High above the crumbling spires of the Imperial City, the sky had bruised into a deep, sickly violet—the hallmark of the Dimensional Rift. Below, the survivors of the 13th Division huddled in the shadow of a fallen clock tower. Their commander, Kaito, gripped a blade that was humming with a frantic, rhythmic pulse. It wasn't his heartbeat; it was the sword’s. "It’s here," Kaito whispered.

The rift closed. The smoke remained, and the city was in ruins, but the silence that followed was different. It wasn't the silence of the grave—it was the silence of a new morning.

As the entity raised a hand of swirling void, Kaito didn't swing. He let his sword drop. The steel clattered against the cobblestones, a lonely sound in the vacuum of the apocalypse. He closed his eyes and felt the Demon’s cold aura wash over him—a thousand screams of people who never were.

The air in the capital didn't just smell like smoke; it smelled like the end of an era.