My vision was stolen.

My eyeballs spun wildly in their sockets, unable to focus on anything concrete.

A sharp, howling wind screamed in my ears, as if I were sprinting through a gale.

Every touch on my body felt like sinking into quicksand—a melting sensation spreading with each nerve twitch.

This…

Suddenly, the scenery from that day flooded back with perfect clarity.

A towering wave, like a mountain range piercing the sky, loomed before me.

My neck couldn’t tilt back far enough to see its crest.

The instant the wave swallowed me, I curled into a tight ball.

…Now, I tumbled helplessly in its depths, utterly powerless.

Am I… dying?

…………

No.

I felt bare feet pressing firmly against solid ground.

Amidst the sensory chaos, only this anchor remained—a stark warning.

—This isn’t that nightmare. This is your new reality in this world, Seventh Ju.

Seventh Ju: ROOOOAAARRR—!!!

A roar tore through the air, like demons surging from a bottomless pit.

That wasn’t my voice… How could I make such a sound?

I forced my eyes open. The spinning world finally settled around a stable, milky-white haze.

What is this?

Why can’t I see anything?

And… my body feels so heavy.

The earth beneath my feet softened like sand, sinking slowly past my ankles.

I carried no weight—so why this crushing heaviness?

Unfamiliar… Exhausting… Just need to crouch down for a moment.

I bent forward, bracing my hands against the ground.

Seventh Ju: …—!!

The white mist vanished.

A vast, open landscape unfolded before me.

Forests stretched like a rumpled carpet, their treetops mere fuzz on its surface.

Rock strata, rivers, and rolling terrain lay utterly exposed.

This view—only visible from a commercial jet at kilometer-high altitudes.

—So high!

My feet stood firmly on earth. Why was I soaring?

That milky haze… had been clouds?

I glanced down.

Seventh Ju: …………

A sickly pale purple covered my body—caught between ice-blue and fire-red, like a thin layer of bruising. No pain. No warmth.

My bones bent in unnatural angles, shaped for all-fours movement, not human.

My hand…

Following my forearm upward, a massive white hand gripped it.

Wider than my waist, its rough texture scraped my skin like coarse burlap, sliding toward my wrist.

That white stone, mottled with green and scorched yellow… Could it be—

—Fall of the Stars??

The colossal entity that once dwarfed hope now seemed tiny?

No…

*I* had grown enormous.

What had I become? What did I look like?

Was this my true self??

After shedding 50% of my disguise, I loomed over the once-miraculous Fall of the Stars—now no larger than a handkerchief!!

…Still wrong.

That giant hand wasn’t the whole of Fall of the Stars.

I traced its arm backward. It stretched like a scorpion’s claw, vanishing into a mountainous ridge.

Not a mountain—a bulge shaped like a giant sushi roll, heaving gently with breath-like rhythm.

From claw-tip to hidden end, its length nearly matched my own height.

This titan… this *creature*… was this its true form??

A rocky body armored in vegetation, scorpion-shaped but tailless, with claws eerily human-like.

One hand gripped my left forearm; the other remained buried underground.

*This* was the real Fall of the Stars!

And I stood before it, bent awkwardly as if offering my hands—a frozen puppet unsure of its next move.

Half my mind reeled at my own monstrous shape; the other reeled at the titan’s revealed form.

Fall of the Stars: …………

Fall of the Stars: …Seventh Ju…………

Seventh Ju: —??

Energy surged up my arm like electric current, jolting straight to my brain.

Not pain—bio-electric signals imprinting thoughts and words directly into my nerves.

*This* was how it spoke.

Seventh Ju: ROOOOAAARRR—!!!

I answered instinctively—a monstrous bellow shaking the sky.

My human voice… lost to this undisguised body!

Fall of the Stars: Seventh Ju…

Its mental voice formed clear words again.

Fall of the Stars: Are you… the "Return" I longed for…

Seventh Ju: ???

Seventh Ju: …………

Silence. Then I answered with pure thought.

