Chapter 38:
"Finally, I Can Kill You"
Arc 4: Chapter 4
POV: "???"
Empty was trapped.
Aldert's beams squeezed his body like serpents of wood and thorns. The commanders' magics—all except Science—converged on him in overlapping layers of power. Darkness, magic, brute force, everything combined to immobilize him.
The House soldiers scattered, running to help the wounded. Luka, Luna, Raphadun, and Amanda—all were carried away from there, to somewhere safer, somewhere the battle couldn't reach them.
"LEAVE HIM TRAPPED THERE!" Aldert's voice echoed across the battlefield. "BE STRONG..."
His staff was planted in the ground, feeding the magic that kept Empty immobilized. Sweat ran down his wrinkled face, but his eyes never left their prey.
All the commanders kept their powers active. A chain of energy completely envelops Empty.
Then, he began to scream.
It wasn't an ordinary sound. It was something that seemed to come from within reality itself—a vibration that made teeth grind and bones tremble. Everyone had to cover their ears. Some fell to their knees. Others vomited.
And in that split second of distraction...
Empty teleported.
Leonas was the first to be hit. The blow came from nowhere, and the darkness commander flew away like a rag doll, his body arcing through the air before colliding with the rubble.
Nyra tried to react. Her spear was raised, ready to strike. But Empty was faster. A precise kick hit her square on, and she fell beside Leonas, unconscious before even hitting the ground.
Varlet advanced with his magic sword. The movement was perfect, trained, deadly. Empty ducked low, his body bending at an impossible angle, his eyes tracking Varlet's every move.
Then, his hand rose.
"Temporal Destruction."
Varlet's sword began to dissolve. Metallic particles floated in the air like dust before simply ceasing to exist. Varlet stared at his own empty hand, incredulous.
The punch came next.
Aldert watched it all happen at a speed his eyes couldn't follow.
Leonas, Nyra, Varlet—all fallen in seconds.
He tried to plant his staff in the ground again, prepare another spell, do anything.
Empty appeared before him.
The punch hit his stomach with a surgeon's precision. The air left Aldert's lungs in a violent rush, and blood escaped through his lips. He staggered back, trying to move away, trying to gain distance.
Empty began to follow him.
Calmly.
Like a wolf following its prey.
Aldert tried to run. The blow had been too strong. His legs barely responded; his steps were slow, dragging. Empty walked behind him with steps so slow he seemed almost indifferent—but the distance between them shrank with every second.
Empty smiled.
Ahead, a concrete block. A dead end.
Aldert held onto the rubble, his bloody hand slipping on the rough surface. He looked ahead.
The being he had belittled for an entire year approached slowly.
The terror in his eyes was absolute.
"I finally understood..." Empty murmured.
Aldert closed his eyes.
Death was imminent.
Then, something was felt.
Silent as the wind of the Safe Zone.
The Valkyrie sword embedded itself in Empty's chest.
"DARKNESS DESTRUCTION!" Bruce Darking's scream tore through the air.
The explosion was colossal. Everything already destroyed flew in all directions—stones, metals, bodies, rubble. A wave of pure darkness expanded like a black sun, swallowing everything in its path.
Raphadun teleported Aldert at the last instant. The old counselor appeared meters away, fallen, gasping, but alive.
From the smoke, Empty emerged.
Blood gushed from his mouth—the first time he had bled in the entire battle. His left arm was completely destroyed, reduced to fragments still floating in the air.
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He regenerated.
Quickly.
The arm reformed before everyone's eyes, bone by bone, muscle by muscle, skin by skin.
Empty smiled.
Before him, Bruce Darking, "The Strongest Man in the World," prepared a small miniature black hole. Darkness concentrated in his hand, dense, absolute, hungry.
"Our fight is just like your future..." Bruce murmured.
"INEVITABLE!"
Empty prepared to advance.
The black hole merged with Valkyrie.
Everything trembled.
"TEMPORAL DESTRUCTION!" Empty screamed.
"SINGULARITY DESTRUCTION: DARKNESS OF DEATH!" Bruce screamed.
The attacks collided.
And in both their eyes, the same expression.
A perceptible smile.
Joy.
And the same word echoing in their minds:
Finally, I can kill you.
Bruce and Empty collided.
The impact was felt in every fiber of the air, in every particle of dust on the ground, in every bone of those still standing to witness.
Bruce's power pulled everything like an imminent black hole. Distorted gravity dragged stones, debris, and even light itself seemed to curve toward him. Empty felt his body being pulled—the singularity didn't attack, it consumed.
The primordial powers of the stones pulsed over them.
The green of the Future.
The purple of Destruction.
Bruce, a short distance away, tossed Valkyria into the air.
The movement was fast. Calculated. Precise.
"DESTRUCTION..."
Empty saw the same name being used. The same technique. But something different was coming.
"...TOTAL!"
Empty thrust both arms forward.
Valkyria fell back into Bruce's right hand at the exact moment.
The power that emerged wasn't like the others. It wasn't a cut. Wasn't a strike. It was a wave. A pressure in the air that carried destruction in its purest essence. Different from Empty's power, which affected time, this affected something more fundamental.
