In the village of the fox girls, a horrifying massacre had taken place. It happened silently, brought about by a strange green whirlwind that had suddenly streaked across the sky.
Black snakes crawled all over the grass, slithering across the mercilessly mutilated corpses of the fox girls. Their familiar, beautiful faces were now cold and lifeless, while guns and katana swords lay scattered everywhere, proving that they had fought bravely until their very last moments.
A long-haired man with black hair that reached down to his waist, dressed in a long, tightly fitted black overcoat, stepped out of one of the stilt houses while carrying a baby girl in his arms.
Inside the house was the body of a beautiful woman with her bare, blood-covered breasts exposed, barely clinging to life. She had only just finished nursing the baby when she was suddenly and brutally attacked.
Her sharp fingernails were still moving faintly. Her mouth was still moving as though she was desperately trying to call out Shana's name. Susanoo did not care in the slightest. He was extremely pleased to have the baby in his arms.
But the moment he stepped onto the grass—A deep, distorted dimensional rift suddenly appeared out of nowhere. They were the butchers dressed in tightly fitted black outfits.
"You're not going anywhere, Susanoo."
The masked woman spoke coldly. They looked across the ruined, blood-soaked battlefield—the horrifying work Susanoo had left behind. Although they were all cold-blooded themselves, even they felt uncomfortable and shuddered at the sight before them.
Then she turned her attention toward the baby safely resting in Susanoo's arms. Her eyes seemed to light up.
"I'm sick of this game of cat and mouse, Susanoo. And I'm sick of your fucking arrogant attitude, too. A deal is a deal. Now hand the baby over."
Susanoo was not only unsurprised, but actually let out a cackling laugh. He casually carried the baby in his arms as he walked.
"A deal? Deals are only meant for weak humans. Now the baby is in my hands. I'm not giving her to you. What are you going to do about it?"
"You!?"
The masked woman looked as though she was about to lose her mind. Clearly, she was still suffering from a serious internal injury from their previous battle. Her hand was already hovering dangerously close to the dagger engraved with magical curses.
But her companion managed to stop her in time. He seemed much calmer than his enormous, bulky appearance would suggest.
"That baby… is our property…" He spoke as a cold mist escaped between his jagged teeth. "She belongs to us, and only we have the right to control her. If you dare toy with something that does not belong to you… you know what the witch told us."
Susanoo merely snorted when he heard that.
"And you think I believe that phony witch? Since when has Chaos chosen some lowly human instead of sending a prophecy to its rightful heir—me?! Deals are nothing but bullshit."
The giant interrupted him.
"You say you don't believe it, yet you came here to take the baby?"
"I simply have a grudge to settle with these damned people…" Susanoo muttered under his breath. "But I enjoy watching you people get pissed off even more. You need this baby like you need water in the middle of a desert. Oh, desert—ho ho."
He chuckled to himself.
"But that's good for me…"
"Stop rambling, you fucking snake-eyed bastard!" the masked woman shouted. "When this damned broken world finally ends… Ah, no. When everything comes to an end. Do you really think you'll still be able to act this arrogant and conceited? You can't even return to that damn city anymore, and now the demons are devouring your mother's corpse! And we are the only ones saving you! And our future depends on this!"
Susanoo's face hardened, turning grim and gray. Clearly, he did not like hearing those words from her, even if everything she said was true. He raised his hand as if he wanted to tear her face apart. But one against eight—He would certainly lose. Especially while he still had the baby in his arms.
"A dark future? If it ends, it has nothing to do with me…" His voice became colder. "I am a god. I will create a new world and rule over it."
But the woman burst out laughing when she heard him.
"Don't make me laugh. You? An empty 'Source.' You're nothing more than an outsider anyway. That's why the council abandoned you. You're nothing but a rotten relic from an old age."
Those words finally succeeded in provoking Susanoo. He swung his hand. Immediately, a torrent of dark energy erupted around the woman, enveloping her face and causing her to writhe violently on the ground. Her companions immediately rushed toward her.
"Oh no, Rita! You bastard!"
They turned around—But Susanoo was already gone. In the end, the evil god who had been willing to slaughter dozens of people was a coward when faced with them. All they could see was a faint trail of green smoke lingering in the air as he escaped. Along with his parting words—
"Oh no, how touching~ I don't have time to play with you people."
The giant took out a strangely carved triangular box. The black-green smoke was slowly sucked inside it. They hurriedly removed her mask. Underneath was a beautiful young woman with pale white skin, clearly someone who did not seem to originate from Asia. Her eyes were completely white as she desperately tried to draw in whatever little air she could.
