The clock hands keep turning.
He sees the weight of history buried beneath the earth. He sees the tree rings of an ancient trunk flow with the passing sun and moon. He sees drifting sand gather into stone, only to shatter again in the depths of rushing rivers.
Time, once slow and vast, suddenly accelerates. The hands on its great dial spin forward toward the next cycle.
The silver-haired young man glares through the raging current, struggling to seize hold of that one sliver of light he can still make out.
He cradles the clock in both hands and presses his palms together, finally anchoring the spinning hands in place.
On the frozen face of the clock, he sees it—the moment where it all began.
In the solemn and towering Sanctuary, a god with golden eyes sits on the throne, wearing his crown as worshippers bow in reverence.
Beside him stand several angelic attendants with heads lowered, holding incense cloths and holy water, tasked with ensuring that everything seen by the Cardinal Deity remains spotless.
Below the throne, the people sob and plead. They speak of how the inhabitants of this continent treat them—outsiders—as less than animals. They abandoned everything to follow the Cardinal Deity to this new land, but now they can't even feed themselves.
As their cries rise and fall, the Cardinal Deity rises from his seat and points his power toward the Scorched Borderland beneath the heavy clouds.
Go. I will guide you to victory.
The Four Archangels will be your blades. They will bring you bread and wine.
Time's hands move faster, spreading war and conquest across the land.
Blood splashes across the quinoa fields. The corpses of the tribal people are tossed carelessly by the roadside. Those who claimed victory lean wearily against broken walls, lighting cigarettes beside campfires.
War's over. Where are you planning to go next?
Think we have a choice? Once the Cardinal Deity clears this region, he'll just have us back to serving the angels again.
The gap-toothed man spits, a splash of bloody saliva hitting the ground.
Whatever. Better to go back as a blood slave with a full belly than starve to death.
He lifts his head and looks over the mountains of corpses by the roadside, then lets out a long sigh.
This blood debt... who knows how many years it'll take to repay it all.
Don't hate us. We were just following orders.
Maybe we'll all meet again in hell before long.
Centuries roll on. Billions of lives have passed through the mortal world, then plunged into the dark waters of the Acheron River, caught in endless reincarnation.
The Supreme Heaven has seized full control of the Scorched Borderland. Under the Sanctuary's rule, which has last for hundreds of years, no one dares defy the Cardinal Deity's will or his divine decrees.
The angels continue their enslavement of humanity, extorting blood taxes. Everyone endures in silence, numb and resigned, accepting the laws of the three realms as unchangeable.
No one questions why the world was built this way. The truth of that era is buried beneath the dust, silent and forgotten.
The phrase "Tribespeople and borderlanders were born enemies" becomes a footnote no one cared about, tucked into the margins of history and weathered by wind and sand into a grimy scar.
Until one day, humanity raises the Halo Cannon.
After discovering that the warm blood of the living can melt an angel's rock-hard flesh, humanity strikes the war drums of rebellion.
The Iron Army mounts a cannon several meters long atop the Halo Fortress. Its pitch-black muzzle points skyward toward the heavens. Amid a roaring crowd, it fires a brilliant, majestic torrent of light that streaks across the sky like a comet, piercing the lofty aerial citadel.
Wherever the aurora passes, all things collapse and crumble. The once unreachable Sanctuary breaks apart in a thunderous hum, reduced to dust and ash as it rains down over the mortal realm.
The angels scream and scatter, fleeing in panic, clutching the gold and silver they have spent centuries plundering.
The Cardinal Deity, standing in the light's path, is struck directly by the superheated blast. The divine core hidden beneath his golden bones and silver flesh is destroyed on impact.
The divine core is the secondary hub where gods store all their soul-wisdom. Over the eons, gods slowly lose their feelings and senses, forcing them to deposit all memory into this core.
As the Cardinal Deity nears death, he looks down at the very people who once knelt and begged for his protection—now cheering his fall. But even as his divine core fades away, there's no hatred left within it.
Why?
All he feels is confusion.
As an all-knowing, all-powerful being who has lived without end, he has never once known what it means to fear death.
