Chương 79: Episode 24: "Oh NOT AGAIN!!!"

All I could see was black, a void of nothingness that swallowed everything whole. There was no sense of direction, no sound, no light—just emptiness. I couldn't tell if I was unconscious or asleep, and that uncertainty clung to me like a weight. If I ever woke up, I'd find the answer. The last thing I remembered was killing Don Black. I had ripped out his heart and crushed it in my hand. That moment should've felt distant by now, like a fading nightmare, but it didn't. It lingered.

Worse than that, I could still feel everything. A cool breeze brushed against my skin as I lay motionless on the ground. Slowly, my eyes opened, and the world above me came into focus. The sky stretched wide and blue, with a sun burning bright and heavy over the dimension. Wind moved through the ruins, carrying dust and quiet echoes through broken space.

Nature had begun to reclaim what was left of the city—moss crawling over stone, flowers pushing through cracks, and grass growing in uneven patches across the destruction. The buildings were barely recognizable anymore. They stood like decayed giants, eroded by time and violence until their original shapes were almost lost. It was hard to tell where structure ended and collapse began. I sat up slowly, my body aching as I looked around. I was on a fractured gray road buried in dust and ruin.

Cars lay crushed and twisted, scattered like discarded toys. Road signs were bent deep into the ground or leaning helplessly against broken walls. Everything felt abandoned, like the world had already given up on this place. Above me, part of a building still stood—barely. A warped steel pillar held up a skeletal frame, catching sunlight that filtered through the wreckage. Dust drifted down from higher floors, settling onto my hair and skin as if the structure itself was falling apart in slow motion.

I stepped forward and ran a finger across the pillar. It came away coated in a thick layer of dust, so dense it almost hid my skin beneath it. I stared at it for a moment before letting my hand drop. Turning back to the road, I saw nothing but destruction stretching in every direction. Buildings had collapsed into themselves, their metal frames exposed like broken bones. Some were split clean in half, others crumbled entirely into rubble.

Shattered glass still clung to a few windows, but most had long since been destroyed. Paper and debris drifted through the air, carried by the wind like they no longer belonged anywhere. Then I saw him. Don Black's body lay not far from me, still and unmoving. His chest was torn open, and the remains of his heart rested beside him, dried and unrecognizable. I stared at it for a long moment before speaking under my breath.

"Sorry… a vow had to be fulfilled…" I leaned back against the steel pillar, letting its cold, rusted surface support me. Only then did I notice something strange. My body was healed. The wounds were gone. My ankle, my hands, everything had restored itself completely. Celestianite regeneration… I guess that really does come in handy. I exhaled slowly, dragging a hand down my face as I looked back at Don Black's body. My voice came quieter now.

"What… was the point of all this?" No answer came.

"Why would I do something like that?" The wind pushed harder through the ruins, loud enough to feel like it was responding. Grass and flowers swayed beneath the destruction, alive in a place that should've been dead. I looked down at them, then across the broken road again.

"Does this level of brutality… make me a monster?" I didn't even know if Starla was dead. If she was, why had she been taken? Kai had been taken too, and that didn't make sense either. My fists tightened. My jaw clenched. That punch… she went down hard. Rai's strike had gone too far. It could've been a knockout—or something worse. I pressed a hand against my head, trying to make sense of it.

"If she's just unconscious… did I do all of that for nothing? And if she's dead… did I go too far?" A sudden WHOOSH tore through the air, shaking the ground beneath me. Dust burst outward in a violent shockwave, and the structure behind me groaned under the pressure. I looked up sharply. A massive figure hovered in front of me.

"Stand down… Celestianite." An eight-foot human-wolf hybrid floated in the air, his body tense with power. His fur and hair whipped violently in the wind, and his eyes burned with a deep red glow that locked directly onto mine. I pushed off the pillar and stepped forward, narrowing my gaze as I faced him.

"Look, man… if you're another Xenith, I don't have time for this. I've got something else I'm dealing with."

"Your morality… is that what you're dealing with?" the wolf replied. I snapped my head up.

"No. You don't know what just happened here."

"But I do know this," he said, clenching his fists.

"I expected you to be in your cell." A dry smirk formed on my face as I pulled out my daggers.

"And? Because right now, I'm in the mood to hit something as hard as I can."

"That's not why I'm here," he muttered.

"But I suppose it's close enough." He placed both hands against his chest.

"I am Genocide."

"The only chance you'll ever get."

"You've already had warnings from Skull Dragger," he raised two fingers, "another from Rai Kai," one finger lowered, "and now… the final one. From me." My voice rose sharply.

"DO YOU NOT SEE THE BODY?! IT'S RIGHT THERE!" Celestial energy snapped from my body in violent arcs as I faced him fully.

"Leave me alone."

"Good," Genocide said calmly.

"That resistance… is exactly what I expected." My stance dropped instantly, feet locking into the broken ground as dust exploded outward.

"You're asking for it," I said coldly. Genocide didn't move.

"You'll be the last Xenith I ever face."

