The air grew dense.
Reiji looked up—and felt it.
That presence… did not belong to this world.
The world was broken, he thought.
The birth of a new God...
A faith molded not by belief, but by human hands.
A deity without soul, without judgment...
It would not be merciful, nor just, nor cruel.
It would simply be.
"We failed," Reiji whispered.
Rikuto felt it too.
The instant the "God" opened its eyes, his purpose had been sealed.
He, the zero experiment, was no longer needed.
Without hesitation, Rikuto rushed forward like a shattered blade in a current, clinging to the last reason he had left.
But Reiji was waiting.
With surgical precision, he blocked the strike, spun his katana with savage grace, and before Rikuto could react, he was thrown off balance.
The ground vanished beneath his feet—
And the blade of Kokoro no Homura pierced his chest like a sentence passed.
Rikuto spat blood.
A collapsed lung.
Every breath was agony; every thought, a confession.
I'm replaceable, he thought. A tool built to die... for something I never believed in.
How tragic.
How human.
Reiji frowned and met his eyes.
No pity. No glory.
Only duty.
"Rest."
He sank him into one last illusion.
But not of pain.
In it, Rikuto was a child laughing beneath the rain.
A young man in love.
An adult crying for nostalgia, not programming.
A man, at last.
In that final breath, before his head fell, Rikuto smiled.
For the first time… he understood.
And then, he died as what he had never been: a human being.
---
Footsteps echoed like a sentence.
Tsukimura, the infamous "Creator of Nothing," descended to level three.
Absolute silence.
The dead garden welcomed him as if it knew the world had just changed.
Reiji raised his gaze, barely able to stand.
"Well… you finally did it, didn't you?" he said with a bitter smirk. "The Creator of Nothing… finally gave shape to his desire. Though perhaps… it will also be your last."
Tsukimura didn't answer.
He simply lowered his eyes to the corpse of Rikuto.
"So useless to the very end," he murmured under his breath.
A twisted smile formed on his lips; his eyes, empty of grief, blinked as though mourning wasn't worth the effort.
"You're not even going to respect his death!?" Aika shouted, her voice trembling with fury.
Her expression wasn't just pain—it was hate.
Pure and burning.
"Respect?" Tsukimura repeated, disinterested. "And will that bring him back?
He's dead.
What we'll all be, sooner or later.
He simply arrived first. Nothing more."
"You're a monster!"
"No, girl," he replied calmly. "I'm merely a human who stopped believing in humans."
Then a shadow fell upon them.
A figure advanced behind Tsukimura.
The God.
Silent, emotionless.
A humanoid body of perfect design, white and featureless, as though the soul had refused to inhabit it.
It moved slowly toward Reiji.
By reflex, Reiji raised his katana and struck.
But the God did not evade.
It merely extended one finger…
And touched his chest. Barely a brush.
"Ghh…!"
Reiji collapsed to his knees, coughing a violent spray of blood.
His lungs burned. Something inside him… was gone.
"Reiji…" Aika whispered, running to his side.
Tsukimura watched with a quiet, almost childlike fascination.
"It's useless, don't you see? He doesn't need to destroy to kill. He simply… replaces.
That finger has learned how to harm.
Now it will learn how to prevent it."
He turned to the others, still fixated on his creation.
"Every passing second… it learns.
It doesn't reason like us. It doesn't cry, laugh, or rage.
It simply assimilates.
Isn't it beautiful? It didn't need me to teach it anything—
Because human teachings are as limited as they are absurd."
The God began to ascend the staircase of flesh, its feet never touching the ground.
It merely rose, as if the world no longer concerned it.
Satisfied, Tsukimura adjusted his gloves, stained with ink and blood.
"If you wish to follow it, die with pride.
If not… escape now.
This living being you call a 'laboratory' will devour you."
And with that, he vanished into shadow, as if he had nothing left to say—or fear.
---
Kenshiro Gai and Shinsei Kōji.
An unbreakable wall…
Against a will that refused to be touched.
The earth trembled beneath them.
Soldiers watched from afar, unblinking, breathless.
They knew that even a misplaced sigh could erase them.
This was more than a battle—
It was the clash of two souls that had never known the word surrender.
Kenshiro moved like a living fortress.
His Shinkon—an immense entity split between total defense and absolute offense—made him invincible, yet slow.
Shinsei was swift, elegant, almost celestial… but his strength was fading.
Every strike he unleashed erased the surroundings—the air itself, the homes, the ground…
But not Kenshiro.
Kenshiro did not vanish.
