The world knelt.
Not out of faith, nor devotion.
But out of pure survival instinct.
Shinsei's message spread like a silent plague:
there were no promises of salvation, no threats… only one absolute declaration:
"I am."
He needed no temples, no altars.
His mere existence was enough to shatter kingdoms, ideologies, and souls.
The few soldiers who survived the great catastrophe received their first divine mandate:
Execute anyone who refused to accept the new order.
Cities burned for the second time.
Not because of war between nations, but because of fear of a superior will.
No one knew if obedience was the right choice, but they could not die knowing their God wouldn't even look them in the eyes.
---
Genshin, locked away in Hokori's defense core, understood it better than anyone:
the war wasn't over.
It had simply changed faces.
While the other nations burned their dignity just to keep breathing,
Hokori, the kingdom stained with blood and curses…
remained standing.
"What if we can't win?" asked one of the new recruits during training.
Genshin polished his armor without looking at the young man.
"Then we'll fight until our bones shatter.
And if Shinsei truly is a god…
let him remember that it was humanity who created its demons."
---
Kenshiro Gai didn't speak. He merely trained.
Kyomu watched in silence, as if he knew the moment was nearing.
And in a distant corner of the continent,
Yodaku laughed while sharpening his weapon,
as if he were waiting for the perfect moment to die with style.
They were not gods. Not saviors.
But they were the last thing the world had before collapsing completely.
---
Reiji stood motionless by the window, watching sunlight pierce through the cracked ceiling of the ruined hospital.
On the bed, covered in bandages and improvised tubes…
lay Narikami Goe.
The doctors could no longer explain it.
His body was alive. His heart still beat.
But his mind wandered somewhere between memory and eternity.
And still,
without speaking,
without moving…
the world had already given him a name:
"The Last Blood Hero."
The man who challenged a god with nothing but his will and his blade.
---
Far from the hospital,
Donyoku walked through streets silenced by fear.
He was heading toward one of the shelters, one of the few that hadn't yet been turned into a temple for the new God.
His expression was the same as always: unsatisfied.
Because it didn't matter whether the system wore a crown, a throne, or divine wings…
It was still a damn system.
Beside him, Chisiki bit into an onigiri while mentally reviewing new escape routes.
"You know," he said with his mouth full. "This tastes exactly the same as when we were kids."
"And the world?" Donyoku replied without looking at him.
"The world never changes.
Only the shape of our chains does."
---
Elsewhere,
Aika flipped the pages of a dusty book on a concrete bench,
while the breeze toyed with her hair.
She wasn't reading for pleasure.
She was reading to avoid thinking.
She didn't want to accept that Narikami's silence
was the closest thing humanity had to a requiem now.
Then Shirota appeared.
With his usual smile.
That annoying, charming energy.
"Reading, dear? Looking for an excuse to ignore the fact that we're doomed?"
Aika glared at him.
"And you? Planning a joke for when the world ends?"
Shirota shrugged and sat beside her.
"Of course. If we're going to die, the last sound might as well be a good laugh."
But inside…
Even he knew.
They were in the most dangerous calm of all:
the one that comes after the world kneels before the incomprehensible.
---
Inside the shelter,
one of the houses was destroyed,
yet somehow still standing…
as if the world had forgiven it for one more day.
Donyoku opened the door carefully.
A creak rang out like an old lullaby.
"Mom…?" he whispered.
And then he saw her.
His mother, hands covered in dust,
her face aged by war…
and eyes brighter than the sun.
She stared at him for a few seconds as if doubting her own memory.
"Donyoku…? Is it really you?"
"I'm back, Mom."
She ran to him without thinking.
Their arms met in a painful embrace.
But they didn't cry.
Not because they didn't want to…
but because time no longer allowed such luxuries.
---
"Thank God," his mother whispered, clinging to him. "Thank that new God for bringing you back."
Donyoku frowned, gently pulled away, and held her hands.
"No, Mom.
It wasn't God.
It was my will.
And my companions'."
She lowered her gaze, confused, but didn't argue.
"I'm sorry… I don't know what to believe anymore."
"Then believe in me.
And in yourself.
And in those who can still think for themselves."
---
Meanwhile, in the back room, Donyoku's two younger siblings watched him with reverence… until they noticed Chisiki.
"Hey you! Are you a ghost? You're super pale!"
"Why do you have the eyes of a sad sage?"
"And that patch—are you a ninja?"
Chisiki tried to stay composed,
but couldn't help smiling with exasperation.
"I'm an intellectual. Leave me alone, tiny creatures of chaos."
The kids burst into laughter.
And for a few seconds… just a few,
the house filled with laughter.
With humanity.
With a memory of what it meant to be alive without fear.
---
Donyoku watched them from the kitchen, arms crossed, back against the wall.
He said nothing.
But inside, he thought:
"If everything's going to end… at least let me see things like this before it does."