Her sisters carefully helped her sit up and examined her internal injuries.
"Only a few broken ribs… But they really are formidable. Why was the baby in their hands?"
"They're the New Gods…"
Another person spoke quietly. A lock of her platinum-blonde hair had slipped out from beneath her mask.
"That's impossible. Could they have already reached the city?"
The giant merely shook his head wearily before standing up. Cold smoke escaped from his mouth as he spoke, his voice carrying a distinctly foreign accent.
"That's why the Chaos energy has begun to fluctuate…There's too much to do, and we have far too little time…"
One of them was clearly dissatisfied. She stomped her foot hard against the grass.
"So we're just going to stand here and watch that bastard take the baby away!? The rest of you stay here. I'll chase after him!"
"Charli, stay where you are!" The giant roared. "Susanoo is a treacherous bastard. He doesn't care about the baby's life at all. And besides, the Chaos region is extremely unstable right now. It took us so much effort just to get here. Don't throw yourself into a death trap!"
The girl bit her lip, trying desperately to restrain herself and her anger. She covered her face with both hands and suddenly burst into sobs.
"Oh, Nyck, I'm hungry… I'm starving…How long has it been since I last got to drink that red wine? How long has it been since I last got to eat a piece of bread? How many gates have we gone through? And today, everything was for nothing. Damn that bastard Susanoo, and now I've lost Lya. She must be trying to find a way back…"
But Nyck—the giant—shook his head sympathetically.
"We don't have much time to think about all of that, Charli. You need to calm down."
"Lya will be safe too, no matter where she is. We still have to finish the mission that we left unfinished and then return."
"Return?"
The girl turned around in a daze. Then, in anger, she threw her mask onto the ground, revealing an incredibly beautiful face framed by light brown hair.
"How many more millennia are we supposed to do this!? The Chosen Child! I'm sick of that fucking prophecy! If fate has already decided that we have to die, then…!"
Suddenly, Nyck froze. He turned toward the others.
"What day is it…? What day is it where we are now!?"
Everyone turned toward him in confusion. Then, someone who appeared to be extremely knowledgeable spoke.
"Approximately… a few days after that incident. The year…The year is 11,440…"
Immediately, everyone went pale, as though they had just seen a ghost. Nyck's arms and legs went limp. He nearly dropped his chained mace onto the ground. His voice was heavy.
"It's all over… You were right, Charli…The day of our deaths…"
"Is today."
The moment he finished speaking, a wave of cold air approached, and of course, there wasn't a single person among them who failed to notice it. Duyên, Shana, and Mina had returned to the fox village.
The three of them looked at the devastated scene around them. Blood was smeared everywhere, while the bodies of the girls—mutilated and torn apart—lay scattered and piled over one another. And right in the middle stood a group of strange people, surrounded by an eerie atmosphere. Anyone looking at this scene would immediately think that they were the ones who had created this horrifying masterpiece.
Shana clenched her teeth in fury. Her eyes burned with a brilliant blue light as she let out a roar that seemed to shake the heavens.
"YOU BASTARDS! HOW DARE YOU KILL MY GIRLS! ALL OF YOU WILL PAY FOR THIS! I'LL HANG YOU WITH YOUR OWN GUTS!"
Those were words Shana rarely ever spoke, especially words that were this vicious and cruel. But no one stopped her. Not even Duyên or Mina. They were both too stunned by the sight before them.
The fox village, which had been bustling with life not long ago, was now almost completely dead. Perhaps only a small number of girls who had followed Shana to the trial earlier had survived...
But how could they possibly return here and face such a horrifying sight?
Duyên was still covered in her own dried blood. The severe wounds inside her body had almost completely healed, but now the pain inside her heart was many times worse. She clenched her teeth, desperately trying to suppress the rage and hatred violently rising within her. Her eyes, glowing with an intense indigo light, lifted upward. Her voice came out broken and interrupted.
"The child... Where is she...?"
Duyên's aura was completely different from before. For a brief moment, the anger and latent danger radiating from this girl became so obvious that the group of people in black began to hesitate. Of course, they did not have the child in their hands. It was all a misunderstanding. And by now, it was too late for both sides.
But what did any of that matter?
They had already known that one day, this would be their fate.
At that moment, a razor-sharp biological blade grew out of Mina's arm. Shana's fingers transformed as long claws extended from them, while Duyên's eyes burned indigo as she began chanting incomprehensible incantations.
