The sky tore open.

  It wasn’t a metaphor, not a dramatic flourish someone would later use to make the story sound grander. The clouds above the western quarter split as if a seam had been found and ripped apart by invisible hands. Black vapor curled away from the tear in slow-motion spirals, revealing a vertical corridor of stark light—too clean, too straight, too deliberate to belong to weather.

  Then the sword came down. A blade massive as a steel tower—no, larger, because its scale didn’t feel engineered. It felt authored. Its silhouette was so absurdly long that Yu’s eyes couldn’t hold it all at once, even through the jittering stream. The tip speared out of the sky with no warning arc, no fall, no hesitation. It didn’t drop like something losing support.

  It was slammed. Perfectly vertical. Like judgment. Like a giant’s nail driven into the world. The impact shook the air itself. A roar rolled through the city—not the Threat’s voice this time, but the sound of atmosphere being bullied aside. The pavement in the square fractured in jagged lines that raced outward, and cobblestones erupted like shrapnel. Dust and grit blasted upward in a gray ring, swallowing the camera’s view in an instant. The stream’s microphone clipped, spitting a harsh static that made Yu flinch even on his side of the frame.

  When the dust thinned, the sword stood buried deep in the Threat’s spine. The colossal body lurched, pinned and forced forward. Its upper mass sagged against the blade as if gravity had finally found something it could punish. The black smoke around it convulsed, sucked in and thrown out again by the force of the impact. The Threat’s outer shell—hard and metallic like a carapace—cracked along its ridges, then shattered in wide plates that crumpled like paper.

  “Kept you waiting, you piece of shit!” A voice cut through the settling debris, sharp and filthy and alive.

  The man who said it stood atop a broken heap of stone and timber, framed by smoke and falling grit. His armor was full black, not polished but matte, drinking light instead of reflecting it. He didn’t even look up at the colossal sword he’d brought down. He simply stared forward like the weapon was just an extension of his temper.

  Naz Galevald.

  Behind him, walking with an almost lazy calm through the wreckage, was a hooded girl. The wind tugged at her cloak, snapping it once like a flag. She stepped over fractured stone as if this were a familiar hallway, her eyes flicking across the battlefield with a clinical, dispassionate focus.

  Hanara Meek-Toa.

  Her voice was quiet, but the microphone caught it as clearly as it caught screams.

  “Naz’s Maxima,” she murmured, as if she were reading a line off a screen, “imbued with No. 66 -Double Six-.” She tilted her head a fraction, watching the Threat’s shell buckle. “A superposition of self-weight and factor collapse. There’s no way it wouldn’t pierce.”

  As she spoke, the last resisting plates of the carapace gave way with a brittle crack. The Threat’s exterior collapsed inward, the metal-hard surface folding and tearing as if it had been made of wet paper all along. Dust rolled off the creature in slow sheets.

  Around the perimeter, the adventurers and guards who had been bracing for the end stirred. Something in their posture shifted—spines straightening, shoulders lifting, weapons tightening in hands that had been slipping toward despair.

  Then the cheers hit like a second shockwave.

  “Team Jask is here!”

  “They made it!”

  “We’re saved—!”

  Voices cracked. Someone laughed like they couldn’t believe they still had lungs. Someone else cried out a name in relief. The battlefield—moments ago a gray smear of panic and ash—found color again, not in the smoke or flame, but in the human noise of hope clawing back into place.

  The sword was buried deep in the Threat’s back, pinning the colossal body to the earth.

  But it wasn’t finished yet. Even hunched and impaled, the Threat’s mass still twitched. Smoke pulsed around it with each labored movement. It was sluggish now, yes, but undeniably alive.

  And its massive arm was still clutching something against its chest.

  ?

  “There—!” Naz broke into a run.

  He moved like a blade pulled free of its sheath, fast enough that the camera struggled to track him as he vaulted broken stone. He kicked off gouged earth where the pavement had split, using the uneven ground like it had been laid out for him on purpose. His armor didn’t slow him. If anything, it made him look heavier, more inevitable—like a battering ram that had learned to be a man.

  Inside that clenched fist, trapped in the shadow of the Threat’s forearm, was a small, limp silhouette. Rize.

  For an instant, the world narrowed to that shape. Her hair was smeared dark with soot and blood. Her body hung in the curve of the creature’s grip like she’d been reduced to a thing the Threat owned. The sight hit Yu through the frame so hard it made his stomach turn, even as relief tried to ignite behind his ribs.

  Naz didn’t slow.

  He drew another sword from his waist in one smooth motion, steel singing faintly even through the stream’s distortion. He closed the distance in a flash, eyes locked not on the Threat’s face, not on its torso, but on the joint—where the monstrous hand met the forearm.

  He swung. A clean arc. A single decision made physical. Flash.

