The night bled into morning without the sun daring to show its face. The survivors were packed close around the scattered fires, their shadows long and nervous. The air was damp, thick with rot that traveled from the riverbed. Somewhere beneath the soil, something shifted—like chains dragged across a hollow cavern. The ground did not quake at once, but breathed, as though the land itself had been waiting for its cue.
Shitsubo sat apart, crouched on a half-broken stone, his mask tilted against the dim firelight. He wasn't asleep; he hadn't truly slept since Ragnarok began. He stared at his own hand, watching faint cracks glow across the veins, as if the curse beneath his skin wanted out.
"Still trying to pretend it's a blessing?" a voice rasped.
It was Juro, leaning on his crude spear, watching him with that same steady contempt. Unlike the others, Juro never whispered when he spoke to Shitsubo.
Shitsubo didn't look up. "I don't pretend. I endure."
"Enduring and rotting are cousins," Juro shot back, his tone low so only Shitsubo heard. "One makes you stronger. The other just stinks until people leave you behind."
Shitsubo's jaw twitched. He wanted to lash out, but before words could form, the earth answered for them.
The ground cracked with a sound like snapping bones. The fires sputtered out in bursts of ash. Several survivors screamed as the soil split open beneath their feet.
From the black wound in the ground, things crawled. Not beasts of fur or claw—but stone and shadow fused. Their bodies were jagged, their arms sharp as broken statues. Dwarven constructs, animated by corrupted power, long abandoned by their makers. Their eyes glowed with the same burning runes etched deep into the mountain spires.
"Form up!" Genji roared, drawing his blade. "Hold the line!"
Diago grabbed the nearest survivors, pulling them behind him, but his gaze flicked at Shitsubo. "If you have power, now's the time."
Shitsubo rose slowly, pulling the mask down tight across his face. "Don't tell me when."
The constructs surged forward, heavy, relentless. Each step rattled the teeth in the survivors' skulls. The spears of the humans bent like twigs when struck. Shields shattered. Screams filled the clearing.
Genji's blade cut through one—but instead of blood, shards of stone rained down. Another construct raised its jagged arm to smash him. Diago barreled into it, tackling the thing back, his axe biting into its runes. Sparks burst, the construct faltering.
Yet more kept coming.
And then Shitsubo moved.
He didn't charge like Genji, or roar like Diago. He simply opened his hand. The cracks on his skin widened, bleeding black smoke into the air. A hum followed, deep and guttural, as if the world recognized the curse.
The nearest construct froze mid-strike. Its glowing runes flickered. Shitsubo clenched his fist, and the stone body caved inward, shrieking as though it had lungs. It collapsed into dust.
The survivors stared. Some cheered. Others fell silent in horror.
Another construct rushed him. Shitsubo raised his palm—yet this time, the curse didn't flow smooth. It surged, spilling past his control. His arm trembled, black veins crawling up his neck. The construct cracked apart violently, but so did the ground beneath it, tearing open in a jagged scar that almost swallowed two children.
Juro pulled them away, glaring back. "You're not saving us. You're dooming us quicker!"
"Then stand aside," Shitsubo spat, though his voice faltered under the strain.
The battle thickened. Genji shouted orders to form a wedge. Diago's brute force cleared space, his axe screaming through stone. But more constructs crawled from the earth, their numbers unnatural.
Shitsubo pushed forward alone, dragging the curse out like a chain. With every strike, constructs shattered—yet with every kill, the cracks spread further across his flesh. His mask hid his face, but not the flicker of pain when the curse gnawed deeper.
Juro, spearing another construct, shouted loud enough for all to hear: "This is no savior! Watch closely—he'll bring the mountain down on us all before he ever saves a single soul!"
Some survivors wavered, retreating closer to Genji. Others still watched Shitsubo, torn between fear and awe.
And in the smoke of battle, Shitsubo whispered only to himself, voice ragged:
"I'm not your savior. I'm not your devil. I'm just what's left."
The fight dragged on, the clearing now a graveyard of dust and broken stone. The survivors barely held, bloodied and breathless.
But when the last construct fell—shattered under the weight of Shitsubo's curse—the air did not ease. The earth still trembled beneath them. The crack in the soil glowed faintly, as though something deeper, far greater, was stirring.
The survivors stared at it in dread.
And Shitsubo, panting, his hand trembling as the curse crawled higher up his arm, whispered with a strange calmness:
"This was only the knocking. The door hasn't opened yet."