Shattered Wall of Zion

Dawn broke over the Land of Nod, a single, pale, and merciless ray of light striking the highest golden spire of the Citadel of Zion. The light set the tower ablaze with a fire of pure, liquid gold, a beacon of a holy day that was about to be desecrated. In the grand public square, a great and pious crowd of the Protectors of the Covenant had gathered, their ten thousand voices a low, melodious hum of holy psalms, a sound of absolute, unwavering, and terrifying conviction. It was the Day of Holy Affirmation, a day of celebration and religious rededication, and today, it was also to be a day of cleansing.

On a raised wooden platform at the center of the square, Hoshino Akari stood, her hands bound before her with a rough, coarse rope that chafed her wrists. She was dressed in a simple, stark white shift, the traditional garment of the purified, her unbound brown hair blowing in the cold, thin mountain wind. She looked out at the thousands of faces, all turned towards her, their expressions a disturbing, unified mask of pious hatred, divine righteousness, and a rapturous, almost predatory excitement. Before her stood the executioner, a hulking, anonymous figure in a black hood, his massive, corded arms resting on the haft of a great, polished axe. And before him was the stark, black, and very real executioner’s block that awaited her. Her face was calm, her amber eyes, devoid of fear, fixed on the distant, pale horizon. She was ready.

Miles below, at the foot of the great mountain, Ren stood before his silent, waiting army. His Second Form armor, a monument of black spikes and solidified shadow, had materialized around him, hiding the pale, exhausted, and dying boy within the terrifying shell of a god. He raised his gauntleted hand, his movements slow and deliberate, a testament to the immense, life-draining effort of his will. A tiny, perfect sphere of absolute nothingness, the key forged from his own life and a despair that could move mountains, floated silently between his thumb and forefinger. He looked up at the shimmering, invisible wall of the great barrier, a mountain of pure, divine power that had stood as a testament to his Father’s absolute order for ten thousand years.

On the platform, the Pontiff finished his final, damning sermon to the crowd, his voice a soaring, melodic declaration of Akari’s sin. The crowd roared its approval. The executioner moved, stepping behind the block, a silent signal that the moment was at hand. He raised his great, gleaming axe high into the air, the polished steel catching the first light of the morning sun. At the exact same moment that the axe reached the apex of its arc, Ren took a final, heavy step forward and pressed the point of absolute nothingness against the barrier. He spoke a single, quiet word, a command that was also a prayer, a promise, and a curse.

“Shatter.”

The barrier did not explode. It did not make a sound. A tiny, perfect hole of non-existence, a pinprick of the Void, appeared in the flawless fabric of the holy shield. From this single point of anti-creation, cracks of pure, silent blackness spread across the invisible dome, racing upwards and outwards like lightning fracturing a pane of glass in slow motion. In the square, the crowd’s triumphant psalms died in their throats, replaced by a collective, confused gasp as they saw the sky itself appear to break apart above them. A sound, not of this world, echoed through the heavens, not a crash, but a deep, resonant, and universe-sized bell chiming its last, mournful note, a sound that vibrated in the very soul of every living being on the mountain. Then, the entire barrier, the Great Seal of Zion, shattered into millions of silent, glittering fragments of light. They did not fall like rain. They simply faded into nothing before they even hit the ground, like holy dust from a murdered god.

For the first time in millennia, the holy Citadel of Zion was exposed, vulnerable, and naked before the world.

A moment of stunned, faith-shattering silence fell over the mountain, a silence so profound it was more deafening than any sound. Then, from the base, a single, unified, apocalyptic roar from fifty thousand throats erupted, a sound of pure, primal, and long-suppressed fury that shook the very rock of the holy mountain. The charge of the Dominion of the Damned began. The blanket of shadow that had hidden them dissolved, revealing the black, seething tide of shadow and iron, a living abyss that surged up the pristine white slopes, a stain of beautiful, terrible darkness climbing towards the light.