Space.
The rubble ahead simply vanished. Not thrown away. Not disintegrated. Turned to dust in an instant, as if they had never existed.
Bruce moved with a speed Empty couldn't follow. Before he could react, Valkyria was embedded in his chest again.
"DARKNESS DESTRUCTION!"
The explosion was internal. The power detonated inside his body—organs that had barely formed, newly created flesh, everything being torn apart once more.
More blood gushed.
And the power of total destruction, the wave that spread beyond them, struck two civilians ahead.
A man. A woman. Medical soldiers are trying to help the wounded.
They exploded.
Turned to dust.
Simply ceased to exist.
From a distance, emerging from the rubble, Leonas saw.
Luna, being treated on a distant stretcher, also saw.
Her body moved before her mind could process. She left the stretcher, staggering, eyes fixed on the place where the fight was happening. Tried to run. Tried to get there. Tried to do something.
This is... Empty thought.
He didn't have time to finish.
"A short time ago, you were a fragile, irrational being," Bruce's voice cut through the air, calm, controlled, while his sword kept Empty pinned. "Now you think you're 'Everything' because you were lucky enough not to explode when using a power you don't understand."
He pushed the sword deeper. Empty felt the blade piercing him from within.
"You're an accident. You're not special. You're just a mediocre curse, and you'll be eliminated, as you always should have been."
Bruce drove the sword in further.
"The disgusting being you've always been."
Empty bled. A lot. With each word, each movement, more blood flowed.
But his expression remained serene.
The time Bruce took to speak didn't match the desperate situation. There was no haste in his voice. No need to finish quickly. That was intentional.
It was his way of showing superiority.
Empty raised one finger.
Just one.
Bruce noticed quickly.
"Temporal Destruction."
The air between them coagulated. Then distorted. A temporal, silent wave advanced, molding the space around, trying to destabilize Bruce.
But Bruce wasn't Luka.
He wasn't there.
An imperceptible movement. A displacement of air. And he reappeared beside Empty, his sword already moving for another cut.
Empty reacted instinctively.
He didn't dodge on the ground—he flew upward. A leap that transformed into an ascent, leaving Bruce's cut behind.
The cut, again, destroyed everything in its place.
Fencer watched from afar.
His analytical eyes, trained to see what others didn't, processed every movement.
That power is only possible with the... Stone of Destruction.
"That's the difference now, Bruce," Empty's voice echoed from above.
In the air, he raised his arms.
The debris of the destroyed city began to move. Twisted beams. Concrete blocks. Vehicle parts. Everything was wrapped in a green glow.
They were hurled into the sky.
Hovered for a moment.
Then began to fall.
A rain of directed meteors. Each fragment carried the force of an artillery shell.
Bruce didn't retreat.
He ran into the rain.
His feet, wrapped in a mist of concentrated darkness, propelled him from one meteor to another as they fell. He used them as steps. As an impossible ascending staircase.
He climbed through the bombardment.
His figure was a black blur against the green storm.
In an instant, he reached Empty's altitude.
Valkyria glowed with a light that sucked the color from around it.
"Darkness Cut, Version: Space Cutter."
Empty responded instantly.
"Darkness Emergence: Black Hole."
A sphere of pure darkness manifested before his chest. Minuscule. But its gravity was monstrous. It pulled Empty violently toward Bruce.
This man... Empty's thought was a flash of cold analysis amid existential pain. 10? 20? 40 years of training?
His strength... is 10x? 20x the Persuer?
"You could have saved your son," Empty shouted, his voice distorted by gravitational pull.
The image of Andrew surfaced in Bruce's mind.
"You could have defeated the Stalker yourself. But you chose to stay here. Like a coward."
"SHUT UP!"
Bruce's roar carried an ancient fury. Repressed. Fueled by decades of choices that couldn't be undone.
Valkyria was already in motion. Finding the exact point in Empty's chest where the previous thrust had struck.
"EXPLODE!"
This time, the explosion was internal.
The sword's dark energy detonated inside Empty's body. Once more. Stronger.
A flash of black light and dirty green burst from his eyes and mouth.
His body was launched into the sky like an incandescent rag. A trail of dark blood painted the air behind him.
Empty fell. And fell. And fell.
Then, stopped.
In the air.
His body, still torn, still bleeding, still alive, rose again.
Green eyes met Bruce's.
Empty advanced.
His fist closed.
"Punch of the Future."
It hit Bruce square on.
The impact was colossal. Bruce felt the power penetrating his defenses, reaching something beyond the physical—something in time, in the line of his existence.
He struck back.
Both began to face each other in the skies.
One glowing green.
The other glowing purple from the Stone of Destruction.
Both showed they were using them.
A battle above any precedent.
Down below, Luna finally reached a position where she could see.
Her eyes followed the two figures colliding in the air like gods at war.
She didn't know what to do. Didn't know how to help. Didn't even know if she should be there.
But one thing she knew.
Bruce was using the Stone of Destruction.
The same stone that, according to all prophecies, all laws, all rules, she knew, should be sealed.
The same stone that, if used long enough...
She didn't finish the thought.
Didn't need to.