In his eyes, the tribespeople, and the humans he brought to the Scorched Borderland with his own hand, are nothing more than thin strands on the wheel of life.
Humans begged for peace, pleaded for his protection. So he sent the angels. And once their wishes were granted, he took their due in blood, and cast them back into the cycle of life and death. That's how the three realms have kept turning.
The man who dies in the mines today might be reborn tomorrow, crying in some distant delivery room.
He still can't understand why—why now, after all this time—humans have risen in rebellion against the laws that shaped their world.
...
After humanity's counterattack against the Sanctuary ends, the Cardinal Deity's ruined body is nailed to a wooden frame, left on display for all to see.
Some spit on him with disgust. Others pretend not to notice. But not a flicker of emotion stirs in his heart.
He still cannot understand the feelings that belong to humanity.
A long, long time passes. Then one day, a bloodstained man arrives with a filthy child in tow. They stop before the wooden frame.
Look closely. This is the one they used to call the great Cardinal Deity. The reason our lives became a living hell.
The man picks up a stone from beneath the scaffold and presses it into the child's hand.
Hit him! Show him what human fury really means!
His shattered body, clinging to a shred of consciousness, closed its eyes to brace for the familiar pain, but the stone never hit.
...Why throw it at him?
The young child shook his head and set down the bloodstained, jagged stone.
I know he did wrong. But he's already nailed here, unable to move. That's punishment enough.
I don't want to bully someone who can't fight back.
—You little brat!
The furious man lunges forward and slaps his own child across the face.
You must never say that in front of others. Do you hear me?!
You kids don't understand anything! Do you know that what you just said could get our whole family taken away?!
The furious father pulls the crying child away, leaving the "god" still on the execution scaffold, eyes now open once again.
...?
Those words of rage echo inside his hollowed-out body.
He doesn't understand because he's just a child, then...
If I became a child, would I find a different answer?
The divine core remains still, but the human soul within trembles.
He once knew nothing of human emotion, but now, as his divine mind begins to fade, he wants to understand.
...Then go. See it for me.
Go and see what has truly happened on this land.
The Cardinal Deity gathers all his remaining power and transforms the final spark within his body into a <phonetic=Wanshi>amber</phonetic>.
Maybe he means to return one day. Maybe he wants to walk among humans. Or maybe, with no time left to think, he simply casts the <phonetic=Wanshi>amber</phonetic> to the ground.
The amber is wrapped in soft, fine threads and spun into a white cocoon.
After a long passage of time, a child hatches from within the cocoon.
...
From the moment he opened his eyes, when he still knew nothing, he already carried the unresolved hatred sealed inside the divine core.
Divine wrath, delayed ten years before being released, coils around him and twists into the form of "catastrophe"—natural disasters that take the lives of everyone near him.
But the <phonetic=Wanshi>child</phonetic> doesn't know he has already become the source of the catastrophe.
During his time in the mortal world, he'd been searching. Searching for a way to end all of this.
And now, looking back, he sees it clearly. He was the reason it all began.
...I am the source of the plague?
The Holy Son floats high above, gazing down from within the hollow cosmic realm. Scattered around him are the fragments of time he'd spent so long chasing.
The black-winged angel descends to his side, her tone humble and reverent.
Forgive me. When the Sanctuary fell, I had to seal my own mind within a cocoon to protect your sacred body.
Now, at last, I return all those memories to you.
My Lord, you asked why this plague never ends in the mortal realm. Let me explain.
Uriel gathers a strand of time's threads. Thousands upon thousands of memory fragments sweep past.
All life in this world is the plague. Selfish. Violent. Blind to the destruction they cause.
Everyone schemes and steals for more resources. And yet, only because the Sanctuary exists has the world managed to keep a fragile balance.
We judge each soul, balance their merits and sins, and give them the fates they deserve. But humans deny their true selves. They cling to beautiful dreams that can never be real.
Demons take advantage of that moment, seizing what little soul power remains in them and worsening the suffering of the mortal realm.
Because humans and demons alike continue to wage war and disregard balance, the laws of the three realms collapse...
The angel girl slowly kneels and raises the radiant crown above her head, offering it to the Holy Son.
