The God of the Sword

The blinding light consumed everything.

Kiyoshi felt his perception dissolve, as if there had never been a moment before this absolute radiance. He couldn't even recall a time when something other than this light existed.

Zeta 4's circuits struggled to adapt. His visual functions ran frantic processes, altering spectrums, shifting scales, attempting to decode the environment. But nothing made sense. The light was an absolute concept, invading not just sight but touch, sound—everything.

It was a reality where only the Lady of Light existed.

Zeta 4 chose to shut down his sensors.

Nothing changed.

The brightness continued to consume his processes, infiltrating beyond the digital, as if his very consciousness was being corrupted by the radiation of a star at its peak.

The Lady of Light, however, did not attack.

She remained still. Her fractured mind drifted between broken thoughts, trying to make sense of what had transpired. There was something she didn't understand. Something that eluded even her distorted divinity.

But she was not a being of logic.

Rationality was no longer part of her.

And so, the light ceased.

The Lady pulled all the radiance into herself.

And Kiyoshi and Zeta 4 were cast into absolute void.

Kiyoshi felt the weight of nothingness.

Did his body still exist?

Was his sword still in his hand?

He had to act.

He had to hold onto something.

Because if he hesitated, he would disappear.

Kiyoshi knew the battle had reached its final moment. He and Zeta 4 had surpassed their limits, had achieved the impossible against the Raven King, but now… now, they faced something they could not defeat.

The stolen energy from the monarch's core had given them a reprieve, but it wasn't enough.

If the Lady of Light was the dawn, they were merely fragments of night resisting an inevitable day.

But Kiyoshi refused to accept that truth.

He trusted Zeta 4.

And he trusted his sword.

He closed his eyes and dove into himself.

There were seven paths.

He had walked them all.

The first had taught him to wield his blade with precision.

The second had made him understand the fluidity of wind and blood.

The third had given him control over his movements—and those of others.

The fourth had allowed him to cut through time and perception.

The fifth had granted him mastery over matter and energy.

The sixth had made him capable of dividing mountains, rivers, and skies.

The seventh had brought him the understanding that all things could be cut.

And now, standing on the edge of oblivion, he saw the eighth path.

The cut beyond fate.

Kiyoshi did not need to cut merely matter, energy, or space.

He needed to cut meaning itself.

If the Lady of Light was inevitable…

Then he would sever that inevitability.

If light was an absolute truth…

He would choose a new truth.

The cut that does not deny reality but reshapes it.

The eighth path.

The blade that defines.

While Kiyoshi reached his epiphany, Zeta 4 adapted to the void.

Not because he wanted to.

But because he had been built for it.

The Machine God had created technologies beyond imagination. Before being lost in this world, Zeta 4 had taken part in expeditions to the boundaries of the unknown.

And one such expedition had encountered absolute void.

Nothingness.

The Machine God had prepared his creations to endure the impossible.

And Zeta 4 was part of that advancement.

He fused his nanotechnology with antimatter, using the very absence of existence as a weapon.

If the Lady of Light commanded absolute radiance…

Zeta 4 would wield its opposite.

A black ray ignited within the void.

Just a flicker.

But it was enough.

Antimatter met the Lady of Light and fractured her form.

For an instant, her glow wavered.

She did not scream.

She did not recoil.

But her body showed fissures.

It was a singular strike.

Zeta 4 had exhausted his reserves.

He could not continue the attack.

His body began to reform, his nanobots reshaping into an improvised satellite, his thrusters preparing for a single jump.

The last option left.

Now, everything depended on Kiyoshi.

The samurai opened his eyes.

And he understood.

He had already walked the eighth path.

Since his battle with the Raven King, he had already been cutting concepts.

Now, he had to fully manifest that power.

There was no time for doubt.

If he hesitated, his cut would become absolute.

After all, his blade did not simply destroy.

It decided what should exist.

And in that moment, he decided.

The God of the Sword was reborn.

And in his first act…

He severed the dawn….

The void was an endless sea, and Kiyoshi stood within it, feeling the echo of his own breath swallowed by the absence of sound. The figure of the Profaned Lady of Light remained before him, fractured, her radiance flickering like a star on the verge of explosion. But she did not disappear. On the contrary—she absorbed her own fracture, devouring the light around her to restore her form.

Kiyoshi did not hesitate.

He cut the void.

His body tore through the nothingness separating him from Zeta 4, his spiritual blade becoming a conduit between the samurai and the machine. He grasped the automaton, feeling the cold metal between his fingers, and before the void could consume them again, Zeta 4 responded.

The automaton's thrusters activated, and in an instant, they launched themselves away from the Lady of Light. The battle had been cataclysmic; the chasm that once existed was now nothing more than a fragmented memory. But the far edge was still distant, and worse—the profane light would not allow them to escape.

