The moment she stepped into the summit clearing, it felt as if the laws of the world had been rewritten.
The pressure was crushing. The air felt as heavy as lead, stripping the breath from her lungs just by standing there. A pillar of crimson light pierced the heavens, drowning her vision in a burning glare that threatened to sear her retinas.
The wind had died. In the unnatural silence, every sound was crystalline: the faint creak of distant trees in the night air, the rhythmic drip of water on stone—each one pricking her eardrums like a needle. Koyoi gasped for air, only to find her throat as parched as if she had been chewing sand. The atmosphere hummed with an eerie heat, carrying a numbing scent of scorched metal.
Suspended in the heart of that violent radiance was a sphere like a giant pearl, glowing with a faint, noble light.
The Moon God.
A deity that should have had no physical form was cruelly bound by invisible, synthetic chains, suspended within a cage of reddish-black light.
The sphere’s surface rippled like a thin mist trembling in despair. As Koyoi drew closer, alternating waves of absolute zero and searing heat crashed against her. The god’s light was a shadow of its former self—nothing like the gentle moonlight that once watched over the world from the heights of the night sky. It was weak, as if a flickering life were drawing its final, suffocated breath.
"It’s hurting... The Moon God is weeping..."
Unable to bear the ache in her chest, Koyoi pressed her hand against her heart. The Moon God’s formless, agonizing cries flooded her consciousness like a dark torrent. It wasn’t a cry made of words. It was pure, raw pain.
It was the primal terror of a being watching its own existence being erased. A scream that felt like cold claws raking through the very core of her soul. Koyoi’s knees shook with visceral rejection; the flickering flame deep in her breast wavered as if it might go out. Inside the pouch at her waist, the Wind God and the Glass Eye—the Vidro—stirred violently, vibrating with heat as they resonated with the agony of their kin.
"So, the trespassers finally show themselves."
At the front of the altar, at the center of the ritual binding the Moon God, a man turned slowly. He wore the same expressionless white mask as the other Observer pawns, but the quality of his garments was worlds apart. He was draped in kariginu hunting robes of a black so deep it seemed woven from the night itself.
He was the officer overseeing this defiled experiment. His right arm gripped a black staff adorned with sinister bone carvings, radiating an ominous sanctity. From its tip hung a distorted bell the color of tarnished silver. Every time it swayed, the surrounding air seemed to shriek and tear, emitting a presence that triggered a deep, instinctive revulsion.
"Any further interference will be a loss to the world. Eliminate them."
The man swung his staff with ritualistic precision. At his signal, the ground—previously steeped in silence—began to heave. Strange figures rose one after another, as if birthed from welling mud. Ten, twenty... All wore the same white masks, wielding weapons that gleamed with a dull, inorganic light.
They were autonomous soldiers, constructs of mud fashioned by the Observers' cold technology. Their movements were perfectly synchronized, devoid of the ragged breath or warmth of living things. Only the rhythmic thud of hard boots hitting damp soil echoed through the plaza like a death sentence.
"Hmph, so they brought numbers, did they?"
Asahi let out a battle cry that seemed to split the earth as he drew the heavy sword from his back. The honed blade reflected the crimson light from above, carving a single flash of silver into the darkness.
"I’ll hold them off! Not one gets past me! Go—stop that wretched ritual while I have their attention!"
Asahi lunged into the enemy ranks with the speed of a bullet. His heavy blade traced an arc, shearing through the night air. He parried a forest of thrusting spears with minimal movement, carving through armor as if it were paper. There was no hesitation in his movements—only the terrifying intensity of a warrior who had mastered the essence of combat.
Whenever his blade grazed a white mask, what sprayed forth was not blood, but the scent of old earth and a black mist like rotting pus. No human screams of agony came from the falling soldiers; only the hollow sound of dry clods of earth crumbling away.
"Let’s go, Koyoi! Don't fall behind!"
Kuon darted toward the altar, weaving through the gaps in the chaos. Koyoi followed, clinging desperately to his back.
"Foolish. Not even a mouse shall escape."
