(Alternate title: "Five Gems Down, and Now Even Reality Needs Therapy")
You know that feeling when your chest glows, your soul skips a beat, and ancient stone walls start glitching like a possessed Minecraft server?
Yeah. That.
I had just absorbed the fifth Gem — crimson, ancient, slightly smug — and the moment it vanished into my chest, the Eye lit up like a dying star overdosed on caffeine.
I sat down.Not gracefully.More like a human Wi-Fi signal collapsing under too much cosmic pressure.
The Journal — the one Jesus handed me like it came from a cursed grandfather with divine guilt — pulsed in my hand.Warm. Alive. Judgy.
I opened it.And instead of useful tips, instructions, or a survival flowchart…
It bled.
Ink — or blood, or something worse — oozed between the lines like the book itself was having a breakdown.Then it stabilized into one clear sentence:
"If you are reading this… then five fragments have fused with the Eye.And the seal… is officially breaking."
Perfect. Exactly what I needed.A cosmic oopsie I apparently triggered by touching shiny things with no adult supervision.
I turned the page.
New symbols appeared.Not English. Not any human language I knew.
But the Eye in my chest translated them automatically.Like I had a universal Rosetta Stone embedded in my ribs.
The first entry had a title:
✦ The Day Senku Was Betrayed ✦
That got my attention.
"Senku was not a demon. Not at first.He was a Seer. A Maker.A Scientist so precise the gods called him dangerous — not because he destroyed, but because he understood.His knowledge could alter time, bend energy, and undo fate itself.And for that…They turned him to stone."
Wait. What?
"The seal was crafted with 23 Diamonds.Each one tied to a law of creation he broke.And a single Ruby, carved from his own heart.The Diamonds paralyzed his body.The Ruby locked away the part of him they feared most:His reason."
I froze, shaking, eyes locked to the page.
And then came the final line:
"If the one named Renji reads this… know this:You are not the hero.You are the result.Proof that the seal is failing.And that the Eye… has chosen again."
The walls cracked.The ceiling trembled like a hangover echoing through history.
The Eye in my chest began spinning.Not metaphorically — literally.A celestial washing machine set to "reality shredder."
And then—
Glitch.
Everything flickered.Pixelated.Tore open.
Not a door. Not a portal.A rip.Like someone had punched through space with a crowbar made of regret.
I didn't jump.It dragged me in.
Darkness. Sand. Chanting.
I landed face-first on ancient stone.Everything hurt.
Ahead of me:A mechanical obelisk, massive and covered in shifting symbols.
Surrounding it:A cult. Robes. Masks. Eyes that didn't blink.
Every head turned.Every eye locked onto me.
The Eye in my chest flared — like a flare gun fired at a funeral.
And I knew.
This wasn't the end.
It was the next ritual.