Jim sipped his now-cold coffee as he stared at his computer. It displayed records of Kael. Ever since the kid had killed 5,000 demons, he had taken a keen interest in him.
He had just received the report of Kael's departure through the ancient Egypt gate. Kaein was traveling there on his own. Jim wondered if the kid would make it… and, most importantly, if he could defeat Akkad, the one who had defeated Apap and was named the uncrowned god.
Suddenly, the screen went blank.
"What the heck?" he muttered, trying to reconnect. The message blinked back at him:
Error: dimension undetected.
"Commander, take deep breaths… slowly now… embrace your chi," the therapist's voice came through.
The commander lay on his couch and did as instructed.
Jim barged in. "Sir! Kael… he… he destroyed the dimension!"
"I am unbothered by anything. I am one with nature," the commander replied, taking another deep breath.
"Old man! The dimension is wiped out! The kid took all the fun for himself!" Kaein spoke directly to him, telepathically.
The commander let out a frantic cry, smashing his table again.
"What do you mean the kid destroyed a dimension?! Only gods can do that! He's just a kid with a black katana, trying to play hero!"
Kaein floated in the black hole, hands behind his back. "I wouldn't call him a hero."
Far away, in one of the stars of a distant dimension, Fiona's gate disintegrated.
"Was the gate not approved?" Fiona asked.
"It was, my lady… but the dimension was destroyed after the death of Akkad."
Fiona sank into her chair. "Blaze destroyed it… but how?"
"No, your sire. It was the boy… Kael."
Kael's mother appeared unfazed by the chaos.
"Did you know your son possessed the power of a god?" Fiona demanded, her voice rising, the room heating like the sun.
"I wouldn't call him a god," his mother replied calmly, moving her knight after sacrificing her queen.
"What is he then?" Fiona asked, impatient.
"Checkmate."
I opened my eyes in the same room where I'd chased Tana. Was it all a dream? But if it was, then why did my whole body ache?
I glanced at my hands — one held a key, the other my katana.
On the floor lay a note, the same handwriting as before but with a different message:
Dear Kael,
Thank you for bringing my family back home and for setting Bill free.
I guess it wasn't a dream after all.
I tilted my head toward Rebecca, lying unconscious beside me. A dark seal marked her stomach — almost identical to mine, though mine was fading.
"The poison Akkad gave her would have turned her into a demon if not for you. I managed to seal the demonic spirit," the priest had told me over a meal.
Blaze had been taken by Kaein to the hospital. Apparently, he'd remained in the void after I split the dimension in half.
Later, I sat on the cliff Blaze used to sit on and stared at the abyss.
What would happen if I jumped? How long would it take for me to die? Would it be an eternity, like this fantasy I'm living?
I sighed. The wind blew my hair as if the abyss itself sighed back. My spirit felt at peace as I watched the sky slowly being swallowed by clouds.
I didn't want to process everything that had happened. I just wanted to be alone in my darkness — the only thing that comforted me.
I gazed at the golden key, intricately shaped with a snake coiled around its hole.
I stretched out my hand to throw it into the abyss.
"Ancient treasures are not to be thrown away," the priest said behind me.
"But someone's life can be sacrificed for the greater good," I replied.
"Don't start going philosophical on us, kid. That key is the first one our squad has ever found. Kaein will be proud of our hard work," Emma said.
Would my mother be proud of me? I wondered.
Tom, Fin, and Emma smiled at me, thanking me for everything. Children joined them; one of them placed a crown of weeds on my head. I ignored the thorns. Her tiny soft hand gripped my rough, scarred one as she grinned, exposing missing teeth.
"Let's go celebrate, Mr. Kael," she said cheerfully.
What was there to celebrate? I felt worlds apart from them. I saw no reason to celebrate, nor to cry. Another version of me would have forced a smile — but I couldn't.
I stared at the abyss one more time. It seemed to be smiling at me as well. It gave me the smile of death, and I smiled back.
There I was, amidst joy and happiness. People cheered, threw flowers, danced, and were merry; yet I felt like a fly in a crowd of butterflies.