---
From his celestial stone throne,
raised over what once was Sainokuni's capital,
Shinsei Koji gazed upon the world without moving…
yet something unsettled him.
He didn't know what.
He merely felt it.
A sting.
A vibration that came not from the ground nor the wind…
but from his own artificial soul—
the one he pretended not to have.
But his ego…
that true god within him,
ordered him to ignore it.
"There is nothing left to fear. I have already won."
---
The sun hadn't risen in days.
The clouds looked petrified.
Birds no longer sang.
The seas no longer roared.
Only silence remained…
the kind that screams louder than any word.
---
The A.S.E. had fallen silent.
Leaderless.
Decisionless.
Only empty statements and late warnings.
They didn't know what to do.
They were no longer an assembly.
Just a choir of corpses seated in diplomatic chairs.
---
In the streets…
flags had been burned.
Languages were fading.
Currency had become ash.
The economy, nothing but an archaeological memory.
The only thing of value…
was survival.
---
Genshin, King of Hokori,
still hidden in the shadows of his refuge,
cleaned his sword.
No words.
No permission.
No allies.
Planning the unthinkable…
a rebellion against a god.
---
During the longest night humanity had ever felt,
Donyoku lay in his bed, eyes fixed on the ceiling.
He didn't dream.
He didn't fear.
He only thought:
"I don't have nightmares anymore.
Because I already live in one."
A dry laugh escaped his throat.
Irony? Madness? Clarity?
He didn't know.
But then he understood.
If he wanted to protect those few seconds of laughter,
those tiny sparks of light…
if he wanted the happy moments to never end…
then he had to end the horrific ones.
Not for the world.
Not for others.
But for himself.
For them.
For what humanity could still be.
---
Dawn hadn't even touched the sky…
and Donyoku, eyes burning and wounds still open,
fastened his rusted armor and tied his daggers to his legs.
There were no farewells.
No letters.
No theatrics.
Only steps.
Decisive steps.
Reiji must not know.
Nor Aika.
Nor Chisiki.
Nor Seimei.
Not even Seita.
This time,
the battle would not be fought as a group.
This time,
it was between him…
and the god the world had allowed onto the throne.
---
He walked through the remains of a nameless city.
The moon watched him without judgment.
Ruins groaned under his feet.
And the wind…
seemed to hold its breath.
But then, a voice cut through the silence like a dagger to the throat:
"Where do you think you're going, slayer of the impossible?"
It was Iwamaru.
The Faceless Lieutenant.
The man even death failed to convince to surrender.
His body still trembled from the battle.
His Shinigami floated behind him like hungry shadows.
Yet there he was.
Neither pain…
nor logic…
would stop him.
Donyoku wasn't surprised.
He only clenched his fists.
"Today… gods will weep.
And humans will laugh," he said without turning.
Iwamaru let out a dry laugh,
as if he had waited his whole life for that line.
"Then I want to see if you can pull it off.
But don't expect me to just stand and watch."
He didn't ask permission.
He didn't seek heroic words.
He simply walked.
Beside him.
And so,
the two ventured into the night…
not as heroes,
but as men who refused to live on their knees.
---
Shinsei Kōji,
the self-proclaimed God of this new era,
slept on a bed draped in white silk,
while the world outside bled dry.
His breathing was serene.
His thoughts, clouded by hollow divinity.
His dreams… impossible even for him to understand.
And while nations collapsed,
economies fell,
and the faithful knelt before his false altar…
two young men rewrote destiny with every step they took.
One with hands covered in scars and blades born from desire.
The other with three Shinigami dancing in his shadow like omens of death.
They left no witnesses.
Only echoes.
Corpses.
Silence.
---
One surviving guard, trembling and drenched in someone else's blood,
ran into the main hall.
He crawled.
Begged.
Knelt before the "God."
"My lord… they're coming! They… they are—!"
Shinsei opened his eyes.
Without haste.
Without emotion.
"So much noise for something so small," he murmured as he rose.
He no longer awoke with fury.
Hatred had become a luxury slipping through his fingers.
He was becoming what he feared:
a living statue imitating power without understanding it.
He took his two swords.
Erase in his left.
Rebuild in his right.
And stood.
---
The hall doors exploded as if torn apart by sheer will.
Donyoku entered first.
His eyes burned like twin embers.
His body trembled.
But not from fear.
Not this time.
He trembled from hunger.
From bottled rage.
From the primal urge to protect the little good he had managed to build.
Behind him,
Iwamaru Nagi, Lieutenant of the Dead,
appeared without a single shiver.
He carried no hatred.
No love.
Only purpose.
One fought to preserve what he loved.
The other… to carve his name into eternity.
And both,
standing before the false god,
were all humanity had left.
---
Donyoku didn't wait for speeches or warnings.
He grabbed a few stones from the ground… and hurled them at Shinsei's face.
Not to harm him.
But to say: "I'm here."
Shinsei raised two fingers.
With a light touch, the stones dissolved into dust.
