Shadow Menace: I Live Among Mortals, I Kill Among Gods

"They said silence was peace. But this one felt like the kind before a funeral."

I woke up to the unmistakable scent of... antiseptic, burnt ozone, and despair.

Also, someone's sock. Possibly mine. Possibly divine.

The ceiling was cracked and gray, like it had been neglected since the Roman Empire. There was a water stain above me shaped suspiciously like a duck flipping me off.

And the bed—if you could call it that—felt like I'd been laid on a slab of concrete lovingly wrapped in betrayal.

I shifted my head. Mistake. My neck crackled like a bag of chips under a truck. Every part of me screamed in pain, including a few organs I'm pretty sure don't have nerve endings.

"Is this… heaven?" I groaned, only half-kidding.

A rune monitor beeped beside me with cold-hearted judgment: STABILIZING VITAL SIGIL. DO NOT FLATLINE. THANK YOU.

"Wow," I croaked. "Even the life support has attitude."

I tried to sit up.

I failed.

My body was wrapped like I had cosplayed a cursed burrito. Bandages, sigil marks, dried blood—pretty sure I looked like an ancient pharaoh who'd tried to fistfight a microwave.

My throat was drier than the Sahara on strike. "Water…" I muttered.

A nurse came in—a tired demigod lady with more eyebags than a college student in finals week—and handed me a cup of divine electrolyte juice.

I sipped.

I gagged.

"It tastes like someone juiced a lightning bolt and added foot sweat."

"You're lucky to be alive," she muttered without even glancing at me. "Try dying next time. Less paperwork."

Mood.

Then I heard footsteps at the door. I turned my head with the grace of a dying cat and saw Eve.

She looked like hell. Bruised, patched up, one eye slightly swollen, armor cracked.

She took one look at me.

And sighed.

"Well, would you look at that," I said, grinning. "The war goddess lives. Guess Hell didn't want us yet."

She rolled her eyes and walked in.

"Unfortunately, neither did Heaven."

They wheeled me in like some injured anime protagonist who definitely should still be in bed. But I was determined to dramatically enter the war room like a broken hero in episode 24 of a 26-episode shounen series.

The war table was… well, less "grand round table" and more "we slapped some divine bricks together and hoped it didn't explode." I half-expected to find someone playing UNO on it.

Lysaria was already seated—elegant, glowing, probably annoyed at my continued existence.

Eve stood leaning on her sword like she was modeling for Post-Apocalyptic Vogue. The rest of the team sat quietly, some with injuries, one guy still twitching from divine backlash. Yikes.

I cleared my throat, coughed dramatically, then saluted like a general from a low-budget mecha series.

"So… are we gonna talk about the celestial nuke I casually dropped? Or are we skipping straight to the part where the gods send me a 'cease and desist' scroll with glitter glue?"

No laughs.

Tough crowd.

Lysaria gave me that "You should really shut up before the heavens send another lightning bolt" look. I ignored it. Obviously.

"You're not taking this seriously," she said, voice sharp.

"Oh, I'm taking it super seriously. I mean, I woke up in a cursed hospital bed that smelled like holy socks. I'm pretty sure I unlocked a hidden chakra. Or maybe that was just my spleen rupturing."

Eve smirked—barely—but I caught it. Victory.

"Kaito," Lysaria said, trying to stay composed. "There's been a High Convergence. The gods have gathered."

"Ooooh," I said, eyes wide. "Like an interdimensional PTA meeting? Lemme guess—Zeus brought snacks and everyone ignored him again?"

"Kaito."

"Sorry, sorry. Serious mode: activated."

I coughed into my fist.

Then whispered under my breath, "Nani…? The divine council da yo…?"

The briefing ended, but the tension in the war room could've sliced titanium. Eve stepped forward and unrolled a long scroll across the table, nails tapping the divine paper with the kind of urgency that usually meant someone died or, in our case, a lot of people died and then stopped existing entirely.

"We've received reports," she said, tone ice-cold, "that several towns across the Eastern Temples are… gone."

"Gone as in destroyed?" someone asked.

Eve didn't blink. "No. Gone as in erased. No debris. No corpses. Just... absence."

I raised my hand. "So, like Thanos but with better work ethic?"

Nobody laughed.

I sighed. Tough room again. At this point, even my inner monologues are judging me.

Lysaria leaned in, her brow furrowed, golden eyes dimmed with unease. "These aren't just divine anomalies. These are… violations. Of time. Of space. Of memory. When we sent scouts to investigate, their aether signatures were scrambled—like reality tried to reboot itself halfway through their breath."

"Sounds like the last Windows update I installed," I muttered.

"Focus," Lysaria snapped.

"Yes, ma'am." I straightened, trying not to imagine Clippy saying, 'It looks like you're trying to survive divine annihilation. Need help?'

Eve pointed to a red circle on the map. "This one here—Temple of Echoes. It was built atop an old Abyssal Seal. Vermund's fall destabilized it."

"Oh good," I said, nodding like a man realizing he left his oven on before going to war. "So blowing up that throne room also broke a cosmic prison. That's cool. I'm not spiraling. You're spiraling."

"Something ancient is stirring," Lysaria said. "And it isn't from this plane."

Everyone went quiet.

And I… well, I tried not to panic.

Note to self: Add 'possibly unleashed eldritch horror' to resume. Between 'accidental goddess slayer' and 'part-time apocalypse intern.'

I looked up. "So, uh... how bad are we talking here? On a scale from 'anime filler arc' to 'final boss music starts early'?"

Eve replied flatly, "We're past the opening chords. This is the part where side characters die, and everyone unlocks trauma-induced power-ups."

I let that sink in. Then whistled.

"So… business as usual."