Seventh Ju: Who are you?

Fall of the Stars: Who am I…

Fall of the Stars: I was born with Xiv… from the World’s Heart…

Seventh Ju: …?

If "World’s Heart" meant the center of this world… the Divine Temple?

Fall of the Stars: After Xiv left… I never saw them return…

Seventh Ju: …………

Seventh Ju: What happened?

Fall of the Stars: I drifted like plankton… farther and farther…

Fall of the Stars: When life bloomed on earth… I traced Xiv’s path…

Fall of the Stars: They live within all things… merging with heaven and earth…

Seventh Ju: You mean… Xiv *is* the Wish Points?

Listening to its slow, ancient thoughts, I saw not a monster—but a weary elder holding my hand, whispering secrets.

Fall of the Stars: Xiv is greatness… I am but one grain among ten thousand…

Fall of the Stars: Even eons of wandering… could never make me Xiv’s equal…

Fall of the Stars: I miss Xiv… I envy Xiv…

Fall of the Stars: I began gathering Xiv… craving reunion… craving Return…

Fall of the Stars: To return with Xiv… to the World’s Heart…

"Gathering Xiv"… stealing others’ Wish Points.

Seventh Ju: You wish… to return to the Divine Temple?

Fall of the Stars: Yes… but… too slow…

Fall of the Stars: How many more ages… until I reach it again…

Fall of the Stars: So… I sent my voice to Xiv…

Fall of the Stars: "Grant me a Return"…

Fall of the Stars: So… Seventh Ju… are you Xiv’s answer to my plea…

Seventh Ju: …………

Seventh Ju: How many Wish Points did that wish cost?

Fall of the Stars: Numbers… mean nothing to me…

Fall of the Stars: Only the weight of Xiv carried by hundreds of thousands of lives…

Seventh Ju: !!??

*Hundreds of thousands.*

The death toll from *that* disaster.

The unnatural quake. The delayed tsunami. The absent rescuers. Even my own impossible crossing.

How could an earthquake’s epicenter trigger a mega-tsunami *ten days later*? It made no sense…

…Just like my unnatural arrival.

I’d realized it then: when the quake struck my world, I’d already been flung here.

That final wave… wasn’t destruction.

It was a *welcome*.

A welcome for *me*.

So… "Fall of the Stars"—if that’s even your true name—

*You* summoned me to this world?

Fall of the Stars: So… Seventh Ju… are you Xiv’s answer to my plea…

It repeated the question.

Seventh Ju: …

Seventh Ju: …………

Seventh Ju: Yes.

Seventh Ju: But not the walking Return you imagined.

Fall of the Stars: …………

Seventh Ju: Human nations now blanket the path to the Divine Temple. If you march through their homes… the devastation would be unthinkable.

Fall of the Stars: Why… care for such…

I gritted my teeth.

Seventh Ju: Because—I am human.

Seventh Ju: Flesh and blood. A person who once had family.

Fall of the Stars: You… human?

For the first time, doubt colored its mental voice.

Seventh Ju: "Human" isn’t flesh or form. It’s the *will* within.

Seventh Ju: Any ordinary person, clinging to what they cherish, holds that will.

Seventh Ju: I respect you, lone wanderer. But the destruction your "Return" demands—I cannot allow it.

Seventh Ju: Thank you for choosing me as your herald. But mere Wish Points… cannot replace what I’ve lost.

Fall of the Stars: ………………

Its mental voice stilled. The stone hand gripping me tightened.

Seventh Ju: That wish drained every Wish Point you’d gathered over eons, didn’t it?

Seventh Ju: Even the scraps you’ve absorbed recently… couldn’t sustain this colossal form.

Fall of the Stars: You would… block my Return?

Seventh Ju: …No.

Seventh Ju: I’ll simply… send you off my way.

Yes…

What were Wish Points? What was immortality?

Countless intangible treasures—memories, bonds, the weight of a human heart—mattered more than this body and its stolen wishes.

