The sky did not crack this time.
It folded.
Like paper bending around an invisible blade.
Above the ruins of Kyoto, above the corpses of angels and curses alike, the heavens stitched themselves back together—not in light, but in silence.
Mahoraga stood in the epicenter of it all.
The Wheel behind him rotated slowly.
One turn.
Then another.
He was adapting.
Not to power.
Not to divine authority.
But to betrayal.
Heaven had broken the balance.
So Mahoraga would break Heaven.
Yet even he understood something now.
The Harvesters were coming.
And this war?
Was only the prologue.
I. Aftermath of Divine Treachery
The air smelled of burnt sanctity.
Fragments of celestial armor lay scattered like fallen stars. The Heavenly Executioners had retreated—but not defeated.
They were recalibrating.
Watching.
Calculating.
Mahoraga's eyes scanned the horizon.
Across the battlefield stood the last thing he expected to see:
The False Messiah.
Alive.
"You adapt too fast," the man said calmly, stepping over rubble. "It's terrifying."
Mahoraga did not respond.
The Wheel rotated once.
The Messiah's heartbeat skipped.
He swallowed.
"Yes," he smiled weakly. "Still that aura."
Behind him, sorcerers gathered. Curses lingered in shadows.
Enemies.
All of them.
Yet none attacked.
Because something worse was approaching.
A ripple passed through space.
Not divine.
Not cursed.
Not human.
Foreign.
Mahoraga's gaze sharpened.
The Harvesters had entered the outer layer of reality.
II. The Enemy of All Worlds
They did not descend like gods.
They emerged like fractures.
Thin vertical tears in the sky opened, revealing nothingness beyond.
From those tears, silhouettes stepped forward.
Tall.
Faceless.
Wrapped in geometry that did not obey physics.
The first Harvester landed without impact.
The earth did not shake.
Reality did.
Every sorcerer collapsed to their knees.
Every curse shrieked in distortion.
Mahoraga alone remained standing.
The Wheel rotated twice.
Adaptation to alien law initiated.
The Harvester turned its faceless head.
It spoke without sound.
"Target located. Anomaly identified.Evolution source detected."
Mahoraga understood.
They were not here for Heaven.
They were not here for Earth.
They were here for him.
The False Messiah trembled.
"What are those things?"
Mahoraga answered for the first time since Heaven's betrayal.
"Predators."
III. The Impossible Proposal
The Harvester raised a hand.
Gravity inverted.
Sky and earth switched.
Blood flowed upward.
Sorcerers floated helplessly.
Curses were crushed into static.
Mahoraga stepped forward.
The Wheel rotated again.
Gravity normalized around him alone.
He swung.
His blade met nothing.
The Harvester flickered.
Phase shift.
Adaptive counter detected.
Mahoraga's arm shattered.
Bone fragments floated like snow.
The Wheel rotated again.
Regeneration complete.
Adaptation level rising.
But something was wrong.
The Wheel hesitated.
For the first time…
It resisted turning further.
Mahoraga felt it.
Resistance.
Fear?
Impossible.
The Wheel does not fear.
Yet it slowed.
The False Messiah screamed.
"We can't fight that alone!"
Mahoraga's gaze shifted to him.
Alone.
The word echoed.
The Wheel rotated once more.
Not for adaptation.
For calculation.
Probability streams flooded his mind.
Future threads unraveled.
In 99.7% of outcomes—
Humanity dies.
Curses erased.
Heaven consumed.
Mahoraga hunted last.
And even he falls.
The remaining 0.3%?
Alliance.
Mahoraga stepped back.
Lowered his blade.
The battlefield froze.
Enemies stared in disbelief.
"You live," he spoke coldly, "because you are useful."
The Messiah blinked.
"…Excuse me?"
Mahoraga turned to the gathering sorcerers and surviving curses.
"Until the Harvesters are erased—We do not fight each other."
Silence.
Then outrage.
"He's insane!"
"That monster killed thousands!"
"He IS the apocalypse!"
Mahoraga's aura flared.
The Wheel spun violently.
Sky darkened.
Every voice died.
"I am your only chance."
IV. Heaven Intervenes
A spear of pure light pierced through dimensions.
It struck between Mahoraga and the Harvester.
The impact split clouds for miles.
A familiar presence descended.
The Heavenly Archon.
Commander of celestial forces.
He glared at Mahoraga.
"You would ally with filth?"
Mahoraga answered calmly.
"You would rather be consumed?"
The Archon clenched his jaw.
The Harvester moved.
Heavenly light shattered instantly.
The Archon staggered.
For the first time…
A god bled in front of mortals.
The Harvesters did not discriminate.
Heaven.
Hell.
Earth.
All resources.
All energy.
To be harvested.
The Archon looked at Mahoraga.
Hatred burned.
But so did fear.
"…Temporary truce."
The Messiah laughed nervously.
"Well. That's new."
V. The Alliance of Opposites
The battlefield became a war council.
Sorcerers.
Curses.
Angels.
