The Neutral Zone was falling apart.
By dawn—if it could even be called that—half the plaza had split into jagged islands, floating a few feet above the rest. Chunks of stone drifted aimlessly, colliding and breaking into dust that never touched the ground. The sky screamed with cracks, lightning crawling across its fractured horizon.
The system's voice was sharp, frantic.
[ Neutral Zone Stability: 60%. ][ Warning: Collapse probability increasing. ][ Time Remaining: 3 days. ]
Three days.
But I wasn't sure the Zone would last that long.
✦
The survivors knew it too.
The old man muttered constantly now, prayers and curses tangled together. His eyes darted toward the pale rift, as if hoping Murim would simply claim him.
Kavya cleaned her blades with steady hands, but her eyes kept flicking toward Arjun. The memory of his shield lingered on her face. Not gratitude. Not yet. Just something sharper. Uneasy.
Dev sat silent, sword across his knees. He looked at me when the others didn't, calm and steady. His silence was a weight heavier than their words.
The mother stayed close to Arjun, her hand gripping his shoulder. The boy's staff hummed faintly, runes glowing even at rest. He hadn't spoken since yesterday. But he watched. Always, he watched.
The air was ready to split before the battle even began.
✦
We didn't wait long.
The crimson rift split wider, flames pouring from its edges. Wolf-headed Beastborn surged through, their armored bodies gleaming, axes dripping with fire.
And beside them—
The pale rift rippled.
Murim disciples stepped out, robes flowing, qi blazing around their swords.
The two groups glanced at each other with open disgust. A wolf-beast snarled. A cultivator sneered.
But their eyes turned to us.
Their contempt found common ground.
"Break them," a disciple commanded.
"Kill them slow," a Beastborn growled.
And together, they advanced.
✦
The impact shook the Zone.
Kavya darted forward, daggers flashing silver. She clashed with a Beastborn, her blades skidding against his axe as sparks rained down.
Dev met a cultivator head-on, sword ringing as qi slammed against steel. His arms shook, his feet grinding against broken stone, but he didn't yield.
The old man stumbled back, staff raised weakly, shrieking prayers.
The mother screamed, dragging Arjun close—
But the boy raised his staff before she could.
Light flared, a barrier snapping into place as a Beastborn's axe came crashing down. The blow rebounded, flames scattering harmlessly. Arjun gasped, the staff trembling, but the shield held.
Again.
The boy was a wall.
✦
I roared and met the lead disciple. The Inkblade shrieked in my hand, shadows bursting outward in writhing tendrils. His sword flared with qi, cutting through the darkness with blazing arcs.
"You don't belong here," he spat, his blade sparking as it met mine. "The script never wrote you!"
The Inkblade hissed in my skull.
"…break more… devour their lines… consume the story…"
I shoved the whispers down, barely.
But each strike drew blood—from him, from me, from the Zone itself.
The walls around us cracked louder.
✦
Kavya screamed as another Beastborn cornered her, its axe cutting shallow across her arm. Blood slicked her skin, her grip slipping.
The beast laughed, raising its weapon high—
Arjun's staff pulsed.
The barrier snapped around her again. The axe slammed against it, sparks flying, but the shield threw the beast back with a burst of light.
Kavya froze, chest heaving, staring at the boy who had saved her again.
Her blades dripped blood, but her hands trembled.
She didn't thank him.
She couldn't.
But she didn't curse him either.
✦
The battle raged on.
Dev cut his opponent across the chest, qi sparks scattering like fireworks. Kavya slit the throat of hers, blood spraying across fractured stone. Arjun's staff flared again, saving his mother from a wolf-beast's claw.
I drove the Inkblade through a disciple, shadows tearing his body apart from the inside. He screamed, dissolving into qi smoke.
But for every enemy we cut down, more pressed forward.
The Zone shuddered, cracks widening, light spilling like veins of fire.
And for the first time, I saw it—
The barrier itself fracturing, splintering under the weight of two realms pressing in at once.
✦
[ Neutral Zone Stability: 58%. ][ Warning: Multiple invasions accelerating collapse. ]
The voice carved itself into the air like a death sentence.
We had survived the day's first strike.
But the Zone itself was breaking.
And tomorrow, it might not even exist.
The battle didn't end when the last Beastborn fell.
The Zone itself turned against us.
Cracks split across the plaza like veins of light, pulsing with every breath. Slabs of stone floated higher, drifting until they shattered against invisible walls. The sky broke open, shards of red and pale light raining down like glass.
The system's voice screamed.
[ Neutral Zone Instability: Severe. ][ Collapse Probability: Critical. ]
The world buckled.
✦
A fissure tore open at my feet. I staggered back as the ground split wide, a chasm yawning beneath me. Shapes writhed inside—half-formed phantoms of beasts, men, gods—shadows glitching like broken code.
Kavya cursed, leaping to another floating slab as her footing gave way. Dev dragged the old man back from the edge, his sword barely keeping balance against the quaking ground.
The mother clung to Arjun, but the boy shoved her behind him. His staff flared, runes blazing, casting a shield that held the stone beneath them together.
The boy wasn't just protecting lives anymore.
He was holding reality together.
✦
The fissures widened. From them crawled distortions—twisted fragments of both realms. A wolf's head on a cultivator's body. A sword made of flame. A shrine half-built from bone.
The Zone wasn't keeping invaders out anymore.
It was blending them in.
The old man shrieked. "It's over! It's all over! The worlds are eating us alive!"
Kavya snarled, slashing through a warped beast with her daggers. "Then keep screaming and die faster!"
Dev cut another down with a brutal strike, but his jaw clenched tight. Even he knew this wasn't a fight we could win.
And the Inkblade writhed in my grip, screaming.
"…cut deeper… devour the cracks… rewrite the walls…"
The shadows weren't urging me to fight the enemies.
They wanted me to fight the Zone itself.
✦
Another fissure split open, rushing straight for Arjun.
The boy raised his staff, but the crack tore faster than his light. His mother screamed, dragging him close, their slab of stone already breaking apart—
I moved.
The Inkblade roared as I drove it down into the fissure.
Shadows exploded outward, slashing through the crack, devouring its light.
The fissure shrieked like a living thing. The ground buckled, stone shattering—then steadied.
The Zone stilled for a heartbeat.
And the system glitched.
[ Warning: Unauthorized manipulation of instability detected. ][ Instability increased. ][ …Forcing divergence. ]
The words bled across the sky, jagged and broken.
Then another line appeared, sharp and final.
[ Title progression condition met. ]
✦
The survivors froze.
The old man fell to his knees, weeping. "He's tearing the world apart…"
Kavya's blades dripped blood, her eyes burning into me. For once, she didn't speak.
Dev's sword lowered, his gaze steady, unreadable. "You're not just fighting them anymore," he said quietly. "You're fighting the story itself."
Arjun's staff sparked, his young eyes locked on me. Not in fear. Not in awe.
But in recognition.
As if he knew what I had just become.
✦
The Zone groaned, stone splitting, sky raining sparks.
The system forced another update.
[ Neutral Zone Stability: 55%. ][ Time Remaining: 3 days. ]
The Zone was dying.
And I was killing it faster.