Kenshiro remained.
And that was his greatest power.
A thrust from Shinsei cut Kenshiro's shoulder.
Kenshiro countered with a slash that split the street in two, shattering concrete and tearing through a nearby tower.
Both stepped back.
Both bled.
Both still stood.
Their blades clashed as if to shatter each other's souls.
Faith and reason no longer mattered.
Only who would fall last.
Then…
Shinsei froze.
For just a second.
A scent pierced him.
Blood. Sweat. Smoke…
And something else.
The smell of childhood.
His head throbbed.
His thoughts collapsed into a single memory.
---
Years ago.
A nameless boy. No glory.
Hiding behind a crumbling statue in the throne room of a fallen kingdom.
Soldiers screamed.
Nobles burned.
The King had fallen—
His head rolling after the blade of Reiji Mikazuki, the demon who reduced Sainokuni to ashes in a single winter of blood.
Reiji found him there.
Trembling.
Staring up with eyes that showed no compassion—only destiny.
"You," said Reiji, emotionless. "You are the new king."
He placed the bloodstained crown upon him.
And left him there, standing among the ruins of the throne.
Alone.
Inexplicably… crowned.
He didn't understand.
He knew nothing.
That night he wept—not from fear,
but from confusion.
Because the man who had destroyed his nation had chosen him as a symbol of the future.
As though destruction itself had deemed him worthy of survival.
Days later, his Shinkon awakened.
It did not scream.
It did not roar.
It spoke.
A voice inside his head.
An entity telling him that gods did not choose out of mercy, but necessity.
That he would be their vessel.
From that moment, Shinsei understood.
He didn't need to pray to a god.
He had to become one.
But his body was not enough.
Nor was his soul.
Thus his goal was born:
To create an entity that transcended human law.
To forge something neither good nor evil—only divine.
To master the human soul.
To bend faith itself.
To prove that even the sacred could be designed by mortal hands.
---
Back in the present, Kenshiro didn't lose rhythm.
He swung through the air.
Shinsei barely blocked.
The ground splintered.
The capital's walls groaned as if wishing to flee.
Shinsei's breathing quickened.
His vision blurred.
Yet still…
He did not retreat.
They both knew.
This was no longer a war.
It was the clash of two titans.
And neither would yield.
---
Kenshiro and Shinsei…
Both stopped their blades at once.
They felt it.
A pressure.
An existence that should not be walking this earth.
From the depths of the underground lab…
The artificial God had awakened.
And now…
It walked.
Not for purpose.
Not for faith.
Not for vengeance.
It simply walked.
Everything it touched turned to ash and was reborn into new shapes—twisted trees, bleeding flowers, houses fused with flesh.
There was no logic. Only an imperfect cycle of creation and destruction.
It did not save the wounded.
It did not punish the guilty.
It did not forgive those who prayed.
It simply was.
A single impulse stirred within its core:
"Eliminate those who distort the balance."
Its primitive mind began to form thoughts.
And its logic—pure, without morality—concluded that humans were a race that defiled more than they created.
Soldiers tried to stop it.
They shot. They screamed. They begged.
But with each step of the god, they simply…
Burst into fragments.
And were reborn—tiny, soulless infants, bodies without will, eyes empty under its control.
They were no longer human.
They were reconstructions… without souls.
For it—the god—did not yet know what a soul was.
---
Shinsei saw it and smiled.
"We did it," he murmured, voice trembling. "The experiment was a success."
His thoughts raced.
How can I absorb it?
Or perhaps… should I let it absorb me?
His heart thundered.
That entity was the embodiment of everything he had pursued for twenty years.
Faith that could be designed.
Divinity that could be manipulated.
Victory over heaven itself.
---
Kenshiro, sword still in hand, stepped forward.
"What is that?" he muttered, never lowering his guard.
Before he could be answered, Shinsei turned to him, eyes alight with madness and resolve.
"That, Kenshiro… is what should have ruled us all.
And I… will become one with it."
Kenshiro barely had time to brace.
He struck.
But the artificial God did not defend.
It merely absorbed the blow.
Understood it. Deconstructed it. Archived it.
Then…
It became wind.
Kenshiro was thrown back, his sword trembling.
The God did not react to pain.
It didn't block.
It didn't dodge.
It absorbed.
It understood.
It rebuilt.
Even the screams of soldiers, the anguish of the battlefield, the despair in human hearts—
All were taken in as data.
A mind without soul.
A symbol without morality.
A god without heaven…
That had begun to walk.
---
Shinsei was frozen.
