The world did not recover from the day's horrors; it merely slid from a suffocating "extreme cold" into a deeper, more primal fear: the Unknown.
At the other end of the globe, in the dead of night when all things should be dormant, a pathological restlessness took hold.
Every building was ablaze with light—from towering skyscrapers to remote mountain cabins, bloodshot eyes stared out from behind every window.
People frantically rummaged through old belongings or feverishly deleted digital footprints, using this futile busyness to mask the chill freezing their spines.
Inside the United Nations conference room, the shadowless lamps were as stark as a funeral.
On the main screen, the intercepted global recording looped mechanically:
the cold lab table, the flayed flesh, the foul blood, and those indelible scarlet words seared like branding irons.
The air felt like solid lead.
"...We have deployed every countermeasure imaginable."
The technical chief stood by the long table, his voice as raspy as sandpaper.
He pointed to a stack of data reports, his fingers trembling nervously.
"Physical power cuts, electromagnetic shielding, satellite link severance... we even tried shutting down regional root servers. All ineffective."
He paused, unable to stop himself from repeating, "Every method we could conceive... we truly tried them all."
His tone was heavy, but beneath it lay an uncontrollable shudder.
He turned stiffly, his Adam's apple bobbing with difficulty. "That signal... it isn't propagating through any known physical network."
He hesitated for a second, his voice thin and trembling.
"It's as if it... 'grew' directly onto every display terminal. As long as the device has a screen, It will keep broadcasting," he rasped, lingering on the word 'keep' as if it were a death sentence.
Someone at the end of the table shivered and asked in a shaky voice, "Is it hackers? Or... a dimensional strike from an alien civilization?"
No one answered. The core leaders in the room knew all too well:
if this were technology within the realm of human civilization, a blackout of this scale would have already signaled the total collapse of the existing order.
The fact that human weapons were useless proved that if they had been effective, the silence outside wouldn't be so deathly.
"What exactly is 'It'?"
In the dead silence, the elder at the head of the table—his hair frosted white—slowly raised his head.
His clouded but sharp eyes pierced through the white mist, as if trying to see through the void to find the Great Presence that could not be looked upon.
"Not 'what', but 'Who'."
The elder took a deep breath, his tone as heavy as a thousand-ton stone. "Or rather, from the moment that broadcast began, 'It' became the New Rule of this world."
A deathly silence fell over the room.
"It seems 'It' isn't seeking destruction, but a... total 'Reckoning' of the human soul," a weary female committee member said tentatively.
"Everyone, think back to what happened two days ago." This triggered everyone's memory.
Two days ago was the day Long Nation won the World Cup, a day of national celebration.
But strangely, that afternoon, every smart transportation system—
from self-driving cars to high-speed rail and civil aviation—plunged into a paralysis lasting several hours, as if a "pause button" had been pressed by an absolute power.
"At the time, to avoid panic during the celebration, we claimed it was traffic control due to the festivities and promised state compensation," she analyzed logically.
"Other nations followed suit, concocting excuses of network outages or power failures to hide the truth."
She looked at the elder, her gaze piercing.
"In hindsight, that wasn't a technical glitch. That was the first day of Its descent. Before formally passing judgment, It forcibly placed a 'bridle' on human civilization. Due to the mysterious 'Global Shutdown', governments entered a state of maximum takeover yesterday. That's why, when the broadcast started today, society didn't immediately disintegrate. It used that method to force us into completing a wartime mobilization in advance."
The elder tapped the table. He remembered—the global traffic stopping without warning or casualties, as if held by a gentle yet absolute force.
He had ordered the news suppressed and launched top-level investigations, only to receive the result: "Inexplicable."
He had thought it was a secret weapon of a rival power, but now he understood: it was a buffer period given by a God for humanity to adapt to the new rules.
It had bridled humanity before the trial.
What the elder was thinking at this moment, no one knew.
"Meeting adjourned."
As the officials filed out, the screen behind the elder continued to flicker.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the city, the paralyzed traffic began to clear slowly, and the crowds regained their ability to move.
However, the usual bustle, laughter, and cursing had vanished.
The LED screens on the streets were pitch black; passersby gripped their powered-off phones tightly, and billboards stood like silent tombstones in the evening wind.
Everyone knew that it hadn't left.
It had merely closed its eyes for a moment, looking down coldly from the clouds at every shivering soul.
Deep in a dimly lit alley, a figure in an expensive suit moved close to the moss-covered wall.
