Shreeeeeeee—!
The sound of metal screaming against obsidian echoed across the bone-field. Bellona, the Soul of the Crimson Moon, was walking toward Haruto. Her massive, jagged broadsword was dragging behind her, carving a deep trench into the dark ground, sending sparks flying.
Her heavy plate armor clanked with every step, a rhythmic, intimidating sound that felt like the heartbeat of a battlefield. Despite the weight, she moved with the grace of a panther.
Bellona didn't look at Haruto with the fear of Ivory or the disgust of Lustra. Instead, a slow, predatory grin spread across her face
(Inner Thoughts:)'Here we go again. Stage 3. The "Warrior Queen". I can already see the script. She's going to talk about honor, the glory of the blade, and how no mortal has ever made it this far. It's funny... Lustra tried to give me a world I couldn't predict, but even her "paradise" followed a loop. Is there anything in this entire system that isn't a trope?'
"In ten thousand years, I have seen stars die and civilizations crumble, but I have never seen a mortal rewrite the Star's will with sheer spite,"
She mused, her voice deep and melodic like a war-drum.
"It's the most beautiful thing I've seen in centuries. You aren't a Candidate anymore. You are a Warrior."
She stopped ten paces away, her red eyes scanning Haruto's black-aura-drenched form. A fierce, predatory grin spread across her face.
She raised her massive, jagged broadsword and pointed it at his chest.
"To eat a Goddess's divinity just to keep standing... that is a hunger I can respect. You have more 'War' in your soul than all the warriors of the old world combined."
Haruto stood there, his chest torn, his skin pale and the stolen violet-crimson power of Lustra still swirling around his fists like toxic smoke. He didn't look honored by the compliment. He didn't even look interested.
He tilted his head, his eyes half-closed as if he were fighting back a massive yawn. He casually massaged his newly healed shoulder, his gaze flat and empty.
(Haruto's Inner Thoughts:)'She's waiting for me to be proud. She wants me to feel the "heat" of the battle. But honestly? The more she talks, the more I feel like I'm back at the Mart, listening to a manager explain the "Employee of the Month" benefits. It's all just... noise.'
"Is this the part where you tell me how special I am?"
Haruto interrupted, his voice cutting through her praise like a blade.
"Save the monologue for the next candidate, Bellona."
Bellona's grin flickered.
"I am not here for a speech or a performance review,"
Haruto continued, taking a slow step forward, the ground beneath his feet pixelating.
"Your sisters were disappointed. One tried to play a board game, the other tried to sell me a dream. I'm tired of the gimmicks."
He looked her dead in the eye, his Devil Smile returning, sharper than ever.
"Shut up and get in the arena. I've got a high score to set, and you're the only Boss left on the board."
The air around Bellona ignited. The "War Goddess" didn't get angry—she got excited. To be told to shut up by a mortal was the ultimate spark for her fire.
"As you wish... WARRIOR!" she roared, her voice vibrating through the marrow of Haruto's bones.
Bellona slammed her fist into the obsidian ground.
[!! SYSTEM MAP UPDATE: The Blood-Red Arena!!]
The bone-field groaned as the ground literally liquefied into molten iron. Huge pillars of blood-stained marble erupted from the abyss, encircling them. In seconds, the wasteland vanished, replaced by a Gigantic Crimson Amphitheater.
Millions of ghostly, translucent warriors sat in the stands, their ethereal weapons clashing against their shields in a deafening rhythm. The sky turned a violent shade of rust, and the "Arena" felt like it was suspended in the middle of a collapsing star.
(Inner Thoughts:)'Now that's more like it. A dedicated combat zone. No more chess pieces, no more silk beds. Just a closed-loop arena with a single objective. The graphics are finally matching the difficulty level.
Bellona adjusted her grip on the massive broadsword, the metal groaning under her strength. But before she could kick off the ground, Haruto raised a hand, his expression lazy yet sharp.
"Wait a second," Haruto called out, his voice somehow cutting through the deafening roar of the crowd.
Bellona paused, her crimson eyes narrowing. "You wish to beg for a head start, warrior?"
"Not quite," Haruto said, a small, mocking smile playing on his lips.
"It's just that... if you're calling this a 'Warrior's Trial' and building this massive Arena, shouldn't we keep it symmetrical? A warrior against a warrior... both sides should have a weapon, don't you think? Going in empty-handed against that slab of iron seems like a balancing error."
Bellona let out a laugh that sounded like tectonic plates grinding together. She didn't lower her blade.