The cataclysms tried to remake me into something else.

…They underestimated my human *will*.

Now—let me use that will to grant you the "Return" you crave—

—Fall of the Stars!!!!

Seventh Ju: ROOOOAAARRR—!!!!

I heaved my right arm upward with all my strength.

Though thick and alien, it moved faster than sound—the wind screaming against my skin proved it.

I didn’t know this body. But Fall of the Stars’ form filled my vision, close as a classmate’s back.

It couldn’t dodge. *Wouldn’t* dodge.

With this strike, I’d send its life back to Xiv’s embrace!!

Fall of the Stars: You………………

Ha… just gripping my left hand, Fall of the Stars?

What did that matter against my falling right fist?

At its peak, my tensed arm plunged from the clouds.

Heat began to seep into my arm’s surface—the scorching friction of air against flesh.

Like a meteor hurtling toward earth, slow yet brimming with terrifying power.

Nothing could withstand such force!!

I was certain—this strike would shatter the very existence that *had* to vanish before me—

—dead center of Fall of the Stars’ form!

Fall of the Stars: Stop…………

Seventh Ju: …………

Seventh Ju: Xiv will welcome you, Fall of the Stars—

Seventh Ju: —Farewell!

My arm pierced straight through Fall of the Stars’ body, plunging unimpeded into the earth beneath.

First came the visceral shockwave rippling through the ground. Then—the world-shattering roar—

—**BOOM!!!**—**RUMBLE-RUMBLE—**

Countless white fragments erupted skyward like volcanic ash, soaring toward the sun.

But how could mere paper scraps ever reach it?

The shards began to fall. Friction-heated crimson swallowed their white surfaces, blazing brilliantly against the sky.

Hah… stars.

Like a grand meteor shower, the heavens dimmed in their radiance.

This… was the true “Fall of the Stars.”

The stone giant’s hand gripping my left arm loosened, collapsing to the ground in a thunderous cloud of dust.

The telepathic voice in my mind had vanished without a trace.

Seventh Ju: ………………

Ah, Fall of the Stars…

Perhaps you were never wrong.

From an objective stance beyond humanity—who could fault your actions?

Yet you chose a human to greet you.

And of all humans… selfish me.

…Are you satisfied?

Did your wish reach Xiv’s ears?

Honestly, you had it easy, Fall of the Stars.

Leaving *me* like this in this world… what now?

Seventh Ju: …………

Seventh Ju: Restore… my “Disguise Ability.”

I must… keep wearing this mask to survive.

…………

…………

Seventh Ju: Preman.

Preman: …………

Chaos stretched as far as the eye could see. Human-shaped again, I yanked Preman free from the ash burying her waist.

I’d felt her all along—standing steadfast behind my ankle, dodging every lethal blow.

Preman had witnessed it all. And in her eyes now? Not a trace of hesitation.

Seventh Ju: …Scared?

Preman: …………

Preman: If I were scared, I’d have fled with Wilderness Eagle long ago.

Seventh Ju: Then… what do you think of me?

Preman: My opinion of you…

Preman chuckled softly, stroking her chin as she sized me up.

Preman: This bashful, naked guy now looks nothing like that “unknown entity” from earlier.

Seventh Ju: —!!

My hands flew instinctively to cover myself—but it was far too late.

Right… expecting my clothes to survive *that* would be absurd!

Preman: Here, wear this—

Calmly, Preman shrugged off her commander’s coat to drape over my shoulders.

Was she truly… not afraid at all?

Though unspoken, it felt like those moments with Ink River after the chasm’s蛊died—

“Unfamiliar.” “Unknown.” “Unpredictable.”

None of it blocked trust.

Preman believed in me. I felt it deep in my bones.

So I should…

Seventh Ju: …I’ll pass on this.

I gently pushed her coat away.

Seventh Ju: Having a *woman* cover my shame like this… feels more embarrassing than being naked.

Preman: …

Preman: …………

Preman: !!!!!!!!!!?????