Chapter 5

Ever since that night when I dried Elyssia’s holy wings after the freezing rain, the downpour that seemed determined to drown the whole world had continued for days.

Inside this isolated sky fortress, listening to the deafening rain hammering the metal dome was, strangely enough, an eerie kind of pleasure. I was holding a cup of hot coffee, watching Elyssia use her newly restored, gleaming wings to chase away the cloud goats trying to steal holy tomatoes in the greenhouse.

Then a bone-deep chill arrived, along with nauseating shadow runes flickering. They forced their way into the air of the main control cabin.

The comm panel screamed an alarm.

I set the coffee down and watched coldly as a shadow mirror twisted into shape in midair.

On the other side, my dear parents and Leo lounged comfortably on thrones carved from abyssal obsidian. Each of them held a huge bone bowl where dark red monster-meat broth rolled and bubbled.

“Look at the pathetic flooding on the surface.” My father pointed at the storm outside the mirror and let out a snort. “Those fools in the Coalition are still issuing evacuation warnings.”

My mother immediately swung the view toward Leo, her smile full of fawning pride. “All thanks to our Leo signing with Morgana. Otherwise we’d be freezing in mud right now.”

Leo lifted his chin smugly.

He looked straight at me, then performed an outrageously arrogant gesture.

He raised his bone bowl and deliberately poured most of the remaining monster spine meat and broth into the abyss rift behind him.

“Link, ever seen a piece of monster spine this big?” He licked the blood at the corner of his mouth, openly taunting.

I leaned back in a leather chair and rolled my eyes.

“Looks pretty dry,” I said with a cold laugh. “What, you planning to mail me a few chunks?”

“You deserve it?” Leo snapped instantly, eyes vicious as a viper. He jabbed a finger at me and spat, “That useless angel can’t do more than purify a few rotten leaves for you. Stay in your broken shelter and wait to die of thirst and hunger.”

Before the words even finished, a claw wrapped in thick sulfur stench shot out of the shadow.

A violent crash.

Morgana, who had been silent the entire time, moved like a mother panther in rage. She grabbed Leo by the hair and slammed his face into the obsidian tabletop.

Thick black blood sprayed from his nose.

“Who gave you permission to waste the Abyss’s hunt?” Morgana’s blood-red slit pupils locked onto him. Hot, furious breath hissed between her fangs.

Leo trembled, trying to fall back on his usual whining and flirting to smooth it over.

“Morgana… it hurts. I was just trying to piss off that bastard—”

“Lick it clean.” Morgana’s voice was ice forged into a blade.

Leo froze, disbelief flooding his eyes. “What?”

Morgana lost patience. She grabbed the back of his neck and shoved his pampered face straight into the leftovers and grime on the tabletop.

“I said lick up what you poured out, along with the scraps in the cracks.”

Leo’s scream turned shrill with humiliation.

He thrashed, filthy from head to toe, but he couldn’t budge a high-tier demon’s absolute strength.

I glanced toward the edge of the screen.

My parents, who had been so smug moments ago, were now curled into the corner of their thrones, shaking like quail. Not one of them dared make a sound.

Only when Morgana snorted and melted back into shadow did Leo collapse, limp on the floor.

Face covered in blood, he screamed at our parents through sobs. “Why didn’t you help me? You just watched that monster torture me.”

My father rubbed his hands awkwardly and backed away with a strained smile. “Leo… wasting food really was your fault…”

My mother hurried over, trying to wipe his face with a handkerchief.

“Get away.” Leo whipped his arm out and shoved my mother hard. She fell onto the cold stone steps.

Watching this absurd family drama, I finally couldn’t hold it in.

I laughed.

The sound was brutally sharp across the dead silence on both sides of the mirror.

Leo whipped around, humiliation igniting into fury. He glared at me so hard his eyes looked ready to burst.

“What are you laughing at?”

“Nothing.” I lifted my coffee and took a sip, voice light. “I just like watching you put on a show and get slapped down.”

“Link. I’ll kill—”

I cut the shadow transmission. Leo’s useless roar died mid-word.

In the days that followed, the rain outside didn’t stop. It worsened.

Until the sky tore with that earth-splitting blast.

A thunderous rupture.

The relentless rain finally crushed the crust’s limit. In the distance, the continental shelf snapped with a roar that shook the world.

I stood at the ultra-wide observation window of the main cabin and watched the apocalypse arrive with my own eyes.

Gray-black seawater surged like a world-ending beast, loaded with tens of thousands of tons of silt and debris, crashing through every coastal city.

Those forests of steel and concrete that had once stood proud became paper toys in nature’s wrath.

Buildings that symbolized the peak of human civilization turned into silent underwater ruins in minutes.

Thick thunderclouds fully blocked the sun. Not a trace of light remained.

The world lost its color.

Only an endless gray ocean was left.

The end had officially begun.