The sky fractured.
A hissing tear vibrated in Kael's molars. The frequency was so high it made the junkyard birds fall dead before touching the ground.
Kael gripped the handle of his rusted pickaxe. The metal, worn by years of picking divine scrap, sank into his calloused palm. His skin was smeared with engine oil and filtered star dust.
A golden lightning bolt pierced the ash-colored clouds. It left a trail of ozone and sulfur that supplanted the stench of rust and sewage from district seven.
The air was still. A dense mass of static electricity made the hair on his arms stand on end. A metallic taste settled permanently in his throat.
The resulting silence was a physical weight. The muteness of a world that knows something fundamental has just changed.
"Another purge," Kael muttered.
He spat grayish saliva onto the dry quarry floor. He wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of a soot-covered hand.
At twenty-two, his body was a map of minor scars and chemical burns. Wiry muscles forged in hunger and exhausting manual labor under the relentless border sun.
His only possession of value was etched into the circuits of his consciousness:
`[Divine Sanctuary Collector: Level 1]``[Status: No Collections]``[Activation Requirement: Touch a Divine Entity in Collapse State (1 HP or less)]`
He had been trying to activate that inert system for three years. Three years of enduring the mockery of the local gatherers.
In the zinc-roofed dive bars, where divine scrap was traded for foul liquor, they called him "The Wing Ghoul." Kael only followed the heat trails of imperial battles, hoping to pick up what even war crows ignored.
He had crawled through smoking craters. Two-winged angels lay with limbs twisted like old wire.
The Inquisition always got there first. He watched them administer the "mercy shot" —a blast of energy that vaporized the fallen's remaining dignity— to harvest the divine essence that fueled the capital's luxuries.
In this world, hierarchy was biological. You were either born with a stable mana core to study at the Academy, or you had enough gold to buy a stolen Technique Book.
Otherwise, you were nothing. A spare part.
Kael had rejected multiple offers to escape his misery. In the death-scented alleys of the periphery, shadows moved with their own will.
Raspy voices had offered him pacts. They asked for a piece of his shadow for the strength of ten men, or his ability to dream in exchange for a level five book.
He knew the empty sockets of the "pacted" well. They walked through the district like automatons; grayish skin and eyes that no longer reflected light. They were hollow shells devoured by the same ambition they tried to quench.
Being "useless" was the price of his freedom.
The roar repeated. A solid howl fractured reality at a speed human sensors shouldn't be able to record. The sound tore through the air.
A white silhouette, wrapped in a trail of nuclear light, descended at a suicidal angle. The glow eclipsed the sun, bathing the junkyard in a surgical whiteness.
Kael covered his face with his arm. Radiant heat scorched the fabric of his shirt.
The impact occurred less than a kilometer away, in the Forest of Whispers.
The ground jumped beneath his feet. A shockwave launched him backward, charged with a spiritual pressure so heavy it made his ears bleed.
He flew seven meters before crashing into a pile of scrap metal. The metal groaned under his weight.
The blow emptied his lungs. Kael coughed blood. The salty, warm taste flooded his mouth.
His ears rang with a constant tone that threatened his sanity.
"Damn it..." he hissed, clinging to a piece of imperial tank armor.
He forced himself to his feet. His ribs screamed a fracture warning, but his eyes remained fixed on the opalescent smoke column rising above the trees. The light emanating from the crater belonged to a spectrum foreign to this realm.
On the horizon, three "Chastiser" class airships emerged from the clouds. Their mana turbines roared at full power while blue spotlights cut through the atmosphere in search of the essence trail.
He had five minutes. Seven if he was lucky.
Kael took off running.
It was a desperate sprint through twisted roots and bushes that disintegrated into white ash. Each step sent an electric sting to his brain through his battered ankles.
The air burned his throat, dry and electrified. He ignored the survival instinct ordering him to flee.
He reached the crater's edge. Horror mixed with wonder.
The forest within a five-hundred-meter radius had ceased to exist. The trees were now white dust silhouettes crumbling at the touch of the wind.
The ground had turned into a pool of molten glass. It began to solidify into grotesque shapes.
In the center of that desolation, a monument to beauty and tragedy lay before him.
A pair of gigantic wings spread around her, filling the crater floor entirely. They were shattered. White feathers the size of shields lay scattered, losing their luster. Divine blood, thick as honey and bright as mercury, flowed from deep wounds revealing crystal bones.
A deep red window pulsed before him like an open wound:
`[CRITICAL ALERT! Supreme Entity of "Eternal Seraph" Class detected.]``[Rank: SSS+ (Incalculable in current state)]``[HP: 0.00001% / ???]``[Diagnosis: Divine Core fractured by High Rank Betrayal.]``[Remaining lifespan before soul dissipation: 24 seconds]`
Kael climbed down the slope. The heat from her wings was a barrier of divine authority demanding submission even from the brink of death.
