And so…
the world began to move again.
A breath of air passed—
thin, timid, almost apologetic.
It slid through the ruins like a memory one wished to bury,
brushing broken stone and twisted steel.
The ash, long suspended in nothingness,
finally fell—
softly, silently—
each grain returning to the red earth,
as though time itself had remembered, at last,
how to breathe.
Then—
The silence broke.
Not with a scream.
But with a heartbeat.
A heart.
The heart of one who refused to die.
Kael's.
It thudded inside his chest—
heavy, violent, undeniable.
He stood there, trembling,
as if the weight of everything still left of the world
had been piled upon his shoulders.
His muscles screamed.
His breath scraped raw against his throat.
But his eyes—
They burned.
Not with fear.
Not with the instinct to flee.
With something older.
Something deeper.
A rage born of despair,
distilled from the ruins of all he had ever been.
A hatred purified—
cold, sharp, lucid as a blade held to the throat of fate.
Before him, the beast stirred.
It too lived.
That black aura, veined with pulsing red, throbbed softly—
a life that should not exist,
sustained by laws that had never been meant to hold.
Their gazes met.
And in that suspended instant—
The creature lunged.
The ground cracked beneath its weight.
The air tensed, screamed.
Kael inhaled.
Clenched his teeth.
And in the thunder of a collapsing world,
the battle began.
A roar tore through the ruins,
splitting the silence like lightning across a starless sky.
Kael barely had time to raise his arm
before the dark mass crashed into him.
The impact folded him in two.
His body flew.
Stone met spine.
Earth met skull.
His breath vanished.
Iron flooded his mouth.
He tried to scream—
only a ragged rasp crawled out.
He rolled, gasping, spitting blood.
His body howled in protest.
His lungs burned.
His heart hammered like a drum beaten too hard, too fast.
He wanted to run.
But the beast was already there.
Its shadow swallowed him.
It struck.
Kael raised his arms on instinct—
CRACK.
One gave way.
Bone screamed.
And yet—
He smiled.
He should have stopped.
Stayed down.
Accepted the end that waited patiently for him.
But no.
A dry, broken laugh slipped from his lips—
a laugh without joy, without logic, without restraint.
"Is that… all you've got…?"
he breathed between shattered gasps.
The beast froze.
Its head tilted, slowly.
In the polished darkness of its form,
Kael saw his reflection—
bloodied, broken—
And felt something shift.
Irritation.
Hesitation.
He seized it.
He forced himself upright, gathering scraps of strength.
Swung with his last working arm.
The blow barely hurt the creature—
but it staggered.
One step back.
Just one.
Enough.
Enough to feed the illusion
that he could still fight.
So he struck.
Again.
And again.
Until his knuckles split.
Until his blood sprayed across the thing he despised.
"DO YOU HEAR ME?!"
he roared, voice shredded by rage and pain.
"IF I'M GOING DOWN—
I'M TAKING YOU WITH ME!"
The creature answered.
Not with words—
but with a roar too deep, too ancient to belong to any living throat.
The ground shook.
The ruins screamed.
It seized him.
And hurled him.
Something broke inside his chest.
A cry died before it could be born.
Kael crashed through a wall,
hit the ground,
rolled,
slid—
and stopped.
He lay there, gasping.
The world tilted.
Blurred.
Rang.
His fingers trembled, clawing uselessly at dust.
Above him—
The creature approached.
Its breath filled the air—
hot, heavy, almost liquid.
It no longer rushed.
It was savoring.
Kael lifted his head.
His split lips curved into a smile—
defiant.
Insolent.
Beautifully stupid.
"What?" he rasped.
"Afraid to break me too fast?"
The monster growled.
Not in anger.
In amusement.
It stepped closer.
One footfall.
Then another.
Concrete trembled.
One.
Two.
Three—
CRACK.
The world inverted.
Kael flew again.
This time, metal met flesh.
The impact ripped a mechanical scream from the ruins—
a shrill, piercing alarm that cut through the air like a blade.
WEEEOOO— WEEEOOO— WEEEOOO—
Harsh.
Brutal.
Unbearable.
And the beast—
Screamed.
Not a roar.
A scream of pain.
Raw.
Uncontrolled.
Visceral.
The earth convulsed.
Walls split.
Its body twisted, limbs jerking in violent spasms.
The black aura shuddered—
fractured—
and shattered—
leaving behind a body
naked, trembling, exposed.
Kael, dizzy, panting,
watched without understanding.
Blood thundered in his temples.
The metallic wail kept slicing through the air,
again and again.
And for the first time
since he had laid eyes on it—
the thing stepped back.