"Don't play the victim with me, Haruto," she growled, her aura flaring until the air around her turned into a heat haze. "I can see the 'energy' swirling in your veins. I can see the Aetheris Core bleeding into your soul. You aren't 'empty-handed.' Your very existence is a weapon—a weapon meant to consume everything it touches."
She took a predatory step forward, the obsidian ground cracking under her greave.
"Hiding your weapon won't save you from mine. You've stolen Ivory's logic and Lustra's essence... I know exactly what you're packing but," she paused, her eyes flashing with a sudden, sharp respect.
"If you truly feel the scales are tipped too far... if you feel this 'match' lacks balance... then listen well."
She pointed the tip of her massive broadsword at the ground, a solemn vow vibrating in her voice.
"I am the Goddess of War, but I am first a Warrior. If at any point in this battle I realize that your strength has surpassed mine—if I see that I can no longer bridge the gap between us—I will not drag out a pointless slaughter. I will admit defeat like a true warrior. I will hand you the victory you've earned."
Her grin returned, sharper than her blade. "until that moment... show me your moves!"
In a burst of speed that shattered the sound barrier, Bellona vanished. She reappeared above Haruto, her massive blade glowing with the heat of a thousand suns.
Bellona launched herself into the stratosphere, her crimson armor eclipsing the sun like a dying star. To any other mortal, she was a terrifying force of nature—but to Haruto, she was nothing more than a 'Descending Boss Attack' with a fixed impact radius of ten meters.
As she plummeted, the air around her ignited into a roar of friction, but Haruto's mind remained as cold as a frozen server.
(Inner Monologue):
"Velocity: 120 m/s.
Angle of descent: 85 degrees.
Impact window: 0.8 seconds.
Blocking with bare hands?: Of course not .
Damage intake: 100% (Instant Death).
Dodging? Inefficient action.
"I don't need to move... I need to rewrite collision physics."
But a voice—deep and ancient—echoed from the Aetheris Core inside his chest:
"The answer lies within your own history."
Haruto's hand suddenly twitched toward his pocket. He felt the cold, cheap handle of the pocket knife he had taken from those thugs back in his world. It was a pathetic piece of metal—blunt, small, and useless against a Goddess.
'This?' Haruto thought, pulling it out. 'Against a divine broadsword, this is just a toothpick. But if I can... overwrite its properties...'
He closed his eyes for 0.1 seconds, reaching into the deepest archives of his memory. He visualized the Shadow-Blade, the legendary Greatsword he had spent five hundred hours grinding for in his once favorite RPG. He didn't just want a sword; he wanted a weapon that could parry 'Almighty' tier physics.
In less than a heartbeat, the Black Aura coiling around his arms screamed. The static in the air intensified, sounding like a thousand particles being forced into a single point. The cheap knife didn't just grow; it fused with the void.
As Bellona's blade descended like a falling star, Haruto didn't move. He reached into the empty air, and the black aura coiling around his arms suddenly condensed. The static in the air intensified, screaming with the sound of a thousand corrupted files.
—VROOOOOM—!---
From the darkness, a blade materialized. It wasn't steel; it was a jagged, obsidian-black Greatsword that seemed to suck the light out of the arena. Reality itself seemed to glitch and stutter as a 6-foot-long, obsidian-black Greatsword manifested from the void, dropping perfectly into Haruto's palm. The edges of the weapon flickered with violet glitches, and as Haruto gripped the hilt, a shockwave of cold energy blasted outward, meeting Bellona's heat head-on.The blade was an anomaly. It had zero physical weight, yet its mere presence was so 'heavy' that the obsidian ground beneath his feet began to shatter under the pressure of its existence. The edges of the sword weren't forged; they were pixelated fractures that vibrated with a hunger for divine blood.
A wide, grotesque Devil's Smile spreads across Haruto's face—the kind of look a speedrunner gives when they find a game-breaking exploit.
"Jackpot," he whispered, his voice vibrating with a dark, manic ecstasy.
—-CLAAAAANG!--
The collision of the two massive blades sent a ripple through the ground, pulverizing the surrounding bones into a fine white mist.
With a sudden, violent surge of his black aura, Haruto flexed his muscles and shoved Bellona back. The Goddess of War skidded across the obsidian floor, her heavy boots carving deep trenches into the stone as she stabilized herself.