The man in the black robes snapped his fingers. From the base of the altar, countless chains of red light snaked outward, possessed by a predatory will. They slithered like serpents, relentlessly targeting Koyoi’s legs. The chains melted the stones of the ground into sludge, advancing with a sizzling hiss.
Any grass or trees they touched were instantly carbonized, branding the earth with the scorched marks of death.
"Aaahh!"
Unable to dodge in time, Koyoi stumbled. A searing chain coiled around her ankle. The pain was beyond "burning"—it felt as though her very flesh was being scorched to the bone.
"Wind God! Please!"
Koyoi screamed from the bottom of her lungs.
“Leave it to me! I’ll tear these filthy chains to shreds!”
The Wind God’s enraged voice thundered from inside the pouch. In an instant, a localized gale erupted around Koyoi, shredding the red chains like scraps of paper. Invisible blades of wind sliced through space, scattering the loathsome red light like dust.
"How irritating... A wielder of divine power?"
The man’s voice leaked from behind the white mask, low and cold. He leveled his staff horizontally. A massive ball of fire, seemingly sucking in all the surrounding heat, expanded rapidly at the tip. It was no natural flame. It was a "False Divine Fire," a forced imitation of a god’s power woven by the Observers' formulas.
Though the fire appeared to carry heat, the aura it emitted was as frigid as ice. Koyoi’s soul instantly recognized it: this was not the breath of a living being, but a cold, calculating light knitted together by equations.
"Stolen power, a cheap imitation of divinity. Revolting."
Kuon stepped forward to shield Koyoi. He manipulated the Star-reading Disk in his hand with godspeed fingerwork. The delicate needles on the disk spun frantically, radiating a kaleidoscopic blue light. Kuon’s glass left eye resonated with the same hue, the blue light pulsing like a heartbeat deep within his pupil.
Koyoi watched with a shudder as his breathing became shallow and sharp, as if he were carving away at his own soul.
"But your control over that formula is pathetic!"
A needle-thin beam of light shot from the disk, accurately piercing the massive fireball at its "ritual knot"—its only weak point. An explosion rocked the summit. The backwash of heat brushed Koyoi’s cheek, leaving the scent of scorched meat in her nostrils. As the billowing black smoke cleared, Kuon stood there, his lips curled into a defiant smirk.
"My eyes perceive the flow of divine energy at the molecular level. The gaps in your amateur spells are as plain as pockmarks on a face."
"...You. The runaway from back then. An unpleasant memory to revisit."
For the first time, a hint of human emotion—though cold as frost—entered the man’s voice: shock.
"A discarded failure that should have been disposed of, scuttling about like a rat. An unforeseen variable indeed."
"Yeah. And I'm going to drag every last one of you monsters back to the bottom of hell."
Kuon and the officer faced off, sparks flying between their gazes. Koyoi seized that opening, using every ounce of her strength to rush the altar. The pillar of red death poured from the sky. At its center, the Moon God emitted a light that looked ready to vanish at any moment.
Just a little further. Just a few more meters. If she reached out, she could touch that sacred radiance.
But an invisible, yet absolutely rigid wall of light stood in her path. A fortress-like barrier, the culmination of the Observers' wisdom. It repelled Koyoi’s palm with a wave of cold, ruthless rejection.
"...Wait for me! I’m going to get you out of there!"
Koyoi held up the Vidro from her robes. Its hidden power would be tested here and now.
“I see. I see every distortion of this world within this eye.”
The Vidro’s transparent, sorrowful voice made the space tremble.
“I will gather it, and return it. Every bit of this false light—I’ll throw it back to its source.”
The glass eye began to suck in the surrounding red light at a maddening speed. The massive energy constituting the barrier swirled and vanished into the depths of the pupil as if being drawn into a giant funnel. The glass sphere began to glow red-hot from the friction. Koyoi’s palms, supporting it, were scorched by the rising heat.
Still, she did not let go.
The Wind God continued to send a chilling breeze to wrap around Koyoi’s arms, while the Moon God supported her soul from afar with a faint but deeply compassionate light. It was a mystical sensation—the presence of three gods being knit into a single, mighty will through Koyoi, their vessel.
