"Impossible…"
"No… this cannot be possible…"
"How could a creature this colossal, this terrifying… be standing right here, in front of me?"
"It's a lie…"
"All this time, it was nothing more than a myth… something that never truly existed…"
"It lived only in ancient legends, in films, and in the tales of the world's greatest writers… the invincible sovereign of the deep, the ultimate sea monster…"
"And now…"
"... are my own eyes betraying me?"
"Or… have I fallen so deep into a hallucination that I can no longer tell where reality ends and the illusion begins…?"
Even as Zain desperately tried to cling to a fraying hope...
Hoping that she had simply misidentified this titan.
Hoping that the creature standing before her wasn't real, and that it was only the cracks in her glasses—shattered into a thousand spiderweb lines—that made the world in front of her look like a broken, jagged puzzle.
Hoping that if she rubbed her eyes over and over again, the moment she opened them, the beast would vanish, and everything would return to how it used to be—her messy, cluttered room.
Hoping that if she simply chose to close her eyes and fall into a deep sleep, she would no longer hear that echoing roar, a sound so thunderous it forced the very earth beneath her into a relentless, violent tremor.
And that when she finally woke up, the only sound she would hear would be her mother's voice—loud, ceaseless, reminding her to do this and that, just as she always did, without a pause, without a breath.
But...
That hope detonated in an instant—dissolving into a hollow void—like a prayer whispered but never truly heard. Or perhaps, like a prayer that was never meant to have an answer from the very beginning.
The creature was still there, looming directly before her eyes.
Its body was agonizingly long, resembling a massive, endless serpent that could coil around the moon, yet its head… its head was that of a dragon, with jaws capable of swallowing the world in a single, merciless strike.
Its black scales were densely layered, reflecting the dim light like steel that had been endlessly forged for thousands of years—sharp, impenetrable, and lethal. Meanwhile, its eyes were impossibly wide—perhaps each the size of Zain's entire small form—crimson red, with a gaze that denied anyone the chance to blink, let alone move.
Its colossal body coiled and writhed with agonizing slowness—movements that were deliberate, heavy, and staccato.
Yet, with every slight undulation of its form, the earth beneath it shuddered in violent protest.
Then, from the depths, a rhythmic surge began to spread, dragging with it the ruins that had once been a city.
They were unearthed, caught in a swirling vortex, before being launched into the air at a velocity that defied the very speed of sunlight falling to the earth. Stones, dust, shards of twisted metal—everything scattered in a chaotic frenzy, weaving a dense, suffocating fog that choked her vision.
Zain's hands gripped even tighter, her knuckles turning bone-white.
There was no other choice.
Her fingers dug deep into the scorched earth, shoving harshly until grains of jagged soil and gravel wedged themselves beneath her fingernails. Within seconds, half of her arms were already submerged, buried in the dirt to anchor her fragile body.
She held on for dear life, desperate not to be hurled away or sent flying into the abyss along with the lethal barrage of debris that showed no sign of slowing down.
"What… what should I do…?"
"My body… I… I can't hold on much longer…"
"But… I'm too terrified… too terrified that if I die again… I will simply be cast into a world even more gruesome than this one…"
"Or… that I'll wake up… only to be greeted by two terrifying angels… who will immediately sentence me for every sin I've ever committed in my life…"
"But… this creature… all of this… when will it ever stop…?"
"Should I… should I wave my hand at that thing? Beg for mercy… ask it to put an end to all of this chaos…?"
"Ah… don't be a fool, Zain…!"
"That creature is a beast from the depths of hell… how could it ever harbor even a shred of pity for a mere human like me…?"
The situation grew even grimmer as the creature unhinged its jaws.
Its mouth gaped wide—too wide—perhaps the size of half the earth or more. Inside, rows upon rows of countless black teeth glistened, their jagged forms enough to guarantee that anything caught within them would be pulverized into nothingness.
