Myria instantly pulled out her staff — a deep violet light surged outward, coating the air around them. Ancient runes began to float midair, shimmering like dying embers.
She turned sharply, voice hoarse but commanding:
-"Shun, Mye — hold them off! Don't let them touch me while I cast!"
Shun ripped the dagger from his belt — its blade gleamed faintly in the dim firelight.
He roared, throwing himself into the swarm of twisted "villagers."
Each slash came with a chilling crack as their bodies split apart… only to stitch themselves back together a second later.
Black blood splattered across Shun's face — but it wasn't warm. It was freezing cold, like touching death itself.
He staggered back, heart pounding, eyes wide with dread.
- "They're not dying... THEY WON'T DIE!"
Mye raised both hands, and green light erupted — vines shot from the ground, coiling around the villagers' legs.
Wind circled around her, blades of leaves forming a protective ring around Myria.
Her face flushed red from strain — she clenched her teeth:
- "I—I can only hold them for three minutes, Shun!!"
Shun nodded, gripping his dagger so tight that blood trickled down his palm.
He lunged again, stabbing straight into one villager's chest.
But what poured out wasn't blood — it was darkness, thick and writhing like ink, screeching with thousands of distorted voices.
The ground trembled.
Reality itself began to fracture — faint cracks spreading across the air.
Then… footsteps.
Cach...
Cach...
Cach...
Myria's chanting froze. Her eyes widened.
From deep within the forest, a black silhouette emerged — each step slow, deliberate, and heavy enough to make the earth crack beneath it.
The firelight flickered — revealing a man draped in tribal garb, tattoos winding down his arms, head lowered, hair veiling his face.
But what made Shun's blood run cold… were the burning red eyes beneath that shadow.
He recognized him instantly — the man they'd met earlier in the woods.
But how... how could he be here?
Mye stepped back instinctively, her heartbeat slamming against her ribs.
The air grew thick, suffocating — as if gravity itself had multiplied a thousandfold.
Neither Shun nor Mye understood what was happening… but their bodies trembled uncontrollably.
Cold seeped into their bones.
Both collapsed to their knees, fingers clawing at the dirt, eyes wide and panicked.
- "W-what... is... happening...?" – Shun gasped, his voice breaking.
They couldn't breathe.
The air around them was gone — stolen.
Myria looked up, the violet light on her staff flickering out completely. Her pupils shrank to slits as she stared at him.
-"Impossible... You—how can you still exist here...?"
The man took another step forward. His shadow stretched out like a living thing, devouring every trace of light.
With every step, time itself seemed to drain away.
The fake villagers dropped to their knees, trembling like beasts bowing before their master.
A voice — deep, distorted, and crawling into the mind — echoed through the night:
- "Did you really think... reversing time would let you escape fate, Myria...?"
Myria took a deep breath.
When she opened her eyes again, her violet pupils gleamed with a deadly calm — so cold it silenced the air itself.
No more fear. No more hesitation.
Her face was pure stillness — the kind that made even time hold its breath.
She stared straight at the man before her, her voice slicing through the night like a blade:
-"Who are you?"
Her tone was steady, low, and unwavering — yet it carried a weight that made both Shun and Mye, who were still kneeling on the ground, lift their heads in disbelief.
They had never heard Myria speak like that before. Calm. Resolute. Terrifyingly sure.
The man gave a faint, twisted smile.
He brushed aside his black hair, revealing a face that was both handsome and unsettling — beauty marred by something deeply inhuman.
Across his forehead ran a thin scar, cutting upward from beneath his eye like a wound carved into the soul itself.
- "Who am I?" — he smirked, his deep voice echoing like thunder.
"I am Lord of God — Mike Gris."
The moment his name left his lips, the ground trembled.
Even the air seemed to reject it — as if the very world refused to acknowledge that name's existence.
Myria narrowed her eyes slightly — but before she could speak, a sound split the air.
— Crack!
A dry, sharp sound — like glass shattering — rang through the forest.
Reality twisted. Light fractured like broken mirrors.
And then — BOOM!
The explosion tore through the forest.
The man was hurled backward, crashing through trees, the space around him splintering like torn fabric.
A column of black smoke rose high into the air.
Winds roared, fire burst from the shadows — the entire forest became an inferno of crimson flames.
Before Shun and Mye stood only Myria.
She held her staff high, a swirling sphere of violet energy spinning slowly around her, scattering sparks like falling stars.
The ground beneath her feet had split into a perfect circle.
That strike — was hers.
She had caught his attack and reflected it in an instant — with power enough to shake the world.
As the smoke cleared and the burning wind faded, Myria stood unmoving — her cloak rippling, her gaze emotionless, as if nothing had happened at all.
Shun's voice came out hoarse, trembling:
-"Myria… what… did you just do…?"
She didn't answer.
Her eyes were fixed on the dark void where Mike Gris had vanished.
