"This is your end, you lowly mortal!"
The Demon King's voice rumbled through the shifting dimension like thunder on steroids. His entire body pulsed with demonic light, crimson veins glowing under his dark skin. He placed his clawed hand over his chest, as if pulling on some secret well of power deep within his being.
The world—if you could even call it a world—began to break apart. The false volcanoes cracked like porcelain, fire turned to ash, and even the air began to disintegrate into sparkling fragments of nothingness.
Kenji's eyes widened. "O-oi… wait a sec. Did you just press the 'delete system32' button on reality?!"
The Demon King ignored him. The energy condensed tighter and tighter inside his chest, bending light itself. Pebbles, rocks, magma, even the rivers of fire began to get sucked into the black orb of raw destruction. Soon, even matter and atoms weren't safe, swirling helplessly into the growing void.
Kenji's jaw dropped. "Holy cow. This guy's literally vacuuming physics. Someone get Dyson on the line!"
With a final grunt, the Demon King tore the energy out of his chest and compressed it into a tiny orb the size of a marble. The sheer weight of it distorted the air, pulling sound into silence.
"With this power," the Demon King declared, lips curling into a vicious grin, "I can remove you from existence itself. Past, present, and future—you will vanish as if you were never born."
Kenji tilted his head and cupped his ear. "Eh? Sorry, I didn't quite catch that—you're too far up there! Shout louder!"
The Demon King's grin twitched. He ignored the jab, lifted his hand, and cackled like a man who just found unlimited WiFi. "Goodbye, you insignificant worm!"
With a flick, he released the orb.
The tiny ball cracked apart into thousands of droplets of annihilation, scattering across the crimson sky like black rain. Each drop carried oblivion itself—anything it touched was erased from existence. Rocks evaporated, mountains blinked out, rivers vanished into thin air. Even the memory of them was gone, leaving only a hollow silence where they once were.
Kenji ducked behind a massive boulder, panting. "This is bad, this is really bad!"
But the shelter didn't last. The boulder shimmered… then disappeared like it had been deleted with a backspace key. Kenji stumbled forward, nearly falling into a pit of vanishing magma.
The Demon King floated above, laughing maniacally. "Wahahahahahaha—ack!" He choked mid-laugh as a chunk of floating debris smacked him right in the mouth. He spat it out, blood dripping down his lip, but continued to cackle. "Hahaha! Run, mortal! Run and hide! But you cannot escape my hand!"
Kenji clenched his fists, heart pounding. "System! Hey, system! A little backup here? Maybe a free trial of Divine Protection 2.0?"
No reply.
The silence was deafening. Even the usual sarcastic ding was absent.
Kenji gritted his teeth. "Tch. Figures. Always goes offline when I need it most. What am I supposed to do now?"
As if mocking him, his shadow suddenly grew larger. He turned just in time to see one of the erasure orbs falling straight toward him. He bolted to the side, sweat pouring down his face.
"Damn it, think, Kenji, think!"
Then he remembered. His hand brushed against the tool strapped to his back—the Divine Hoe. The most ridiculous, most anticlimactic weapon ever gifted to a supposed hero.
Kenji froze. His lips curled into a smirk.
He looked up at the Demon King. "Hey, King of Braindeads! You think these baby erasers are enough to kill me? Only a chicken would spam attacks from long distance! What's the matter—too scared to come down and fight me like a man?"
The Demon King's laughter stopped abruptly. His crimson eyes bulged, and his lip trembled with fury. He bit down so hard blood dripped from his mouth.
"YOU DARE MOCK ME?!"
With a roar, he snapped his fingers. The black rain shifted in unison, redirecting like homing missiles toward Kenji. The sky itself seemed to fall.
Kenji took a deep breath. He gripped the hoe with both hands, knuckles white. "Alright… here goes nothing!"
He charged forward, sprinting toward the incoming wave of destruction. The ground beneath him collapsed into nothingness, but he didn't stop.
"LET'S G—!"
Thud.
Kenji's foot snagged on a loose rock.
He tripped face-first into the ground with a comical splat.
"OWW… shit!" His face turned pale, as if all the colors of his soul had been drained. His limbs sprawled out like a broken mannequin. "Why is it always rocks?! I swear, they're the true villains of every hero story…"
The hoe flew out of his grip, spiraling high into the air.
Time slowed.
The hoe flew toward the glowing orb, colliding with it in midair. Instead of shattering like Kenji expected, the orb wobbled… and then swallowed the hoe whole. For a split second, Kenji's face twisted into despair.
"Seriously? My last weapon just got eaten like a snack?!"
But then—
WHAM!!!
The orb went haywire, sparking like a broken lightbulb, before zooming back toward the Demon King at full speed.
"Wait… wait, WHAT?!" the Demon King roared as the orb, now fused with the divine hoe, spun like a deadly beyblade of chaos. He tried to disperse it with his hand—only for the hoe's handle to slap him right across the face with a loud THWACK!