"He" walked very slowly, his gait possessing a haunting lack of coordination—his center of gravity was pressed extremely low, and his spine occasionally emitted a dull click beneath the suit.
His rhythm was entirely broken; at times "he" broke into a frantic, tiny-stepped trot like a startled creature, and at others, "he" froze, struggling to find the balance point of "uprightness" within this heavy mecha called "human".
"He" stared fixedly at his hands. Between the fingers, they were clean—no more bloody holes from his time as a rodent, no more sticky chemicals.
"...No pain," "he" whispered, his throat producing a raspy, friction-like sound, as if it were rusted. It was a pathological confirmation.
"He" suddenly raised his hand, pressing his palm hard against his cheek, greedily drinking in the scalding warmth belonging to a higher mammal. Living. Warm.
In the next moment, "he" stiffened as if struck by lightning.
Clatter!
A stray cat had knocked over a trash can at the mouth of the alley.
Instantly, his shoulders bunched up, his back arching into a distorted curve beneath the suit. His breath stopped; "he" instinctively looked for a crack to crawl into.
In that moment, "he" was no longer a "social elite," but a rodent being watched by a predator, ready to be torn apart in terror.
It took several seconds for his constricted pupils to dilate with a shudder.
"That is... no longer a threat," "he" muttered to himself, his voice carrying the exhaustion of a survivor, even tinged with a weak smile.
"He" stood in the shadows for a long time, using that heavy human brain that made him feel faint to painstakingly sort through fragmented, blood-soaked memories.
Then, "he" slowly raised his head, looking toward the vibrant city in the distance.
For the first time, a light called "obsession" appeared in his eyes.
"I must... go back."
The voice was faint, yet as heavy as a thousand pounds—like a thin thread spanning death and species, being gently pulled from the depths of his soul by a gentle source.
On the other side, at the edge of some ruins, a girl of about eleven or twelve knelt down. She held a ham sausage to lure a small, thin, and wounded calico cat.
"Meow... Kitty... Here, kitty, kitty..."
The calico looked frightened, but the lure of a full stomach was too much.
It occasionally looked up at her, slowly "cat-walking" toward her.
The little girl waited patiently, her nose red from the cold, her "kitty-kitty" calls never stopping. Her legs were tired from crouching, but she dared not startle it.
Finally, the cat reached her and began to bolt down the sausage. The girl watched happily, and while the kitten was eating, she took it by surprise and caught it by the scruff of its neck.
From beyond the void, She watched this scene with an unreadable expression, observing in silence.
At first, the kitten struggled, but it couldn't break free. Fearing she might hurt its wounds, the girl pulled it into her embrace, stroking and shushing it with gentle, enduring patience.
Under the streetlights, the school-uniformed girl hugged the cat and walked slowly toward home, a joyful smile on her face.
"Don't be afraid..." she whispered, as if soothing a startled infant. "I'm here. It doesn't hurt anymore."
The kitten stopped struggling. Its wary, vertical pupils began to relax, and it produced a faint, steady purr against her warm chest.
She thought to herself, I'll give it a bath and treat its wounds when I get home! Her fingertips trembled from the cold, but her eyes were remarkably clear.
The cold wind howled in the distance.
She sneezed, her body shivering, and she quickly checked the kitten in her arms, fearing she had startled it.
However, the kitten showed no sign of alarm. Its "Goddess" was speaking to it.
"This 'mortal'—doth thy heart bloom with joy for them, or is it gripped by fear?"
"My Great Beast God, I have been so cold for so long. Truly. But in her arms, it feels as if I have returned to my mother's embrace. She is so warm!"
As it spoke, it rubbed its cheek against her arm, eliciting another soft giggle from the girl.
In an instant, the dim air seemed to be plucked by a supernatural frequency, brightening for a fleeting second.
A wisp of gold light—exceedingly faint and gentle—descended vertically from the clouds.
It landed silently on the girl's shoulder, then rippled outward like water, enveloping the cat as well.
The little girl froze. She looked up blankly at the starry sky, but the heavens remained deep and empty, leaving nothing behind.
Yet, for some reason, she felt the bone-chilling cold vanish.
The weight in her arms was no longer a burden, but a tangible warmth—a strength to help her survive in this collapsing world.
High above, She looked down.
She did not descend with an oracle.
She simply, silently, cast that "Fortune"—as light as a breeze—toward the ruins, toward the narrow alleys, and toward every person who still chose gentleness in a night where malice ran rampant.