To wield a sword and cleave sky and earth—that’s how mortals rate the apex of strength, like measuring a storm by how it bends the horizon.

At that height, numbers fade like chalk in rain. Speed, power—both blur. We can only say, “a blade that splits sky and land,” and call that miracle our yardstick.

Stini raised her sword. A band of light dropped from the far edge of sight, like a waterfall from the heavens, and came straight down on the Deity of Justice.

“Is that all?”

He didn’t block. He let the roaring cut land on His shoulder. Power met Him like a stone cast into the sea—no sound, no ripple, no use. He caught the blade of the Holy Sword Galewind with His bare hand, took two steps, and closed on Stini.

“Hero, is that the extent of your resolve and will?”

We had cloth over our eyes, like night wrapped in burlap. We couldn’t see the Divine Being’s face—couldn’t even tell if He had one.

But we heard His heavy sigh, like wind through a graveyard.

“When I died, the world wasn’t like this. Back then, every child had a soul like hammered gold, and anyone could debate truth with you. Now? Sloth. Luxury. Fury. Hate. Indulgence. I see it in each soul. In everyone. Everyone!”

He hammered the last word like a bell.

Stini tried to yank her sword free. She failed again and again.

The Deity of Justice held tight. With that strength, and at that range, if He chose to strike, this would end in a heartbeat.

His grip tightened. Bad sounds crawled along the steel.

Crack. Snap. Bone-deep breaking, but in metal. Stini tried to wrench Galewind back, desperate, but the sword was wedged as if in mountain rock, stuck in His palm.

I wanted to help. But the pocket world Stini raised is a thorny thing.

There are only two rules. The first: one-on-one.

I shouldn’t even be here. I forced my way in on divinity’s back. The legendary magic Hero’s Funeral is a deathmatch for two, with no room for a third shadow.

I never thought she’d trigger this spell. Worse, the rule of one-on-one bars me from joining, even from helping from the edge. All those counters the Divine Being prepared got smothered by this world’s law. Unless Stini falls, I can’t put a finger on the board.

But will Stini ever admit defeat? She’d die first.

“You’re a Hero, hm? A Hero blessed by gods and fiends alike. Then this blade is a Holy Sword—yet a sword meant to bear hope, justice, and the future is… trash.”

The shattering rang out. The Divine Being crushed the Holy Sword Galewind with His hand.

That’s how far a god stands from the Son of the Demon King—one still a creature of this world, one not—sky and abyss between them.

“I see extremism, arrogance, bloodlust. Every ugly face of the Demonfolk glints on this blade’s edge. You call this a holy sword? It’s murk. It’s refuse. Like the children now—fit for cleansing.”

Shards rained and pinged on the ground like cold hail on iron.

He lost interest in Stini. He turned to leave, like a mountain shifting its shadow.

“You’re the same—murky like that sword. But compared to the other children, you question your own right and wrong. That’s not bad. For a heartbeat I saw that older age. Mm. I absolve you of the crime of raising a weapon against a Divine Being.”

“Stop…”

Stini’s voice came out softer than usual, like a flame dimmed by wind.

Her old companion was crushed in an instant. Even Stini’s mind could crack under that.

But she always gets up. As long as someone stands behind her needing a shield, she’ll rise, set her feet, and point steel at the enemy again.

She’s a fool. Fools don’t repent their nature.

“I keep thinking, if Andor were there, he’d have saved Kairi. If Andor were there, he’d have made peace. If Andor were there, he’d have found the best way. So when he wasn’t, I blamed him. I asked why he wasn’t there, why he didn’t help.”

“So what? What’s so proud about that ugly displacement of anger?”

“Now I know—it was my fault. I didn’t want to carry it, so I threw it on him. But Your Divinity, I also know this: the decision to change is worth being proud of. Because by correcting ourselves, we inch forward.”

“Foolish…”

“And there’s this, which You won’t get: when the one you like is near, you want to tease him, needle him, snag his attention. That mood is a girl’s little patent. A touch of temper, a tiny flaw—it makes a girl cuter, doesn’t it?”

“Foolish. Wrong is still wrong. You may not cover it. In this world there is absolute justice…”

“No. There isn’t. Absolute justice is dead.”

“There is. Because I—Justice—have returned.”

