Rain fell like it knew something.
Not a storm. Not chaos. Just steady—sharp and constant. Cleansing nothing.
Jung Min stood under the rusted awning of a pawn shop that hadn't had a customer in three months.
He lit a cigarette with a match pulled from a silver case. The flame flickered in the rain. He didn't flinch when it went out.
He never did.
They only come when it's quiet, he thought. When the world forgets to scream.
It had been nine years since he walked away from the Order.
Nine years since he buried twelve Saints and turned his back on a god that never answered.
The world hadn't changed.
But he had stopped waiting for it to.
That's when he saw her.
She wasn't running. That would've been smart.
She just stumbled into the alley, soaked, shoeless, clutching something in both hands like it was worth more than her life.
She looked up.
Eyes sharp. Fear in her posture, not her face.
"Are you Hwang Jung Min?" she asked.
He stared.
"Who's asking?"
"I don't know. But… they said you'd keep me alive."
The thing she held wasn't a weapon. Not yet. But it pulsed with heat.
A relic.
Or worse—half of one.
Jung Min stepped back, motioned her inside. No words.
The pawn shop door clicked shut behind them. Rusty hinges. No bell. He'd removed it years ago.
She stood in the corner, dripping onto the floor, eyes darting between the broken crucifix on the wall and the shelves of old weapons no one could afford.
"What's your name?" he asked.
"Azari."
"That's not Korean."
"It's not mine," she said. "It was written on the hilt."
Jung Min paused. Finally, he looked down.
The object in her hands was wrapped in a cloth soaked with rain and something darker. When she peeled it back, he saw etched steel, ancient runes, and something that made his left eye twitch.
A name burned into the metal:
Deus Machina.
He closed his eyes.
Of course. It had to be that one.
"That's not just a relic," he said flatly. "That's the trigger."
"The trigger for what?"
"For the end of this story," he muttered. "Yours, mine, and whatever idiot thought God needed a weapon."
She stepped back.
"You're not going to help me, are you?"
Jung Min moved behind the counter, opened a drawer. Pulled out a black revolver and began checking the cylinder like it was morning routine.
Click.
Spin.
Snap shut.
He looked her in the eye.
"I'm going to help you stay alive long enough to regret finding it."
Outside, the rain stopped.
And the city began to whisper.
Not people. Not voices.
Just the sound of something divine remembering where it left its sword.
End of Chapter 2