Lysaria's voice dropped a tone. "Kaito, this isn't just a battle coming. This is a war of belief. Reality is being rewritten. And you—" she paused, "—you're a variable they didn't expect."

"I'm honored," I replied. "Truly. Should I print that on a T-shirt?"

Lysaria gave me that

I-love-you-but-will-drop-kick-you look.

So let me get this straight… We blew up a god. The gods are mad. The mortal realm is collapsing in on itself like a badly baked soufflé. And now there's a void entity chewing through towns like it's on some cosmic low-carb diet. And here I am, a guy whose greatest skill before this was binge-watching shonen and not dying from microwave instant ramen.

But I got this.

Right?

I looked around the table.

People were scared.

Wounded.

Some broken in ways they didn't even realize yet.

And me?

Still cracking jokes like I wasn't walking a razor's edge between "tragic antihero" and "unqualified celestial nuke with social anxiety."

I stood up.

"Alright," I said, arms wide. "Let's go visit the cosmic horror. What's the worst that could happen?"

Above mortal breath and divine prophecy, suspended in the outermost layer of creation, the Hall of Aeons floated like an unanchored memory.

The floor was formed from crystallized time. Stars swirled beneath translucent panels, flickering like the dying heartbeat of a universe long forgotten. Thrones—twelve of them—circled a central void, where fate itself bent around the combined will of gods.

They had gathered.

And they were afraid.

"He killed a god," spoke Yugareth, the Flame Deity of Judgement, his voice molten and heavy. "He did what no divine has dared in millennia. We should have torn out his soul the moment it branded."

"His soul is fractured," replied Olymera, the Goddess of Sight. "That which is broken becomes unreadable. I cannot see his path. His future splits in every direction like shattered glass."

"Then blind him," hissed Tarnox, God of Chains. "Strip him of will. Bind him beneath the veil before others follow his defiance."

From the far end, a calm voice echoed—a voice that shouldn't have belonged in a room built on fear.

"Fear him, do you?" asked Sereth, the Silver-Robed Stranger, lounging on his throne like he owned time itself. "Isn't that… thrilling?"

A dozen godly eyes turned toward him.

"He defies your rules," said Yugareth. "Mocks your titles."

"And he bleeds," Sereth replied with a smile. "That's what makes him dangerous. Not because he's divine. But because he suffers, and keeps standing. Mortals adore their broken heroes."

"This isn't about worship," Olymera murmured. "This is about control. Balance. If Kaito continues to evolve—if the sigil completes itself—he may surpass the concept of divinity."

A heavy silence fell.

Tarnox stood, chains rattling as he pounded a gauntlet against the dais.

"Then let us judge him. Call the Scales. Send the Executors."

"Send them," Sereth chuckled, resting his chin on his hand. "Let them try. And when he carves through them… maybe we'll learn what gods are truly made of."

"You speak of doom like it's destiny," Olymera scolded.

"I speak of truth," he replied. "And here it is

—you fear him because he is what you could never be."

And above them all, in the throne that never spoke, the God of Gods remained still.

Eyes closed.

Hands clasped.

But from beneath the folds of his robe, something stirred.

A whisper.

A name.

"Kaito…"

Night had fallen like a velvet curtain across a broken stage. The smoke had mostly cleared now, the sky slowly remembering how to breathe.

I found myself at the edge of the crumbled rooftop—what was once the northern watchtower of Sector 13. A few jagged stones, a scorched bench, and a railing that probably wouldn't pass any divine safety inspection. But the view…

The sky was unrecognizable. In the best way.

Thousands of stars shimmered across the dark silk above, each one humming with light, unbothered by gods or wars. Constellations blinked like they were whispering secrets to those who remembered how to listen.

I sat there, legs dangling, watching galaxies swirl beyond the horizon, unsure if I was looking at heaven—or just the afterglow of surviving hell.

Then she arrived.

I didn't hear her approach—she never made a sound when she didn't want to. She just… existed.

Like a secret too beautiful to speak aloud.

Lysaria.

Her golden hair was pulled loose tonight, falling around her shoulders like liquid sunlight hardened into strands. She wore a midnight-blue cloak, the color of deep space, embroidered with constellations that shimmered softly under the real ones.

For a moment, I thought the sky itself had stepped down to sit beside me.

She didn't say anything at first. Just sat beside me, close enough that her shoulder brushed mine. Her warmth seeped into me without effort.

"I almost forgot what a quiet night feels like," she whispered.

"Yeah," I murmured. "It's like the world's holding its breath. Or maybe just pretending things are okay."

We stared at the stars.

They were scattered like stories I hadn't lived yet.

"Do you ever wonder," I said, "why stars look brighter after everything goes wrong?"

Lysaria tilted her head toward me. "Because the darkness makes them shine."

I looked at her.

And for the first time since the throne room burned, I saw her—not as a goddess, or my savior, or even my partner in celestial crimes—but as Lysaria, the woman who chose to fall for someone like me.

Someone broken. Someone mortal.

And somehow… she was more radiant than any sky.

Her eyes carried more galaxies than the heavens ever dared to hold.

"You're staring," she said, a tiny smile forming.

"Yeah. Sorry. I was just comparing you to a dying star—blindingly beautiful but one wrong move and you go full supernova."

She laughed.

Not her usual restrained chuckle. A real, soft laugh that crinkled her eyes and broke the quiet.

Then, silence again. Comfortable this time.

The kind you share with someone who's seen you at your lowest and didn't look away.

She leaned into me slightly. "I'm scared, Kaito."

"I know," I said. "Me too."

We didn't need to pretend.

Didn't need to promise tomorrow.

But as I looked up at the stars, and then at her, I realized something:

If the sky ever lost its light again… I'd still have her glow to find my way back.

And that night, I didn't dream of war, or gods, or blood.

I just dreamed of her smile.