I looked up — and the sky was broken.
Cracks of light split across the clouds like glass under a hammer, and from the wound above, an eye stared down at me. Vast. Unblinking. Ancient.
The moment I met its gaze, agony detonated behind my eyes.
Fire flooded my skull — a searing, crawling pain that clawed through bone and nerve until I couldn't even scream properly. I dropped my weapon and slammed a fist into my own temple, desperate to make it stop — to end it.
Something shattered against my head.
Cool liquid poured down my face, hissing where it touched burning flesh. The flames in my eyes dimmed, and the bleeding slowed. A potion—someone had broken a healing vial over me.
I gasped, shaking, vision still swimming with afterimages of that thing.
[Adam]: Thanks… to whoever made my body like this. If I were still human, I'd be ash by now.
Around me, others weren't so lucky.
Knights screamed as golden fire consumed their eyes from the inside, their bodies collapsing into drifting piles of ash before the sound even faded.
And amid the ruin — Lee knelt.
Blood still running down his cheek, his single remaining eye alight with reverence and madness. His laughter cracked the silence like thunder.
[Lee]: Oh… God of Pain and Cruelty— spawn of the Hollow Empress of the Depthless Stars, born from the light of the Hero who failed to slew your mother—your beloved lamp calls for you! Descend so that I may offer you this world's final prayer!
The ground trembled. The cracks in the sky widened.
And from that terrible gaze above, something began to move.
The sky shattered completely.
Glasslike fragments of heaven rained down, each shard burning through the air like molten mirrors. Some people dared to look up. Their heads burst like overripe fruit, blood spraying in halos. Others dropped to their knees, weeping crimson tears that hissed when they hit the ground.
I didn't look. Neither did Lilith.
We both kept our eyes fixed on the dirt, our bodies shaking under the weight pressing down from above — something ancient, heavy, alive.
When I dared to glance sideways, I saw Silk standing among the knights. Tyrant loomed beside her, his metal frame groaning from strain. Even he trembled.
[Silk]: Analysis complete. A true lesser divine has descended. Looking upon a divine without permission triggers immediate retribution. Estimated survival rate: negative ten percent.
She paused, her usually flat tone softening just slightly.
[Silk]: It was… nice knowing you, Adam. I had hoped we'd continue our discussions about shark girls, dragon girls… and handsome boys.
I opened my mouth to answer, to say anything, but a scream tore through the air — high, broken, and very human.
[Lee]: M-my lord… what—what are you—?! Help me!
The next moment, I was moving—no, flying.
The world spun, and I realized my body wasn't attached. My head had been torn from my shoulders and flung like a toy, caught in the wind of Lee's agony.
And then I saw it.
The thing that crawled from the wound in the sky.
It was a beast, but even that word was too kind.
Two goatlike heads fused into one, three unblinking eyes burning like dying suns. Four curling horns jutted out in impossible angles, one piercing through the other's skull. Its body was a forest of black hair and bleeding light, four arms dragging chains of flesh and metal.
It wore a dress woven from thorns and ribs, and upon its twin brows sat a crown of nails hammered deep into living bone.
Each step the creature took made the ground weep blood.
The soil split like open veins, rivers of red pulsing toward its feet as if the world itself worshipped its arrival.
Then, its gaze found me.
And in that instant, Lee's broken body drifted beside mine, still screaming. The divine's many eyes turned toward him, and the air itself twisted.
He folded inward.
Bone, muscle, and skin crushed together with wet cracks until he was nothing more than a pulsing ball of meat—then that mass moved.
It shot toward me, ramming into my face and forcing itself down my throat.
I couldn't even scream.
Hot iron filled my lungs, my ribs tore apart from the inside, and my vision flickered between life and death. I saw Lee's face, or what was left of it, pushing against my ribs from within, trying to claw his way out through me.
Then the Beast turned away, as if I were no more than a discarded toy, and hurled me back to the earth. The impact shattered something deep—I could hear my bones begging for mercy.
A sound, mechanical and cruelly calm, echoed through the chaos.
{DING}
You have lost your final Totem of Undying.
{Warning: Active Trader Life at 4%. Emergency intervention authorized.}
{Dispatching Debt Collector. Fee: 80%.}
The world froze around me as those words pulsed in my skull.
Every sound—every scream, every heartbeat, every drop of blood mid-fall—hung motionless in the air. Even the divine beast stood still, its twin goat heads frozen mid-snarl, threads of crimson light trapped between its fangs.
And then the air split.
A shape stepped out from nowhere—
—No, not stepped. It appeared like reality itself had remembered it was supposed to exist.
A man.
Tall, draped in a long black coat that rippled despite the stillness of the world. His face was hidden by shadow, but his eyes—cold, metallic gray—glowed faintly with clockwork light. A silver chain looped from his collar to the air itself, vanishing into some unseen ledger far above.
