of raw adrenaline, I swung—the blade cleaved through its smoky neck, turning it to ash.
"You are slow, Kenji," Kiran's voice came from the shadows. "Your movements are unrefined. It's as if you've forgotten how to hold a sword."
But before I could reply, the sound returned.
SKREEEEEEEEEEEEE—The ground didn't just shake; it cracked open. The three auras we had felt earlier were no longer distant. They were right on top of us. The sky turned a sickly, bruised purple.
I looked at Kiran, and my blood froze. The Azure Knight—the man who had just erased an army—was clutching his head, blood trickling from his ears. He was falling to his knees.
"They're... they're here," Yumi screamed, pointing toward the village gates.
Three figures emerged from the smoke. They didn't look like demons; they looked like fallen gods. The air around them didn't just vibrate; it withered.
Death had arrived, and it was far more powerful than any Rank 7.