Not by fear, but by ignorance.
He didn't know how to absorb a God.
His plans, his prayers, his years of faith and conspiracy—
none had given him instructions for this.
Before him, the newborn divinity reshaped the capital like wet clay.
Houses collapsed.
Streets vanished.
Trees wept black sap.
And seconds later…
All was reborn anew.
Kenshiro didn't know whether to attack.
That thing wasn't human.
Nor beast.
It was a living decision—
A faceless entity that acted without distinguishing good from evil.
It simply acted.
---
Far below, in the still-trembling depths…
The laboratory—or rather, the living creature shaped as one—twisted in agony.
It cried.
It laughed.
It screamed.
Walls shuddered. Stairs melted. Ceilings fell.
It was as if its soul itself were collapsing.
Chisiki was on his knees, trembling.
"One chance…" he muttered, voice shaking.
Aika, beside him, activated her Shinkon—healing, reinforcing, enduring.
Reiji, from the other side, aided as best he could:
Weaving an illusion to calm him, to keep him conscious amid the chaos.
And then… something inside Chisiki broke.
But it wasn't fear.
It was understanding.
His body glowed.
Time froze.
And from his chest, as if tearing through reality itself… his Yuino burst forth.
A black-and-purple distortion opened like a great vortex in the air—
A portal.
Not a door, but a tear between this world and abstraction, a wound in logic itself.
Through it, they could escape.
But the laboratory didn't want to let them go.
It wasn't just a place.
It wasn't just a being.
It was a child trapped in a monster's skin.
Its screams were those of an abandoned soul.
Donyoku was the last to look back.
His eyes showed no hatred.
Only compassion.
"That wasn't a simple monster," he whispered. "But it wasn't free either."
And so, they all crossed.
---
The vortex spat them out before the Hokorian army's walls.
Kenshiro's division soldiers aimed immediately—confused, panicked.
Others just stared in silence, uncomprehending.
And then…
They saw it.
From atop the capital, among the warped towers and living architecture—
The divine figure walked.
Not with majesty.
Not with glory.
But with a calm… terrifying.
A new God had begun to walk.
And the world would never be the same.
---
Tsukimura laughed.
It wasn't laughter born of joy.
It was the hollow laughter of someone who could no longer cry.
He knew what he had done.
He knew that if this God continued to assimilate…
it could remake the world.
Not as paradise.
Not as promise.
But as a perfect prison.
A cage without bars—where no one would suffer,
because no one would feel.
"At last…" Tsukimura whispered, eyes wide open.
"…the world will know what a true God is.
All will become part of Him.
All will become Nothing.
And Nothing…
will become All."
His body trembled with emotion.
He was terrified.
But more than that…
He was satisfied.
---
In the capital…
Shinsei stood still.
His Shinkon, deep within his consciousness, whispered:
Let it infuse you...
Surrender...
Fuse with divinity...
Become the voice that guides its power…
Shinsei closed his eyes.
For the first time… he hesitated.
"What if this isn't ascension… but surrender?"
The Shinkon's tone shifted.
No longer a voice.
A cold echo—
A lie dressed as prophecy.
Shinsei realized it.
He no longer knew whether it spoke… or whether madness had taken form.
Kenshiro, from afar, watched.
He sensed the turmoil within him, but could not hear it.
Could not stop it.
And in that moment—
The God moved.
---
It did not walk.
It flowed.
Stones split.
Columns crumbled.
Structures fell—only to rise again under a new, alien logic.
A capital without doors, without windows.
A prison—beautiful, perfect, painless.
Reiji, gathering the last of his strength, shouted:
"Reinforce the barriers! Now!"
The defensive Shinkon users and mages acted at once.
Spiritual seals carved into the air.
Walls of energy enveloped the city.
And for a second…
It seemed to work.
But the God looked at them.
Just looked.
And the barrier—
Dissolved.
It didn't shatter.
It unmade.
As if it had never existed.
Kenshiro's soldiers charged with everything they had left.
Not one reached it.
An invisible field repelled them.
One exploded in blood.
Another…
was reborn.
A dog.
Its eyes empty, obedient, soulless.
---
The divine figure continued forward.
Unhurried.
Unstoppable.
Unlooking.
Reiji understood then:
That being was not walking toward the end of the world.
It was the end.
---
When gods walk among men, they do not bring hope… they bring silence.
For even faith trembles when Nothingness begins to take form.
Thank you for delving into this second arc, where war is not only waged with swords, but with past wounds, irreversible choices… and souls that have yet to decide which side they stand on.