The battlefield had not yet cooled.
Ash drifted through broken air, glowing faintly where mana still burned into the soil. Cracks spread across the ground like veins, remnants of power that had no place in a single world. The ambush was over—but the silence that followed felt heavier than the fight itself.
Jinyoung stood at the center.
Black and white aura coiled around him in slow, unstable spirals. Not violent. Not calm. Just… watching.
The hunters gathered at a distance.
No one dared step closer.
They had seen him fight.
They had seen the sky fracture.
And they had felt something watching from beyond the battlefield.
Then—
The air shifted.
Not violently. Not suddenly.
It aligned.
Light descended—not as fire, not as lightning, but as feathers.
Dozens of them.
They drifted down from nothingness, each glowing with a different hue—gold, silver, pale blue, soft green—carrying an authority that made even S-rank hunters instinctively lower their heads.
Ruler power.
Haru was the first to react.
His mana flared reflexively, then stabilized as one of the feathers touched his shoulder. The violent chaos inside him—mana that had never fully settled since his universe collapsed—quieted.
He inhaled sharply.
"…It's stabilizing me."
Another feather drifted toward Riyomi.
She didn't move.
The moment it brushed her back, the darkness clinging to her presence thinned—not erased, but sharpened. Her breathing steadied. Her killing intent refined into something colder, cleaner.
Riku felt it next.
A feather hovered before him, then merged into his chest.
The pressure vanished.
The endless tension in his muscles—born from outrunning a dying universe—eased for the first time since he could remember.
His vision cleared.
Time felt… aligned.
Around them, selected S-Ranks and SS-Ranks the nation level hunters received the same blessing.
Not power.
Not dominance.
Permission.
Five percent.
No more.
No less.
The air trembled as distant voices echoed—not spoken aloud, but carved directly into reality.
"Bear it, and live."
"Reject it, and perish."
The hunters understood instinctively.
Too much, and their bodies would break.
Then—
One feather drifted further.
Toward the Abyssal Legion.
Toward Liam.
For a brief moment, it hovered before him.
And then it burned.
Not with fire—but with rejection.
The feather unraveled mid-air, dissolving into nothing.
Liam did not react.
His hollow eyes remained fixed forward, posture unchanging.
The world itself seemed to hesitate.
A presence stirred—vast, distant, watchful.
"The dead do not carry Order."
The voice was calm.
Absolute.
Jinyoung finally turned.
"He's mine," he said quietly.
The black and white aura around him shifted—not threatening, but final.
No feather approached him.
None dared.
The Rulers did not argue.
More feathers descended—never toward the Abyss, never toward the shadows. Only the living. Only those still bound to breath, soul, and fragile time.
Then the light began to fade.
Before it vanished completely, one presence lingered longer than the rest.
A soft radiance, heavy with judgment and restraint.
"We will not oppose you," the voice said.
"But we will not stand beside you either."
Jinyoung met the empty air.
"That's fine," he replied. "I'm not fighting for your approval."
Silence followed.
Then the sky returned to normal.
No light. No feathers.
Just a battlefield filled with hunters who had been changed—and a man who had not been touched at all.
Riyomi exhaled slowly.
Riku clenched his fist.
Haru stared at his hands, mana perfectly stable for the first time in his existence.
And at the center—
Jinyoung stood alone.
Unblessed.
Unbound.
Unclaimed.
They help humanity, he thought calmly. But they're afraid of what I'll become.
Behind him, the Abyssal Legion remained unmoving.
Waiting.
Watching.
Because while Order had chosen its vessels—
The undead had already chosen its leader.