Haruto didn't immediately pursue. Instead, he raised the obsidian greatsword, watching the violet static dance along its pixelated edge. He ran a finger near the blade—not touching it, but feeling the way it tried to erase the very air around his skin. A dark, satisfied hum vibrated from the weapon
"A Nihil-Edge? No... that's too clinical," Haruto muttered, his eyes reflecting the blade's hollow void.
"You're a tear in the fabric. You're the Void Reaper."
The sword pulsed as if acknowledging its new name.
Bellona's eyes widened. She had expected to crush a bug; instead, she had struck a mountain of obsidian. Her broadsword, forged in the heart of a dying star, was being held at bay by a jagged slab of glitched shadows.
"Not bad for a 'descending boss attack'," Haruto hissed.
With a sudden, violent surge of his black aura. The veins in his arms turned a pulsing violet, and with a grunt of raw, unfiltered power, he shoved.The Goddess of War—a being who had never been moved by a mortal—was sent skidding across the obsidian floor. Her heavy boots carved deep, smoking trenches into the stone as she fought for friction, her massive frame finally coming to a halt twenty meters away.
Bellona stood twenty meters away, her boots still smoking from the friction of being shoved back. She looked at the massive, glitching slab of darkness in Haruto's hands, and instead of anger, a terrifying, blood-red joy filled her face.
"Ha! I knew it!" Bellona roared, her voice booming across the amphitheater. "I told you, didn't I? I knew you were hiding a fang behind that bored expression!"
She raised her own broadsword, the heat from it shimmering in the air.
—DING!—
[EMOTIONAL RESONANCE: 25%]
[SYSTEM ALERT: FIRST-STAGE AWAKENING DETECTED]
Haruto stood in the center of the crater, his breathing heavy but rhythmic. Something was changing. The 25% resonance wasn't just a number; it was a physical mutation.
Suddenly, Haruto's head snapped to the side as a sharp, agonizing heat bloomed in his skull. From his left eye, a thick, viscous stream of Black Aura began to leak, coiling into the air like necrotic smoke. It wasn't just energy; it was a visual representation of his soul being overwritten by the Aetheris Core.
The iris of his left eye turned into a bottomless void of violet static, flickering like a broken television screen.
(Inner Thoughts:)'25%... Is this it? The sensory dampeners are failing. I can feel the arena... I can feel her heartbeat... I can feel the "code" of the air itself. The boredom is gone. This... this is the high I've been looking for.'
Bellona stood up straight, a trail of smoke rising from her armor. She looked at Haruto—half-human, half-glitch—and she didn't see a victim anymore. She saw her own end.
"Your eye..." Bellona whispered, her voice a mix of awe and predatory hunger.
Haruto pointed the 6-foot obsidian Greatsword at her, the black smoke from his eye trailing behind him like a funeral veil.
"Winning isn't the point, Bellona," Haruto said, his voice now layered with a distorted, digital echo.
Suddenly, his vision flickered. The world didn't just look like an arena anymore—it looked like Transparent Code.
(Inner Thoughts:)'Wait... what is this? I can see everything. The stress points in her armor... the friction coefficient of the air... the exact mana-density in her blade. It's like the world has been stripped of its textures, leaving only the raw data behind.'This feeling... It's intoxicating. Is this what the Gods feel like? No, this is different. This is the power to overwrite. With this much output... forget a Goddess. I feel like I could face a nuclear bomb, catch it with my bare hands, and tear the explosion apart before it even starts.'
He flexed his fingers around the hilt of the Void-Reaper. He could feel the Aetheris Core humming inside him, no longer a foreign object, but a part of his nervous system. The power wasn't just surging; it was overflowing.'A jagged, violet-black spark leapt from his bleeding eye, scorching the ground. He looked at Bellona, and for the first time, he didn't see a threat. He saw a Target.
But the moment of admiration was short-lived. Bellona let out a guttural roar, her crimson hair flaring into a pillar of fire. She didn't just lunge this time; she became a blur of atmospheric friction.
"DON'T FORGET ME, MORTAL THE WAR IS STILL ON!"
She leapt high and brought her jagged broadsword down with the force of a falling moon. As the blades locked again, she didn't just strike—she leaned her entire divine weight and momentum into the press. The obsidian ground beneath Haruto's feet shattered instantly, spider-webbing outward for miles. The sheer pressure was immense, trying to grind him into the dust of the skeletons he stood upon.
Bellona's eyes widened. She was pushing with the weight of a mountain, but Haruto was holding her back with a single hand on his hilt.
Suddenly, Haruto's vision shifted. The world around him slowed down, turning into the familiar "Frame-Data" of the impossible-tier games he had played for years.
