novelraw Chapter 43: Threshold
Chapter 43: Threshold
The sunrise over Okutama was a cold, jagged line of gold that failed to warm the stone porch of the shrine. Ren Hanshin sat still, the Kusanagi-Vessel resting across his lap. His breathing was so shallow it barely stirred the frost in the air. Inside his mind, the battlefield was silent, but the numbers were screaming.
[Divine Mana: 150 / 150]
[Synchronization: 49.91%]
He was operating on a razor’s edge. His mana pool, once a vast ocean during the draft, had been compressed. It was pure, but far more volatile. One hundred and fifty points of Divine Mana. It sounded like so little, but each point held the weight of a collapsing star. The problem was the cost. Using a single high-tier skill now would drain him to zero in seconds, and when the mana ran out, the Weaver’s synchronization would fill the void.
Ren looked at his right hand. It was steady, but the silver hair falling over his eyes was a constant reminder. He was no longer just Ren. He was a vessel being filled with a power that didn’t belong to him.
"You’re awake early, Ren-sama." Ren didn’t turn his head. He knew the footsteps. Tanaka was approaching, carrying a tray with a steaming bowl of miso soup and a small, cracked ceramic cup.
"I don’t sleep much anymore, Tanaka," Ren said.
Tanaka set the tray down on the wooden floor. He looked at Ren’s back—the broad shoulders, the tattered black coat, and the faint, red glow that seemed to emanate from his skin. The hunter felt a surge of pity. This boy had saved the world, but he looked like he was being haunted by it.
"The girl... your sister, Haru," Tanaka started, his voice soft. "The doctors from the camp took a look at her this morning."
Ren’s posture stiffened. The rusted knife he had been using to carve wood snapped in his hand. He turned his head, his crimson eyes locking onto Tanaka with a terrifying intensity.
"And?"
"The ’Sovereign Sickness’ is spreading in her lungs," Tanaka said, looking at the floor. "The medicine you brought from the city... it helped the others, but she’s different. Because she’s your blood, her body is trying to resonate with your mana. But she’s a mortal, Ren. Her mana channels are like glass trying to carry lava. They’re cracking."
Ren stood up. The air around the shrine suddenly grew heavy. The wooden porch groaned under a phantom weight.
[The God of Fate is watching the scene with a cold, tilted head.]
[God of Fate]: The little bird is breaking. Why does it bother you so much, Ren? She is a fragment of the past. If she dies, the last string holding you to the mud will be gone. You will be free. You will be mine.
"Shut up," Ren hissed under his breath.
He walked past Tanaka, heading toward the small infirmary building at the back of the shrine. Every step felt like he was walking through thick mud. The synchronization was a physical weight now. It felt like a layer of ice over his heart, trying to freeze his emotions so the Weaver could take over. He pushed open the door to the infirmary. The room smelled of antiseptic and the faint, sweet scent of rotting flowers, the signature smell of the sickness. On a small bed, a girl no older than fifteen lay under a pile of blankets. Her hair was black, unlike Ren’s, but her face was a mirror of his own. Haru Hanshin. The reason he had started as a porter. The reason he had fought through the blood and the gold.
She was coughing, a wet, rattling sound. Each time she exhaled, a small puff of silver dust escaped her lips.
"Ren?" she whispered, her eyes fluttering open. They were hazy, unfocused. "Is it... is it raining again?"
Ren sat on the edge of the bed. He reached out to take her hand, but he stopped an inch away. He was terrified that his own aura would burn her. He was a demigod, and his very presence was a toxic level of energy for a sick girl.
"No, Haru. The sun is out," Ren said, forcing his voice to be gentle.
"I saw the ships in my dreams," Haru said, her voice a thin thread. "The big golden ones. They were so pretty... but they were so loud. Did you chase them away?"
"I chased them away," Ren said.
He felt a surge of helplessness. He could kill a Seraph. He could split a flagship in half. But he couldn’t stop the air in his sister’s lungs from turning to dust. The Sovereign Sickness was a conceptual rot. The world was being overwritten by the lingering mana of the Gods, and Haru was too weak to adapt.