Then, in a voice so quiet it chilled the air, she whispered:
- "No one… has the right to call themselves God in this world."
Her words echoed — like an ancient curse awakened from centuries of silence.
And from within the sea of fire, a hoarse laugh rolled out — deep, distorted, and filled with malice:
- "Interesting… Myria."
The forest shuddered once more.
And above them — the sky began to crack.
On the sky, Mike hovered in the wind — smoke curling from his body like a living shadow.
He looked down at them all, then smiled, calm and cruel.
-"Interesting… I'll fight you," he said.
A thunderclap cracked overhead. Rain began to fall, heavy and cold — but Myria was quicker. She raised a shimmering barrier that swallowed the first sheets of water and wrapped it like an umbrella around Shun and Mye.
Then she rose into the air, eyes fixed on Mike as if measuring his intent. For a moment the world held its breath.
And then the rain changed.
From each falling droplet a thin arm sprouted — pale, clawed, writhing as if fishhooks had learned to grasp. As the drops struck earth they grew, reknitting flesh and bone around those tiny limbs. Each splash birthed a corpse: a pale, sodden shambling thing that staggered up and turned its empty eyes toward the living.
Shun, Mye, and Myria watched as field after field filled with these wet, newborn undead. The ground below the forest edge seethed with corpses slowly pulling themselves upright.
Myria's face didn't flicker. She hovered, a pillar of calm violet light above the chaos, calculating. Save the group — or finish Mike. The choice hung like a blade.
Shun's shout came sharp and certain: -"Fight, Master! I'm fine — go! I won't— I won't fall!"
There was no pleading in his voice; only an iron promise. Myria's gaze softened for the barest instant as she looked at him. Then duty drowned tenderness. She nodded once and turned her attention back to the man in the sky.
-"You there," she called, voice cold as winter iron, "where do you think you're looking?"
Before Mike could answer, time flared — and a blade thundered through the air, cutting a clean line across Myria's chest.
She gasped, eyes wide, the world tilting for half a heartbeat. The blade's edge flashed inches from her throat and for one agonizing instant she seemed to still be where she'd been — facing Mike — then, impossibly, she was somewhere else: the blade had been behind her all along.
Mike laughed, triumphant and soft.
-"I forgot to mention," he purred, "I can bend your senses. Make you see me standing where I am not. While the truth is… I'm already behind you, Myria."
His voice wrapped around them, confident, vile. He waited for the ripple of fear, for the stagger, for the collapse.
Instead, Myria's lips curved.
The blow that had cut the air erupted into thunder — Mike's body convulsed as if struck by a hidden force. He exploded outward in a geyser of black smoke and splinters of spectral light. Shards of something not-quite-magic and not-quite-reality blasted from his form, pelting the trees and the newly risen dead.
Shun and Mye flinched, incredulous. For a second they thought the enemy had been destroyed.
Myria floated down slowly, the violet halo around her staff humming like a caged star. Her eyes were ice.
"So," she said softly, amusement twitching at one corner of her mouth,
-"is that all? Never did I claim you could merely kill me, boy. Don't flatter yourself with ease."
Her voice carried no arrogance — only a surgeon's clinical amusement at a failed incision. Under the smile was a promise: this was not finished. The forest still smoked. The rain still birthed corpses. Mike's laughter, wounded and then quiet, rolled from somewhere beyond the trees.
Myria planted the staff and set her feet. Around her the rune barrier pulsed. Shun gripped his dagger until his knuckles went white and stepped forward, every muscle ready.
With a single tap of her staff — the entire horde of the undead collapsed, silence swallowing their rattling bones as if the forest itself had been struck by a decisive spell.
Shun and Mye stood agape, eyes unblinking.
-"You… you really do have insane power, Myria," Mye whispered, her voice soft but full of awe.
Myria stood upright, the staff still radiating that cold violet light. She didn't smile; she raised the staff again and began to murmur ancient syllables.
"Hey—rewinding time might fail again, you know!" Shun blurted out, his mind still reeling from what he'd just witnessed.
Myria's gaze cut like a blade.
- "Rewind time? No. I will rewrite the past. So the villagers won't die. So that monster will never show its face." Her tone was calm, as if she were describing something perfectly ordinary.
The space around them spasmed; a sound like glass cracking echoed. A blinding white light poured forth — reality stretched like a canvas being torn. Myria continued chanting. Her eyes closed, lips shaping runes of old, knuckles whitening as she gripped the staff.
Then a hand— not from the living— crawled out of the tear. A dripping, blackened finger, skin loose as rotten cloth, hooked nails like fishhooks. It inched forward, pressing at the edge of reality as if trying to climb through into this world.
-"Uhhh… did you leave one of the zombies alive?" Shun blurted, a bead of sweat sliding down his temple.
Myria opened her eyes — cold. "I killed them all."