  The sound that followed wasn’t the wet snap of normal flesh. It was a tearing, ripping noise like cloth being shredded underwater. Not blood, but black mist-like fluid sprayed into the air, thick and oily, clinging to the smoke as if it wanted to become part of it.

  The Threat’s grip loosened. Rize’s body was released into empty space. Gravity took hold immediately. Her small form dropped, hair lifting for a heartbeat in the updraft of falling debris.

  “Make it in time…!” Naz caught her with his right arm.

  Not gently in the way of a hesitant rescue, but gently with absolute certainty—precise control, knowing exactly how much pressure a broken body could take. His fingers spread against her back and shoulder, careful not to crush, careful not to jolt. His other hand kept his blade angled away, always aware of what could still bite.

  Rize burned with fever. Even through the screen, Yu could see the unnatural sheen of heat on her skin, the way her lips parted as she drew shallow, ragged breaths. Her eyelids didn’t fully open. Her body didn’t respond. But her chest rose. She was alive.

  “ROA!” Naz’s head snapped up, eyes hard.

  He didn’t stop moving. He carried Rize toward the rear, stepping over rubble without looking down, his attention split between the fragile weight in his arm and the massive Threat still struggling against the sword through its spine.

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  Answering his call, Roa Sephi-Nort.

  She wore no visible panic. Her expression tightened only slightly, like someone forcing their face to stay calm while something inside them screamed.

  “No time for arguments,” she said. “[Holy Glory]. Effective range: city-wide,” voice steady. She didn’t ask permission. She didn’t wait for approval.

  Her eyes flicked once to Rize’s limp form, and the air around her seemed to change temperature—warmth gathering, not from fire but from something deeper, something that didn’t burn.

  “I leave the rest to you.” Roa with those words, multiple magic circles unfolded from her hands, layered glyphs rotating in clean geometry. Halos—thin, radiant rings—rose and floated in the air above the square, stacking like luminous architecture. The light wasn’t blinding at first. It was gentle, almost tender, as if the spell were taking a breath.

  Naz’s jaw clenched. He discarded his sword with a sharp motion, letting it clatter against stone. He balled his hand into a fist.

  “I’m maximizing the healing effect!” he shouted, “Hanara, bind it!” His voice it loud.

  “Roger that, Naz-kun,” Hanara replied, her tone almost casual. But her eyes had changed. The casual fell away, replaced by something sharp enough to cut.

  “—Hey, you.” She raised a finger and spoke with a coldness that made the hairs on Yu’s arms lift even through the screen. The Threat shuddered, straining against the massive sword and its own ruined shell. Smoke frothed around its legs, and its free arm twitched with blind violence.

  “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” She’s gaze didn’t blink. “Eat this. [No. 30 -Triple Zero-]!” She snapped her fingers lightly. A blue flash raced across the ground.

  It wasn’t a projectile. It was an assertion—light that traveled like a command. Bindings erupted from the flash, chains of luminous force that wrapped around the Threat’s legs in tight spirals. The moment the restraints locked, the creature’s lower body stopped with a jarring halt, as if the world had suddenly decided its movement was illegal.

  The coordination of Jask was now fully established.

  ?

  On Yu’s smartphone screen, the light expanded.

  [Holy Glory]. Yu didn’t know the name of the spell until it was spoken. Even then, the name meant nothing compared to what he saw: warmth spreading through an entire city like dawn forced into existence. The halos overhead brightened, and a cascade of golden-white radiance poured down through smoke and ash, slipping into alleys, washing over broken stone, finding blood and bruises as if the light had eyes.

  It touched people. Injured bodies that had been collapsed against walls flinched, then moved. A guard who had been clutching his side with shaking hands let out a shocked laugh as his fingers came away cleaner than they should have. A woman who had been sobbing on her knees lifted her head, eyes wide, and pulled her child closer—not because she was afraid anymore, but because she could finally believe she still had them.

  And in the center of it, in Naz’s arm, Rize’s color began to return. Her skin, dulled by shock and soot, warmed. Her lips—pale and cracked—regained a faint pink. Her hair, tangled and stained, still looked ruined, but it moved slightly with her breathing as if her body remembered it was supposed to live.

  Rize’s eyes opened—just a fraction, Not fully and clear, consciousness hadn’t returned. But in that narrow slit of awareness. She is alive. Unconsciously, Yu’s fingers gripped the edge of his smartphone so hard his knuckles turned white. The plastic creaked faintly under the pressure.

  “…They’re saving her,” Yu whispered.

  Naz. Hanara. Roa. Yu didn’t know their histories, their faces outside the pixel-smear of the broadcast, or what kind of people they were when they weren’t fighting for their lives. But he knew this: they were there. They were real. They were risking themselves, right now, in the same city where Rize had once stood alone.

  A hot surge of emotion welled up in the chest of the boy who was supposed to be just a viewer—just a number on a channel, a silent presence behind glass. His throat tightened. His voice came out rough.