He looked at me once, expression unreadable.
Then turned his gaze to the Beast.
The creature that had broken the sky, that had crushed armies and consumed men like prayers—
—died.
No struggle. No roar. No light.
It simply ceased to exist, collapsing into dust that turned to ash before it even touched the ground.
The man dusted his gloved hands together once, like finishing paperwork. Then he knelt beside me, boots clicking against frozen blood.
"Debt registered," he said, his voice echoing like a thousand receipts being stamped at once. "Payment collected. Service rendered."
His palm pressed against my forehead.
White light exploded behind my eyes. My shattered bones knit together in a single pulse. The burns vanished. The taste of blood and rot disappeared. For the first time since this nightmare began—
I felt whole.
My health bar blinked full.
Before I could speak, before I could even thank him, he straightened and adjusted his collar. The chain retracted, vanishing into the clouds above.
He turned, stepping forward once—
—and reality swallowed him whole, the way a page erases ink.
The world resumed.
The blood fell. The screams continued. And I stood there, alive again, staring at the ash where the divine monster had been.
[Adam]: …What the hell just happened?
[Silk]: Unknown entity. Analysis failed. Cross-referencing pattern signatures.
Pause.
[Silk]: Correction—pattern matches a merchant protocol: "Debt Collector." Subclassification—Level Omega. Reality Executor. Not divine. Not mortal.
[Vlad]: Adam? The hell was that light? We felt it all the way at the front!
[Adam]: …Our bill got paid.
[Silk]: Affirmative. At the cost of eighty percent of all points.
I looked at the blackened crater where the Beast had been. The air still smelled like burned time.
And far above, the cracks in the sky were closing—slowly, painfully—like the world itself was trying to pretend nothing had happened.
[Day 46]
The return to the island was silent. No jokes. No celebration.
Just the low hum of the portal fading behind us and the uneasy quiet of home.
Yesterday's trade was a loss.
Not just in coin—but in meaning.
[Trade Evaluation Complete]
State: Profits Made → -70%
Profit Type: Money / Coins
Points Awarded: 1032 → 100
Evaluation Rank: [DIRT]
Tax & System Fees: 10% Standard / 80% Emergency Debt Collection
The notification faded into the air like ash.
[Vlad]: So… are we just going to not talk about it, Adam?
His voice came through the door—calm, cautious, the way you'd speak to someone sitting on a landmine.
[Adam]: Vlad, just… leave me alone, brother.
[Vlad]: I just finished reforging Tyrant's frame. He's fine. Everyone's fine. But you? You've been locked in your room since we got back. Come out. Do some farming, fishing—hell, even yelling at me would be better than this.
[Adam]: I said leave it, Vlad.
The silence that followed was long and heavy.
[Vlad]: …All right. But I hope when I see you next, you're standing under the sun, not hiding from it.
His footsteps faded down the hall.
The room was quiet again—too quiet.
Only the sound of the wind brushing against the wooden walls of the skyblock.
I sat on the floor, back against the bed, staring at the faint cracks of light bleeding through the window. Every time I looked up, I half-expected to see it—the sky breaking. The eye. The Beast. The Collector.
My hands wouldn't stop shaking.
[Adam]: Just a merchant job… that's all it was. Just a… job.
Hours passed. The clock ticked, though I never wound it.
When I finally blinked,
I wanted to scream. To tear it off. But instead, I sat back, staring through the window into the dark.
I couldn't even see the stars anymore—
—just the cracks, faint, flickering… like the sky was still bleeding behind the curtain.
[Day 47]
I finally opened the door.
The hinges groaned, as if even they had grown used to silence.
Light spilled in—too bright, too clean. For a heartbeat, I thought it was another crack in the sky and nearly slammed the door shut again.
But it was just morning.
The world was still here.
The smell of wet dirt. The quiet hum of Silk's drones tending the fields. The rhythmic clank of Tyrant's repaired arm as he helped re-stack the cobblestone wall I'd built wrong weeks ago.
It was all painfully normal.
And that was what terrified me most.
[Vlad]: Well, look who remembered he's got legs.
His voice came from the garden. He was kneeling by the edge of the water trough, shirt tied around his waist, arms slick with grease and blood-red oil. His swords leaned beside him, half-buried in the soil like gravestones.
He didn't look up, but I knew he'd seen me.
He always did.
[Adam]: I… needed air.
[Vlad]: Yeah. We all do. Some of us just don't forget to breathe for twenty-four hours straight.
He finally glanced at me. His expression was calm, but his eyes were searching — looking for something broken he could fix with a hammer and forge fire.
[Vlad]: Eat. Walk. Talk. Whatever helps. You don't need to fight the ghosts in your head alone.
I didn't answer. I just walked past him and stared at the farm. Rows of wheat swaying gently in the morning breeze, golden and calm. For a second, I could almost pretend everything was fine.