[System Notice: Divine Mana is reacting to the Host’s emotional state.]
[Current Mana: 145/150]
Ren closed his eyes. He had to do something. If he did nothing, she would be gone by sunset.
"I’m going to fix this, Haru," Ren whispered. "I promise."
He stood up and walked out of the room, his face a mask of cold stone. Tanaka was waiting in the hallway, looking concerned.
"Tanaka, get the survivors together," Ren commanded. "Tell them to start the purification rituals the Master taught. I need the mountain to be a dead zone for mana. I’m going to the Atlantic rifts."
"The Atlantic?" Tanaka blinked. "But that’s thousands of miles away, and the ’Apostles’—"
"The Apostles have the fragments of the God of Magic’s core," Ren said, his voice echoing with a dual-toned resonance. "That core is the only thing that can stabilize the mana rot. I’m going to take it from them."
"Ren-sama, you’re at your limit," Tanaka said, stepping into his path. "As you said, if you fight a High-Tier Apostle, you’ll have to use the Weaver’s power. You’ll lose yourself."
Ren looked at Tanaka, and for a second, the hunter saw the boy who used to carry bags. The boy who was scared of losing his sister.
"If I don’t go, she dies," Ren said. "If I go and lose myself... at least she lives to remember who I was."
Ren walked out into the courtyard. He looked up at the violet sky. The Crown of the Zenith hummed, its cracked surface glowing with a sickly golden light. He walked to Jubei’s grave. He stood there for a long time, the silence of the mountain wrapping around him like a shroud.
"Master," Ren whispered. "I’m going to break the rules again."
He gripped the hilt of the Kusanagi-Vessel. He didn’t use the scythe. The scythe was the Goddess’s weapon; the sword was the Earth’s. He needed to be the Earth today.
[The God of Fate is laughing now, a high, musical sound.]
[God of Fate]: Go then, my Executioner. Go and fight for your little bird. But remember... Every time you swing that sword to save her, you are cutting a hole in your own soul. And I am right here, waiting to fill it.
Ren ignored her. He took a deep breath, focusing his 150 points of Divine Mana into his feet.
BOOM!!
The shockwave of his takeoff leveled the trees surrounding the shrine. He was a streak of black and silver light, cutting through the purple clouds, heading west.
****
The flight across the Pacific was a blur of grey water and dark clouds. Ren couldn’t afford the mana cost. He glided on the thermal currents, using the Shinen-ryu principle of riding the wind. He reached the Atlantic coastline by dusk. The sight was horrific. The ocean wasn’t blue or green. It was a stagnant, milky white. A thick, shining fog rolled off the waves, smelling of ozone and rot. This was the miasma, the epicenter of the Sovereign Sickness.
Floating in the center of the bay was a massive platform made of salvaged tankers and golden ship-hull fragments. In the center of the platform stood a tall, slender man wearing robes of blue silk. He was holding a staff that thumped with a sapphire light.
[Name: Elias Thorne]
[Class: Apostle of the Arcane (Divine Tier)]
[Sponsor: The God of Magic]
[Current Status: Harvesting the Atlantic Core]
Elias Thorne looked up as the silver streak in the sky slowed down. He smiled, a cold, arrogant expression.
"The Zenith," Elias’s voice carried over the water, enhanced by a thousand magic circles. "I heard you were busy gardening in the mountains. Why have you come to my sea?"
Ren descended, landing on the edge of the metal platform. The rusted steel groaned under his feet. He looked at Elias, and then at the sapphire core floating behind him. The core was the size of a car, reverberating with enough magic to stabilize an entire continent or destroy one.
"My sister is sick," Ren said, his voice flat and dangerous, "and you have the cure."
Elias laughed, tapping his staff against the deck. "The ’Sovereign Sickness’? Yes, it is a tragedy. But this core is the property of the God of Magic. It is the key to the New World. I cannot give it to a ’porter’ who got lucky with a Goddess’s favor."
Ren didn’t banter. He didn’t argue. He reached back and gripped the hilt of the Kusanagi-Vessel.