  “…Thank you,” Yu said, “Jask.” The words felt too small, too late, too distant.

  But he said them anyway, the way you say something to the sky when you have nothing else.

  ?

  While the dazzling light poured down over the entire city, and the injured began to stand up one by one, Roa offered a single prayer. It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t for display. It was the kind of prayer spoken through clenched teeth—words that existed less as devotion and more as a vow.

  “Rize and everyone else are safe now,”Roa whispered. Her voice was calm. So calm it was terrifying. “So—” Roa turned around.

  In her eyes, something crimson settled into place. It wasn’t a glow. It wasn’t magic. It was intent—murderous and pure. The moment the Goddess of Healing forgot her grace, and the human underneath decided the world owed her an apology paid in broken bone.

  “YOOOUUU BAAAASSSTAAARD!!” The scream ripped through the square. Then she charged. Not with a staff, not with a blade, not with any elegant tool of war. With her fists.

  One hit. Her fist roared through the air, and the colossal monstrosity—pinned, bound, and already torn—was lifted into the sky like it weighed nothing. The shock of the punch traveled through the ground, shivering shattered windows. Naz’s head snapped toward her, horror and recognition colliding in his expression.

  “I knew it!” he shouted, “You used up all your Traits, didn’t you!? Hanara, defensive barrier! She’s gonna wreck the city!” His voice cracking.

  “On it~,” Hanara replied, and for a moment her tone came back, dangerously light. “[No. 73, deploy].”

  Almost simultaneously with the barrier’s formation, a shimmering field rose around the immediate battlefield—an invisible dome made visible only by the way ash and debris spiraled against it. Inside that space, Roa became violence given form.

  She screamed as she punched, kicked, stomped. Each impact made the Threat’s body jolt in unnatural angles, parts of its mass tearing away as if the creature were being reduced to raw material. This wasn’t magic. This was brutality—raw, unadulterated, executed with the same certainty she’d used to save lives.

  “Healing is Purification!” Roa screamed, driving a fist into the creature’s torso.

  “Healing is Destruction!” Her heel came down like a hammer.

  “Healing is Salvation!” She grabbed whatever passed for flesh and ripped, flinging pieces into the air.

  “Healing is a Purge!” Her voice broke into something that sounded almost like laughter, almost like sobbing, almost like prayer turned inside out.

  “—Healing is… RAGE!!” With the final scream, she delivered the finishing blow.

  It landed with a sound like the world swallowing its own breath. The Threat didn’t even have time to scream. It was pulverized—crushed, dispersed, annihilated—vanishing into smoke as if the creature had never been permitted to exist in the first place.

  The ear-splitting roar, the sound of iron and blood mixing, the frantic chorus of battle—Everything ceased.

  ?

  Silence covered the city.

  It wasn’t clean silence. It was the kind that follows devastation—the stunned quiet where even the wind seems hesitant to move. Smoke still rose thinly from scorched cobblestones, curling in lazy ribbons through streets that had been moments from becoming graves.

  Cracked walls leaned at wrong angles. Collapsed roofs exposed rafters like broken ribs. Shattered windows glittered under ash, catching fading light in sharp, accidental beauty. Whenever the wind slipped through the wreckage, rubble made small, dry sounds—stone tapping stone, wood settling with exhausted creaks.

  The smell of burnt timber mixed with the metallic sting of iron and blood, pricking the nose and clinging to the back of the throat.

  But in the sky, light remained. The multiple layers of light arrays drawn by Roa’s magic were slowly fading away. Their afterglow drifted in the air as warmth, brushing cheeks, settling on shoulders, reminding the living that their bodies still belonged to them.

  In the center of the city—wrapped in light just moments ago—people began to return to themselves.

  A mother hugged her child so fiercely the child squeaked, then laughed through tears. Adventurers limped while lending each other shoulders, their pride temporarily replaced by gratitude. A man stood in a daze before the broken remains of his stall, fingers trembling as he touched splintered wood, as if checking whether it was real.

  The battle was over. And watching it all from this side was a single boy.

  Yu’s eyes were bloodshot. His face was wet. His breath came in uneven pulls, hiccupping on the remnants of panic that had nowhere to go now. Reflected in his gaze was another world, seen through a frame—pixels and compression artifacts and shaking camera angles.

  But now that image felt alive. It pulsed like a heartbeat. It wasn’t just a stream. It wasn’t just a broadcast. Someone was definitely there.

  “…I’m so glad…” Yu whispered, voice hoarse and trembling in the back of his throat. The words barely became sound. “…you’re alive.”

  He reached out to the screen. He didn’t know what he expected—feedback, warmth, anything—but his hand moved anyway, fingers spreading as if he could touch the world on the other side. Rize’s figure was small in the frame, cradled now in safety rather than trapped in a monstrous fist. Small. But unmistakably there.