The cavern quaked with every clash. Kullen's blade rang against spectral armor as sparks scattered across the ash-choked air. Nathan flickered in and out of time, barely keeping pace, his breath jagged, his coat shredded. The three generals pressed forward—silent, relentless. Each blow landed like a verdict.
Lucio's undead filled the chamber at first, roaring in defense, but one by one they were dismantled. Crushed. Scattered into dust. For every soldier that fell, another general advanced, dragging rusted weapons that screeched across the stone like nails.
Kullen gritted his teeth, his arm trembling around the hilt."They're not slowing—"
"They won't." Nathan staggered back, his mark glowing faintly, unstable. "We don't have the energy they do. No soul in our strikes. We can't finish them."
From the shadows, laughter curled. The Smiling Man leaned against a pillar of bone, ichor dripping down his chin, his body slowly knitting itself back together. His grin widened with every retreat the boys were forced to take.
"Tick," he whispered. "Tock. Oh, this is precious. So brave, so stupid."
Kullen roared, slamming his blade into a general's chest. The impact shook the cavern—yet the thing didn't fall. It only tilted its helm, smiled with the Smiling Man's grin, and drove a halberd into Kullen's shoulder.
He dropped to a knee. Nathan dragged him back, panting, blood at the corner of his mouth.
Behind them, the cliff's edge yawned wide. No ground left. No escape.
The generals closed in. The undead were gone. The Smiling Man's chuckle filled the void.
"Game over."
A silence filled the air, and a jagged aura—gold, violet, and black all at once—crashed down like lightning. Cards scattered through the gloom. Confetti. Broken laughter.
And then— Joker stepped out of the distortion, wearing Jalen's face, but not. His grin was wrong. His posture loose, unhinged. His voice came layered, amused, and cruel.
"Man, you two look terrible," he drawled. "Lucky for you, therapy's in session."
Before Kullen or Nathan could react, Joker appeared behind them, daggers of pure soul energy in each hand. With a casual shove, he drove the blades straight through their backs.
Both men gasped. Choked. Collapsed.
The Smiling Man laughed so hard he nearly doubled over. "You… killed them for me? HA! Finally, a trick worth watching—"
The laughter cut short.
Because Kullen and Nathan stood up.
Their wounds glowed with silver-red light. Their veins burned with threads of soul energy, binding their bodies together again. Their eyes flickered—confused, alive, burning brighter than before.
Kullen flexed his hand, breath ragged. "What… did you—"
Joker winked. "Gave you a tune-up. You're welcome."
Nathan's voice shook. "You're not Jalen."
"Oh, I am. Just the funnier one."
The generals lunged again.
This time, when Kullen's blade connected, the armor shattered.When Nathan struck, time itself cracked around the blow, pinning the general mid-swing before splitting it apart.
The tide turned in an instant.
Joker clapped like a child at a circus. "That's what I like to see! Soul energy, boys—it's the cheat code."
The Smiling Man's grin twitched. His ichor dripped faster now. His body still healing, but slower—hesitating.
The battle raged. Kullen and Nathan carved through the generals with newfound strength, their strikes heavy with soul. The cavern shook with every impact, spectral bodies collapsing in showers of dust.
But Joker didn't watch them. He was already moving—straight for the Smiling Man.
The demon hissed, claws rising, grin baring too wide. "You think you can kill me? I am laughter, FEAR! I am—"
"—annoying."
Joker's fist slammed into his jaw, a soul-forged strike that made the cavern scream. The Smiling Man reeled, ichor splattering across the stone. For the first time, his laugh came out broken.
"Hurts, doesn't it?" Joker whispered, grabbing him by the face and hurling him into the wall. "We may not be on in my playground, but I'm still in control all the same."
The ground warped—checkerboards, slides of bone, torches burning green. The world bent beneath Joker's will, not as wild as before, but sharper. Focused. Every corner of it aimed at killing.
The Smiling Man lunged, claws slicing, laughter stuttering into shrieks. Joker met every strike, bending, twisting, striking back with soul-burnt fury. A yo-yo cracked across the demon's ribs. A hammer split his shoulder. An orb of molten light drove him to his knees.
"You can't phase through me anymore," Joker hissed. "Not when I've already joined you halfway. Or did you forget that?!"
The Smiling Man trembled. His grin wavered. For the first time in his existence, he looked afraid.
Joker reeled back, orb of soul energy burning in his palm like a newborn star.
"You look so scared, rightfully so... you killed our little sister, our Rhea. Death isn't enough, cause he'll just bring you back once he's done fighting Lucio. I think you need something more permanent."
The orb of soul energy began to vibrate wildly before returning to a deep blue. Joker drove it straight through the Smiling Man's chest, and his body began to crumble.
The cavern split with light.
The demon's body convulsed, ichor spilling in torrents as he tried to reform himself over and over. His laughter rang high—shrill, broken, desperate.
And then—silence.
His body cracked apart like glass, dissolving into a cloud of black smoke. His grin lingered the longest, trembling, twitching, before it too shattered.
"Good luck, freedom boy... losing two people in one year must be hard..."
The Smiling Man died laughing.
And with him, the tether snapped.