"I’m not asking," Ren said.
[Divine Mana: 140/150]
[Synchronization: 49.92%]
"Then you will die in the fog," Elias sneered. He raised his staff, and the sapphire core behind him flared. Thousands of glowing blue runes erupted in the air, forming a massive, complex geometry of death. "Behold the logic of the Heavens, Ren Hanshin! Absolute Arcane Eradication!"
Ren didn’t use Arcane Nullification. He couldn’t afford the passive drain. He dropped into the Shinen-ryu mid-level guard.
"Kokū-Zandō," Ren whispered. He moved. He stepped between the lines of the magic circle, his body flowing like water through the gaps in the spell’s logic. He was a ghost in the machine. He reached Elias in a second. The Apostle’s eyes widened. He tried to blink away, but Ren’s hand caught his collar.
"You talk too much," Ren said. He swung the Kusanagi-Vessel in a short, brutal arc. He didn’t aim for Elias’s neck. He aimed for the staff.
CRACK!
The divine wood, reinforced by the God of Magic himself, snapped like a twig. The blue runes in the air flickered and died. The sapphire core behind them let out a high-pitched scream of unstable energy.
Elias stumbled back, his face a mask of disbelief. "My staff... that was an SSS-Rank Relic! How—"
"It was just a piece of wood," Ren said.
He looked at the sapphire core. It was beautiful, but he could feel the rot inside it. It was the source of the sickness, but also the only thing that could stop it.
[The God of Fate is whispering, her voice a sharp, jagged edge.]
[God of Fate]: Take it, Ren. Use the scythe. Cut the core and absorb it. It will boost your mana. It will make you strong enough to save the girl. Just give me... five percent more.
"No," Ren growled.
He reached out his hand toward the core. He used his bare fingers, letting his own 150 points of Divine Mana act as a conductor. The core resisted. A surge of sapphire lightning shot up Ren’s arm, charring his flesh and melting his sleeve. The pain was like a thousand needles of magic digging into his bone.
[Warning: Divine Vitality is struggling to keep up.]
[Synchronization: 49.93%]
Ren didn’t let go. He gritted his teeth, blood leaking from his gums. He forced his own mana into the core to stabilize it. He was using the Shinen-ryu principle of the "Empty Mind", treating the core as a void that needed to be filled. Slowly, the sapphire light began to dim. The chaotic vibrations slowed. The fog over the Atlantic started to thin, the necrotic smell replaced by the scent of salt and cold water.
"You’re... you’re purifying it?" Elias gasped, clutching his broken staff. "You’re wasting the energy! You could have been a King! You could have ruled the Atlantic!"
Ren ignored him. He kept pushing until the car-sized core shrunk down to a small, shining sapphire marble in the palm of his hand. It was done. The "Heart of the Ocean."
Ren staggered, his vision blurring. His right arm was a blackened, smoking mess.
[Divine Mana: 10/150]
[Synchronization: 49.95%]
He was one step away from the edge. The Weaver was standing right behind him now, her hands on his shoulders, her breath cold against his neck.
"Ren-sama!" A small scout ship from the Committee was approaching the platform. Arthur Vance was standing on the deck, looking at the purified sea with wide eyes.
"You did it," Arthur whispered as he climbed onto the platform. "The rifts... they’re closing. The Sovereign Sickness is receding."
Ren looked at the sapphire marble in his hand.
"My sister," Ren rasped. "Get me back to Tokyo. Now."
Arthur nodded, signaling his men. "We have a high-speed mana jet waiting. We’ll be there in three hours."
Ren stood there, the silver hair blowing in the wind, the Kusanagi-Vessel at his side. He had the cure, but as he looked at the 49.95% on his vision, he realized the cost was higher than he had thought. He was losing the ability to feel the sun on his face. Everything was starting to look like threads. Everything was starting to look like a game.
[God of Fate]: Don’t be sad, my King. The little bird will live, and you... you are becoming so much more beautiful than a human. We are almost there. Just one more little push.
Ren Hanshin didn’t answer. He just held the marble tight, his blackened hand trembling.