"...Go!!!"
Koyoi let out a ragged cry. She released the light energy condensed within the eye all at once, aiming it at the barrier’s weakest point. The torrent of pale blue light released from the Vidro became a single, massive arrow, impaling the apex of the barrier.
Pierce it.
Break that arrogant wall that defiles a god!
In the next moment, the red cage shrieked and tore open. A massive shockwave erupted, warping the space of the summit. Koyoi was blown back like a leaf, her back slamming against the stone ground. Every bit of air was knocked from her lungs, and her vision bleached white.
A part of the barrier had indeed shattered. But the red pillar of light immediately writhed like a living thing, resealing the wound and knitting itself back together even stronger than before.
"...Damn it! It’s still not enough...!"
Kuon’s voice, thick with gritted-teeth agony, reached her from the distance. The red light formed a massive vortex, swallowing the shattered fragments and restoring itself. The man in the black robes raised his staff high, and a low, curse-like incantation leaked from his throat. Koyoi felt it on her skin—the barrier fixing itself in space with an even harder, colder mass.
Asahi grabbed Koyoi’s trembling arm and pulled her back with raw force.
"Fall back! We'll be swallowed by the ritual if we stay!"
At those words, Koyoi bit her lip in frustration but nodded silently. She understood that surviving to return and try again was the only way to save the Moon God, rather than dying here and saving no one. Asahi pushed Koyoi ahead of him, while Kuon blocked their pursuers with a mist of pale blue light. The mist confused the red light's vision, cloaking the three shadows in the night.
Just before she started to run, Koyoi looked up at the Moon God one last time. The captured sphere of light pulsed faintly at the edge of despair, still waiting for help.
『...I promise. I will come back for you. Just wait for me.』
The wordless vow burned hot inside Koyoi’s chest. She felt as though she heard the Moon God’s trembling voice in gratitude. Koyoi clenched her teeth until she tasted blood and threw herself into the darkness. Behind them, the red light roared, illuminating the summit as bright as day.
As they slipped into the shadows of the dense trees, the realistic chill of the night finally returned to her skin.
"Live to return."
That simple, yet heavy thought was the only thing that kept their collapsing legs moving. Behind them, the red light flashed violently once more like a pulse, and a low tremor shook the forest. Koyoi desperately fought the urge to look back, gripping the pouch at her waist until her knuckles turned white. She could no longer hear the Moon God’s cries.
But that very silence felt like a desperate signal that the god, on the verge of death, was truly "waiting."
"I will come back. I promise."
Koyoi whispered the vow to herself as she surrendered to the deep darkness. Her foot slipped on the damp leaf mold, and she fell hard once on her knees. Asahi’s strong hand immediately reached out to support her, and Kuon’s disk cast a thin, cold light to illuminate their escape path. The smell of damp earth mixed with the scorched scent of death, making her nauseous.
Still, her feet did not stop.
The promise carved into her soul—to save the Moon God—pushed them through the maze of the forest. She clawed at protruding tree roots and steadied her ragged breath, while the afterimage of that hideous red light remained burned into the back of her eyelids like a permanent scar. Koyoi used that afterimage to her advantage, desperately visualizing the path to the next strike—the one that would shatter the barrier completely.
Damp leaves brushed coldly against her cheek, and droplets of night dew fell from the branches onto her neck. She wiped them away roughly, confirming the existence of the tiny flame deep within her chest. Even as it was buffeted by the gale, that faint heat refused to go out; it was now her most reliable support. The cold sweat running down her back turned to ice in the night air.
But the blood circulating through her heart remained hotter than ever before.
In the distance, an owl hooted as if mocking the silence, and the entire forest rustled eerily in response. The red light from the summit still pursued them with its oppressive weight. Koyoi quickened her pace, driven by that pressure.
The scent of the night grew deeper and heavier. The rustling of leaves behind them sounded like footsteps catching up. But this darkness would hide them. The night was still vast, and it continued on.
Asahi’s broad back was right in front of her. Koyoi felt a momentary surge of relief and exhaled a long breath of freezing air.