novelraw Chapter 33: Heavens Open
Chapter 33: Heavens Open
The neon glow of Shinjuku was dying. For the millions of citizens of Tokyo, the return of Ren Hanshin should have been a moment of rapturous celebration, the homecoming of a national hero who had conquered the impossible. But as the rain continued to pour in a cold, relentless deluge, the golden system interface that had governed the world’s reality for three years did not display a Victory message. Instead, it flickered with the jagged, rhythmic static of a terminal heart monitor, its light bleeding into the grey sky like a warning from a dying God.
[SYSTEM FATAL ERROR!]
[The Protective Laws of Gaia have been revoked.]
[Commencing Catastrophe Protocol.]
Ren Hanshin stood in the center of a busy intersection, the water sluicing off his midnight black coat. His silver bordered red eyes were fixed upward, piercing through the clouds. Beside him, the world had come to a grinding halt. Cars had screeched to a stop, their drivers spilling out into the rain. Thousands of people stood frozen on the sidewalks, their smartphones falling from their hands and shattering on the pavement as they looked at the sky. They were looking at the end of their world. The clouds were not moving with the wind anymore. They were being torn apart by invisible, celestial hands. Across the horizon of Tokyo, the space-time fabric began to unzip. Massive, jagged rifts known as Dungeon Gates erupted by the hundreds, then by the thousands. But these weren’t the contained, blue whirling portals the Japanese Awakened Association was used to handling. These were bleeding black mists, thumping with a chaotic, necrotic energy that made the air feel like poison.
"Mom? Why is the sky breaking?" a child’s voice whimpered nearby, a small sound lost in the growing thunder of the atmosphere.
Ren didn’t answer, his Divine Perception was being bombarded by a sensory apocalypse. He felt the weight of three Sovereigns, War, Death, and Magic pressing against the upper atmosphere. Their hatred together had formed a physical atmospheric pressure that made the unawakened civilians fall to their knees, gasping for breath as their lungs struggled against the divine gravity.
"Ren," Jubei’s voice rasped through the comms-link the Goddess had provided. The old man was still at the shrine in the Okutama Mountains, but even miles away, Ren could hear the sound of a wooden sword being gripped until the grain groaned. "The mountains are moving, boy. The rifts aren’t just opening... they’re breathing. The Earth is screaming under their boots."
Suddenly, the golden clouds over the heart of Tokyo were scorched away by an artificial radiance. From a massive, diamond shaped rift that spanned the length of five city blocks, a fleet of golden ships began to descend. They were built from pure, solidified holy light, their hulls carved with the screaming, ecstatic faces of martyrs. These were the golden fleets of the God of Light, the "Purification Protocol."
Opposite them, over the grey, churning waters of Tokyo Bay, a second rift opened, smelling of rusted iron and gunpowder. Massive, tusked war-beasts, armored in plates of SSS-Rank iron that defied the laws of weight, began to march out of the empty air. Their footsteps caused mini tsunamis that hammered the docks of Odaiba, the force of their arrival shattering the windows of every skyscraper along the coast. The God of War had arrived to turn Japan into his personal colosseum.
[System Warning: High-Tier Divine Entities detected.]
[Current World Difficulty: SSS-Rank (Apocalyptic)]
"They’re not even sending scouts," Ren whispered, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the handle of the Severance of Destiny. He felt a cold rage beginning to simmer beneath his skin. "They’re skipping the invasion and going straight to the execution."
[The God of Fate is trembling within Ren’s mind, her presence a mixture of terrifying rage and intoxicating excitement.]
[God of Fate]: Look at them. Look at how desperate they are! They are sending their personal guards to a mortal city just to flush you out! They fear you, Ren! They fear what we have become!
[God of Fate]: Ren, my love, do not waste your breath on the ants. Let me wrap the city in my silk. I will turn every one of those golden ships into a coffin. I will weave a shroud for the God of Light himself if he dares to look at you.
"No," Ren snapped, his voice cutting through the dual resonance in his head. "If you manifest your threads here, the collateral damage will erase half the population. This isn’t the Savage Lands, Weaver. This is home. I won’t let you save the city by destroying it."
Ren looked around. The panicked screams had started in earnest. The ’Catastrophe Protocol’ meant the System was no longer regulating the monsters or the gates. From the black rifts nearby, swarms of Gargoyles and Abyssal Hounds began to pour out, diving into the crowds of terrified civilians.
The local A-Rank hunters, who had arrived in force to contain the situation, were being shredded. Their mana reinforced shields, which usually held firm against S-Rank dungeon bosses, were popping like soap bubbles against the divine tier foot soldiers of the Pantheon. A Paladin of the Light, glowing with a self-righteous fire, drove a spear through an A-Rank tanker’s chest as if he were made of paper.
