The fifth month arrived with a subterranean roar that made the tectonic plates of ground shudder. In the absolute, lightless depths of the Earth, where the roots of the Okutama mountains met the churning, primordial heat of the mantle, Ren Hanshin stood before a lake of living magma. This was the Core of the Loom, a place where the Weaver had concentrated the planet’s geological friction to serve as a divine forge.

The air was a toxic viscous breeze, vaporized, and the Weaver’s own crimson mana. It was thick, heavy, and hot enough to melt common starlight.

[Synchronization: 65.0%]

[Level: 118 -> 122]

[Condition: Weapon-Soul Resonance]

[Status: The Void-Reaper]

Ren stood at the edge of the lava, his torso bared, his skin looking like polished obsidian under the red glow of the earth’s blood. His midnight-indigo hair was braided with crimson silk threads that drifted upward, unaffected by gravity. His right arm, the Obsidian Graft, pulsed with a dark violet light, the black glass fingers clenching and unclenching with a hungry, rhythmic click.

The Weaver stood behind him, her presence a suffocating, intoxicating heat. She had discarded her mask and her silks, her lunar-pale skin glowing with the reflection of the magma. She looked like a demon-goddess of the deep, her many spiritual limbs weaving a web of starlight across the cavern ceiling to prevent the mountain from collapsing under the weight of their training.

"The Severance of Destiny is a broken promise, Ren," she whispered, her voice a low vibration that made the magma pool ripple. "It was forged in the higher heavens to be a tool of the stars. But a tool of the stars cannot reap the sun. To kill the God of Light, the scythe must be as hungry as the abyss."

She raised her hand, and the rusted, matte-black scythe flew from the shadows, hovering over the lake of fire.

"Today, we re-forge it," Weaver commanded, her eyes flaring with a predatory, divine ecstasy. "We will use the liquid lead of your infection, the dirt of your soul, and the starlight of my own heart. You must hold the blade in the fire, Ren. You must be the anvil."

Ren didn’t hesitate. He stepped into the magma.

"AGHH!!"

Even with his high level and 65% synchronisation, the heat was a physical violation. The liquid stone tried to melt the marrow in his bones, turning his dirt into slag. But Ren didn’t pull back. He grabbed the Severance of Destiny with both hands, the obsidian and the porcelain, and plunged the blade into the white-hot center of the volcanic core.

"I... am... Ren!" Ren roared, the sound shattering the stalactites above. "And nothing can... stop me...!"

[Synchronization: 65.0% -> 66.5%]

The Weaver climbed onto his back as he stood in the magma, her cold, silk-clad limbs wrapping around his waist and neck. She was infecting the blade through him. She channeled her crimson fate-silk into his obsidian arm, the threads traveling through his veins and into the black metal of the scythe.

"Feed it, Ren!" she screamed in his ear, her lips brushing the nape of his neck, her breath a cold contrast to the burning air. "Feed it the memory of the past! Feed it the hunger of the Shinjuku alleys! Make the blade as empty as your stomach was when you were a child!"

Ren closed his eyes, his consciousness descending into the void. He remembered the smell of the cold rain on the pavement. He remembered the feeling of being invisible to the world. He took every ounce of his human worthlessness and funneled it into the scythe.

The blade began to change. The matte-black metal absorbed. The rusted chips flaked away, revealing a surface that was darker than the night, a Void-Steel that didn’t reflect the orange glow of the magma. The sunset-crimson edge was replaced by a permanent, flickering corona of Dark Violet Flame.

It was no longer a normal weapon; it was a devastating scythe.

[Weapon Evolved: Severance of Destiny -> Void-Reaper (Sovereign Class)]

[Feature: Negates Divine Light]

As the forging reached its peak, the manifestations of Ren’s harem appeared within the steam and sulfur. The Silent Queen and the Auditor’s Handmaidens emerged from the shadows, their translucent forms dancing around the magma pool. They sang a song of crushing weight, their voices acting as a conceptual hammer that flattened the mana-ripples.

But the Weaver would not allow them to touch him. She pushed the reflections back into the dark with a flare of her crimson threads. She wanted the friction of the forging to be hers alone.