As they twirled, I envisioned them dead on the floor — like the 5,000 people who had turned into masters. Would they be killed by me this time, or would I be among them?
I drank the beer Tom carried, trying to drown such thoughts, yet my body refused to get drunk — no, my soul did.
"You know you're underage for drinking, kid," Emma said, placing a hand on my shoulder. She was drunk after three bottles and vomited shortly after. I sighed.
"I'm living," I decided.
>"Don't live yet, w—" I cut the priest off.
"I'll come back with Blaze to visit. We'll make another one," I waved him off.
Tom carried Emma; Fin picked a few pieces of meat as they prepared to live. Tana hugged me from behind.
"Thank you again, Kael, for everything… you've broken one of my chains…"
"Please don't live…" The last part was a whisper.
I didn't know how to respond, so I only gave a nod.
"Could you leave the key? I want to study it a bit. Blaze can pi—"
"No. Treasures are supposed to be kept in vaults, far away from humankind,"I replied
He clenched his fist. "Leave the key," he whispered, deep and cold.
Our moment of calm shattered with the opening of the main church doors. Rebecca appeared, her eyes glinting with Akkad's fire, a hint of his scales beneath them. She wore a white robe. Had she always looked like a rose?
She gazed at me, seeing the shadow upon me and the darkness within my eyes. She was the first to truly see what lay inside me. She wasn't scared, angry, or sad — she simply said:
"Are you my dark knight?"
I didn't understand what she meant, so I simply stared at her.
Then she turned to the priest. Fear twisted her expression, and she let out a frantic scream:
"Monster!"
She collapsed.
While everyone was still processing, my katana was already at his neck. A force stopped me from beheading him.
"You never cease to amaze me, Kael. The Goddess of destruction was right about you. I wondered why she spared you when she turned those five thousand into demons — now I see." His voice was syrupy, calm.
My heart raced. Lala-by—memories slammed into me. How did he know her name? My body trembled.
"Who are you?" I asked, voice shaking.
I moved away, but not by will — by instinct. He grabbed his face. It melted like candle wax, revealing his true face. Jake. The man who killed Zoro was still alive.
My head hammered. Memories that I tried to shove away rose like smoke. Unseen to me, his hand shot toward my chest — the same move Akkad had used. My body froze, not into ice, but into shock.
"Your heart is fascinating. Did you make a demon pact?" he purred, trying to pluck it out. I slithered like a snake and slipped free from his grasp.
"Huh, so fast." He smirked.
. The squad drew blades. This wasn't the priest I knew — he had morphed, a butterfly gone rotten, fluttering into something else.
He cried out, laughing as he watched us scramble. Tana rushed to Rebecca's side. I was drenched in sweat and forcing myself to breathe; somehow my body settled into an instant calm.
"Absolute cinema!" he cried, clapping as if we were actors.
"Has he gone mad?" Emma asked.
"This could have been a perfect ending if I'd let you go, but Rebecca blew my cover. Same as Zoro's story — he could have died an honorable death and his son could've been free, but fate marks its scenes!" Jake waved his arm like a drunk playwright. "I was getting bored of being a side character anyway."
"Don't attack without thinking—" , I shouted..
Fin moved to strike from behind. A black rod punched through his chest; he crumpled.
Emma threw up a barrier and dragged Fin into safety, but her feet froze in dark veins crawling from the ground.
I moved in a jagged pattern—fake strike, pull back—testing. He didn't react. He disappeared, then smashed Tom into the earth before Tom could even blink.
"I have no time to play with ants." His voice was a cold laugh.
Black veins rose and held Emma in place; the earth itself seemed to obey his will. My dark katana met his black rod and sparks spat, but there were no openings. He shifted, deflecting my strikes like a man who'd already read the moves in my head.
"Show me the move you used on Akkad," he taunted. "No — is your blade really Zoro's? What was her name again…" He toyed with us as he deflected.
My katana glowed red as I pushed, strikes coming faster. I slipped past his arms, hacked into cubes… and cut him in half.
He regenerated instantly. He plucked my katana between two fingers. "Your sword is dull," he said.
The rod in his hand morphed into a whip lined with thorned shadows. It lashed like night itself.
