Kyne's body continued to rise higher and higher, as if the world had lost its right to the gravity that had bound him to the ground. He floated slowly but surely, through the church roof, which had cracked and crumbled under an invisible pressure, until he finally found himself in the center of the pupil of a giant red eye that split the night sky.
The eye was so large that the moon and stars seemed to disappear, swallowed by a single, intense red that burned like the embers of hell. Below him, the five summoners still standing inside the church could only look up with bated breath, their bodies trembling not only with fear, but with the realization that they had summoned something they might not even fully understand.
All eyes slowly turned to the church guardian, the figure who had led the ritual from the beginning with an unreadable face. His face now looked calm—too calm for someone who had just witnessed the sky split open and a small child lifted into the center of the world's destruction.
"What should we do next?" Pieter Smit asked, his voice no longer as firm as before, for the first time in his life, he felt he was in the presence of something beyond human reason.
The church guard smiled faintly, a smile that felt strange and cold.
"What should we do?" he repeated quietly. "You focus on saving yourselves first."
"Save yourselves? What do you mean?" Pieter took a step forward, his brow furrowed sharply, his instincts telling him something was wrong.
The church guard turned slowly, his eyes now gleaming faintly red.
"Because…" he said softly but with a suffocating joy, "...I want to welcome the glorious resurrection."
The words fell like a verdict.
Andrew, the church founder, and the two priests took a reflexive step back. The air inside the church felt heavier, as if filled with an invisible pressure slowly compressing their lungs.
Meanwhile, in the sky, Kyne, right in the center of the giant eye's pupil, lowered his head and stared down. His gaze no longer resembled the gaze of a boy who often endured the taunts of other nobles. Those eyes were blank—yet filled with a terrifying authority, like a king emerging from a long exile.
Slowly, Kyne raised his hands to chest level. His movements were calm, almost graceful, but beneath that calmness hid an immeasurable intent. From his palms, a deep red energy began to flow down like a river of blood falling from the sky, then spread in all directions, permeating the church, the city, and even beyond the horizon.
That energy was no mere aura of power.
It was pure murderous intent.
As soon as it touched the world, the silent night turned into the beginning of catastrophe. In the homes of the Sandburg residents, people who had been sleeping soundly suddenly awoke with screams. They clutched their chests, feeling something being pulled from within, as if their hearts and souls no longer wanted to remain within their fragile mortal bodies. Babies cried incessantly, dogs howled toward the sky, and grown men, usually stalwart, knelt in fear, pleading without knowing to whom they were pleading.
Souls began to be released.
Like a thin, pale, glowing mist, the life essence of humanity escaped their bodies and moved toward one direction—the heavens, where the giant red eye gaped like a bottomless portal.
Humans weren't the only ones feeling the impact.
The gods and goddesses who resided in the higher dimensions felt the pressure too. Divine thrones trembled, sacred altars cracked, and their sacred light dimmed as if forced into submission by a force older, darker, and more absolute than anything they had ever faced. Even they couldn't withstand such an absolute threat.
The red of the giant eye deepened, almost black at the edges of its pupils, while Lucifer's laughter echoed again, clearer, closer, piercing through heaven and earth.
"Hahahahahahaha…"
The laughter wasn't just heard, it was felt—creeping across the skin, seeping into the bones, pressing down on the heart with an invisible weight.
Beneath that terrifying shadow, the church guardian began to transform.
His body shook violently, his bones making a subtle cracking sound as his form began to elongate and expand. His face paled to an unnatural red, black veins appeared along his neck, and curved horns slowly grew from the sides of his head, like those of a demon from the forbidden books.
His skin hardened, his nails lengthened into claws, and from his back, a pair of enormous black wings tore through his robes and unfurled with a roar.
Andrew fell to his knees, his face ashen.
"He... isn't human..."
The figure was now completely different—no longer a church guard, but a hell-worshipping demon in disguise, waiting for the right moment to witness his master's resurrection.
He stared up into the giant red eyes, with an almost holy, fanatical expression.
"Your Majesty…" he said, his voice now echoing heavily and reverberating. "I will come for you!"
With a single flap of his wings, he lifted into the air, slowly but surely, toward the center of the sky that had become a symbol of the world's destruction.
Below him, Pieter Smit stood frozen.
Panic began to creep into his mind. He was no holy knight, no great wizard, no hero destined by prophecy. He was just an ordinary man trying to do what he believed was right. His hands trembled as he held his head, trying to reason amidst this senseless chaos. The pistol in his hand felt heavy, yet it was also the only tangible thing that still reminded him that he was still human.
He stared up at Kyne, now the center of the catastrophe.
"What if I fire a bullet at him…" he thought to himself, his breath quickening. "If the bullet passes beside his ear… maybe it will wake him up."
The idea sounded crazy.
Stupid, even.
"But this carries a huge risk," he muttered under his breath. "If it misses even a little and hits another part of his head…"
He didn't finish.
In the sky, human souls continued to rise, their numbers growing, like a river of light flowing toward a central point. Time was running out.
Pieter closed his eyes for a moment.
"If I don't do anything," he thought to himself, "then it will truly be over."
His resolve slowly hardened.