To set the world right and rebuild the laws, we beg you to return to the Sanctuary and merge with your divine body.
The laws have fallen this far. Only if you return to the throne and lead the angels again can everything be restored!
...
In the blink of an eye, memories as vast as the heavens and earth flood from his eyes and crash through his mind.
The scorched stench of burning flesh in the wheat fields, the milky scent that comes with a baby's laughter, and all the tangled fragments of mortal life pour into him at once.
His consciousness veers off course, unable to absorb such an overwhelming flood of information. In his daze, he feels like he's become the Cardinal Deity, and also like he's returned to childhood.
To find himself again, he endures the splitting pain in his head and searches for the scattered fragments buried deep within the cocoon.
—And there, in the innermost depths, he finds a record left behind by the Cardinal Deity.
Ten years after the Halo Cannon's activation.
Ten years after the Halo Cannon's activation.
The child awakened from the amber steps out of the cocoon chamber for the first time. His bare feet touch the soft spring grass. Looking up, he sees a line of white doves soaring across the plains.
He takes a few steps forward and realizes this is a brand new world, one without rules or restrictions. It makes him feel free. He wants to understand it.
The boy runs with pure joy, shouting nonsense syllables at the top of his lungs, celebrating the preciousness of this fleeting moment.
Until a passing woman suddenly grabs his wrist.
Hey... did you wander off from one of the nearby villages?
The boy blinks, confused, and doesn't answer. But he can tell that this unfamiliar woman's questions come from a place of kindness.
Seeing his silence, she assumes he must be a lost child from a nearby settlement. She pulls a handkerchief from her pocket and begins wiping his hands as she gently leads him away, chatting the whole time.
If you don't have a home, then come stay with us for a while.
She carefully wipes the grime from each of his fingers, her voice never pausing.
...
It's alright if you don't talk. Once we're back, I'll ask a few of the older kids to look after you.
It's normal to feel scared in a new place. But the kids here are all warm-hearted.
Give it a little time, and I'm sure you'll be friends with all of them.
The boy, hand in hers, walks forward in a daze, ears full of lessons he doesn't yet understand.
That day, he didn't understand what the woman was saying. But somehow, the simple act of her wiping his hands left a deep impression on his heart.
A hazy memory stirs in his mind. Long, long ago, he lived in a palace of gold and jade, and his ten fingers were always tended to by many hands, kept immaculately clean at all times.
But he didn't like that life, because in all those perfectly polished gestures, he never once felt "love."
The boy turns and looks back one last time, watching as the "amber" slowly sinks beneath the sea of trees.
<i>In that final glance, the Cardinal Deity buries the last trace of his memory deep within the record.</i>
<i>With the divine core damaged, <phonetic=Cardinal Deity>he</phonetic> knows that all his soul and wisdom will soon fade away. The only thing he can leave behind for the child is the memories still slumbering within.</i>
<i>So when the child returns to this place one day, <phonetic=Cardinal Deity>he</phonetic> hopes he will witness it all.</i>
<i>When <phonetic=Wanshi>he</phonetic> first awakened, how did the people of this world treat <phonetic=Wanshi>him</phonetic>?</i>
Now, the boy returns to the place where <phonetic=Wanshi>he</phonetic> was born, and reclaims the final gift the Cardinal Deity left <phonetic=Wanshi>him</phonetic>.
<phonetic=Wanshi>He</phonetic> remembers the moment he first opened his eyes—how a pair of warm hands gently guided him home.
The first time sitting around the fire with everyone. The first time falling asleep beside a companion. The first time sneaking out together to steal candy...
A flood of tangled memories surges up, arranging themselves into a gentle tapestry before his eyes.
Wanshi, when you grow up, you're going to be an incredible doctor!
The girl reading by the fire smiles and lifts her arm, showing him a freshly stitched scar on her slender arm.
Because look, you stitched this wound so well.
When you grow up, the kids in the courtyard won't need to worry anymore about having no one to care for them!
I hope that when you grow up, you'll go to places far, far away.
After finishing her lesson, Melvie closes the medical textbook and gently touches his forehead.