Then I blinked —
—and the wheat shimmered.
Each stalk became a pale arm reaching upward. Fingers, thin and jointed like bone, clawed at the sky before vanishing in a ripple of color. The field went back to normal.
My heart pounded so hard I thought it would break through my chest.
[Adam, whispering]: Still here. Still broken.
[Silk]: Adam detected.
Her voice came from above, clipped and emotionless as always, but I could tell her processors were running overtime—her tone had a glitch in it.
[Silk]: Monitoring your vitals indicates chronic stress patterns. You are… not well.
[Adam]: That's new. Are you diagnosing emotions now?
[Silk]: Negative. I'm monitoring for signs of divine contamination.
Her eyes flickered blue, scanning me up and down.
[Silk]: Residual pattern still present. Thirty-seven percent trace of Lesser Divine Pressure. That is… concerning.
[Adam]: You think it's inside me?
[Silk]: No. I think it's becoming you.
I froze. The words echoed in the quiet air, heavier than any weapon I'd ever carried.
[Silk]: You are being converted—partially angelized—by the divine residue that was forced into your soul. Under normal metaphysical conditions, your body would adapt or burn out within minutes. But this world's fractured logic… your human physiology… and that "merchant Book"—they're holding it together. For now.
Her eyes dimmed, flickering with static like she was trying not to sound afraid.
[Silk]: With the death of the divine that marked you, its remaining essence has no anchor. It lingers… trapped inside your core. Feeding on your mana. Rewriting your soul to survive.
The words hit like a blade through water. My stomach turned.
I could still feel it—something cold, alive, coiled deep in my chest, breathing in rhythm with my heart.
[Vlad]: Silk. Not now.
[Silk]: You don't understand, Vlad. He doesn't have time.
[Vlad]: I said—
[Silk]: Ten days.
Her voice cut through his, sharper than steel.
[Silk]: In ten days, the conversion will reach critical mass. The divine energy will go berserk, and Adam's body—along with anything within a thirty-block radius—will either ascend or explode. Probability favors the latter.
The field went silent. The wind itself seemed to hold its breath.
I looked down at my hands. The faint shimmer of light under my skin wasn't sweat—it was leaking. Small threads of radiance pulsed from my veins, like veins made of starlight.
[Adam]: So I'm dying.
[Silk]: Not yet. But soon, unless we can purge or stabilize the divine fragment.
[Vlad]: And how exactly do we do that? Cut it out of him? Drown him in potion stock?
[Silk]: Neither will work. It's rooted in the soul layer, not the physical. Only one option remains.
[Adam]: Let me guess—something stupid.
She folded her arms, mechanical fingers twitching.
ChatGPT said:
[Silk]: We find a living divine—one capable of reclaiming or overwriting the fragment before it detonates. Preferably before Adam starts glowing and screaming in Enochian.
[Vlad]: Great. So, we just need to track down a god, convince it not to kill us, and ask it to perform emergency soul surgery. Sounds simple enough.
[Silk]: Alternatively… we change the vessel.
Both of us turned toward her. Her mechanical eyes pulsed once—slow, deliberate.
[Silk]: If Adam's species were modified into something capable of holding divine energy—an angelic hybrid, a saint, or even a proto-divine construct—his soul might stabilize. Conversion carries immense risk, but it's more viable than begging an entity that considers mortals edible.
[Adam]: …So my options are to beg a god or become one of its failed experiments. Great.
[Silk]: Statistically, the latter offers a forty-two percent higher survival chance.
[Vlad]: You said he's got ten days.
[Silk]: Nine point eight, technically. His aura is fluctuating faster than expected.
[Vlad]: Then we move now. How do we even find a divine—or pull off a species change?
[Silk]: The Soul Market.
[Vlad]: …The what?
[Silk]: A metaphysical trade hub located between the mortal and spiritual layers. It sells everything—souls, blessings, identities, races, memories. If it exists, it's for sale there. For a price.
She tilted her head, then added matter-of-factly:
[Silk]: I also recommend bathing in high-grade healing potions to suppress the divine corrosion until we reach it. It won't stop the process, but it will keep him from combusting prematurely.
The table went quiet.
Even the air felt heavy—like the sky itself was listening.
I exhaled slowly, forcing the tremor out of my voice.
[Adam]: Let's… just finish dinner first. I'll look into the Soul Market once we've earned more points. Hopefully, we will get a visiting caravan soon.
[Lilith]: …A new caravan just arrived.
Silence.
Everyone froze.
The crackle of the campfire was the only sound for a moment. Then Vlad leaned back, rubbing his temples.
[Vlad]: Well, I guess the universe still has a sense of humor.
I looked toward the window. Beyond the horizon, faint lights were flickering—lanterns bobbing in the void, heading toward our island.
[Chapter End]