The streets were silent after the fight, but the silence wasn't peace.
It was the stillness after a storm — broken cars were flipped on their sides, glass glittered across the asphalt like spilled stars, and entire shopfronts had caved inward from the shockwaves. Craters dotted the road where blows had landed, and the air still carried the metallic tang of blood and scorched pavement.
Seth stepped over a broken streetlight, his boots clicking against fractured concrete. The Red Moons had already vanished into his inventory, but the faint crimson aura of their slaughter lingered in his shadow.
He took in the scene one last time, the chaos carved into the city by their clash, and murmured without emotion:
"What a waste."
There was no point staying. He turned his back on the destruction and walked away, hands in his pockets, the hum of distant sirens growing louder behind him. By the time the first responders reached the street, Seth was gone.
The hotel lobby was warm, too warm. Seth disliked it instantly, but it was discreet and close to his target zones. The elevator ride up was quiet; his reflection in the steel doors was almost unrecognizable from the man who had walked into this city just a day ago — faint traces of battle still clung to his shirt, the edge of his jaw shadowed by faint specks of dried blood.
The door to his suite closed with a soft click, sealing away the noise of the world. Seth dropped into a chair by the window, gaze drifting out over the sprawling cityscape. His senses, usually razor-sharp, began to dim into that rare thing for him: momentary rest.
And then…
A ripple.
Not sound. Not sight. But a disturbance in the fabric of the world itself.
Seth's eyes snapped open. His heart didn't race — his body simply shifted into that cold, predatory readiness that had made him feared by gods themselves.
He knew that energy signature.
Siyoon.
The impossible taste of it made his lips curl in irritation. He was dead. He had felt his life vanish, had seen the light go out of his eyes.
And yet… the energy wasn't just alive — it was stronger.
Then the sky broke.
It began as a shimmer, a faint warmth on the horizon, but within seconds it swelled into a massive surge of divine energy so pure and overwhelming that it blanketed the entire city. It poured downward like molten sunlight, flooding every alley and street with golden light.
The radiance was not comforting. It was suffocating. Every lesser being in the city dropped to their knees, instinctively bowing before it.
Seth stood slowly, the golden light washing across his pale golden eyes, turning them momentarily into molten fire.
"That… is no ordinary divine blessing."
The energy was pure, yes — but buried within it was a cold, oppressive finality, the scent of graves and the inevitability of endings.
Life… and death.
Seth didn't waste another moment. The window swung open, and he stepped out into the empty air. The next instant, his figure blurred and vanished entirely, streaking through the city like a shadow riding the wind.
The closer he came to the source, the heavier the divine aura became. It pressed against him like an ocean trying to crush a single diver. To anyone else, it would be unbearable. To Seth… it was a challenge.
He landed on a shattered rooftop — and froze.
At the center of the street below stood Sung Siyoon.
But this was not the man Seth had destroyed.
His hair was wilder, his aura burning hotter, but it was the marks that drew Seth's attention. Jagged scars ran from the corners of Siyoon's eyes down to his jawline, glowing faintly with golden and black light intertwined. They pulsed like veins, as though the marks themselves were alive.
And Seth could feel the truth — these weren't scars. They were seals of power, etched directly into his flesh by something far greater than a mortal hand.
Siyoon's eyes rose, locking onto Seth's position. They glowed with a dual hue — one golden, one black — a perfect reflection of the divine force that had been poured into him.
Seth dropped from the rooftop, landing lightly a few meters away. The golden light around Siyoon flared in response, bending reality like heat haze.
"Who touched you?" Seth's tone was cold, but beneath it was something else — genuine curiosity laced with the instinct to kill whatever was behind it.
Siyoon's lips curved into something between a smirk and a snarl. His voice was different now — layered, as if more than one presence spoke through him.
"The one who brought me here. The one who holds the balance of all beginnings and endings."
Seth's pupils narrowed. "Name."
The voice — or voices — answered without hesitation:
"The God of Life and Death."
The name hung in the air like a guillotine blade.
It wasn't a title Seth had ever taken lightly. In the divine hierarchy, the god of life and death wasn't just a deity — it was the deity who governed the very threshold between existence and oblivion. To kill such a god outright was nearly impossible without collapsing entire divine systems.
And now, that god had interfered directly… reviving his enemy.
Siyoon's aura spiked, the golden and black scars on his face igniting with searing brilliance. Every word he spoke dripped with the authority of the god within him.
"This world belongs to the divine. You will not touch it again, Slayer."
Seth tilted his head, eyes gleaming dangerously in the golden light. "Funny… I've been killing gods since before you knew how to pray."
The divine pressure between them tightened, warping the air. Somewhere high above, the clouds began to churn into a spiraling vortex, the city itself reacting to the clash of two titanic forces.
And Seth's lips curled into a slow, deliberate grin.
"Good. Let's see if your god can save you twice."