Then—
A brilliant white light began to coalesce deep within that abyss.
Zain thought it might be orbs of frost that would freeze everything in their path—the ruins, the air, even the heavens—before shattering them all at once. But as those spheres took their final shape—massive, glowing orbs with dancing arcs of electricity—and were exhaled into the air, reality took a violent turn.
It wasn't cold that arrived.
It was a searing, maddening heat that scorched the very world.
"Hot..."
"So hot..."
"It's burning... it's burning..."
Scalding steam began to rise from her body.
From her reddening skin, from her open pores—even from every ragged breath she exhaled—everything carried a stinging, blistering heat.
She tried to draw a breath. But what entered her lungs wasn't air; it was liquid fire.
She wanted to cough. She wanted to force the furnace out of her chest, to clear her throat that felt as though it were lined with glowing embers. But when she tried, nothing came out.
The cough was strangled. Choked midway. Her throat constricted as if an invisible hand were squeezing it from the inside, forcing it shut, stifling every desperate attempt to breathe.
"Hot… it's so hot…"
"Water… water…"
"Is there… is there any water around here…?"
"Someone… please… help me…"
"Anyone… anyone… please… I don't want to die… I want to live…"
"Deity… if You can hear me… please stop all of this… take me back to my life…"
"I'll apologize to my mother… I'll be a good daughter… I'll look for a job… I won't waste my time writing anymore…"
"I beg of You… I beg of You… it hurts so much… I can't take it… oh Deity…"
Unfortunately, time and time again, not a single soul heard her pleas.
There was no sign that any of this would end soon, or even subside for a fleeting moment.
She continued to struggle, to endure, yet even the faintest glimmer of hope—the small, flickering belief that she might be saved—never once appeared. There was truly nothing, not even a shred of solace, that she could cling to in order to steady herself within this chaos—nothing at all.
The creature continued its deafening roar.
Its massive body writhed and coiled with movements that grew increasingly frantic—hurried, jagged, and unpredictable. It slammed its colossal form here and there without direction, pulverizing everything in its path as if the world itself were nothing more than an obstacle to be erased.
From its gaping maw, the orbs of white fire continued to spew forth without end—brighter, searing, and more lethal than before.
The moment they struck the surface, the flames did more than just burn; they incinerated everything instantly.
They stripped away the form and essence of whatever they touched, reducing reality into fine ash that was immediately scattered by the wind and the violent shockwaves of the creature's movements.
As those orbs of white fire streaked past, nearly grazing the very tips of her hair—though they ultimately missed—Zain felt a surge of heat so inhuman, so extreme, it felt as though it pierced straight through her skin, incinerating every nerve, and searing itself into her very brain.
In an instant, a gruesome vision flashed in her mind: if those spheres of fire had struck her body, she would have shrieked so violently that her voice would have vanished from her throat, before her entire form disintegrated into dust in a single heartbeat.
Zain shook her head frantically, desperate to cast out those horrific images before they could take root any deeper.
She refused.
She refused with every fiber of her being, and as if with every shake of her head, she was slapping away the other grim possibilities that began to crawl into her mind one by one.
"No…"
"No… that won't happen…"
"I… I don't want to die in a place like this…"
"Not before I understand everything… before I know where I am and the reason behind all of this…"
"I have to leave… yes, I must find somewhere safer."
Slowly, agonizingly slowly, she pried one of her hands from the depths of the earth.
She shifted her arm to the side, plunging it once more into a different patch of soil, dragging her body along—a body that had nearly forgotten how to move.
She crawled, desperate to distance herself as far as possible from the creature.
Yet, as she repeated the same grueling cycle—pulling, gripping, dragging—her body only advanced by a fraction, a distance so minuscule it felt meaningless.
Perhaps only half an inch—or even less—to the point where, at a glance, she appeared not to have moved at all. She was merely shifting sideways, never truly escaping her original spot.
