Two minutes before it happened.
“SELEXTIA, can you show me where you go every day?”
Elmira’s voice carried both irritation and worry.
SELEXTIA paused mid-step.
“…No.”
“Why not?”
“It’s personal.”
“You disappear during training. During breaks. Every time. We’re always one person short because of you.”
“That’s your fault.”
“My fault? How?”
“Because you keep asking.”
Elmira frowned. “You’ve been acting strange.”
Silence.
“Just let me see.”
SELEXTIA’s eyes lowered for the briefest second.
“…Sorry.”
She turned and walked away.
“Hey! Are you serious?!”
She didn’t look back.
She moved toward the administrative district — quiet, mostly abandoned since the last military restructuring. White stone paths. Perfect skies.
Too perfect.
Then—
The ring burned.
Heat pierced through her finger.
A thin crimson beam shot upward from the band.
SELEXTIA shielded her eyes.
High above, the flawless sky cracked.
A thin black fracture split across it.
Then it tore open.
Wind detonated downward.
Pressure shifted violently.
Angels nearby staggered mid-flight.
From the rupture—
Two colossal shapes fell.
They struck the plaza in an eruption of stone and dust.
“Chimera…?!”
Lion bodies. Bat wings. Serpent heads coiling around their shoulders.
Ancient war-beasts once recorded as nearly extinct.
But they were not the worst of it.
Something larger moved within the fracture.
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Wings unfolded slowly, blotting out light.
Black scales like cooled magma.
Crimson eyes ancient and merciless.
The Infernal Dragon descended.
It did not roar.
It hovered.
And its mere presence crushed the air.
Unnamed soldiers fell from the sky, halos flickering unstable.
Then—
It roared.
The sound tore across the entire city.
Behind it, thousands of lesser dragons flooded through the fracture.
They scattered.
The killing began.
A dragon seized a young angel before he could draw steel.
Bone snapped.
Another crashed into fleeing civilians.
Lightning from a Chimera obliterated a residential block.
Screams filled the sky.
SELEXTIA launched upward.
She intercepted a diving dragon and slashed across its neck.
Steel rang against scale.
Her blade lodged halfway.
Too dense.
The dragon opened its jaws.
Flame condensed inside its throat.
It fired.
Heaven Rend activated.
Time fractured.
0.2 seconds erased.
Reality skipped.
When perception resumed, she stood outside the flame’s path.
She did not remember moving.
Only that she had survived.
She tore her blade free.
Struck again.
Once.
Twice.
Eight times.
Finally, the dragon’s head severed.
Its corpse crashed into the streets below.
Her blade chipped.
Her breathing turned ragged.
A faint weakness crept into her limbs.
She ignored it.
She did not notice—
Thin strands of divine energy slipping from her core.
Rising.
Feeding the fracture above.
The ring pulsed faintly.
The rupture stabilized further.
A wave of black fire swept across the district.
Buildings disintegrated.
Stone turned to charred ruin.
SELEXTIA looked up.
The Infernal Dragon.
Its gaze locked onto her.
Its pupil narrowed.
Assessing.
A lesser dragon struck her from the flank.
Claws caught her shoulder.
She crashed through stone, carving a trench.
Blood ran down her temple.
The Infernal Dragon moved.
Not rushed.
Deliberate.
It descended toward her.
The pressure intensified.
It raised one claw.
Brought it down.
Heaven Rend activated.
0.2 seconds erased.
The ground imploded where she had stood.
She reappeared several meters away.
Her knees buckled slightly.
The Dragon paused.
It had seen it.
It attacked again.
Faster.
Another crushing strike.
Heaven Rend.
0.2 seconds erased.
She appeared behind it this time.
Her lungs burned.
Her heartbeat thundered irregularly.
She didn’t remember repositioning.
The Dragon’s head turned slowly.
Recognition flickered in its eyes.
Not speed.
Not teleportation.
Something was being removed.
It inhaled.
Flames gathered deeper this time.
Denser.
Hotter.
It unleashed a sweeping inferno meant to erase an entire block.
Heaven Rend triggered again.
0.2 seconds gone.
When reality resumed—
She stood at the very edge of devastation.
Her vision blurred.
Blood touched her lips.
The backlash was worsening.
Above her—
The fracture widened another fraction.
The ring throbbed faintly.
Still feeding.
Still stealing.
The Infernal Dragon understood now.
It had found the anchor.
It shifted its stance.
Preparing to crush her personally.
“SELEXTIA!”
Elmira’s voice cut through the chaos.
Aerion arrived at her side.
“You can’t fight that alone!”
“The ring…” SELEXTIA breathed. “It opened the sky.”
She tried to pull it off.
It would not move.
It felt fused into her flesh.
Aerion placed his hand over it and poured divine energy into the metal.
The ring trembled violently.
The fracture above flickered — just slightly.
Then stabilized again.
The ring dimmed.
Not broken.
Not removed.
Waiting.
The Infernal Dragon lifted its head.
The interruption annoyed it.
It beat its wings once.
Shockwaves hurled nearby angels from the sky.
A bell rang.
Deep. Resonant.
Across the entire city.
Troops assembled.
Tens of thousands.
From Vox-class to Seikan.
Four Dai Tenshi formed a forward line.
At the center—
A Dai Shireikan.
“They slaughter our civilians,” he said calmly.
“We slaughter them.”
No cheer followed.
Only cold resolve.
The army rose.
Across from them—
A sea of dragons.
At the center—
The Infernal Dragon.
But its eyes were not on the Dai Shireikan.
They were on her.
SELEXTIA.
Recognition sharpened.
As if it had been searching.
As if she were the reason it crossed dimensions.
Her breath trembled.
The ring pulsed once more.
Far beyond the battlefield—
Atop a ruined spire—
Kurokami Ren watched.
Unnoticed.
Unfelt.
He had slipped into Heaven during the chaos.
No one sensed him.
He observed each activation.
Each erased fraction of time.
Each thread of stolen divinity.
A faint smile touched his lips.
“The sacrifice has begun.”
The armies collided.
Light and flame tore across the sky.
And for the first time—
Heaven understood fear.