"Then what the hell is that hand??!!" Shun pointed toward the writhing thing at the rift.
Mye followed his gesture and frowned. "What are you even talking about? There's no hand."
Shun froze — then realized he couldn't even remember clearly what he'd seen. But the shadow in the tear kept moving, as if it had will. And in that instant, a whisper—thin, hoarse, poisonous—crept into their minds:
"Fate demands you die, Myria…"
No one saw him step forward—yet those words alone could topple a person. A cold wind slid down Shun's spine. Mye gripped her hands tight; for the first time since leaving the red-light quarter, real fear flashed in her eyes.
Myria closed her eyes. What she was attempting wasn't a game. Rewriting the timeline carried a heavy cost: some payment must be made. She seemed not to fully know why she was anxious, yet she pressed on.
-"I am here," a hazy laugh emanated—Mike, like a shadow once more. He hovered half-seen at the rim of the fissure; no one could quite make him out, but the whisper struck home: "You will pay, witch."
Myria looked at him — and for a fleeting instant, something deep within her fractured. She couldn't tell whether she had ever seen this man before, or if he even truly existed. The uncertainty cut through her composure like a hairline crack through glass, but instead of fear, it made her presence sharper — colder — more lethal.
She smirked, voice laced with quiet mockery.
— "You possess a rather peculiar state of existence, don't you, boy? To exist and not exist at the same time… how curious."
Mike chuckled, a low, arrogant sound that barely reached his eyes.
— "I told you already. I am the Lord of God. And I will kill you."
He lunged forward — a blur of motion, a shadow sharpened into flesh. The air trembled from the sheer speed.
But— CLANG!
The sound of metal clashing tore through the air. His blade met resistance — a small dagger, held by Shun. Sparks flew, time seemed to pause.
Shun stood there, eyes wide in disbelief. He had blocked the strike. His arms ached, his mind spun, but somehow he pushed Mike back with a force that wasn't his own.
Myria's voice rang out, crisp as command:
— "I've rewritten the past. Your dagger is now a greatsword. Fight, Shun! And you, Mye— rise!"
The dagger in Shun's hand shimmered, bending, reshaping — until it became a massive greatsword nearly five feet long. It felt right in his grasp — balanced, alive, ancient. He didn't have time to question it. The weapon pulsed with a power that demanded blood.
He swung it once. The wind cracked like thunder. His breath caught fire in his chest.
Then — Mye.
Something inside her bloomed, a pulse of life that rippled outward. It wasn't like Myria's sharp sorcery; it was raw, primal, beautiful. The ground trembled, not from fear, but from rebirth. Grass sprouted from the broken soil. Vines curled up the ruins of time. Tiny creatures — woven from moss, mist, and memory — emerged around her, shimmering like living fragments of forgotten dreams.
Her eyes glowed green-gold. Her aura expanded, drawing power from the living, the dying, even the space between. For the first time, she felt whole.
Shun glanced at her and saw not a frightened girl — but something closer to a spirit of nature itself.
Then came the laughter.
Mike rose from the shadows, his wounds closing as if time itself obeyed him. His smile was pure malice.
— "Interesting. Let's see how long your little miracles last before I slaughter every fragile thing you've made."
He dashed forward — a streak of darkness, cutting through Myria's woven world. Every step he took shattered something beautiful. Flowers withered. The creatures screamed soundlessly before dissolving into light.
Myria slammed her staff into the ground. The runes beneath her feet flared, her voice a steady whisper of ancient syllables. But she could feel it — the toll. Every line of magic she rewrote clawed back at her. The veins in her hand burned. The wound across her wrist deepened.
Shun met Mike head-on, their blades clashing again and again, sparks tearing through the air like meteor trails. Each impact warped reality — stone turned to dust, dust to rain, rain to glass.
Mye called out, and her creatures swarmed — roots and feathers, light and soil — forming barriers, striking when they could.
But Mike was no mere being. Every swing of his sword sliced existence itself. Each arc of his blade shredded the threads of space Myria had just mended. Time warped, flickered — day, night, ruin, rebirth — all flashing in a single heartbeat.
-"He's not aiming for us!" Shun shouted over the chaos. "He's targeting the anchor point — the thread you used to rewrite the past!"
Myria's eyes darted to him, sharp, resigned. "Protect the boy," she whispered to Mye.
- "I'll hold the line."
She raised her staff again — even as blood trickled from her palm. Magic flared, brilliant and terrible.
Then came a laugh — a hideous, rattling sound, like it was built from broken bones and echoes of the dead.
Mike's form flickered — half-shadow, half-flesh — as he leapt straight through Myria's spell, his sword cutting through the light like a blade through silk.
He was no longer just attacking. He was devouring the world she had written.
And in that moment — when all sound bent, when light and shadow seemed to collapse into each other — the battle shifted.
The war was no longer for victory.
It was for reality itself.