Chapter 22 – The Hero Summoned Again

Far beyond the battlefield, in the sanctum of the Celestial Nexus, the Grand Chamber stirred.

Pillars of divine gold shook as runes reactivated — ones meant to remain dormant forever. The gods had just witnessed the impossible: Kairos surviving the judgment of Kheriel, unraveling time’s boundary, and walking away alive.

They were not pleased.

Nor were they ready.

“He remembers,” muttered Serian, the God of Judged Flames.

“He was never meant to awaken,” hissed Elenora, Goddess of Order.

“Then we have no choice,” said a third, their voice both thunder and sorrow. “We must summon another.”

A silence followed.

Until the decree fell.

“Summon the next Hero.”

In a world not far from Kairos’s origin, in a quiet Earth-side city, a girl stood at a train station — headphones in, the world drowned out by music and routine.

Her name was Reina Aokawa.

Age: 17.

Status: Perfectly normal.

Until the world beneath her cracked like glass — and she fell.

Not to her death.

But into a new beginning.

Reina gasped as she landed on warm stone, surrounded by ethereal light and celestial beings. Her school uniform was torn mid-transition, replaced by robes stitched from divine silk, and a sword appeared in her hand — weightless, radiant, and humming with potential.

“Wh-What is this…?!”

A tall archangel approached, kneeling before her.

“Welcome, Child of Hope. You have been chosen.”

She blinked.

“Chosen…? For what?”

The angel’s eyes were solemn. “To slay the one who was never meant to be born. The Revenant of the Void. The fallen glitch of this realm.”

He held up an ethereal image: Kairos, cloaked in black flame, his blade dragging shadows behind him.

Reina stepped back.

“Him…?”

Her fingers trembled.

“He doesn’t look like a monster…”

“He is worse,” the angel replied. “He’s the one who burned the origin threads. Who defied death. Who now seeks to rewrite the story written by gods themselves.”

“And what am I supposed to do?”

“You are the Hero,” the voice echoed. “You must stop him.”

Back in the realm of ruin, Kairos stared into the flame that had once stolen everything from him. But this time, he didn’t see destruction.

He saw clarity.

A flicker of possibility.

But before he could speak, before he could move —

A new rift opened behind him.

Light poured out.

And she stepped through.

Sword drawn.

Eyes wide.

Fearful… yet resolute.

Reina.

The New Hero.

To Be Continued…