Stini shook her head hard. Her ponytail whooshed like a switch through air.

“No. Because we—humans—don’t need it anymore.”

“…”

“This is our choice. Each person names their own li and yi, their principle and right. We’ll argue, we’ll curse, we’ll compromise. But that justice is ours, willed by ourselves. Yes, as You said, it’s biased and proud. But it’s not a catechism handed down. It’s our own justice.”

“Hero, am I to take this as you denying Absolute Justice (me)?”

The Divine Being’s tone settled, the earlier impatience gone like foam.

“Yes.” Stini didn’t hedge. “Your Divinity, we—humans—no longer need a justice with answers printed in the back.”

“Is that so? Is that your lone decree, or is that the world you see?”

“Both, Your Divinity. Even without absolute justice, the human world has endured to now. You’ve… been culled by this age.”

“Yes. I know. For the world as it is, you’re not wrong.”

His calm voice hit a snag and tore into fury, like silk ripped by a sudden hand.

“I swore by the Creator’s remains! I would guard His children, His world! And what did I see? Blades without soul. Knives without resolve. People without will! Contracts signed with Demonfolk. Is this the world bought with His death? So foolish. So ugly. So terrifying. A mirror of our enemies—”

“—I swore I would guard His children, His world. Even if I drown in disappointment, I will still save the children, and scour this filth. Once. Again. Countless times. Until their souls shine like gold enough to boast of. I won’t stop.”

Light bloomed again, harsher than the first—like noon poured through lids and cloth, and then through the soul.

The things that roared in the dark got driven out, leaving only newborn beauty and purity—

—if you were a normal person.

The deepest rules of the world shifted like plates. Disorder named itself “Absolute Justice” and tried to snap back to old rigor and rank—

—if this weren’t a pocket world, but the mortal one.

“Andor, take off the blindfold. You fumbled using Immunity Privilege on a Divine Being earlier. You can do it now.”

I tore the sack away. I saw Stini facing the Deity of Justice, holding a broken sword. Her voice was low. Her usual spark was gone.

But even battered in heart and dazed in spirit, some things in her never change.

For people she swore to protect, she points steel without fear—

—even if the opponent is a god.

The broken blade’s light flickered like a dying star. The beautiful Holy Sword was gone.

Stini lifted the hilt. She cut down. Same motion as before, yet the arc sheared far short of splitting sky and earth.

“Only this much. I told you—”

What color is god-blood?

More brilliant than platinum. Clearer than gemstone. Heavier than quicksilver.

From left shoulder to right belly, a bone-deep wound opened on the Divine Being. That beautiful blood geysered and spattered the ground.

His face changed in full.

“How? A child can wound a god…”

“Of course. Pour soul, will, and resolve into the cut. Wasn’t that Your lesson to me?”

“Why…” He repeated it, stunned, like an echo lost in cliffs.

“Your Divinity, I see it now. You don’t love this world.”

“No. I do not…”

“You love the last one. When the Creator still lived. When the Primordial Nine Races were flawless—But that’s not us. We can honor our fathers and elders, yet we are we, people of another age. We’re not them, and we won’t become them.”

“…”

“Your justice was absolute in the last age. In this age, it’s evil; it’s inversion. If you can’t accept the evil of this age, the people of this age, then please leave. Or…”

Stini raised her broken sword again. She took her stance like a stake in the wind.

“…here and now, stake life, dignity, and thought. One-on-one. The last one standing wins.”

I couldn’t speak or swing a blade. I watched—watching isn’t idling.

Reading the rules of a world is a privilege of gods and demons. With a high enough tier, your sight changes.

The world stops being only physics—or rather, physics is just a low-tier lens. You can see the script beneath, the laws the gods and demons wrote, the real, and a sliver of the near-future.

I’d said Stini wrote Rule One into this pocket world: one-on-one.

Now I read Rule Two: equal footing.

All things equalized. The only way to pull ahead is the strength of your will.

Maybe Stini doesn’t even know what her legendary magic truly is. But her instinct is a blade. It finds the best line on its own.

Arms folded, I watched the Hero with the broken sword trade blows with a god like surf meeting cliff.

This legendary magic strayed off our plan. Still—maybe it’ll make the play better. I started thinking how to steer this drama, already off its rails, back to the original script.