He stopped in front of her. The angel was imposing.
Perfect features etched by an agony no mortal could understand. Only one eye was open, a sphere of pure sapphire; a window into a universe of agonizing stars.
In that iris, Kael found a loneliness so deep it made his own outcast life seem like a party.
She looked at him. Her lips moved, but only a trickle of luminous blood flowed. Her fine hand trembled on the dust before giving up.
Kael felt a human sting in his chest. He remembered the days he scavenged for food in others' leftovers. The feeling of being a speck of dust in a universe of giants.
For the first time, he was the giant.
Above, the roar of the "Chastisers" became deafening. Searchlights already swept the crater edges.
In a few seconds, inquisitors would descend with capture nets and essence extraction knives to dismember this being and sell its grace.
`[Initiate Collection of Entity: Eternal Seraph? (Y/N)]``[WARNING: This action is IRREVERSIBLE. You will become the first "Heir of Betrayal."]`
Kael didn't hesitate. If this world wanted gods to die in the mud, he was going to give them a reason to tremble.
He reached out and touched the tip of one of the central wings. The contact was like putting his arm into a forge.
His tendons stretched to the limit. His mind expanded violently to house an infinite presence.
"Inside," he said with a broken voice.
He pressed **[Y]** mentally.
Time froze. The sound of engines vanished. Dust particles in the air stayed suspended.
`[Confirmation received. Initiating Emergency Asylum Protocol...]``[Extracting Entity from hostile environment...]`
Kael felt his insides tear and reconstruct. A pocket dimension unfolded within his consciousness. It was the Sanctuary, vast and cold.
For an instant, he saw his own spirit's landscape: a crystal plain under an amethyst-colored sky.
The Seraph's body fragmented into billions of sparks. They swirled in a vortex toward Kael's hand.
Light pierced his closed eyelids. Immense heat etched into his palm with a complex design, like a royal seal of molten gold.
The entity flowed into him, filling the Sanctuary's void with a presence that made the walls of his mind vibrate.
`[Blood Link Consolidation: Completed.]``[Absolute Obedience established: The Angel belongs to you.]`
Kael perceived an invisible silver thread connecting his heart to the woman's essence. It was a chain of authority he held with a trembling hand.
He felt the echo of her pain, now muffled by dimensional stasis. An instinctive obedience emanated from her—a submission forced by system laws.
Opening his eyes, the crater was empty. The silence of victory returned.
`[Collection Successful: "Eternal Seraph" added to your Personal Sanctuary.]``[Status: Creature in temporary recovery stasis (Dimensional Ice active).]``[Wing Recovery Progress: 0/12]``[Divine Sanctuary: Level 1 Unlocked.]`
An instant revelation hit his brain. Divine arts unfolded before him like an infinite scroll writing itself in his mind.
He saw attack patterns defying gravity. Defenses that could withstand a star's fall. Knowledge of heaven's anatomy that would burn a common man.
`[First Divine Skill Unlocked: Celestial Arts Register - Level I.]``[Passive: "Collector's Eye" (Sees divine weakness and essence trail)]``[Active: "Light Feather Shield" (Energy impact absorption of Rank A or lower)]`
Kael clenched his fist. A power note resonated with the creature hidden within him. It was a pure power.
His senses sharpened. He perceived the mana flow in the airships' engines, the soldiers' thermal signatures, and the exact composition of the energy in their weapons.
A spotlight of artificial white light lit up the crater.
"TARGET LOCATED!" an amplifier shouted from the airship. "By order of the Red Inquisition, stay on the ground! Show your hands right now!"
Three shadows descended via essence cables. Rank 1 Inquisitors, their white armor glowing under protection spells and their energy swords emitting a threatening hum.
Kael stood up slowly. He brushed the dust off his dirty shirt. The garment now seemed ridiculously small for the man he was becoming.
For the first time in twenty-two years, he looked an Inquisitor straight in the eye. The weight of fear no longer pressed on his chest.
"You're late," Kael said.
His voice was firm. A vibration made the very air around his lips ripple.
The Inquisitors froze at his lack of fear. The squad leader, a veteran with a golden shoulder plate, pointed to the empty crater center.
"Where is the angel?" he asked. "The essence trackers indicated a Seraph in this radius. What have you done, trash? Where have you hidden the Empire's prey?"
Kael looked at his palm. The seal no longer glowed, but the heat remained, comforting and dangerous, like an ember in midwinter.
"I've stopped collecting trash," Kael replied.
He flashed a smile that made the Inquisitors instinctively step back.
"Now I'm going to collect the world."
Kael was no longer there when the ground exploded before the first high-frequency energy bolt. His body moved with a speed his ten-minutes-ago self would have considered magical. Only a trail of light feathers remained, dissolving before touching the scorched earth.