(Inner Thoughts:)"Left shoulder dip... 0.4 seconds until the next swing. Footwork: Heavy. Attack Pattern: Predictable Aggression. It's just like the 'Infernal Knight' boss from Level 99... only slower."
Flashbacks of his cramped room, the glow of his old console, and the thousands of hours spent mastering pixel-perfect dodges flooded his mind. To Bellona, this was a holy war. To Haruto, this was just Muscle Memory.
Bellona roared, unleashing a flurry of strikes. Each swing was fast enough to slice through mountains, but Haruto was already moving before the blade even arrived.
He tilted his head by an inch—the blade whistled past his ear. He stepped back a fraction—the tip of her sword grazed his vest, cutting nothing but air.
"What's wrong, Goddess?"
Haruto whispered, his voice appearing right behind her ear.
Bellona spun around, her eyes frantic.
"How?! You aren't just dodging... you're predicting the very flow of my spirit!"
"It's not spirit, Bellona," Haruto said, his Devil Smile cutting through the darkness.
"It's just that I am a player and I've already memorized your attack animations."
He swung the Void-Reaper in a horizontal arc. The black blade didn't just cut; it left a trail of "Missing Data" in the air. Bellona raised her sword to block, but the moment the blades touched, she felt her physical strength being 'Subtracted.'
"BLOOD-RAIN CATACLYSM!" Bellona shrieked, her hand descending like a conductor of slaughter.
In an instant, a hundred crimson swords pivoted in mid-air, their edges so sharp they whistled as they sheared through the atmosphere. Bellona's eyes flared with certainty; there was no mathematical possibility for a mortal to evade a hundred simultaneous trajectories.
But Haruto just stood there, his smile widening into something jagged and inhuman.
Haruto's head tilted forward, his hair casting a deep shadow over his face. Suddenly,his left eye ignited with a more violent, violet-black radiance. A thick, necrotic mist—the Black Aura—began to pour from the socket, masking half his face in a veil of darkness. He no longer looked like a candidate; he looked like a Demon emerging from a corrupted server.
But Haruto just stood there.
(Inner thoughts):'Wait... everything is... stopping? No, not stopping. Decelerating. I can see the friction heat on the tip of the closest blade. I can see the vibration of Bellona's vocal cords. Why do I feel such power? It makes no sense... it's as if my processing speed has increased by 100x.'
Haruto reached out his hand, moving through the air as if it were water. He realized then—it wasn't just his mind. The black aura leaking from his eye was warping the space around him. It was acting like a Local Server Delay. To Bellona, he was a blur; to him, the "Blood-Rain" was nothing more than a collection of slow-moving, poorly coded projectiles.
'It's the aura,' Haruto realized, his violet-black eye pulsing with every heartbeat.
'It's not just a shield. It's a sensory hijack. It's feeding me the raw data of the arena before the world can even render it. I'm existing in the frames between seconds.'
A jagged, inhuman smile spread across his face, visible beneath the mask of mist.
Bellona blinked—just once.
SWOOSH—!
The hundred crimson blades slammed into the earth where Haruto had been standing a microsecond before. The explosion was cataclysmic, pulverizing the obsidian floor into a crater of jagged shrapnel and dust. But the target was gone.
"Where is he?!" Bellona screamed, her crimson hair flickering wildly as she scanned the settling dust.
"Look behind you, SO CALLED GODESS ," a cold, ominous voice hissed directly into her ear.
A primal chill raced down Bellona's spine. Before she could even begin to pivot, Haruto manifested out of thin air. His Void-Reaper was already mid-swing, trailing a streak of absolute darkness that seemed to swallow the light around it.
BOOM—!
It wasn't just a physical strike; Haruto had triggered a 'Spatial Glitch.' Upon impact, Bellona's heavy crimson armor—forged in the heart of the Star—shattered like cheap glass. The force of the blow was so immense it drove the Goddess of War straight into the ground, burying her under the weight of her own. Her hundred swords evaporated into wisps of red smoke.
Haruto stood over her, the shadow aura still leaking from his eye like a dark flame. He pressed the cold, pixelated edge of the Void-Reaper against her throat.
"High score achieved, Bellona," Haruto whispered, his voice resonating in an eerie dual-tone.
"Are you ready for defeat?"
Bellona lay in the crater, her breath coming in ragged, shallow gasps. She looked up at the flickering violet eye of the man standing over her—the man who had looked at the pinnacle of divine power and found it "boring."