You said you wanted to stay and help at the orphanage, and that moved me. But you're a smart child. You'll have a much better future in the outside world.
Whatever you set your heart on, I know you'll achieve it.
The memories of mortals—and the life he once lived—unravel into threads that wrap around him, absorbed by the lantern in his hand, where they turn into a flame that never stops burning.
He sees not just history, but the full span of their lives—their joy, anger, sorrow, and laughter.
Anna... Melvie...
He now understands what kind of hearts those people had when they welcomed him.
Cardinal Deity, is this the mortal world you wanted me to see?
...I've seen it all.
In a daze, he looks toward the lantern that continues to absorb countless threads of life. The motion prompts a panicked question from the angel.
...My Lord?
In the plan laid out thirty years ago, Uriel believes that if she helped the Holy Son awaken the memories stored in the amber, the Cardinal Deity would be reborn through a human vessel.
But she hadn't expected that now, within one body, two people's memories would coexist simultaneously, and the situation has already spun far out of her control.
My Lord, you must not sympathize with those sinners!
Uriel quickly drops to her knees.
Thirty years ago, it was their betrayal of your kindness that made you fall to the mortal world.
The Supreme Heaven has long been enraged by what you suffered. Countless punishments have rained down, all to make those sinners repent.
The divine law cannot remain broken. The three realms must return to their rightful path, and you must return to the holy throne to make that happen.
If you hesitate, these greedy humans will only try the same tricks again—
...I won't do it.
The demigod who once gazed down upon all things now pulls his eyes away and looks again at the girl in front of him.
No existence should have its ending dictated.
Humanity's fate should be decided by humanity itself.
The young man's voice remains calm and resolute, but the angel girl's face goes deathly pale in an instant.
N-not even you, My Lord, can say such things... That would mean denying the will of the Supreme Heaven...
For all your efforts to control humanity's fate, have you ever succeeded?
Wanshi looks straight at the girl, now frozen in place. His tone carries an authority even he doesn't realize is there.
For thirty years, humanity has resisted the fate you've imposed, turning tens of thousands of angels into bloody pulp.
Yet even then, you didn't stop. You escalated it, inflicting more suffering on each new generation... and what did you get?
War. All you ever achieved was endless war.
If you can't admit that, then let me show you the truth—humanity will never accept suffering forever out of fear.
No matter how desperate the situation, someone will always choose to hold onto kindness, and dream of a better future.
If you want to keep using me to prolong this war, then no matter how many times you ask, my answer will always be the same: no.
Because what humanity has always wanted was never the right to rule over others—
All they want is a world where everyone can live peacefully.
Uriel, for both sides, let's bring this suffering to an end.
Light shines from the young man's golden eyes. Uriel knows that look all too well—it is the same gaze of judgment that once haunted her day and night thirty years ago, from which she could find no escape.
And now, that gaze returns, its owner standing before her again, awakening every fear she thought she had buried.
Her body trembles. She presses her right hand against her weakening knees, forcing herself not to kneel. Lifting her head, she laughs.
Haha... I... I understand now.
But in the face of complete rejection, she no longer feels afraid.
You are no Holy Son. You're nothing more than a wretched human who stole the Cardinal Deity's memories...
If you just hand over the memories in the amber to me, I can do it... No, I will do it better than you ever could!
The space within the cocoon suddenly contracts. Uriel soars upward, sending countless threads lashing toward Wanshi.
...Aargh!
The ground shakes violently. Uriel grabs the end of a thread and yanks the connected amber toward herself.
I should've known! Thirty years ago, the Cardinal Deity never should've split off that spark! Humans are filthy by nature. His precious memories will only be defiled and wasted!
Uriel spreads her black wings. Intricate golden sigils erupt across her body.
The Supreme Heaven was right all along. Even when gifted a paradise, humans just turn it into a wasteland with their selfishness and ugliness.
Even a noble Son of God becomes irredeemable once tainted by human flaws.
But the Holy Seat cannot remain vacant. The Supreme Heaven's grand vision must be carried forward...
No matter. I will become the new god. I will personally restore the law to this upside-down world—
You rush forward, frantically tearing at the threads wrapped around the silver-haired youth, but more crimson threads immediately surge in to replace them.