"Do you ever wonder if a god watches all this?" he laughed. "People made gods to soothe their suffering. Even if one existed, it wouldn't give a damn about ants like you."
A child threw a stone. "You demon — what did you do with the priest?" the kid cried.
I lunged to protect him. The whip tore through my flesh.
"Have you become the messiah, Kael? Save them all, then. First — let's see who saves you." He vanished and reappeared; I tried to behead him again, but the force held me back.
The whip shredded through skin and pressed into bone. I shouted, "Run!" but my voice was choked with blood. I deflected and dashed, buying seconds for the children to flee. Jack's rods pinned me in place, and he cast dark energy that contorted the children into monsters.
"No!" Tana screamed.
Everything happened too fast. My worst fears were bleeding into reality. I screamed — a sound like a dying goat — and I tore at the whip. Dark lightning crowned my limbs; I blitzed forward and landed a crackling punch. He didn't flinch.
"That's not how you throw a punch," he sneered.
His fist drove through my stomach; I crashed into the church, slammed beside the huge cross. The figure on it wore a crown like mine — only mine was real and bloody. The ache in my chest was not just muscle; it was the weight of every promise I'd ever failed to keep.
Against my will he pulled me close, my neck resting against his hand. He snatched the key from me.
"She told me not to break her toy. Don't die on me, kid." He peered into my fading eyes. Everything blurred. My lungs screamed. The worst pain was in my soul.
"Enough!" Tana slapped him.
"I've had enough," she cried. "You said you'd set us free. You said you'd bring Bill back if I brought Kael here — you liar!" She struck, and blood welled from her hands.
He pinned her with his rods, holding her wrists like iron. He slapped her, mocking and precise.
"Know your place, woman," he spat.
Tana spat back. "Go to hell!"
He laughed. "I am hell."
He pinned me like the statue I saw in the church.
"Watch closely, Kael. I'm about to teach you how to become a man." He dragged her forward, ripping at her clothing to humiliate and break her dignity. His cruelty was surgical, meant to wound more than to kill.
"Stop! Do whatever you want with me but let her go — please!" I begged, hammering at the rods.
"It's me you're fighting," I said. "Leave them alone… please." I cried out.
I'm no hero. But I can't let people suffer because of me. Why? Why? Why?
Tana looked at me with an apology in her eyes, then pleading — until the light left them. She accepted what was coming as if she'd seen this scene before.
The children — those writhing, pleading things — approached. Their eyes begged for help.
Everything turned dark.
I felt as if I were drowning, a chain with a massive stone fastened around my neck, pulling me down into the abyss.
"You're weak."
"You're pathetic."
"Why didn't you give up from the start?"
"Why did you choose the red gate?"
"Why do you keep surviving?"
The voices clawed at me, each word sinking deeper than the water itself. I stopped fighting. My body surrendered, drifting lower, deeper.
Then I remembered my mother.
Was she only a hallucination?
Did she truly abandon me?
A memory echoed — a voice:
"How far can you see with those eyes of yours?"
"To the depths of life itself," I whispered, repeating the answer I had once given her.
The abyss shifted. I was standing in a desert now, the heat swallowing me whole. In the distance shimmered an oasis, and a lone figure pointed toward it.
"Drink," the figure said. "Quench your thirst."
I stepped forward… then stopped. I turned away.
"Why not?" the figure asked. "Why refuse relief from your pain?"
"I've come to terms with my circumstances."
The desert shattered. Sand crumbled into nothingness. And there, before me, stood a dark figure cloaked in shadow.
"Not bad," it said, its voice like a blade across stone. "You've grown. I'll grant you a fragment of power—without terms, at least enough to save you from humiliation."
It reached out its hand.
And I shook hands with death.
Back in reality, the air tasted like iron. Jack moved like a blade made of malice. A dark force tugged at the air behind him — death itself pulling at its sleeve.
He turned to look at me , but his head betrayed him; it tumbled to the ground.
I smashed the rods that held Tana and dropped my hood over her like a shield.
The rods crumbled to dust as my blade sliced through them, barely moving. Jack's fingers found my shoulder.