Slowly, with the deliberate grace of a true sovereign of battle, she reached out and gripped the hilt of her shattered broadsword. She didn't raise it to strike. Instead, she drove the jagged remains of her blade deep into the obsidian earth beside her, burying it to the hilt in a final, silent salute.
She let out a long, weary sigh, the fire in her crimson hair finally fading into a soft, dying ember. There was no rage in her eyes anymore—only a profound, crystalline clarity.
"I have fought for eons, seeking a force that could truly break my spirit,"
she rasped, her lips curving into a small, genuine smile.
"I expected a hero. I expected a god. But to be brought to my knees by a mortal ...a man who is driven by emotion... a man who fights simply because he refuses to be bored..."
She closed her eyes and let her head rest against the cold stone, exposing her throat completely to the Void-Reaper.
"You win, Haruto. The war is over. My blade is yours, and my defeat... is the most exciting thing I have felt in an eternity. Do what you must."
As Bellona's words faded into the bone-filled silence, the violent, flickering aura around Haruto began to recede. The shadow mist leaking from his eye evaporated, and the jagged violet static on his skin smoothed out, returning to the pale, calm complexion of the man from the 'Day-Break Mart.'
He exhaled—a long, heavy breath that carried away the heat of the battle. He lowered the Void-Reaper, the massive obsidian blade vanishing back into the digital ether of his soul.
(Inner Thoughts:)'Ugh... it's already over? Seriously? I was just starting to enjoy the frame-rate at 100x speed. I thought the Goddess of War would have at least three or four phases, but I guess the Void-Reaper is just a massive balancing exploit. Oh well... at least I got to test the weapon's weight. 7/10 for the combat mechanics, 2/10 for the length of the boss fight.'
The moment Haruto's killing intent vanished, the system's penalty took effect.
Bellona's powerful, athletic form began to flicker. Her crimson hair lost its fire, turning into jagged red pixels. Her armor, already shattered, began to dissolve into translucent shards. She looked at her hands as they started to fade, the purple sky of the dying realm visible through her palms. Like Ivory and Lustra before her, the Goddess of War was now nothing more than a translucent ghost.
The other two goddesses approached the crater, their forms just as ghostly and fragile. In perfect unison, the three fallen sisters—Logic, Lust, War—dropped to their knees. Even in their fading, translucent states, they bowed their heads with a reverence that shook the air.
"The Star has spoken through your victory,"
Ivory whispered, her silver voice echoing with a hollow, digital reverb.
"You have surpassed the script. You have proven yourself worthy of the... Aetheris."
Haruto didn't reply. He just scratched the back of his head, looking at them with a look of mild exhaustion. The excitement was fading, replaced by a familiar, lingering dryness.
In a blink, the bone-field and the velvet sky were gone. Haruto found himself back in the endless white abyss where it all began.
The Light Being stood before him, its radiance pulsating with a rhythmic, satisfied hum.
"What a performance," the Being spoke, its voice echoing like a choir of a thousand stars.
"The trials were... entertaining, weren't they? But tell me, Star-Child—can you keep this fire alive in the world below? Or was this just a temporary glitch in your boredom?"
Haruto looked at the Being, his expression flat. The "Star-Child" title glowed faintly on his chest, but he didn't look like a savior. He looked like a man who had just finished a long shift.
"I didn't do this for your entertainment," Haruto muttered, shoving his hands into his pockets.
"I did it because it was the only thing on the menu."
The Being's radiance suddenly flared, then began to dim. "Fair enough. But the trial is over, and so is the 'Free Trial' of my power. I am taking back the direct link to the Core. From here on, you earn your keep. My essence will remain dormant within you—a seed—but the strength you wield must be built by your own hand."
Haruto frowned.
"Great. So I'm back to being a nobody in a world I don't even have a goal for."
The Being let out a laugh that sounded like crystal bells.
"No goal? Haruto, the moment you stepped into this world, your goal was hard-coded into your soul. To reach Level 100. In your language... that is your Main Quest."
The Light Being began to fade, its form turning into gold dust.
"But don't worry. This time, the game won't be a lonely bone-field. There will be things you never imagined, monsters you can't predict, and stakes that actually matter. The server is live, Star-Child. Don't let it crash."
"Wait!" Haruto stepped forward, his eyes narrowing.
"Who the hell are you, anyway? A Developer? A God?"
The Being didn't answer. It vanished into a blinding flash of gold.
Haruto's vision blurred. His stomach dropped as if he were falling through the floor. When his eyes finally snapped open.