"He is the shadow that will swallow the world!" Weaver cried, her many limbs pinning Ren’s arms to the scythe as the final braid was completed. "And I am the one who will hold the shadow!"

She leaned down, her lips meeting Ren’s in a kiss that tasted of molten lead and ancient, cold starlight. The 66.5% synchronization locked into place, a physical bond that felt like a needle being driven through his soul. Ren didn’t push her away. He gripped her with his obsidian hand, the cold glass fingers digging into her skin, his body a furnace of redirected volcanic heat.

The magma lake exploded. The cavern was plunged into a dark violet twilight as the Void-Reaper let out its first true breath. The blade consumed the heat, the light, and the mana of the volcanic core, leaving behind only a cold, dark void.

Ren stood in the center of the drained crater, his body smoking with a cold, amber frost. He was at Level 122, and he felt as if his soul were a piece of black iron that had been hammered by a god.

[Synchronization: 66.5% -> 68.0%]

[Level: 122 -> 124]

****

The second half of the month was dedicated to the Mastery of the Sun-Eater. The Weaver led Ren back to the surface, to the highest peak of the Okutama range. The sky was clear, the First Ray of Solis still visible as a mocking, white-hot eye in the zenith.

"The scythe is hungry, Ren," the Weaver said, her crimson silks fluttering in the high-altitude wind. "But if you do not control its appetite, it will eat the world before you can reach the God of Light. You must learn to muffle the void."

She manifested a battalion of Solar Phantoms — made of pure, solidified sunlight that the God of Light had sent to monitor the earth. They were fast, they were lethal, and they were made of the very substance that had defeated Ren at the Forge.

"Kill them," she commanded. "But do not let the scythe touch the dirt. If a single blade of grass burns, you have failed."

Ren stepped onto the air. He used the weight of the porter. Every step he took created a Vacuum-Pocket in the air, allowing him to move with a silent, terrifying velocity.

The Solar Phantoms fired. They launched thousands of Judgment Spears at him.

Ren raised the Void-Reaper.

He swung for erasure. The dark violet mana of the blade muffled the spears. The moment the holy fire touched the violet flames, it was devalued into nothingness. The light simply ceased to exist.

[Skill Learned: Abyssal Shinen-ryu - Silent Reaping]

[Synchronization: 68.0% -> 70.0%]

Ren moved through the phantoms like a shadow moving through a room. He was a Conceptual Absence. Every strike with the scythe left a Void-Gash in the sky, a dark violet tear that refused to heal. He ate them.

The scythe drank their solar mana, gathering it through Ren’s obsidian arm and into his mana veins. He felt his level rising, the power of his humanity becoming a refined, indestructible alloy of iron.

By the end of the month, the mountain peak was no longer white with sunlight. It was shrouded in a permanent, dark violet twilight. The survivors in the forest below looked up and saw a Black Sun sitting atop the mountain, a sign that the Executioner had returned.

Ren stood at the summit, the Void-Reaper resting against his shoulder. His indigo hair was now so dark it looked like a hole in reality. His eyes were twin pits of absolute, calm obsidian.

The Weaver approached him, her many limbs weaving a crown of black glass needles for his brow. She knelt before him, her eyes full of a terrifying, ecstatic worship.

"The fifth month is over, my king," she whispered, her voice a shivering harmonic. "The scythe is fed. The body is forged. The dirt has become stronger."

She leaned her head against his leaden knee, her crimson silks pooling around her. "Only one month remains. The Eclipse. We will stay here until the Weaver and the Porter are a single thread. And then, we will climb the sky and drown the sun."

Ren looked at his obsidian hand. He could feel Haru’s sapphire light in the distance. She was safe, but she was no longer his focus. She was the responsibility he had to carry, and the God of Light was the obstacle in his way.

"I’m ready," Ren said, his voice a singular, heavy choral that made the high-altitude air crystallize. "Let the sun keep its noon for now. Because the night I’m bringing... is forever." 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

[Level: 124]

[Synchronization: 70.0%]

The Hunger of the Scythe was absolute. And in the silence of the Japanese mountains, the Executioner was finally, perfectly, hungry for a god’s blood.