"Good grief — what I did to that poor woman was unnecessary," he said with false pity. "But you finally crawled back from death, Messiah. You don't look very holy."
He dodged my strike, hand left hanging at my neck. I grabbed it. For a second it was his hand — then he twisted and hammered a punch into my gut.
I braced myself on my katana and rolled the hit, raising my head to see him loom, ready to strike. I vaulted behind him; the punch sent a shockwave shattering the air over the forest.
We moved like shadows, trading blows. He lashed with a whip that became a tail; horns sprouted from his skull — one half-formed — his hands wrapped in black cloth bristling with thorns and flame.
"I'll show you a glimpse of a god's power," he snarled.
Each hit cracked like glass against bone. My moves slowed, but I kept fighting.
"Your power's impressive," he mocked as he slammed me into the earth. "Do you truly think surviving death makes you fit to challenge the devil?" He rained punches down without mercy.
When the continuous assault left a seam in his guard, I slammed my palm into the ground and split the soil — a small crater. Like a snake, I slipped through the opening, slid beneath him, and yanked one of his horns, slamming him down.
I backflipped to dodge a storm of black rods. He screamed and a dark aura swelled, gravity bending toward his rage. He drew me in with force and drove me into the dirt; I bounced up like a thrown stone.
He seized my shoulder and slammed me twelve times until my world blurred. He lifted me, and I saw that terrible calm in his face.
"Know your place, human," he spat.
I answered with spit. He gathered a ball of flame and readied it for my chest.
Two voices cut through the noise — one cold, the other like a razor. "Lay another finger on him and I'll feed your head to the ravens," the goddess of destruction hissed. The other voice...
"Damn you Kael "
A blast grazed Jack's face. He staggered, furious, then tore open a gate with the key clutched in his hand.
"Fun while it lasted, kid. Dance with me another time — and bring a horde," he taunted, and hurled me down.
I pushed to rise. Pain and blood blurred the world, but my hand still moved. I threw one last punch — it landed on air.
I didn't fall to the ground. I landed on a chest. For a breath, everything steadied. It felt like returning home after being weather-worn for a lifetime.
A voice hummed in my head, close and warm.
"I'm sorry I took so long, kid," Kaein said. For the first time, his voice sounded like it meant something.
Tana woke to light peeking through the window. I was in the kitchen, chopping fruit into a bowl.
"Sarah," her voice came out like a whisper.
"Who's that?" I asked, distracted.
"That's the name of a woman who looks like you. Her son was Mikhail… so I'm not in heaven?"
"If such a place exists, I wouldn't be there," I said flatly.
Memories washed over her — not crashing, but slow and steady. She drew a long, deep breath.
"How are you healed so fast?" she asked.
"I don't know. I don't even know why I'm alive."
"God will tell you in good time."
"After everything, you still believe in that?"
"He says have joy in your suffering."
I sighed. "That's madness. I'm a madman myself and still have some common sense."
"There's a Bible under my bed. It's faded but readable. Give it a chance."
I almost refused, but her eyes — patient, pleading — pulled me along. I nodded.
"Could you give me a glass of water?"
"You need your medication," I said. "Try some fruit first."
"I already ate my share. Despite your deaf eyes, you're too kind for this world." She smiled, small and strange.
I did what Melissa told me to do. Doing it felt like holding the last piece of my humanity, so I stayed, afraid that leaving would erase even that.
I stepped outside for water. The clouds had been dark forever — why wouldn't they rain? I wondered as I filled a glass.
When I opened the door again the handle felt cold through my bandages. Tana lay on the bed, sunlight giving her an angelic glow. Everything in the room was cream-white except the red patch on her stomach.
I dropped the glass. It shattered.
She hadn't left a note. Her eyes told the story she'd kept masked when alive: she had chosen to end it. Freedom, she called it. There was no joy in that for me.
Rebecca woke in her room as if surfacing from deep water.
"It was just a dream," she muttered, clutching the wall for balance. She walked toward her mother's door, leaving a smeared patch of blood on the hallway as she went. She wasn't close to the others, but loneliness sharpened in her like a blade — everyone she might have called family felt gone.