Before the world could even render around him, a massive, golden screen erupted in the darkness of his vision. It didn't flicker with the red errors of the past. It was smooth, solid, and hummed with the authority of the Star itself.
[!! CRITICAL MILESTONE REACHED !!]
A secondary notification pulsed in a deep, blood-red gold, accompanied by the sound of a distant war-horn:
[GODDESS OF WAR: SECOND ENLIGHTENMENT COMPLETED]
Suddenly, a massive, crystalline screen manifested in the air before him. Unlike the previous error-filled windows, this one was sleek,golden, and terrifyingly clear.
[SYSTEM INITIALIZATION COMPLETE]
USER: Haruto
LEVEL: 0 (Limitless Potential)
SKILL: [EMOTIONAL RESONANCE](LOCKED) – Power scaled by the intensity of the soul.
PASSIVE SKILL: [FLASH](LOCKED) – Absolute movement within the frame-rate of reality.
EQUIPPED WEAPON: [VOID-REAPER](LOCKED) – A blade that deletes what it cuts.
REWARD: 1000 G-CREDITS
Haruto's eyes scanned the data, but they stopped at the bottom of the screen where a glowing, ancient text flickered under his name.
[TITLE ACQUIRED: STAR-CHILD]
The three translucent Goddesses gasped in unison, their flickering eyes widening as they saw the title. A Star-Child wasn't just a candidate or a sovereign; it was something the system hadn't seen in an eternity.
Haruto looked at the title, a small, half-hearted smirk playing on his lips.
"Star-Child? Sounds like a low-level starter class. But I guess it'll do for now."
As the title integrated into his profile, the violent atmosphere of the bone-field underwent a radical shift. For the entire duration of the trials, the raw, divine aura of this realm had been like acid to Haruto—crushing his lungs, searing his skin, and draining his HP. But now?
The heavy, suffocating pressure vanished. The jagged, translucent fractures in his skin—the "glitches" that had been tearing him apart—began to close. His body, which had been flickering like a corrupted video file between a human and a shadow, finally solidified.
Even his shredded retail vest stopped fluttering violently. The divine winds died down to a gentle breeze, and the metallic scent of ozone was replaced by a strange, peaceful silence. The very air that had been trying to delete him was now swirling around him, nourishing his depleted cells.
(Haruto's Inner Thoughts:)'The environmental damage has stopped. The debuffs are gone. It's like the map itself has acknowledged that I'm not a guest anymore.... The "pressure" I felt before? That wasn't the Goddesses' power. It was the system trying to eject a foreign object. Now, the system is finally syncing with my heartbeat.'
He exhaled, and for the first time since leaving the 'Day-Break Mart,' his breath didn't come out as violet smoke. He felt light. He felt synchronized. He felt... ready to see who was running this game from the shadows.
His body, which had been pixelating and glitching between a human and a shadow, finally solidified. The jagged, translucent fractures in his skin closed up. His retail vest, though torn and scorched, stopped fluttering in the divine wind as the atmospheric pressure returned to normal.
For the first time since the trial began, Haruto looked human again. But it was a different kind of 'human.' He stood with a predatory stillness, his presence no longer a 'Virus' attacking the system, but the System itself.
[!! SYSTEM STATUS: REBOOT COMPLETE !!]
[LEVEL: 0]
Haruto looked at the floating status bar, his eyes widening slightly before a lazy smirk crossed his face.
(Inner Thoughts:)'Level Zero? Back to the start, huh? Usually, in these games, a Level 0 reset after a promotion means the growth caps have been removed. It's so much better now. No more messy glitches, no more forced resonance... I actually have a chance to grind this world from the ground up. This isn't an ending; it's a New Game Plus.'
As the white light settled, the translucent ghosts of Ivory, Lustra, and Bellona drifted toward him. They were no longer the terrifying rulers of the moons, but spirits tethered to his new Authority.
He looked down at his hands. The raw, emotional heat was gone, replaced by a cold, absolute control. The three Goddesses—Ivory, Lustra, and the broken Bellona—looked at him not with anger, but with a paralyzing awe. They weren't looking at a clerk anymore; they were looking at a living anomaly.
Haruto's eyes drifted to the crystalline screen, scanning the gold-etched title at the bottom.
"Star-Child, huh?" Haruto muttered, his voice returning to its bored, melodic tone.
"Sounds like a lot of responsibility."
He turned his back on the kneeling Goddesses, looking toward the horizon where the bone-field was starting.
"Game on," he whispered.