The battlefield had gone silent.
Not the stillness of calm, but the hollow, ringing kind of silence that followed the breaking of hope. General Hale and his strike team—men hardened by rifts, warfronts, and the long shadow of beast tides—stood surrounded by seven mutated abominations. Their bloodshot eyes, warped limbs, and twisted posture screamed of corruption so deep even death couldn't ease it.
They were veterans. They had faced enemies countless times stronger than themselves.
But this—This wasn't a battle.
This was execution.
Every instinct the human race had honed through millennia of survival screamed the same thing:
Run.
But their legs refused to move, their bodies pinned by a crushing presence that seeped from the golden eye-shaped tear in space hovering above the ground. Tendrils of oily black aura dripped from its edges like the bleeding veins of reality itself.
"Commander…" one of the veterans whispered, voice shaking. "My body won't… listen."
The mutated beasts lunged.
They were fast—Faster than the team could register, faster than thought, faster than breath.
And then—
They froze.
Mid-air. Mid-lunge.Seven monstrous bodies suspended like insects in amber.
Not because of some formation. Not because of a tool.
But because someone had arrived.
Something blurred past them—no flash of light, no grand spectacle. Only a thin glint, like polished metal catching a dying sun.
A single object spun through the air…
A chopstick.
It drilled through the skull of the first beast. Then the second.Third.Fourth—All seven in the span of a heartbeat.
PFFT. PFFT. PFFT.
Seven heads burst like overripe fruit, spraying blood mist into the crimson haze.
The chopstick returned to its owner's hand.
And only then did the veterans realize a man was standing before them.
A middle-aged figure in an immaculate dark suit, short hair swept neatly back, expression relaxed—almost bored—as if he'd just stepped out of an evening stroll rather than a battlefield.
He rubbed his chin and squinted at the golden eye tear.
"Hm… where did I see this thing before?" he murmured. "The aura is familiar. Repulsive… but familiar. Did I kill that one already? Or was it someone else…?"
He genuinely sounded unsure.
Behind him, the strike team collapsed—not from injury, but from sheer overwhelming pressure. His presence alone was like standing beneath a collapsing heaven.
General Hale, forcing his spine straight through trembling willpower, dropped to one knee.
"G–Greetings, Lord Saint!"
Because the man standing before them was no ordinary powerhouse.
He was one of the wandering Saints of the great clans. A protector whose name alone could silence a continent.A master of disguise who could pass as a fruit vendor one day and vanish into worlds unknown the next.
A being only a step below the mythical Demigods.
The man didn't look at Hale, still studying the tear. "Saint, Saint… you people still call me that? Haaah. Kids these days."
From the Federation's control room, Vice Headmaster Taurus Grein watched the feed—and blanched as the Saint's gaze suddenly lifted and locked onto him through the rift's projection.
"Oi. You little brat," the Saint said with a lazy grin. "You shook the entire capital over this? Over a tiny mess like this?"
Taurus flinched visibly.
"T-tiny…? Senior, if we were careless, we might've been wiped out!"
The Saint's smile twitched."So you do want me to beat some sense back into you, hm? Grown too bold in your old age?"
Every member of the strike team swallowed violently.
The Vice Headmaster—a man whose spiritual pressure could flatten armies—was being scolded like a child.
Before anyone could breathe, the golden eye rift shuddered.
A suffocating black aura poured out. Blood pooled across the battlefield, flowing against gravity, against nature—toward a single point.
"W-what…?"
The scattered gore of the seven beasts began twisting together, flesh knitting, bones crawling into shape like worms converging.
Something emerged. Something wrong.
A short, hunched creature—no more than five feet tall—but with a human skull twisted into a grotesque grin, twin emerald flames burning in its sockets, and bone spikes jutting from its spine.
Its presence alone made the strike team's souls tremble violently.
The Saint finally turned, his expression cooling.
"So it really is you," he said softly. "Even if your lord lost, you still dare send scraps onto human ground."
The creature's grin widened.
It vanished.
Reappeared right in front of him.
Its claw slashed—fast enough to kill a Grandmaster ten times over.
The Saint didn't even blink.
CLANG.
The creature rebounded like it had struck a divine iron wall, flying through the trees and pulverizing half the forest.