A ghost of her younger self ran past, laughing, toward Tana's room. Inside, Tana sat knitting, and Bill and Blaze were playing rock-paper-scissors for a scarf. Rebecca, remembering, moved faster to relive that small warmth.
She burst in, breathless. "Mama! Mama, I had a—"
Kael stood between her and the bed with a knife in his hand, staring at Tana's still body. Her garments were stained red.
Rebecca stumbled over broken glass. She froze, then ran to the bed. Her foot left a bloody footprint as she pounced on Kael, clawing, screaming.
"What…what did you do to my mother?!" she cried.
"She was suffering," Kael said, voice flat. "I ended it."
Rebecca struck him, nails raking blood across his face as she screamed, "You monster! Bring her back! Bring my mother back!"
Kael didn't answer.
Blaze woke up in a hospital room. For the first time, he noticed the pile of "get well" cards scattered around him, and his face burned with embarrassment.
"Welcome back to the thing called life," Kaein said.
"What lies ahead of it?" Blaze asked.
"Bit me," Kaein replied casually.
"You look like crap. At least it's good not to see you smirking for once. Don't worry, I'm fine. I can handle it. I'm more worried about the kid," Blaze said.
"His… empty, I guess," Kaein murmured.
"I see. Guess I'll need to punch some sense into him. Oh! I know—I'll ask Tana to slap Jim into his senses. She's really good at that."
Kaein clenched his fist.
"Or maybe I'll ask Jack to give him a lecture. But since he's my brother now, I suspect he'll just fall asleep."
Kaein didn't respond.
"Why the long face? Did Melissa cause another lab explosion?"
Kaein told him the news. He was quiet for a long moment.
"I see."
The clouds finally gave way, letting the rain fall. I hadn't brought an umbrella, nor was I wearing a suit. I stood out among the mourners, soaked and silent.
"I heard the kid destroyed a whole dimension," someone muttered.
"Yeah, talk about a show‑off. First he kills five thousand monsters, now this."
"Rumor has it he killed Tana as well."
"I knew the story about a priest turning evil couldn't be true."
"He's a monster in human form. Can't even wear a suit or at least carry an umbrella."
I didn't flinch. I stared at the grave as the priest gave his sermon. People lined up to place soil into the pit. I wondered if this priest was also evil.
My squad patted me on the back before leaving. Soon it was just me, the rain, and my thoughts.
A man came and stood beside me. He lowered his umbrella to mirror me.
"What do you call a man who has lost everything? What makes him a man then? Whose man is he? Is he really free, and if not, what chains him — vengeance or truth?" he murmured, almost to himself.
"I'm not a hero," I said quietly. "I couldn't save them. I'm not even a warrior who fought for them. But I am someone who will do something. In your case, what will you do? What will you become?"
The man had one eye and carried a familiar presence. He opened his umbrella again, passed his condolences, and left.
Meanwhile, Rebecca stepped into a mall, showed a security guard her card, and was led to an underground church.
The rain finally ceased.
"Greetings, beloved, we come together today in the name of our Savior…"
An ant marched in front of me.
"It is written that we must have joy in our suffering and fight the good fight of faith."
The man filling the grave grew impatient. His dog had died, his girlfriend had left him, and now rumors about "the kid" had become the last straw. "Make a decision already," he muttered.
"It is upon us, beloved, to carry our cross, to finish the race of faith…"
"Sir… could you place soil in the grave?" he asked, but he froze at my eyes. Who could have something against a man with such eyes? he thought.
I stepped on the ant as I moved closer to the grave.
"Let us pray, beloved…"
The other ants passed the dead one and continued to labor.
I extended my empty fist over her grave. Veins rose as I clenched it tight, keeping my face straight. Blood spilled from my knuckles onto the soil.
"We pray in the name of the Father…"
I touched my head.
"The Son…"
I touched my heart.
"And the Holy Spirit…"
I touched my stomach.
Amen.
Note: This is the end of the volume. Thank you for reading. Is your battery still full? How many tissues did you use? I hope it was a good read for all of you, and I wish you the best in this disease called life.