He raised his pistol with both hands, trying to steady the trembling he couldn't fully control. He aimed the muzzle at Kyne's head, right next to his ear.
"If I fail…" he whispered, his voice almost drowned out by the rumbling of the cracking sky. "I will never forgive myself."
But beneath that fear, there was one conviction that guided him—that the little boy was still there, trapped behind a red gaze that wasn't his own.
The sky had turned into a slowly pulsating red sea, as if the entire world were now within the pupil of some remorseless, ancient being.
Human souls continued to pour upward like inverted rain, leaving behind empty bodies crumpled in beds, on the streets, at prayer altars that were no longer able to protect them. And amidst it all, Pieter Smit stood with his pistol raised, his breathing heavy, his index finger on the trigger with a pressure that felt heavier than the weight of the world.
Time seemed to slow.
He could hear his own heartbeat, loud and irregular, like a war drum pounding relentlessly against his consciousness. He stared at Kyne's face, which was no longer entirely his own. His hair was lifted by the pressure of the red energy that swirled like a storm vortex, and his eyes blazed like the giant eyes in the sky. But beneath that red glow, Pieter still hoped that a glimmer of consciousness remained.
"He's just a child…" he murmured softly, as if the words could calm his trembling hands. "A child his parents must be so proud of."
The image of Kyne's parents, who probably had high hopes for their son, crossed his mind. The hope of changing fate, of bringing new light to a downtrodden family, of becoming more than just a small name among the shadows of nobility. And if this night ended in failure, then not only would the world collapse—that hope would crumble with it.
Pieter took a deep breath.
Then he pulled the trigger.
The sound of a gunshot shattered the night.
The small explosion from the pistol felt like a deafening thunderclap amidst the apocalyptic silence. The bullet flew at high speed, piercing the night wind, now thick with demonic energy. It passed through the fragments of the church roof, past flocks of night birds flying chaotically under the pressure of the cracked sky.
Strangely, none of the birds were harmed, as if the bullet had a singular purpose that nothing could interfere with.
Its trajectory was straight.
Exactly.
The bullet reached the spot where Kyne was hovering.
In a split second that felt like an eternity, it passed beside Kyne's ear—so close that strands of his hair were cut and vibrated from the air pressure. The whistling sound of the rushing metal tore through the space between consciousness and darkness.
And then…
Silence.
The red light in Kyne's eyes flickered.
His floating body suddenly jerked gently, like someone who had just awakened from a deep dream. The red energy flowing from his palms trembled unsteadily, its flow intermittent like a river that had lost its source.
"What…?"
The voice escaped Kyne's lips softly, but this time it wasn't a voice echoing from all directions. It was his own voice.
His eyes slowly changed, the red fading, leaving confusion and a renewed sense of awareness behind them. He looked around, his breath coming in short gasps.
"Why is this? Why am I up there…?" he muttered, looking down at his hands, still shrouded in a red aura. "And… why are my hands emitting this red thing?"
Below him, Pieter Smit fell to his knees.
Tears flowed without him realizing it, wetting his cheeks, chilled by the night wind. His pistol was still raised, but his hands were now weak. He bowed his head to the cracked church floor, his breath coming in short gasps not from fear—but from an almost painful relief.
"Thank you…" he whispered softly, to no one in particular.
But the disaster wasn't completely over.
Kyne looked down, and for the first time he realized the horrific sight—thousands, perhaps millions of human souls floating toward him, drawn by the remnants of red energy still vibrating in the air. And among that torrent of souls, there was one figure that stood out.
A figure with black wings.
Horned.
His eyes blazed with fanaticism.
The demon—a church guard in disguise—was flying straight toward him, his face filled with the ecstasy of a devotee about to touch the god he had worshipped for centuries.
"Your Majesty!" he cried passionately. "Accept me!"
Kyne felt something shift within him.
The red aura that had so nearly engulfed the world now vibrated differently—not at Lucifer's will, but as an instinctive reaction to the approaching threat. His body suddenly lost its stability; gravity seemed to remember him again, pulling him down hard.
He fell.
But not without direction.
With an instinct he didn't even understand, Kyne twisted his body in midair, orienting himself directly in the demon's path. His fall was incredibly fast, as if attracted by a giant magnetic field connecting him to the creature.
When they were only a few meters apart, time seemed to slow down again.
Kyne raised his hand.
His nails—now slightly longer and tinged with a faint red glow—moved in a long, sharp stroke toward the demon's chest.
He didn't scream.
He didn't cast a spell.
Just a single, instinctive movement.
His claws touched the demon's body.
An instant.
The demon froze.
His fanatical expression froze, his eyes wide in disbelief. A thin red line appeared on his body, following the path of the almost invisible scratch. For a full second, there was no sound.
Then his body cracked.
The cracks spread like shattered glass, glowing red from within. And before he could scream, the demon's body shattered and exploded in midair, turning into shards of dark light that instantly vanished into the night wind.
The explosion shook the air, but it didn't touch Kyne in the slightest.
Meanwhile, Kyne's body continued to fall, his speed uncontrollable as the remaining energy of the blast faded. He slammed into the bushes beside the old church with a loud thud, leaves and twigs snapping in the wake of his small body.