Stella's scornful words rang out like a verdict, snuffing out all fragile hope. She looked at Kai's Essence – now still, its light extinguished – with icy indifference. Its intervention, though touching, only confirmed for her the weakness of the path Celeste had chosen.
Stella turned her gaze back to Celeste, who was nearly exhausted and in despair. The look in her eyes was no longer one craving their fusion; at this moment, Celeste was no longer her primary target. Stella's gaze now carried a different meaning: It was a challenge.
"You and it," Stella pointed towards the Essence, "you believe warmth and protection are the answer? That maturity can come from gifts?"
She let out a short, dry laugh. "I will show you. I will show it. True greatness is not built from friendship, but from the ashes of worlds. The strength to face entities like us does not come from comforting pats, but from utter horror."
Stella's thoughts, vast and alien, began to operate. She didn't need to move. As a Near-Great Beginning, she could intervene in the very fabric of reality, sowing seeds of destruction in the most distant places.
She focused her will. In her mind, an image of Kai and his world appeared – a beautiful Blue Planet, where life thrived peacefully. And Stella saw this as weakness.
"I will not devour it," Stella whispered, as if speaking to the unconscious Celeste. "I will turn it into a crucible. Beginning with a miniature Ragnarok. A place where the strong will rise, or die."
She stretched out her hand, not towards the Dragon-Scrap, but as if scribbling onto the fabric of space-time. From her crystalline fingers, Shards of Gloom separated. They were not living creatures, but physical manifestations of the very loneliness, hunger, and destruction Stella had experienced. They were fragments of her primordial nightmare.
These shards, small as dust motes but heavy with negativity, pierced through dimensional layers, hurtling straight towards Earth.
On Earth, a day like any other suddenly turned into hell. The morning on Earth unfolded with a peacefulness bordering on monotony. In a bustling city park, children chased each other on the grass, their bright laughter mingling with birdsong.
A few elderly people sat on stone benches, reading newspapers and enjoying the warm sunshine. At a sidewalk café, office workers hurriedly sipped their morning coffee, chattering about a movie from the night before. Everything was a vibrant tapestry of daily life.
Humanity still did not know what they were about to face, nor the terrible calamity it would bring, and immediately.
The idleness that fostered that feeling of peace also came to an end.
It was also the last day humankind would live in the light of warmth and peace.
Then, the first signs appeared.
First, the birds. Flocks of pigeons flying in the sky suddenly panicked, smashing into skyscrapers as if chased by an invisible predator. Their desperate cries were drowned out by another strange sound that followed: a shrill, piercing shriek, like metal being torn apart, echoing from the sky above.
Dogs and cats in households began to howl and whine incessantly, no matter how their owners tried to soothe them.
The sky in many places darkened, not from clouds, but from a thin, black pigment that corroded the sunlight.
People looked up.
And they saw.
The cracks.