"RRAHH!!" I shot forward straight at Genocide, closing the gap in an instant. My shoulder slammed into his chest and carried him backward through the sky, forcing both of us into a fast descent across the ruined city. He recovered mid-motion. Before I could reset, I twisted and drove a kick into his face, detonating Celestial energy on impact. The blast didn't scatter us randomly—it pushed us both diagonally upward, breaking our trajectory and sending us through the side of a nearby building.

We crashed through steel and glass together and burst out the other side, still locked in motion. The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Genocide landed first on the outer wall of another structure. He caught himself with one hand, then immediately ran down the face of the building toward me, tearing through windows as he descended. I stayed airborne and angled upward along the same building's edge, circling above him to break his chase line.

He tracked me instead of disappearing, adjusting his path and kicking off the wall to stay close. I fired a Celestial blast downward. It struck the building between us, blowing out a section of the structure and forcing him to drop through the explosion path. The building split above him. I took that opening and drove upward through the collapsing gap, weaving between beams and floors inside the structure instead of exiting it.

I carved a straight path through the interior and burst out the top edge, then dropped back down the opposite side. I hit a lower ledge and slid across it to regain footing. The upper half of the building groaned and started collapsing behind me. Genocide used the falling structure as cover and came in from the side blind angle. His fist slammed into my jaw before I could fully turn—clean hit—launching me upward in a straight arc. I flipped mid-air to control the fall and landed on a broken elevated platform.

No pause. I kicked off immediately and dove back down toward him. Celestial energy cracked around my body as I drove into the ground in a controlled impact, kicking up a dust explosion around my landing point. Daggers spun into my hands. Genocide advanced from the opposite side of the crater I created. Red energy flared around him, distorting the air as he closed distance in a straight, direct charge. He didn't vanish—he accelerated, cutting the gap in a single burst. We met at the center.

SLASH— Blade and force collided. Sparks exploded outward. We stayed locked in close combat range, neither breaking distance. Every strike was within arm's reach—punches, blade parries, kicks—each one redirected, not avoided by teleporting, but by raw speed and positioning shifts. The ground beneath us cracked with every impact. Genocide drove a combo into my guard and forced me backward three steps. I used the momentum, pivoted off a broken wall behind me, and launched back in from an angle above his right side.

I dropped hard into him.

"FIFTY—FIFTY—FIFTY—CELESTIAL DROPKICK!" BOOOOM— The impact drove him straight down through the street and into the ruins below. Dust and debris erupted upward, but I stayed above the impact zone, tracking exactly where he went. Silence. Then movement. He pushed up through the rubble in the same crater, slower now, but controlled—never lost, never gone. Red energy pulsed heavier around him as he rose back into view. I descended to ground level opposite him, keeping distance visible between us.

I rushed in again, blade leading. He met me halfway and caught my strike mid-motion—his hand locking around my blade before it could pass through. We froze at close range. Neither of us moved out of position. Energy pressure built between us, warping the air.

"Yes… the strength… the feel…" he muttered.

"MORE. I WANT MORE." His grip tightened, but he didn't shift position.

"GIVE ME MORE!" BOOMTH— A controlled red shockwave expanded from his body, blasting outward in a straight radius across the street. Vehicles flipped and detonated as the wave passed, but his position stayed anchored. I was forced backward, sliding across debris, blood trailing from my nose. I steadied myself and looked up. Genocide stood in the center of the ruined street, unchanged in position, hands on hips, fists bloodied, eyes locked on me.

"You're Lens Don the Celestianite… that's what they call you. A Celestianite." He didn't vanish this time—he moved in a straight burst forward. One step closed the gap. POW— His fist hit my jaw clean and sent me upward in a vertical launch. Before I could stabilize, he followed immediately from the ground, grabbed my leg mid-air, and threw me sideways across the sky in a controlled arc. I crashed through a building and dropped into a collapsing oil tank explosion below. Fire erupted outward across the ruins.

I rolled through debris and pushed myself up. Genocide descended from above in a straight line, landing across from me at ground level. I wiped blood from my nose, gripping my daggers tighter.

"You came to me," I said, steadying my breath, "and I didn't ask for problems… so why keep pushing it?"

"You chose this," he replied.

"You said it yourself. Don't contradict now." My head snapped up.

"What about Starla!" I shouted across the broken street.

"Is she alive?! What did Don Black do to her?!"

"And you're more concerned about your girlfriend than yourself?" he tilted his head slightly.

"You're killing me, kid." He flickered out of sight. I snapped my gaze around instantly—nothing. No movement, no sound. Then I looked up. He was already above me, carving a curve through the sky. BOOMTHHHHHH— He crashed straight down into me, slamming me into the ground so hard the entire city jolted from the shockwave. The impact cratered the earth beneath us. Before I could recover, he drove his grip into my body and launched upward again, dragging me with him.

We broke through the clouds, my body forced into a spiraling ascent I couldn't stabilize. I twisted mid-air to regain control. BAM— A red burst detonated against my chest mid-motion, knocking me sideways through the air like I'd been hit by a cannon blast. I hit a rooftop hard, slid across it, then dropped off the edge and crashed into the street below, scattering debris. No pause. Genocide reappeared the moment I touched ground and slammed into me again, driving me straight into the earth.

