The ground trembled with an unsettling calm.
Enma kept screaming. Her tears mixed with blood, dirt, and despair.
The God, unmoved, let her fall as if she were a toy no longer worth keeping.
She crawled, eyes empty, her body still shaking, her soul still being devoured in invisible fragments.
And then…
It began.
The God, as if fulfilling a command even he did not understand, raised his hand.
And with that single gesture…
He rewrote half the world.
It wasn't an explosion. It wasn't a blast.
It was a transition.
Almost… natural.
Entire cities vanished before anyone could scream.
Mountains were replaced by deserts.
Oceans dried and lifted like inverted domes of liquid crystal.
Languages, cultures, beliefs… erased like mistakes in a poorly written manuscript.
Humans who once had been parents, children, soldiers, or dreamers…
were no longer.
Many were replaced by identical bodies with no soul.
Others were molded into living statues: beautiful, eternal, empty.
History was rewritten in seconds.
Everything that had taken centuries to build…
Was lost in an instant.
From a distant hill, Reiji clenched his teeth.
His group couldn't move. Not even cry.
Aika trembled.
Chisiki simply stared at the sky, as if searching for words written in clouds that no longer existed.
Donyoku tried to stand, but his body wouldn't answer.
Iwamaru… was still breathing, but barely.
Seimei said nothing. He only lowered his gaze.
And then it was heard…
A single scream tearing through the silenced world.
But it wasn't Enma's.
Nor a soldier's.
Nor a child's.
It was humanity.
Humanity itself.
A scream no one answered.
Not the gods.
Not the heroes.
Not even the one erasing them.
---
The Artificial God, that entity without soul, without love, without hatred, leaned over Enma's broken body.
Its fingers crossed the space between them, ready to tear away what remained of her Divine Essence.
Its movements were not cruel. Nor compassionate.
They were simply… inevitable.
Shirota watched in silence.
"Well, looks like not even my best jokes can rewrite this scene," he whispered, a cracked smile on his lips.
And then…
The sky screamed.
Rain fell with an almost biblical fury.
The wind blew as if trying to erase what had been born.
The clouds churned, hiding even the sun.
Trees groaned. The ground split.
Birds fled without knowing why.
The world was crying.
And in the heart of that storm…
A lightning bolt fell.
Not a common one.
A bolt forged of will, of rage, of humanity.
And with an incomprehensible roar…
the God's head was severed in a single instant.
Silence.
Not the same silence brought by the God.
This one was different.
It was awe.
Everyone turned, unable to believe it.
Their eyes refused it.
Their logic couldn't grasp it.
Narikami Goe.
Standing.
Bleeding.
Breathing like a monster on the verge of death.
And yet…
Alive.
The God began regenerating, yes…
But its shock was palpable, even without real emotions.
That strike… should not have been possible.
Shirota smiled like a child watching a reversed miracle.
"Beautiful… the hero who never wanted to be a hero, the human who doesn't want to be human… has just come back from hell," he whispered. "And still with style!"
---
Inside Narikami's soul…
He walked among the remains of his memory.
His sins.
His mistakes.
His helplessness.
And then…
His Yuino, his ultimate connection to his soul, burned like an eternal flame.
His shinkon hadn't saved him…
He had saved himself.
His body had stopped the bleeding.
His muscles had rejoined.
His heart, though shattered… still beat.
Because he still had one last thing to protect.
---
A thunderous sound ripped through the atmosphere like a torn lament.
Black lightning burst from Narikami's back, like broken wings of an angel who never wanted to fly.
His sword, bathed in dry blood and spiritual fire, burned in a deep red—not the color of rage, but of decision.
His clothes were in tatters.
His eyes cried blood.
His ears could barely hear the distant screams.
His mouth couldn't form a word.
His head throbbed with near-divine agony.
And his chest…
That chest where he had buried the pain of an entire life… beat fiercely.
Narikami Goe, the human who refused to surrender,
no longer fought to be a hero.
Not even to win.
Only to stop what the world should never have allowed to exist.
---
The Artificial God recognized him instantly.
Not through logic, but instinct.
An instinct that, for the first time, did not whisper "fight."
It ordered him to flee.
It tried to run.
Tried to vanish.
Tried to escape.
But it was useless.
It hadn't fully assimilated its own barrier.
And before it could think, before it could analyze…
Narikami was already before it.
A slash.
The God's head flew.
A slash.
Its limbs fell like dry branches.
Slash. Slash. Slash.
Not even time could keep up with him.
---
The God tried to assimilate,
to adapt,
to copy…
It couldn't.
Narikami didn't grant it space to exist.
Every time its essence tried to reassemble,
the Yuino blade dismantled it again.
Again and again.
As if refusing to let it be.
The God didn't understand.
Why?
Why was this human impossible to copy?
And then it knew.
It had absorbed part of Enma's soul.
Not just her essence.
Also her doubts, her truths, her fractures.
The greatest mistake wasn't copying her…
but trying to understand her.
Now, inside it, there was an echo.
A whisper.
A sentence.
The Truths, manifested as a thousand voices in one, surrounded it:
"In this world… nothing is predictable."
"Not even we, the Truths, are absolute."
"We can only analyze the past… not foresee what has no logic."
"And you… you were created by a human. And that condemned you."
The soulless god,
the god meant to be perfect,
had committed the worst error:
Becoming human.
