Unlike Sirin’s resolve, the flames that sought to shatter the sky flickered weakly under the black sun.
They scorched the leaves of the ash tree and reached the soaring Sirin, but that was all.
Like the noble light that dwelled in the ash tree, the flames of the celestial realm couldn’t repel the darkness of the end.
Thus, the flames that failed to reach the divine became the apostle of the Nameless One.
Sirin could do nothing but watch it all.
*
The chains of regulation that bound Sirin’s body broke free.
Despair, now thicker than before, scattered about.
And so began the Great War.
The surviving races were, as before, the demon kin.
Yet, they had become ash, remnants of the flames that once led them.
In the middle of the battlefield, where nothing remained, Sirin gazed at the hellish horrors that had consumed everything.
Looking up, she beheld Yggdrasil rooted at the world’s end.
For a moment, feeling the chains of regulation binding her, she spread her wings and soared up.
Reaching the summit where everything was in view, Sirin witnessed the world slowly crumbling away under the Jong-eon.
*
More chains had been broken.
A world once filled with happiness was now smeared with messy despair.
Thus erupted the Great War.
But this war was entirely different; it was a battle between beasts and those who were not.
The endless war continued for eons.
And thus, the ones who survived were the beasts.
Yet, they too had turned to ash under the hellish horrors.
Sirin, now visible to the world, did not descend upon the earth.
Instead, she merely wandered beneath the black sun, watching the world swallowed by the Jong-eon.
And once again, the world began anew.
*
The chains did not break.
There was no despair.
There were no beasts.
Yet, war broke out.
The cause was the elves’ greed for the dwarves’ technology.
The muddied desires ignited a war that ended as quickly as it began.
What remained at the end of the war was the demon kin.
What was left on the ground was ash.
Sirin’s eyes gazed down upon the earth.
There lay the Jong-eon, ready to engulf the world.
*
Chains broke.
Despair scattered.
War erupted.
And only ash remained.
From there, the Jong-eon awakened, beginning to swallow the world.
Eyes devoid of emotion gazed upon the Jong-eon consuming everything.
*
Chains broke.
Despair scattered.
War erupted.
And only ash remained.
From there, the Jong-eon awakened and began eating the world.
Sirin’s eyes watched the Jong-eon consume the world.
*
Chains broke.
Despair scattered.
War erupted.
And only ash remained.
From there, the Jong-eon awakened and began consuming the world.
The ancient dragon’s eyes gazed upon the Jong-eon swallowing everything.
*
Chains broke.
Despair scattered.
War erupted.
And only ash remained.
From there, the Jong-eon awakened and began to devour the world.
The eyes of regulation watched the Jong-eon consuming everything.
*
Chains broke.
Despair scattered.
War erupted.
And only ash remained.
From there, the Jong-eon awakened and began to consume the world.
Regulation shattered the world.
*
Chains broke.
Despair scattered.
War erupted.
And only ash remained.
From there, regulation awakened and began to dismantle the world, while Jong-eon scoffed at the crumbling reality.
*
The chains broke.
Despair scattered.
Upon the ruins of a finished war, a red moon rose.
The eyes of regulation gazed upon the land.
There, a celestial being with black wings glared at the sky.
Like the red moon, eyes steeped in hatred glared back.
In looking at it, regulation recalled its past.
Taken from the outside world.
Losing a newly formed family, losing close friendships, losing the only support and beloved one, losing even the child in the womb.
A celestial being that ultimately lost everything.
Such a being soared into the sky.
To bring down the cause of all despair, the sky.
To fulfill the wishes of the dead in its stead.
Hellish flames scorched its wings while the spirits’ powers shattered its limbs, yet it would not give up. Grasping onto the last remnants of the sky, it crawled up desperately.
Thus, passing through flames, over the ash tree, the celestial being reached Sirin, in a state so battered that merely being alive felt like a miracle.
Yet, it moved.
Unfolding its broken wings, stretching its twisted limbs, it lifted the red moon.
Casting black feathers and spilling the magical power contained within them.
Standing opposite to the celestial being, regulation, measuring the strength of the fallen, killed the celestial being.
*
The red moon, now an apostle of the Nameless One, set.
A new world began.
Despair scattered.
The Great War erupted.
Only black feathers remained.
Feathers laid over the desolate ruins.
Upon those feathers, regulation descended.
It dismantled the world.
*
The cycle continued, a newly begun world.