Then, with his other sword, he drew a gesture through the air…
and the stones came back.
But not as before.
They returned enormous, grotesque, monumental.
Falling like meteorites upon the temple.
"IWAMARU!" Donyoku shouted.
Iwamaru stepped forward.
His Shinigami wrapped around the two of them, forming an ethereal shield.
But Shinsei was already there.
Before them.
Without moving.
Without heavy breath.
Without hatred.
Just… present.
He touched Donyoku's daggers with "Erase."
But then…
something failed.
A flicker.
A whisper.
A resistance.
The daggers didn't disappear.
Their energy was absorbed by Donyoku.
"What…?" Shinsei murmured for the first time in centuries.
And with a brutal spin,
Donyoku landed a kick that caught him off guard.
Shinsei didn't fall.
But they did—flying backward.
---
The impact hurled them out of the temple.
The ground split apart.
Donyoku shattered an arm when he crashed against a column.
Iwamaru barely managed to cushion his fall with his Shinigami.
"Son of a—!" Donyoku spat, clutching his broken arm, swallowing the scream.
"Are you going to give up over that?" Iwamaru asked, toneless.
Donyoku stared at him with tear-filled eyes, nodded…
and yelled, "Put my damn arm back in place, now!!"
The Shinigami held him down.
A crack echoed like a soul snapping in half.
Donyoku almost vomited from the pain, but he didn't complain.
He only wrapped his arm tightly.
"One is enough. The other's for carrying victory."
Shinsei didn't give them another second.
He extended his sword.
And the world around them began to fade.
The houses. The clouds. The leaves. The stones. Everything.
Donyoku dodged by sheer miracle.
Iwamaru too.
Then his Shinigami fused into a single dark blade,
as long as the shadow of the world's end.
He slashed Shinsei directly.
CLAAASH!
Blood.
Yes. Shinsei bled.
But he placed a hand over the wound, and with his other sword…
he rebuilt it.
"It isn't enough to simply wound a god," Shinsei said, emotionless.
Donyoku lunged like a storm.
His daggers trembled.
His body filled with something… unknown.
Was it hatred? Was it pain?
Or… was something inside him beginning to awaken?
---
From the city, travelers saw the flashes.
The daggers slicing through the night.
The Shinigami blade colliding with the very air.
And for the second time…
Rumors spread.
"Donyoku!!"
"That's Iwamaru!!"
"Are humans… defying the gods again?!"
Again…
the flame ignited.
Because even if hope was broken…
humans could still set the world ablaze with a single act of rebellion.
---
"Kids. Again!?" shouted one of the A.S.E.'s high officials, slamming his knuckles on the table.
The report was absurd.
"Two ruined soldiers facing a 'god' and surviving…?"
"This is a joke."
"We can't base a global strategy on street rumors."
"They're suicidal, not heroes."
In the middle of the arguments, King Genshin of Hokori remained silent.
A faint smile crossed his face.
He stood up.
The echo of his boots filled the chamber.
"You may stay here, curled up in fear," he said.
"I will go see with my own eyes how two mere humans are accomplishing what you, with all your weapons, never could."
Everyone went silent.
"Then… what do you propose?" asked a trembling diplomat from Kanjo.
Genshin turned around and said, voice firm:
"The time has come…
to remember why Hokori was the first stone of this continent.
And why our will has never bent—not to disasters, nor to gods."
He walked toward the door.
"Activate the Dawn March.
We go to war… not for glory, not for vengeance.
But because if two boys can make a god stagger…
then we can crush it."
---
Kagemaru, slouched against the wall, sighed in annoyance.
"I suppose it's time to wake the dead," he muttered. "The Hokorian army needs to know there's still something worth fighting for."
He vanished like a shadow.
What came next… would be his dance of blood.
Kyomu didn't say a word.
His eyes followed Genshin's movements.
But in his silence… there was absolute acceptance.
---
Far away, in the frozen lands of the north…
Princess Yukihana of the Kingdom of Yukiguni stared at the world map.
Before her, new borders had carved themselves in blood.
Reports spoke of someone named Donyoku…
and a man with monstrous eyes—Iwamaru.
And for some reason, she believed the story.
She didn't believe in gods.
But she believed in human fury.
And though her council begged her to remain neutral…
She crushed the parchment in her hand.
"Then… this will be my final order."
"Your Majesty?"
"Send supplies. Reinforcements. And my words.
Hokori must not die alone.
If the world burns… let us burn together, but never on our knees."
---
The stars trembled.
Kings, generals, and soldiers of every race and name…
began to remember:
That even when a god rules the world…
the will of mortals can still burn like a sun.
---
And when the world was forced to its knees before a god, it wasn't prayers, or weapons, or treaties that shook the heavens…
but the will of a few madmen.
Thank you for delving into this second arc, where war is not only forged with swords, but with past wounds, irreversible choices… and souls that still haven't chosen which side they stand on.