And in that final instant…
A thunderclap.
Not from the sky.
From the soul.
Narikami, cloaked in lightning and blood, raised his sword one last time.
"You wanted to rewrite the world…
I only wanted no one else to suffer it."
Final strike.
The God's body disintegrated.
No dust remained.
No soul.
No memory.
Only…
Silence.
---
A laugh.
Not a normal one.
A deranged, broken, euphoric cackle… from someone who could never go back.
"Hahahahahahahaha…"
Heads snapped toward the source like blades.
There, standing among the ruins of what once was the capital of Sainokuni,
surrounded by ashes, corpses, and a sky unsure whether to dawn or weep…
Shinsei Kōji.
But not the same one.
His silhouette remained,
his human form still stood,
but a part of him…
no longer had a face.
One side was shapeless flesh, as if the destroyed God had filled the void within him.
The other side kept its expression: a smile of relief and triumph.
As if the God's defeat were merely another step for him.
"Well… I failed," he said through laughter.
"But thank you for correcting me, Narikami Goe."
Narikami turned slowly, blood dripping from his sword like a second edge.
He saw him.
Felt him.
And knew instantly.
Shinsei had absorbed what remained of the Artificial God.
Not the body.
Not the form.
Only its essence.
The divine spark left loose after the Yuino.
And that…
was enough.
The world froze.
Not even the wind dared breathe.
Shinsei raised both hands,
and in each, a sword:
In his left: Shōmetsu – Dissolution.
A dark, curved blade that trembled as if yearning to erase everything it touched.
In his right: Saisei – Restoration.
Transparent, sharp, vibrating like the most beautiful truth, capable of recreating all that was lost… but in his own image.
"Now," Shinsei said, "I am what I always should have been.
Not a human.
Not an artificial god.
A true divinity… born from mankind's sin."
His voice didn't thunder.
It caressed the ears with poison.
"I no longer need to be chosen.
Now… I am the choice."
His shadow stretched, the clouds opened as if the sky didn't know how to react.
And everyone nearby, even the strongest, felt a chill deep in their soul.
Because if the Artificial God was the end of the world…
Shinsei Kōji could be the new beginning.
---
Narikami, covered in wounds, held up only by his own will, took one last step.
Then another.
And another.
Before him, Shinsei—now clothed in the essence of a false divinity—smiled silently.
Narikami lifted his sword.
"I… won't let… you…!"
A crash.
The sound of his body collapsing like a broken structure.
His katana hit the ground before he did.
And then, as if gravity had just remembered him, he fell.
It wasn't dramatic.
No wind.
No scream.
Only… the silence of absolute exhaustion.
His body no longer trembled.
It didn't even bleed.
It simply lay there, eyes barely open, staring at his enemy… while his legs were just a memory of the strength he once had.
Enma ran to him.
"Narikami! Narikami!!"
Her tears fell as if the world were shattering again.
She held him.
His heart was beating, but his spirit…
His spirit seemed gone.
Shinsei watched them.
For a moment, his gaze rested on the man who had defied the impossible so many times.
And then he simply ignored him.
He turned, and raising Shōmetsu—the blade of negation—he swung it through the air with inhuman precision…
The edge didn't cut flesh.
It cut existence.
Thousands of soldiers, generals, volunteers, spectators…
Vanished.
They didn't die.
They simply ceased to be.
As if the universe had never written their names.
And Shinsei whispered…
"It's not revenge.
Not judgment.
It is simply… what must be."
And he moved on.
While Enma screamed…
and Narikami, the man who defied gods,
lay as a martyr without a grave.
---
The skies remained silent.
No lightning.
No thunder.
Only a declaration.
A voice crossed nations, regardless of distance, religions, or languages.
It wasn't magic.
Nor technology.
It was divine will.
"My name is Shinsei Kōji.
I was human.
I was a believer.
I was chosen.
And now…
I am God."
From the battlefield to distant thrones…
from temples to prisons…
everyone heard.
The world's eyes turned to him.
A man with two swords:
one that erased,
another that rebuilt.
A figure that now lacked a face…
and became a meaning.
---
In the A.S.E. meeting hall.
Screens displayed useless data.
Reports arrived like dying breaths.
And the leaders of all major powers, reduced to mere spectators of the end, remained silent.
A delegate finally broke the stillness:
"Wouldn't it have been better… if he had just erased us?"
No one answered.
Not dictators.
Not kings.
Not presidents.
Because they all knew.
Being erased was an ending.
Being ruled by a martyr turned god…
was a punishment without finish.
---
Across every continent, humanity trembled.
They wanted to continue the war.
Wanted to rebel.
Wanted to scream.
But there was no faith.
No ideology.
No strength.
Only one certainty:
No human—
no matter how strong, righteous, or cruel—
could match Shinsei Kōji.
And then,
humanity surrendered.
Not with dignity.
Not with tears.
With a cowardly silence.
---
When a god is born from human suffering, he cannot bring redemption…
because he was not birthed by hope, but molded by despair.
He does not judge with justice, nor love with compassion, nor hate with rage…
He simply exists.
And by existing, he rewrites the rules of a world that no longer belongs to humans.
Thus, in a single day…
humanity ceased to own its history.
Thank you for stepping into this second arc, where war is not only forged with swords, but with past wounds, irreversible choices… and souls that still have not chosen which side they belong to.