Above, Stix's scream filled the underworld. His body flickered, soul threads unraveling. For the first time since his binding, he looked free. And afraid.
Joker staggered, his grin faltering, his eyes flickering back to Jalen's gold.
The aura dropped.
Jalen collapsed to one knee, blood trailing down his face. "Stix… oh, fuck…"
Across the cavern, Kullen and Nathan stood silent, blades dripping with ash. Both stared at him—at Joker—at what he had become.
No words.
Only fear.
And questions.
From above the cavern within the dark, the ground rumbled. A pressure swelled.
Zeraphon's voice rolled through the stone like thunder.
"So. The Smiling One falls. My most loyal pawn, erased and gone."
The Death God stepped forward, his presence blotting out the air. His generals gone, his aura seethed unchecked. His eyes fixed on Lucio, who stood alone amid the ruin, blades trembling but raised.
Zeraphon smiled faintly.
"Good. Now I'll have your full attention."
The chamber went pitch black, and in the darkness, sparks of blades, bullets, and screams echoed.
Zeraphon raised a hand, and the air soured, heavy with the stench of rot and despair. Shadows poured like liquid, drowning the ground, a tide of death spilling toward Lucio.
Lucio didn't flinch. His form flickered, crimson sparks snapping at the edges of his silhouette. Silent Night was no longer silent—it was the rhythm of war itself.
He moved.
Bullets stitched through the dark, each round glowing faintly with soul-heat, striking specters and tearing gaps in the wave of spirits. His blades followed in seamless arcs, carving clean lines that pulsed with red light. Sparks leapt across the cavern floor as each motion chained into the next, execution without pause.
Zeraphon stepped forward, voice cold enough to crack stone.
"You think their borrowed fragments make you my equal?"
He spread his arms wide, and the shadows rose into forms—an army of pale knights, spectral banners flaring, a death choir singing in voices that rattled bone. They surged as one, a tide of inevitability.
Lucio blurred into their midst.
Steel rang, echoing like a war drum. His blades cleaved through knights whose armor burst into dust, each strike driven deeper by the dog tags burning against his chest. He rolled low, twin pistols flashing in time with his heartbeat, rounds bursting into arcs of crimson light that tore through rows of the dead.
But Zeraphon wasn't still. He raised his staff, and the army closed ranks—hundreds becoming one, a colossus of bone and shadow. Its roar shook the cavern as it swung a blade the size of the hall itself.
Lucio darted forward, leapt, and slid along its arm, blade biting deep. Soul sparks erupted, searing the giant open, but still it stood.
Zeraphon's eyes narrowed. "Enough games."
The Death God raised his palm. Power gathered, raw and jagged—a pulse of death itself. When it struck, the cavern screamed, walls splitting, rubble exploding outward. The blast caught Lucio square in the chest, hurling him across the stone. His body cracked the wall, blood on his lips, crimson aura flickering.
Zeraphon lowered his hand slowly. "Fall."
Lucio coughed, forcing himself upright. His chest seared where the energy had hit, but… it burned differently. The dog tags glowed brighter, threads of soul light knitting into his strikes, his aura pulling tighter, sharper.
He realized it in that instant.
'The moment Zeraphon forced me to awaken, he opened the door himself.'
Lucio's eyes flared crimson-white. He exhaled, steady, and then launched forward—faster than before, sharper than before.
The ground split beneath his stride. His blade punched straight through the colossus's chest, ripping it apart in a shockwave of ash and screams.
Zeraphon blinked. "Impossible—"
Lucio was already at his throat.
One pistol fired point-blank, the round blazing with soul-light. The shot carved straight through the shadow, burning a hole into the Death God's shoulder. Zeraphon staggered, eyes wide, for the first time off-balance.
Lucio's blades followed, crossing in a vicious arc, cleaving shadow-flesh that refused to heal. Soul light clung to the wound, searing it open.
"You made this power possible," Lucio growled, voice low, relentless as his strikes. "Every soul you consumed—every soldier you slaughtered—I'm carrying them. And now, they're cutting you down."
Zeraphon bellowed, summoning tendrils of darkness to crush him. Lucio spun, his pistols clapping in unison, each bullet exploding into lines of red fire that cut the tendrils apart. He closed the distance in a blink.
Steel met bone. Blade drove through shadow. Soul fire seared every inch it touched.
Zeraphon's staff shattered under the pressure, fragments scattering like ash. His form wavered, trembling, his voice breaking with something between fury and fear.
"I AM DEATH ETERNAL! I AM ONE OF THE PRIMORDIAL FOUR! YOU'D BEST KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING, BOY!"
Lucio pinned him with both blades, driving them deep until their hilts burned against Zeraphon's chest. His eyes blazed, his aura roaring in crimson arcs.
"No," he said, dog tags chiming like steel in the wind. "You're just another body."
With one last strike, Lucio fired both pistols into the cross of his blades.
The blast tore through Zeraphon.
The Death God's scream shook the underworld, his form splitting apart in jagged lines of shadow and light. His body unraveled, soul energy disintegrating into sparks, every fragment shredded by the very force he had awakened.
And as the cavern trembled under the force—
Zeraphon fell.