The chase began.

Blazing beams of light shot toward them, but the void refused to be filled. For a brief moment, they managed to flee beyond the entity's reach, but Zeta 4 knew it was only a matter of time.

They were returning to the world.

And in the world, light was the fastest thing in existence.

Kiyoshi realized the danger the moment the contours of reality began to take shape once more. Space stabilized around them, and immediately, the beams of the Lady of Light reached them. It was only Kiyoshi's blade, cutting through the space between them and the top of the abyss, that bought them enough time to continue.

They were finally free.

Or so they thought.

As they emerged from the abyss, they felt gravity pulling them back, as if the very world refused to let them go. Kiyoshi buried his katana into the rocky ledge, Zeta 4 dug his mechanical claws into the top. They had made it.

But they were not alone.

The Lady of Light had followed them.

She floated horizontally, like a specter hovering over their heads, her presence so immense it seemed to cover the sky. The gravitational force that had pulled Kiyoshi and Zeta 4 toward the depths of the abyss did not seem to affect her. Her gaze, though beautiful, carried a sentence of death.

Then she spread her arms.

A delicate gesture. A silent invitation.

The last time someone accepted her embrace, they ceased to exist.

Zeta 4 did not hesitate.

His body dismantled into pieces, reshaping itself as armor around Kiyoshi. The automaton's core locked onto the samurai's back, and his metallic plates transformed into a winged mantle, a protective shell that fit him perfectly. Kiyoshi understood immediately.

They had achieved absolute synergy.

Man and machine, united, ready to challenge the profane dawn.

The Lady of Light attacked.

The beam she unleashed was colossal—a cosmic spear piercing through space, cutting through reality in its trajectory. The brightness was so intense that for a moment, there was neither night nor shadow, only oppressive brilliance.

But Kiyoshi and Zeta 4 did not hesitate.

The spiritual blade rose.

The mantle of light absorbed the impact.

And then they cut.

The beam was split in half, fragments of light scattered like cosmic dust, dissolving along the abyss. But the impact pushed them backward, a tremendous force throwing them toward the top.

It was exactly what they wanted.

Kiyoshi did not stop moving his blade—each strike dissipated another fragment of the light trying to consume them. He planned to execute his supreme technique—the Sky and Earth Divider.

But then he realized the truth.

He did not have the strength.

The battles against the Raven King and the Lady of Light had left him without reserves. His body was on the verge of collapse, and even if he could perform the strike, he wouldn't have the strength to sustain it.

But he could still cut the light.

Zeta 4 stabilized for a moment, his core glowing intensely before issuing an urgent warning.

"Probabilistic analysis… we won't last until the surface. You must act, Kiyoshi. My support is all I have left to offer. Use your will, your sword's intent… somehow, perform a feat that allows us to escape this. We are beyond probabilities now."

Kiyoshi felt his arm going numb.

He had to do something.

But how?

He looked at his katana.

If he sacrificed his blade, he could cut the sky and the world, opening a definitive path.

But Kiyoshi was not willing to sacrifice it.

So, without hesitation, he threw his sword behind him.

"Zeta 4, disengage the armor," he ordered, his voice firm.

The robot hesitated for a microsecond but obeyed.

Kiyoshi raised his arm.

The glow on his skin intensified, as if something was condensing within.

"Sky and Earth Divider…"

The whisper escaped his lips.

For a moment, time seemed to stop.

His forearm radiated pure power, the accumulated spiritual energy vibrating within a microcosm contained inside him.

Then he brought his arm down.

The invisible blade cut the world.

The sky split open.

The abyss beneath them opened as if it had been torn apart by a primordial force. The slash reached unimaginable depths, striking the very bottom of the abyss, creating a fissure in the fabric of reality itself.

The Lady of Light's attack was interrupted.

She stood frozen, perplexed, staring at her own body—sliced in half.

Her eyes did not reflect hatred or fury but something closer to despair.

She tried to restore herself, but her pieces would not reunite.

For the first time, the corrupted entity knew fragility.

And then, she fell.

Her body shattered into golden fragments, and as she plummeted into the abyss, the sun rose.

An orange glow filled the horizon, a warm, welcoming light that should never have existed there.

The abyss, which had never known a dawn, now witnessed a sunset.

Kiyoshi collapsed, his body unable to support him any longer.

He fell.

But then, metallic hands caught him.

Zeta 4, still functioning, activated his thrusters and pulled the samurai upward.

And as Kiyoshi drifted into unconsciousness, the last thing he saw was the sky—finally open, finally free.

For the first time in a long while… he slept.