Charli tightly closed her eyes. She accepted her fate, along with the fate of her comrades. Her hand tightly grasped the silver star-shaped pendant hanging around her neck. She whispered,
"Oh, Lya... You have to survive..."
Then she firmly gripped her enchanted dagger. She and her comrades shouted together and charged forward. Duyên, Shana, and Mina did the same. Thunder roared overhead, while the ground itself began to violently transform.
A horrifying battle erupted—but it ended quickly.
Nyck collapsed onto the grass. He looked down at his own body as well as the bodies of the other girls, which slowly disintegrated into fine dust and scattered into the air after suffering Mina's devastating slashes. With bitterness in his voice, just before he disappeared completely, he murmured,
"Oh, great Emilia..."
Duyên snatched the triangular metal box from Charli's hand while Charli was already reduced to nothing more than a severed head rolling across the ground. Her mouth muttered,
"Susanoo took the child away..."
And then she too dissolved into the wind. Only the star-shaped pendant remained on the scorched grass.
All three of them had also been seriously injured during the chaotic battle. They were practically on the verge of collapsing onto the grass. But Duyên refused to allow herself to fall just yet. She gritted her teeth and stood rigidly, staring at the triangular object in her hand.
"It wasn't these people who did this... Susanoo... Who...?"
Shana struggled to catch her breath while gently stroking the hair of the dead girls who had fallen in the fox village.
"...He's the third son. There was once a time when he was worshiped as a hero. Some others considered him an evil god of storms..."
Duyên couldn't understand any of this mythological knowledge at all. The rage she had felt earlier quickly turned into an unbearable sadness. Both Susanoo and these people had been willing to risk their lives because of this child...?
Looking at the corpses around her made Duyên's heart churn. A wave of regret overwhelmed her. But Shana had already noticed. She merely whispered, her eyes seeming to have lost their soul after the shock.
"Don't blame yourself, Duyên... Their fate had already been decided..."
But before she could realize what was happening, Duyên seemed to have activated some strange ability from the triangular piece of metal. A black portal suddenly appeared in front of them, blazing with an ominous darkness.
Both Shana and Mina immediately pushed themselves up from the ground in alarm and stared at Duyên. How could she possibly affect that thing?
"Don't! Duyên!"
Shana reached out, intending to stop Duyên. But an extremely powerful force field suddenly blasted both Shana and Mina backward. Mina screamed. Blood poured from her mouth after the injuries she had suffered in the previous battle. She desperately tried to throw herself toward Duyên, but every attempt failed.
"DON'T, DUYÊN! DON'T GO IN THERE! I CAN'T LOSE YOU AGAIN! I...!"
But none of their words could reach her anymore. Or rather—Duyên could no longer hear what they were saying. Her ears were gradually losing their ability to perceive sound in the face of a power that was strange, profound, and mysterious. And yet, even a trace of fear had already abandoned her. There was only one thought left in her heart. She whispered to the portal,
"Take me to Susanoo..." She commanded it.
Then she was pulled into the portal, disappearing completely into the air. The place where she arrived was a vast expanse of pure white snow.
Above her, the sky was filled with countless purple explosions, spreading across the heavens as though entire nebulae were violently colliding with one another.
Duyên tried to resist the freezing cold engulfing her body as she raised her head and looked toward the sky. She shuddered faintly in horror at its terrifying sight. And yet, she was also astonished by the beauty of such destruction.
All around her were endless layers of mountains covered in snow. There was no sign of any human presence anywhere nearby. The place where she stood was also a steep mountain peak. The only thing there was a tattered red flagpole, spinning wildly in the violent wind.
"So this is just one of my sister's masterpieces..." A deep, hoarse male voice. A man with long black hair stood with his back toward her.
"Do you think it's beautiful? All life, all history... buried beneath this endless white snow. And nowhere is the outcome any different. Everything eventually leads to endless extinction. Everything..."
Susanoo turned his head and looked at her.
"All because of this child..."
Duyên stared in horror at the little girl curled up asleep in Susanoo's arms. The child's face had already been affected by the freezing cold, and her skin had turned deathly pale. If she remained in this extreme weather any longer, she probably wouldn't even survive.
"Give the child to me..."
Duyên's voice came out low and threatening. She glared at Susanoo. Her attitude was almost completely different from her usual self. She wasn't even being polite. She didn't feel the need to show him any respect. She didn't care whether he was a god, a monster, or whatever kind of being he was.
Seeing the complete one-eighty-degree change in her attitude actually made Susanoo interested. It was almost as if the air around them had grown warmer from the collision of their opposing presences. He smiled contemptuously at her.
"Then come and take her, you filthy human..."