Ren took a slow, deep breath. He felt the Crown of the Zenith resting on his head, invisible to the mortals, but a beacon of defiant, screaming starlight to the Gods above. He was the target. He was the reason the sky was falling.
"You want the Anomaly?" Ren’s voice carried across the screaming city, enchanted by his Divine Mana until it drowned out the thunder of the descending ships and the cries of the dying.
He simply crouched low, the ground beneath his boots shattering into a web of deep cracks. He looked at the lead golden flagship of the God of Light, the Herald of Dawn, which was currently hovering over the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building.
"Then come and get him." Ren launched.
He moved like an obscured error in the world. He broke the sound barrier six times in the first second of his ascent, the shockwave of his takeoff blowing out every window in a three block radius and flipping cars like toys. He was a blur of midnight black and crimson, a lone demigod ascending to meet the fleets of the Heavens in a vertical line of pure defiance.
****
High above, on the bridge of the Herald of Dawn, a Commander of the Light looked at his holographic sensors. His face was a mask of cold, celestial arrogance. "The anomaly is approaching Mach 8. He is unarmed and unsupported. He comes to us like a moth to a flame."
The Commander sneered, his eyes glowing with a blinding holy zeal that saw everything mortal as a disease. "Mortal arrogance. He thinks his victory in the Draft translates to the true Heavens. Charge the Solar Cannons. Erase him before his filth touches the hull. Let his ash be a warning to the God of Fate."
Ren saw the golden glow at the ship’s prow. He saw the formula of the S-Rank holy beam forming a spear of solar energy designed to vaporize mountains.
[Passive Skill: Arcane Nullification Active.]
Ren didn’t even slow down. He simply reached out a single finger as he flew past the glowing prow, moving faster than the divine sensors could track.
TINK!
The sound was small, but the result was absolute. The Solar Cannon didn’t fire. The complex divine formula, a masterpiece of arcane engineering, simply unraveled into useless, golden mist. The ship’s energy core groaned, the sudden feedback causing the massive vessel to tilt expeditiously.
Ren landed on the deck of the flagship, his boots denting the holy gold with the weight of a falling star. He stood amongst hundreds of armored Paladins, his crimson eyes shimmering with a cold, predatory light that seemed to suck the radiance out of the air. He looked at the Paladins, men and women who believed they were the pinnacle of existence. He saw their confusion. He saw the first flickers of doubt in their eyes.
"Is this the best the Heavens can do?" Ren asked, his voice a low, vibrating growl. "You send a boat made of light to fight a man who lives in the dark?"
The Paladin Captain, a seven-foot giant armored in white platinum, stepped forward. "Monster! You defy the will of the Light! You are a cancer upon the Tapestry! Slay him! In the name of the Sovereign, cleanse this deck!"
The Paladins lunged, a hundred sun-fire spears converging on Ren’s position. Ren finally reached back, his hand gripping the empty air. The Severance of Destiny formed in a burst of dark, necrotic mana. The scythe shook with a low-frequency hum that made the air feel heavy.
"The Heavens had three years to prepare," Ren said, swinging the scythe in a slow arc. "But you forgot one thing. You taught me how to kill."
Ren moved through the ranks of the Paladins like a ghost. For every spear thrust, he was already behind them. For every holy spell cast, he was already severing the caster’s throat. He was conducting a clinical culling. The deck of the Herald of Dawn, once a pristine temple of gold, began to run red. The golden blood of the divine soldiers mixed with the rain, creating a sickening, shimmering sludge.
Ren stopped in the center of the slaughter, looking at the commander who had watched from the bridge. The Commander was no longer sneering. He was trembling, his hand hovering over the self-destruct sequence.
"Tell your God," Ren whispered, his voice echoing through the ship’s internal comms, "that the Executioner is home, and I’m not just here to defend. I’m here to collect the debt he owes the Earth."
Ren slammed the blunt end of his scythe into the deck.
"The Executioner’s Block," he commanded.
The red sphere of gravity erupted. The golden flagship, designed to withstand the pressure of deep space voids, couldn’t handle the weight. The hull buckled. The masts snapped. The ship began to fold in on itself, a half mile of celestial gold being crushed into a ball of scrap by the will of a single man. Ren stepped off the edge of the dying ship, falling backward into the Tokyo sky. As he descended, the Herald of Dawn imploded behind him, a golden firework that illuminated the city, signaling to the Gods above that the reaping had truly begun.
The Heavens had opened. But Ren Hanshin was the one who was going to close them. He plummeted toward the streets of Shinjuku, his scythe ready, his soul locked at 49%, and his heart cold with the knowledge that this was only the first minute of the first day of the end of the world. He would not stop until the gold was tarnished and the iron was rusted to dust. Tokyo would be the graveyard of the gods. He would make sure of it.