The Saint sighed.
"Troublesome."
He looked back upward. "Brat. I swear, if I didn't handle this, you'd just whine about it for decades. Two glasses. I'm only cleaning this up because you promised me two glasses of your five-century brew."
Taurus blanched. "T-two is the limit! It took centuries to—"
"Yeah, yeah." The Saint lazily waved him off.
The creature screamed and reformed, hate twisting its voice.
"You old fool! When my master emerges, the human race will be dust! You cannot—"
"Master?" the Saint raised a brow. "Which delusional fool is it this time?"
The creature lunged again, screeching:
"The 20th Commander! When he arrives with his army—"
"Oh, him."The Saint sighed, like hearing a boring rumor."You're not even qualified to speak his name."
He raised a hand.
Amber-green light filled the rift world.
A wooden staff materialized in his grasp.
He flicked it.
SHUNK.
The staff pierced straight through the creature's skull. Pale white fire ignited along the staff's grain, burning the abomination from the inside out.
The rift itself convulsed.
A hand—A massive, bone-white, black-veined hand emerged, gripping the edge of the tear. The pressure was so overwhelming that every member of the strike team collapsed, fainting or kneeling involuntarily as their souls quivered.
A voice ripped through the air, hollow and mocking:
"Gardener Saint… you old bat—you're still alive?"
The Saint's expression changed for the first time.
The air froze. The temperature plummeted. His killing intent exploded like a blood-red storm.
"YOU."
The rift widened—revealing a gargantuan skeletal face with a single blue flame burning in its eye socket.
"The White Bone Beast Lord," the Saint growled. "You dare show your face again? I'll take your arm today—your head next time."
Before the killing intent spiraled out of control—
THWACK!
A staff smacked him on the back of the head.
A woman in a flowing pale dress appeared behind him, expression sharp enough to cut stone.
Her aura was cold enough to freeze flames.
"Enough," she snapped. "I told you—your grandson isn't dead. So, control yourself. You're scaring the children."
General Hale and his team didn't dare breathe.
Because this woman was another Saint.
The infamous Lady Whitestar—whose temper was legendary and whose ice arts decorated her courtyard with victims turned into "trees."
Hale instinctively bowed."G-Greetings, Senior—"
Her head turned slowly.
"Mister General," she said sweetly, "did you just call me senior?"
Hale's soul nearly fled his body.
"I—I said 'Lady Whitestar'! My mistake!"
"Hmph. See that it doesn't happen again. My hand gets itchy."
Everyone on the team nodded violently.
The White Bone Beast Lord sneered.
"I will return for this. When the seal weakens—"
The two Saints didn't even let him finish.
A white flame burst forth from the Gardener Saint. Ice-blue blades of light from Lady Whitestar sliced across the rift.
CRACK.
The tear violently imploded.
The bony arm, severed at the wrist, plummeted like a falling mountain and crashed into the earth, carving a thousand-meter crater.
The Beast Lord's voice faded into nothing.
Silence followed.
The Gardener Saint flicked his fingers. The arm burned into white ash, leaving behind a single crystal pulsing with life energy. He pocketed it casually.
"Alright. Clean."
He waved a hand.
A rift opened back to the entrance of 73C.
"Go home," he said. "Tell that brat he owes me two glasses."
The strike team didn't need to be told twice.
They bowed as deeply as their shaking knees allowed, then crushed their return crystals—reappearing in the control room beside Taurus Grein, pale and trembling.
Inside the rift, the two Saints watched the lingering corruption fade.
Lady Whitestar exhaled. "They'll try again."
The Gardener Saint nodded slowly.
"This generation… they've grown too comfortable. They think the war was a victory."
His expression darkened.
"But we only bought time. The Quasi Beast God wasn't killed—only sealed. Ten Saints died to achieve that much. And the seal's reinforcement window ends in less than a century."
He stared into the distance.
"Call the others. All of them. And notify the Parliament Chief. We need a council."
Lady Whitestar lifted her staff.
"And summon the Royal Academy's Headmaster's clone. It's time to decide how to prepare the younger generation."
The rift closed behind them.
And the world outside remained blissfully unaware that the time of borrowed peace was finally ending.