Gray Raven... stay back...
Wanshi keeps his head held high. His mind wavers as the immense information flowing into him threatens to overwhelm his consciousness.
I can't let these memories fall into her hands. I have to merge with the information inside the amber...
The threads carve bloody lines into his body, but he clings to the memories, pulling them into his arms.
Then I'll leave what comes after to you.
Wanshi cradles the still-burning flame of life and offers you a calm, reassuring smile.
Once the fusion is nearly complete, as the Bloodsworn... you sever our bond.
This isn't the ending I wanted. But I'm glad that a life once saved by humanity... can now end for the sake of humanity.
You freeze.
It's alright. We'll still have the next thirty years. Life and death... that's how the cycle turns.
The flame keeps burning, using the young man's soul as fuel, weaving the threads of memory into his chest.
His soul gradually sheds its human form and becomes sealed within the vessel known as the "divine core."
As the former Cardinal Deity who once scorned the weight of life... I deserve this end.
You draw the bone blade and keep slashing at the threads binding the young man.
Ignoring the crimson strands constantly crawling back up, you keep hacking them away, one slash after another.
Why?
The light fades from his golden eyes. What remains is a question, one that carries all the weight of his doubt and pain.
Haven't you seen it already? All this... every disaster... it all came from me...
You let out a furious cry, but your hands don't stop moving.
...
In that moment, the young man hesitates.
By sheer will alone, he rejects the merging of information flowing from the amber.
The body woven from the cocoon halts—just one step short of divinity. Then the power begins to recede, flowing back along the threads into the amber.
Uriel watches this unfold, an expression of ecstatic joy twisting across her face. She raises the holy crown high, laughing wildly.
Such a foolish human, giving up the power already in his hands. Fine. I'll gladly take it!
Come. Let me be crowned here and now—
I've been waiting for this moment, you stupid angel!
At your command, the mechanical raven, which has been ready for a while, bursts out from an inconspicuous corner and snatches the holy crown from Uriel's raised hands.
...Demons?! When did they get in?!
Uriel hurriedly fires more threads to defend herself, but the raven dodges them all with swift precision.
Morigan darts to the highest point of the dome. In midair, the bird summons a strange crimson magic circle and places the holy crown inside it.
Under the corrosion of demonic power, the radiant barrier around the holy crown slowly dissolves, revealing its vulnerable core.
Impossible... That power... that's the Demon Lord...?
Gray Raven! Hurry up! I can't hold this much longer!
Without hesitation, you draw your blood gun and fire several shots in quick succession, blasting the suspended crown to pieces.
Ahhhhhhh—
As the angel girl lets out a piercing scream, the holy crown—shattered by blood bullets—scatters into glimmering motes of light. They fall onto the soft cocoon threads, then vanish without a trace.
The amber connected to the thread tips also cracks open at once, breaking apart into countless dim fragments of crystal.
That was the Cardinal Deity's sacred crown! How dare you maggots—!
The archangel shrieks in rage. She yanks desperately at the threads in her grasp like clinging to a lifeline. The cocoon, stripped of the holy crown's stabilizing power, begins to shake violently, nearly flinging everyone into the abyss below.
Inside the cocoon chamber, all color rapidly drains away, leaving behind a sterile, inorganic white.
Uriel, stop struggling. The holy crown has been destroyed. You can't steal these memories anymore!
Wanshi tears through the brittle, rotting threads and steps beneath Uriel. He raises his gun toward her flailing figure overhead.
But Uriel only grows more frenzied, summoning wave after wave of angels. Pale, fleshy forms crawl endlessly from the bottom of the cocoon chamber, swarming in every direction like insect eggs.
No matter... As long as I kill you, it'll be enough. Any ending is better than letting some foolish human seize the divine throne!
Caw! This place is about to collapse. We can't stay here!
Morigan flies back onto your shoulder, urging you to look up at the dome, which is rapidly decaying and losing color.
It's alright. Everything... will be over soon.
Wanshi puts his mask back on and spins the cylinder of his revolver, chambering a new round.
Gray Raven... lend me your strength.
It's time to end all of this.