The impact buried me deep enough to taste dirt and metal dust. Then he ripped me out and threw me aside. I rolled across the battlefield, slammed into a broken pillar, and skidded through rubble until I forced myself upright again. I barely stabilized— BWOOM! A red beam carved through the battlefield. The shockwave alone knocked me off balance and dropped me to one knee, clutching my chest as the ruins around us trembled. The entire area had turned into a wrecked graveyard of metal, glass, and collapsed buildings.

BAM— A hit to my side. BAM— Another. I ducked forward. BAM— An uppercut launched me upward. BAMN— A gut strike sent me spiraling back through the air. I twisted mid-flight, trying to escape the rhythm—but Genocide stayed synced with my movement instead of vanishing, tracking my arc through the sky. He met me on the descent. BAM— He smashed me back into the ground and dragged me across it, grinding through debris as I scraped along the battlefield.

He planted his feet on my head and shoved down, using me as leverage to skid forward, carving a trench through broken structures and rubble. Then he kicked me upward, caught my leg mid-spin, and used my own momentum like a weapon—spinning and hurling me across the city. My head cracked into a jagged brick. I bounced once in the air— THUD! I landed hard. The sound echoed through the ruins. Silence followed for half a second. My hand shook as it reached forward.

I forced myself up, hunched over, blood pouring from my body. Scars and bruises were fully exposed now, my breathing unstable. My eyes glowed violet, nosebleed worsening with every second. The Ravagers were back—strapped against my jeans. I must've lost them earlier in the chaos. I lifted my head. Genocide descended through the dust in a controlled drop, landing without rush. His fists were soaked in blood, his expression calm—but heavy, almost disappointed. He's strong… very strong…

exactly what I'd expect from a Xenith.

"Your body's twitching," he said quietly, voice cutting clean through the wind.

"Tired?"

"Heh…" I let out a weak laugh.

"You're still bleeding…" He touched his head, checked the blood, then looked back at me without reacting.

"Fighting against me… and surviving. I'm satisfied." I limped forward, wings twitching before slowly spreading.

"Is that it…?" I muttered.

"All I had to do to beat Skull Dragger was take his staff. Without it… he's nothing." I paused.

"And I killed Don Black…" My voice lowered.

"But I was never proud of it."

"I notice that," he said.

"So where's the anomaly in you? Why not discharge it?"

"Because I don't want to prove your point," I shot back—calm, but colder now.

"I'm a Hero. I save people. I'm not a monster… and I'm not killing you just to prove you right." Genocide stepped onto the pile of ruins he'd created, settling into place.

"The man you eradicated before," he said slowly, his eyes locked onto mine.

"You tore his heart out and crushed it at the brink of death. You weren't holding back. So why hold back now?"

"I already told you," I said, my voice tightening.

"Because I'm not a monster." The wolf turned slightly, resting a hand on his chin as his ears twitched.

"You were one from the beginning. Since the day you were born—""NO, I WASN'T!" I snapped.

"YOU WEREN'T EVEN THERE WHEN I FIRST TOUCHED THIS EARTH!"

"But I don't need to be," he replied, stepping forward.

"The evidence is right there. That is what you could become. You just never knew it." Frustration snapped through me because I knew he was right. My fists clenched as blood poured from my nose and eyelids. The air compressed around my body as I surged forward, closing the distance to slam both hands around his snout and drive my forehead into his, forcing us both down into the rubble below. Dust exploded around the impact. I pinned him to the ground, gripping his snout tightly while his claws flailed beneath me.

When one of his claws came down, celestial energy surged through my eyes and detonated the strike mid-swing. He roared in pain as his movements broke. I used the opening to force his mouth shut, pinning him harder into the ground.

"WHY WOULD YOU MAKE ME DO THIS?!" I screamed. His snout cracked under my grip as blood poured down his face. The harder he struggled, the harder I pushed until his jaw broke under the pressure. I crushed it completely, erupting blood outward until his mouth was gone, his breathing stopped, and his resistance cut off instantly. Silence dropped over the ruins. I stayed still, my stomach violently churning as blood dripped from my soaked red fists.

A sudden wave of intense nausea hit me like a physical blow, acid rising sharp and bitter in the back of my throat. My cracked armor flickered with a violent violet glow as my head spun.

"Or so I thought you were dead," I muttered, noticing one eye crack open. My body reacted before my mind did. I drew a dagger and drove it straight into his neck. Blood spurted out, hot against my skin, as his body jerked once. His eyes slowly shut as he stopped moving for good. A violent heave choked my breath. I dropped the blade, doubled over, and retched into the dirt, coughing up bile as my entire frame shook. The metallic taste of blood mixed with sickening heat in my stomach.

When I finally stood up to look down at the broken body, the image of Don Black's crushed heart returned clearer and far heavier than before. He was right, and I killed him for it. My gaze dropped to my trembling, blood-caked hands as my stomach turned over again.

"What is happening to me?" Before I could finish the thought, a sharp, splitting sound tore through reality itself as something deep in the dimension cracked.