The Alpha thrashed on the ground, a mountain of wounded flesh. Its fury had turned to panic. The game had flipped in a way its ancient mind could not comprehend. The prey was not supposed to fight back like this. The prey was supposed to die.
Artur approached, each step an act of pure will over broken matter. The pain in his leg and ribs was a storm, but his mind was calm—clear as a winter sky.
There was only one task left.
Seeing him come closer, the beast tried to drag itself away, using its three remaining legs. The motion was clumsy. Pathetic.
The system's apex predator had been reduced to a victim.
Artur gave it no mercy.
He caught up to it and, instead of attacking the head or throat, he began working on the other front leg.
CLANG. CRACK. CLANG.
He struck with methodical efficiency, a fury stripped of passion. It was the work of a butcher, not a warrior.
He was dismantling it.
The second front leg gave way.
Now the Alpha was completely immobilized in the front, capable only of thrashing helplessly. Its roars had become shrieks of terror. It snapped at him, trying to bite, but he stayed just beyond its reach.
He walked calmly to the creature's head.
It watched him with its one remaining good eye, the orange magma now filled with absolute, primordial terror. It saw him raise the axe.
Artur said nothing.
There was nothing to say.
He felt no triumph. No hatred.
Only emptiness.
And the need to finish the work.
He aimed for the good eye.
The axe came down.
The same hissing sound. The same eruption of vapor. The light went out.
The creature was blind now, thrashing in a world of darkness and pain.
He didn't stop.
He climbed onto the beast's head, the carapace slick with blood. He found the base of the skull—the same weak point.
He raised the axe one final time, the silhouette of his broken body framed against the purple sky.
The blow was final.
The spine snapped.
The leviathan went still.
Silence.
The street lay quiet, save for the rasp of his own breathing and the slow drip of blood—purple and red—onto the asphalt.
He was standing.
Barely.
Swaying atop the body of the third and largest beast.
Around him, in a semicircle of carnage, lay the corpses of its brothers. Three mountains of dead flesh.
Three monuments to his fury.
He had done the impossible.
He had faced the system's elite response—and annihilated it.
He looked at his hands, slick with blood. Looked at the axe, its blade chipped and stained. Looked at his own body, a landscape of ruin.
He had won.
He stood there—the lone champion of a block forgotten by God, a king upon a throne of colossal corpses.
And the victory was as empty and desolate as the hellish landscape beyond the barrier.