"I can't give up…"
"No matter what happens, I must leave this place…"
"I refuse to die at the hands of that hellish beast…"
"I won't end my life in a world that I don't even recognize…"
Now, after—perhaps—nearly half an hour by her own frantic calculations, she had finally managed to carve out a distance that felt safe enough.
Even so, she kept reminding herself: she wasn't truly safe as long as that creature remained, still roaring and spewing orbs of white fire from its maw.
Slowly, her senses began to perceive a shift in her surroundings.
The earth beneath her… it no longer burned.
It was no longer like living embers ready to devour her skin at any second. This soil felt merely warm—a warmth that was strangely soothing, as if for the first time since everything began, the world was granting her a sliver of mercy.
The air she drew in no longer lacerated her lungs like fire. What remained was only stagnant air—thick with dust, debris, and fine particles still dancing in the wake of a destruction that had yet to fully subside.
The heat that had previously enveloped every inch of her skin was also—for some reason—starting to recede. In some places, her skin had shriveled, nearly blistered, feeling stiff and taut as she tried to move. She could even feel small flakes of her own skin beginning to peel away, leaving behind a subtle yet piercing sting.
"At least my decision to move away from that creature has yielded a result that can soothe my terror."
Her eyes slowly caught sight of a shape that had almost slipped past her consciousness—a single ruin still standing tall. It loomed not far away, its distance so close—barely a few centimeters from where she lay facedown.
With what little strength she had left, she tried to shift her weight, bracing her body upward with both hands.
The first attempt was a definitive failure.
Her body lifted for a fleeting second before losing its balance, collapsing back down with a heavy thud that dissolved into the surrounding roar. It wasn't for a lack of will—but because the ground beneath her continued to shudder, sending waves that made even the simplest movement feel impossible.
Once more. She tried once more.
She pressed against the earth with greater force, her fingers gripping as if she intended to pierce through to the very core of the world. This time, her movement was fiercer—more forced—as if she were defying gravity itself to reject her fall.
And she succeeded.
Without wasting a heartbeat, she threw her back against the ruin. The harsh impact jolted through her spine, but she didn't care. Her hands immediately clawed at the cracked surface, holding on with a death grip, refusing to be swept away with the other debris still swirling through the air.
Behind the lens of her glasses—now riddled with holes and cracks that splintered her vision into jagged fragments—she stared ahead.
And... she suddenly realized something.
"That's why the ground here doesn't feel hot… and the debris around me is only swirling in place, unlike when I was back there…"
"That creature… now I realize."
"It's spewing orbs of white fire. Why isn't it red?"
"From what I remember, the Leviathan possesses a breath of blazing red fire—so intense that no one could survive, and even being within its reach would be fatal. But I… I was able to force my body to crawl away from there…"
"And furthermore… it's impossible for a Leviathan to form a shield like that."
"I've never found any records of such an ability. When it destroys everything in its path, nothing should be left… and yet here, only the area within that shield is completely devastated, while the world outside remains almost untouched…"
What Zain failed to realize as she drifted deeper into her own thoughts—whether it was mere reflection or a daydream that had begun to consume her consciousness—was the presence of two other colossal figures who had been watching her from afar.
These two beings stood not far from her.
They hadn't vanished, nor had they retreated to another dimension. They remained right there, treading the same earth, breathing the same air—if, indeed, they required breath at all.
From the very beginning, they had observed in silence. No sound, no movement.
Their gaze was transfixed on one thing: the human now slumped against the ruin, somehow still drawing breath. To them, this was no ordinary feat. No mortal should have been capable of escaping alive from the hellish shield of one of the most powerful Prince of Hell.
Curiosity—a sensation rarely felt by beings of their kind—began to crawl through them.
Without a word, without a single visible signal, they took a wide, silent stride. With just one step, they stood directly beside the human's feet. Then, they revealed themselves, their towering shadows swallowing the tiny human whole.
"W-H-O...."