And Mahoraga at the center.
The Harvester remained floating above the city, scanning.
More tears were opening in the sky.
More were coming.
The Archon spoke first.
"They feed on structured power systems. Divine order. Curse energy. Spiritual frameworks."
Mahoraga finished the thought.
"They collapse ecosystems before extraction."
The Messiah frowned.
"So… we're crops?"
"Yes," Mahoraga replied.
Silence fell.
The Wheel rotated slowly.
Mahoraga's mind raced beyond comprehension.
If the Harvesters fed on systems—
Then the solution was not strength.
It was chaos.
"Break the laws," Mahoraga said.
The Archon glared.
"Explain."
"Overload their predictive matrix. Collapse structured alignment. Fuse incompatible energies."
The Messiah's eyes widened.
"You want Heaven and Curses to combine?"
Mahoraga nodded.
"Opposites generate instability."
The Archon recoiled.
"That is blasphemy."
Mahoraga stepped closer.
"It is survival."
VI. The First Fusion
The Harvester raised both hands.
The sky split into seven fractures.
Seven more descended.
Reality began peeling away.
Mahoraga moved.
He grabbed the Archon's spear.
Then seized a curse core from a dying spirit.
Light and darkness clashed violently in his hands.
His body began tearing apart.
The Wheel spun wildly.
Cracks formed in its surface.
Adaptation reaching limit.
Mahoraga forced the fusion.
Heavenly sanctity and curse malice merged into a singular unstable mass.
He hurled it at the descending Harvesters.
Impact.
No explosion.
Instead—
Reality imploded.
One Harvester vanished instantly.
Erased.
The remaining froze.
Their geometry destabilized.
The Messiah gasped.
"It worked."
Mahoraga collapsed to one knee.
Blood—not red.
Not black.
Silver.
Dripped onto broken stone.
The Wheel slowed.
Fractured.
For the first time—
Mahoraga had forced evolution beyond safe limits.
VII. The Hidden Truth
As the Harvesters recalibrated, something changed.
Mahoraga felt it.
Not external.
Internal.
The Wheel… spoke.
Not in words.
In memory.
A vision surged through him.
Darkness.
Endless darkness.
Before Heaven.
Before curses.
Before humanity.
There were others like him.
Wheels.
Entities of adaptation.
Created not by fear—
But by something older.
The Harvesters.
Mahoraga's breath stopped.
He was not their target.
He was their prototype.
An abandoned weapon.
Left to evolve.
Left to mature.
Until harvest-ready.
The Wheel cracked further.
Truth pierced him.
His entire existence—
Was cultivation.
The Messiah noticed his expression.
"What is it?"
Mahoraga stood slowly.
Cold realization burning in his eyes.
"They are not invading."
The Archon stared.
"Then what?"
Mahoraga looked at the sky fractures widening.
"They are returning."
Silence devoured the battlefield.
VIII. The Choice
If he was their creation—
Then adapting further would only accelerate their arrival.
If he stopped evolving—
He would stagnate.
Be consumed.
For the first time—
Mahoraga faced a paradox.
To survive—
He must reject the Wheel.
But the Wheel was his existence.
The Archon raised his spear again.
"We cannot trust him."
The Messiah stepped forward.
"You don't have a better option!"
Another Harvester descended.
Mahoraga looked at his fractured Wheel.
Then at the terrified alliance.
Then at the approaching void.
For the first time—
He made a decision not based on adaptation.
But will.
He tore the Wheel from his back.
The sky screamed.
The ground shattered.
He held the spinning divine mechanism in his hand.
Energy exploded in every direction.
The Harvesters froze.
System disruption detected.
Prototype deviation.
Mahoraga crushed the Wheel halfway.
It cracked—but did not break.
Blood poured from his eyes.
His power plummeted.
Aura weakened.
But something else emerged.
Freedom.
The Harvesters retreated slightly.
Confusion rippled through their geometry.
Mahoraga dropped to one knee.
No longer invincible.
No longer inevitable.
But no longer controlled.
He looked at the alliance.
"We fight as equals."
Not savior.
Not villain.
Not god.
Just a being choosing defiance.
IX. The Real War Begins
The sky fractures multiplied.
Hundreds.
Thousands.
The first Harvester army assembled beyond the veil.
The Archon stood beside Mahoraga.
The Messiah behind him.
Sorcerers and curses forming ranks.
Opposites united.
For survival.
The Archon whispered:
"If they created you… what created them?"
Mahoraga stared into the abyss.
Something vast moved beyond the Harvesters.
Something watching.
Something patient.
And for the first time since his awakening—
Mahoraga felt something unfamiliar.
Anticipation.
He stood slowly.
Without the Wheel's full rotation—
His aura was different.
Less absolute.
More unstable.
More dangerous.
"If they harvest worlds…"
He said softly.
"Then we will hunt the harvesters."
The alliance braced.
The sky tore completely open.
Beyond it—
A colossal structure waited.
A cosmic farm.
And Earth—
Was only one of countless fields.