CHAPTER 10 — THE SEVEN DAYS OF JUDGMENT
When Ushinai awoke, the world was already dying.
The air tasted wrong—metallic, burning, threaded with a pressure that made every breath feel borrowed. He lay on cold stone beneath a shattered sky, his body wrapped in bandages glowing faintly with sealing runes. Each pulse of his heart sent pain through his chest, where the Fracture Mark throbbed like a second, hostile pulse.
Above him, the heavens bled gold.
Not rain—blood.
Streams of radiant light spilled from cracks in the sky, carving scars across the clouds themselves. The world trembled as if reality were trying to reject its own existence.
Aria sat beside him, her eyes rimmed red from exhaustion. She hadn't slept. He could tell by the way her hand trembled when she noticed him stirring.
"You're awake," she whispered.
Ushinai tried to speak, but his throat burned. When sound finally came, it was hoarse.
"How long?"
Sylpha answered from the far side of the chamber. "Half a day. Long enough for the heavens to decide our fate."
Outside, a horn sounded—deep, divine, and impossibly distant. The sound did not travel through air. It traveled through the soul.
Every being on the continent heard it.
The First Judgment had begun.
The sky split wider, and a voice descended—not spoken, but imposed upon the mind.
"THE MORTAL WORLD SHALL BE PURIFIED."
Across the continents, pillars of light fell from the heavens. Entire cities vanished without explosion, erased as though they had never been written into history. Forests crystallized into radiant glass. Rivers turned into burning silver. Mountains twisted into glowing monoliths that hummed with divine law.
Ushinai rose unsteadily to his feet, staggering toward the broken balcony overlooking the valley.
He saw people running.
Screaming.
Praying.
Dying.
And every divine beam bent subtly—toward him.
His knees nearly buckled.
"This is my fault," he whispered.
"No," Aria said sharply, gripping his arm. "This is what they always planned. You just gave them an excuse."
The Dragon King stood nearby in his human form, blood still drying along his ribs from the previous battle. His expression was grim.
"The Celestials have activated an ancient protocol," he said. "Seven days of judgment. If the target survives, the world is deemed unworthy and erased entirely."
Tempest let out a bitter laugh. "So no pressure."
Day One ended with a capital city gone and the oceans rising in luminous tides.
Day Two arrived without night.
The sky never darkened—locked between dawn and dusk in the phenomenon known as Dawnlock. Time itself shuddered. Shadows lagged behind movement. Sound arrived moments late.
That was when the Hunter Choir descended.
They did not arrive with light or thunder.
They simply… appeared.
Figures of white armor and empty halos, their faces smooth and featureless. Where they walked, sound vanished. Where they looked, shadows burned away.
They did not hunt bodies.
They hunted souls.
The first strike came without warning.
Tempest collapsed mid-step, screaming as one of the hunters brushed his shoulder. His soul flickered violently, almost tearing free.
Aria fired instinctively—her arrow passed straight through the creature.
"They're not physical!" she shouted.
Sylpha tried illusions. The hunters walked through them without pause.
The Dragon King tore one apart with his claws—but as it died, Ushinai felt something tear inside his chest. The Fragment screamed.
The hunters turned as one.
They had found him.
"Run," the Dragon King commanded.
They ran.
Across shattered plains and broken forests, divine assassins teleporting ahead of them, cutting off paths, forcing desperate detours. Each time Ushinai used his power to protect someone, more hunters appeared.
His strength was a beacon.
By the end of the day, he stopped fighting back.
"I can't," he said, breath shaking. "Every time I move… they die because of me."
A hunter's blade pierced toward Aria.
Ushinai reacted without thought.
The Fragment flared.
Space warped.
The hunter vanished—erased entirely.
The sky shuddered.
Every remaining hunter froze.
Then all of them turned toward him at once.
Aria grabbed his collar. "Don't you dare stop. You hear me? Don't you dare!"
They escaped only because the Dragon King tore open a rift into the Spirit Realm itself.
Day Three greeted them with a roar that shook existence.
The Dominion Beast descended.
A colossal shape of blinding radiance, wolf-like and crowned with celestial horns. Its howl stripped memories from villages miles away. People forgot their children. Kings forgot their names.
It hunted only one thing.
Ushinai.
The battle shattered valleys. The Dragon King's breath scorched divine flesh. Garo fought until his body broke. Tempest summoned storms that were swallowed whole.
Nothing slowed it.
When it lunged toward Aria—
Ushinai snapped.
He unleashed the Fragment fully.
His vision fractured. The world split into overlapping realities. His voice echoed with something not entirely his own.
The Dominion Beast died screaming as dimensional pressure crushed it inward.
But the moment it fell, Ushinai collapsed.
And the sky… noticed.
More signatures ignited in the heavens.
Hunting signals.
They carried him unconscious into the Spirit Realm.
Day Four revealed the truth.
The spirits avoided him.
Even ancient nobles bowed their heads in fear.
At the heart of the realm, the Spirit Queen approached, trembling.
"Why does the scent of the Pale King cling to you?" she asked.
Silence fell.
She explained everything.
The Fragment was not a blessing.
It was a shard of the Pale King's sealed soul—embedded within Ushinai at birth through forces unknown. A dormant contingency. A possibility.
A future.
"A vessel," she whispered. "Or worse… a successor."
Ushinai felt something inside him break.
"So I'm not human," he said hollowly. "I'm a mistake."
Aria grabbed his face fiercely. "You are not him. You choose every day. That's what matters."
The Dragon King said nothing.
Day Five arrived with darkness.
Not night.
Absence.
Three Celestial Wardens descended—beings beyond Archons, their presence forcing spirits to kneel simply by existing.
"Turn over the Vessel," the lead Warden commanded.
"He is not a vessel," the Dragon King growled.
"Then you will die pretending."
Their clash tore the sky of the Spirit Realm in half.
Ushinai tried to rise—but Sylpha held him down.
"If you approach them, you won't survive."
Ushinai whispered, "If I don't… none of you will."
He stepped forward.
The Wardens froze.
They sensed the Fragment.
And bowed.
"He is awakening," one whispered.
Day Six broke Ushinai.
The Fragment surged violently, trying to overwrite him. Memories not his own bled into his mind—wars, thrones, divine slaughter.
The Pale King's voice whispered gently.
"…accept me…"
Ushinai screamed.
Reality warped.
Aria grabbed his face and held him there, grounding him with sheer will.
"Stay with me," she begged. "Please."
He did.
Barely.
The Wardens retreated, shaken.
Because resistance was not supposed to be possible.
Day Seven arrived in silence.
The sky opened completely.
A colossal eye gazed down upon the world.
The All-Father.
Only one percent of his presence manifested—and it nearly crushed existence.
"YOUR JUDGMENT IS COMPLETE," the voice thundered.
A beam of annihilation formed.
The Dragon King stepped forward.
So did Aria.
So did everyone.
The beam fired.
And struck Ushinai directly.
When the light faded—
He was still standing.
Wings of fractured radiance unfolded behind him.
His mark reshaped itself again.
He looked up at the heavens, voice echoing with two tones.
"I survived your judgment."
For the first time in eternity—
The All-Father hesitated.
Ushinai clenched his glowing fist.
"Now it's my turn."