The entire enemy armada—a chaotic collision of high-tier gods and abyssal demons—had been extinguished. They vanished without a trace in a single night, erased as if they were never part of the divine script, swept away by a broom of cosmic wrath. At the center of the hollowed-out crater, Arian (Calamity Mode) stood like a jagged monument to extinction. The pressure emanating from his small, 160cm frame was no longer just a physical force; it was a conceptual weight, far more suffocating than the day of his birth nine years ago. This aura did not just shake the foundations of the Ten Realms; it vibrated with a concentrated, absolute killing intent—the pure, unfiltered manifestation of The Almighty One's Wrath.
Arian tilted his head back toward the starless, ink-black heavens and let out a scream. It was a sound so intense, so far beyond the frequency of mortal or immortal ears, that it was felt as a tectonic shift rather than heard. It was the sound of reality tearing at the seams. As the silver Calamity aura slowly receded back into his skin, the suffocating darkness of the "Absolute Silence" field lifted. It revealed a grim, macabre reality: the broken bodies of the Scarlet Eternal warriors littered the grey, metallic ash of the basin like fallen autumn leaves. Exhausted, his neural pathways fried by the divine energy he had channeled, Arian's body collapsed into the blood-soaked earth. He fell into a deep, unconscious sleep, his chest rising and falling rhythmically amidst the carnage, as if he were merely a tired child after a day of play.
When the first rays of dawn finally broke through the perpetual mist, sunlight began to pierce the heavy veil of the Forbidden Basin. But the morning air was no longer sweet with the scent of blooming cherry blossoms that once defined his home. It had been replaced by a thick, cloying stench—the smell of oxidized divinity and stagnant blood, a metallic odor of rusted iron that seemed to coat the back of the throat.Arian stirred. As the cold sun hit his eyelids, he sat up slowly. He wiped a smudge of dried fluid from his mouth and rubbed his eyes with a small hand crusted in a thick, dark layer of dried gold and black ichor. It was the blood of the gods he had unmade.
"Mother?"
His voice was tiny, fragile, and laced with a confusion that didn't belong in a graveyard of giants. He stood up, his small feet bare against the cold sludge of the battlefield. He wandered through the mangled remains of his kin, his mind struggling to process why the world was so quiet. Then, his eyes locked onto a figure in the center of a circle of fallen warriors. Aryanette lay there, her expression peaceful despite the cruel spear driven through her chest.
Time did not just slow down; it froze. The mind of the nine-year-old child shattered into a thousand jagged pieces as the reality of her death took hold. Arian let out a raw, soul-shattering cry—a human sound this time, weeping with a grief that felt heavy enough to level mountains. He lunged toward her, clutching her cold, stiffening body to his chest. With a grunt of pure agony, he pulled the spear from her heart, his trembling hands stained red with the only blood that mattered.
The grief did not stay soft; it calcified, turning into something far more dangerous. Arian's eyes, once swirling silver voids of cosmic power, settled into a deep, haunting crimson. The sorrow had performed a dark alchemy, transforming a boy into a single-minded seeker of vengeance.
Arian walked toward the severed head of the Titan Azrael, which still lay where he had tossed it. He didn't see a trophy; he saw a tool, a whetstone for his hatred. He planted his feet in the ash and launched his first strike:
"Absolute World Destroyer Divine Fist: First Form – Bloody Fate!" SRAAAkk! The blow did not just hit; it shredded. The sheer pressure of his fist tore through the divine skin and muscle, stripping the Titan's lingering glory into tattered, useless meat.
He followed it instantly with a devastating pivot:
"Absolute World Destroyer Divine Fist: Second Form – Cruel Force!" BRAAAK! The impact sent a shockwave through the ground, shattering the crystalline bone within the skull.
For a full year, Arian lived in that graveyard. He made a home out of the ruins, his days governed by a brutal, self-imposed cycle: honing his fists and kicks against the Titan's skull until his knuckles bled and his shins turned to iron. When he wasn't training, he was a son again. He spent his evenings by his mother's grave under the withered Sakura tree. Every day, he would scale the jagged cliffs of the basin to find Astrillia flowers—rare, glowing blooms that fed on the high-altitude light. They were the only spots of color in a world of grey ash and rusted iron.
By the end of the year, the once-mighty skull of Azrael—a head that had once looked down upon clouds—had been reduced to nothing but fine white dust and splinters, pulverized by the relentless training of a child. Arian finally stood up one morning and accepted the weight of his existence: he was the last of the Scarlet Eternal. He took a deep, steadying breath, and as he exhaled, the terrifying, blood-red mask of vengeance vanished. His face cleared, his muscles relaxed, and his bright, cheerful smile returned—the same innocent smile that had made him Aryanette's "True Maiden's son." It was a terrifying camouflage.
Setting out toward the jagged peaks of the Sky-Split Ridge, the gateway to the mortal lands, Arian's enhanced senses picked up a commotion. It was the sound of primal cruelty—animals fighting. Using "Divine Departure: Flash Step," he vanished from his path in a blur of silver light, reappearing instantly on a high branch.
Below him, a troop of aggressive red-furred monkeys were screeching, throwing stones and tearing at a single, unique individual. It was a monkey with glossy, obsidian-black fur that shimmered like a raven's wing. It had been cast out and oppressed simply for being different, for carrying a color that terrified the herd. As the red monkeys sensed a sudden, overwhelming chill in the air—Arian's hidden aura leaking out—they shrieked and fled into the canopy.
Arian dropped from the tree and approached the shivering, weakened creature. He reached into his small satchel and pulled out a tiny vial containing the last drop of his mother's healing potion. He gently tilted the monkey's head back and let the glowing liquid fall onto its tongue.
As the creature's wounds closed and it woke in his arms, Arian offered a genuine smile. "Hi, you're awake?" The monkey's stomach let out a loud, desperate kriukkh! Arian chuckled, reaching up to a low-hanging branch to pluck a ripe, golden peach. He handed it over, watching the monkey eat with ravenous hunger.
"You were cast out too, right? Because you don't look like them?" Arian's voice was soft, reflecting on his own "Filthy Blood" heritage. "My family is all 'gone' now. I'm alone too. Why don't we be friends? We can be outcasts together." The black monkey paused, its intelligent eyes searching Arian's. It nodded slowly, letting out a soft chirrup before nuzzling its cheek against Arian's.Before finally crossing the threshold of the Sky-Split Ridge, Arian stopped. He turned back one last time to look at the Veil of the Forbidden Basin. From this height, the valley looked like a bowl of silver mist. The scent of cherry blossoms was a ghost of the past, replaced by the lingering smell of rusted iron on his skin and the weight of the dust in his clothes.
With his new, dark-furred companion perched firmly on his shoulder, the God-Eater stepped out of the veil. He walked toward a world of men, kings, and false gods—a world that had no idea that the apocalypse was coming, and that it was wearing the smile of a ten-year-old boy.