Amid the scattered despair, a girl of the beast folk, who had never existed before, was born.
Like the red moon, she had been pulled from the outside world.
This girl was unique.
She wielded magical power that no beast could handle, and she hadn’t aged as if time had frozen.
Because of this, she was abandoned by her parents.
Betrayed by her kin, she became a slave.
Elves, dwarfs, celestial beings, demon kin, and humans.
Regardless of the race, the girl faced various abuse and hardships every time she changed owners.
On a winter day, she encountered a friend.
A puppy.
The puppy, found scavenging through a trash bin, could not see.
The girl felt a kinship with the blind puppy.
Thus, the girl, left alone in the world, became the only friend of the puppy.
Every day was joyful.
Even on days when she was beaten by her owner, holding her friend seemed to melt away the pain.
One meal a day. A single meager bread was all the girl had, yet she shared it by tearing it in half for the puppy.
In this way, for the first time in her previously cold life, the girl could smile.
One day, three years later.
While she was about to go out to gift a scarf made of discarded threads to her friend, she was caught by her owner.
The outcome was obvious.
The friend was killed.
And the girl was beaten.
Beaten and beaten and beaten.
Unable to drink water, she swallowed the snow on the ground.
Unable to eat, she pulled weeds to fill her stomach.
Thus, for over five days, the owner who had been beating her, forced her friend’s corpse into her mouth, saying:
“Eat. Chew thoroughly, don’t leave a bone. Eat it all.”
The girl shook her head.
Holding tightly to her friend’s already cold corpse, she endured her owner’s violence.
On the seventh day, her friend vanished from this world without a trace.
The girl merged into one with her friend.
The girl hated her parents who had abandoned her.
Hated her kin who had sold her.
Hated the world that had made her this way.
And thus, she brought winter to the world.
It was a winter that would never end.
It was the winter she was born in.
It was the winter she met her friend.
And it was the winter in which she lost everything.
The winter that began without foreshadowing, ended the Great War and killed every life except for the girl.
But that wasn’t all.
The blizzard that covered the whole world hid the black feathers.
The fierce winds extinguished the flames.
The chilling cold withered the ash tree leaves.
As she felt the winter reaching even her, regulation quietly watched the unprecedented event unfold.
After deep contemplation, regulation…
When the Jong-eon awoke, it killed the girl.
*
The world began.
Despair scattered.
A Great War erupted.
Two races survived.
Beastfolk.
And humans, who had never survived until now.
Regulation’s “eye” busily searched for the anomalies of this generation.
So, it found the anomaly, a woman leading the humans.
Cartia.
Her unique ability was the origin of this current anomaly.
That ability unlocked a potential that had never existed before.
Her very existence was a miracle.
The heroes who had once led an era were beings from beyond the world. Thus, they had retained immense strength, free from regulation.
But this human…
Cartia was not.
She was undoubtedly a person of this world.
A being that could not grow free from regulation, akin to a tool for birthing heroes.
Such a human broke free from regulation.
Breaking free, she cleaved through all the beasts of the Jong-eon, marking regulation’s body with crimson scars.
Regulation, which had never shed blood, let out a rough roar at the sight of its own blood.
That roar carried emotions never encountered before.
Joy.
Hope.
And…
Regret.
Guilt.
Holding all of that, regulation uttered incantations it had never used before. Unfolding the ancient magic circle, it filled the sky.
However, Cartia and her guiding Frey slashed through all of it, tearing regulation’s flesh and muscles apart.
Thus, when regulation’s body was soaked in blood,
the black sun arose, and the Jong-eon appeared.
Upon stepping into the world, the Jong-eon immediately opened its maw and devoured all the seas.
This was a completely different move from before.
Did the Nameless One absorb all of Lilith’s power?
Before regulation could find the answer, chains raining from the sky bound regulation’s entire body.
They twisted its massive wings, wrapping around its neck.
They covered its mouth, stifling its roar, and plucked out every claw that tried to tear at the chains.
And at last, as if forbidding anything from being seen, the chains obscured its view.
The sight of the Jong-eon consuming half the continent and the sight of regulation carving thick scars upon Jong-eon’s body as it passed down all its possibilities to the next generation became visible.
*
Thus, in this newly started world…
A shaman was created to accomplish the myth of the Nameless One.
And a little blind girl, unseen even by regulation’s ‘eye,’ appeared.