Ren did not join them. His objective was singular. He ignored the burgeoning, chaotic battle that was already beginning on the lower slopes and launched himself from the ground. Cloaked in the Absolute Void, his bladed wings of armor catching the air, he became a black comet, screaming up the side of the mountain at an impossible, physics-defying speed, a streak of pure, concentrated darkness against the pale morning sky. As he ascended, clearing the lower ramparts and soaring towards the Citadel’s peak, he got his first clear, unobstructed view into the public square.

He saw it all: the panicked, screaming crowd, a chaotic, churning sea of white and gold. He saw the scrambling guards, their perfect formations breaking into a disorganized mess. He saw the robed figures on a raised platform, scattering like frightened birds. And he saw her. Akari. His Akari, forced to her knees, her hands bound, a hooded, axe-wielding monster standing over her. The sight, the confirmation of their monstrous intent, detonated the cold, controlled rage in his soul into a white-hot nova of pure, unrestrained, and homicidal fury.

In the square, the scene was one of utter, pandemonium. The crowd, a people who had lived their entire lives under the comforting, absolute safety of their perfect, holy sky, were screaming in a terror so profound it bordered on mass insanity. Their world was not just being invaded; its most fundamental law had been broken. Pontiff Malachi stood on the platform, his face a mask of pure, faith-shattering terror, his luminous silver eyes wide with the disbelief of a god who has just witnessed a miracle performed by a demon. “To arms! To the walls!” General Gideon roared, his powerful voice cutting through the panic as he drew his own greatsword, trying to rally the shocked and terrified Seraphim Guard. “Form a perimeter around the square! Protect the Pontiff!”

But in the midst of the chaos, Akari was the only one who was not screaming in terror. As the sky broke, as the impossible cracks of darkness spread across her prison walls, a wild, fierce, and triumphant hope had exploded in her chest. She looked up, past the screaming crowds and the panicked guards, and saw it. A black comet, ascending. A promise, kept. A single tear of pure, agonizing joy rolled down her cheek. He did it. He's here.

The black comet did not stop at the gates. It did not slow to engage the city’s outer defenses. It crashed directly into the center of the public square with the force of a meteor. The impact shattered the pristine white marble in a massive, spiderweb of black, smoking cracks, the shockwave sending soldiers and priests alike flying through the air. Ren stood in the center of the crater he had created, a dark, silent god who had just descended from a broken heaven.

The moment he landed, he unleashed his rage. It was not a physical attack, not a wave of force or fire. It was a silent, overwhelming, and irresistible wave of pure, terrifying presence, of killing intent so absolute and so concentrated that it became a physical force. It erupted from him, a psychic tsunami of despair and fury, washing over the entire square in an instant.

The effect was immediate and devastating. Every civilian in the crowd, their sheltered, pious minds unable to process the sheer, cosmic magnitude of his hatred and his despair, simply collapsed where they stood, their eyes rolling back in their heads as their consciousness shut down in a final act of self-preservation. The regular soldiers of the Protectors of the Covenant, men who had known only victory and faith, screamed, dropping their weapons to clutch their heads as their minds were assaulted by a terror they could not comprehend, a darkness that whispered to them of their own mortality, of the futility of their faith. They stumbled, disoriented, many falling to their knees, vomiting, their courage and discipline shattered in an instant.

Only the most powerful, iron-willed individuals in the entire Citadel remained standing. On the platform, General Gideon stood his ground, his hand gripping the hilt of his sword so tightly his knuckles were white, his face pale, sweat beading on his brow as he fought against the crushing psychic weight. Pontiff Malachi, protected by the residual holy aura of the High Altar, was shaken but upright, his expression of fury now mixed with a new, abject, and pathetic terror. The handful of elite Seraphim Guard who had been surrounding Akari remained on their feet, their knees trembling, their perfect, holy formations broken and scattered.

The roar of the crowd was gone. The psalms were gone. The square was now eerily, unnaturally silent, littered with the still, unconscious bodies of the faithful. Ren stood in the center of the devastation he had caused with his mere presence. He slowly raised his head, and his dark, helmeted gaze, burning with the cold, empty light of the Void, looked past the few who still stood, and locked directly on Akari.

He was here. And the only things left standing between them were a terrified Pontiff, a furious General, and a handful of Zion's most holy, and most terrified, warriors. The final battle for her soul was about to begin.