Chapter 138: The One-Man War
It had been three days since Axel buried the last of the dead.
Three days of wind sweeping through the broken walls of Redhold Hive, carrying the scent of ash and blood.
Three days of silence.
And now—he moved.
No word. No speech. No sound.
He simply stood, walked to the storage room in the western corridor—half-collapsed but not yet looted—and opened the rusted metal door with one sharp tug.
Inside were weapons.
Not military-grade stock.
Not standard-issue rifles or tactical gear.
These were different.
Locked cases. Ancient symbols. Blades forged in fire. Guns that hummed with old blood and forgotten rituals. Items that Michael had locked away and never allowed anyone to touch.
But Axel had the key.
He'd always had it.
He took only four things: a black leather shoulder holster with twin knives, an obsidian dagger sealed in cloth, a long rifle etched with golden runes, and his katana—the one stained red from every battle he'd survived.
He walked out into the open air of Redhold.
The white of his hair blew with the wind.
The red in his eyes pulsed like a furnace just starting to burn.
He said nothing.
But in his silence, the hunt began.
---
They called it the Circle's Hand—a hidden outpost in the north, buried under the mountain, where initiates of the Ashen Circle trained in secret.
It was hidden from satellite scans. Shielded by old magic. Guarded by mercenaries, machines, and monsters.
But nothing could stop him now.
By nightfall, the guards outside the facility were dead.
Not wounded.
Not unconscious.
Dead.
Throats opened clean.
Spines shattered.
Heads crushed in.
The snow around the outer perimeter turned crimson, then froze over with silence.
Inside the facility, a man in black armor paced.
He was tall, scarred, and had once trained under Michael himself before turning to the Circle.
He called himself Grail.
A leader of the Hand.
He stepped outside to investigate the failure in communication—and that's when he saw it.
The bodies of his men.
All of them.
Arranged in a circle.
Burned symbols carved into their chests.
He turned, weapon raised—too late.
Axel fell from the rooftop like a whisper.
A single slice of the katana severed the barrel of Grail's gun.
The next motion opened his shoulder.
And the third motion—Axel's hand—closed around Grail's throat.
No emotion in his face. No words. No sound.
Just those red eyes.
"You... you're dead," Grail gasped.
Axel didn't respond.
He lifted Grail with one arm, slammed him against the wall, and drove the obsidian dagger into his thigh—just deep enough to paralyze, not kill.
"W-wait—wait, you don't understand—" Grail coughed blood.
"I... I didn't plan Redhold. That wasn't me! It was the leader —it was the high circle! They... they wanted your father out of the way, not you—"
Axel's voice broke the silence at last.
Quiet.
Flat.
"I know."
Grail froze.
Axel leaned closer.
"You didn't plan it."
A pause.
"But you laughed when it burned."
He pulled the dagger free.
And jammed it into Grail's chest.
The scream echoed down the corridors.
But it never reached the high circle.
Axel didn't let it.
He silenced the sound with his hand before it finished.
And then—he burned the facility.
The entire mountain outpost.
He watched it burn, standing on the snowy ridge, face still calm, body still.
As the flames reached the heavens, Axel marked the next location on his map.
He wasn't just following leads now.
He was sending messages.
---
In the deepest part of the Ashen Circle stronghold, a dozen hooded figures stood before the leader again.
Reports were flooding in. Five outposts gone in three days. No survivors. No signals. No mercy.
The same message each time:
One man.
One.
The young hooded recruit from before shook as he spoke. "This… this isn't human anymore."
"No," whispered another.
"He's something else. Something worse."
The leader turned to them all.
His voice was quiet. Controlled.
"The death of his father unlocked him."
They listened in silence.
"We took his world… and now the world will pay the price for our mistake."
"What should we do?" another asked. "We could retreat, change cities, bury deeper—"
The leader shook his head.
"No. There's no running now."
He looked to the blood-written map behind him.
"Axel is no longer hunting us."
He turned to face them fully.
"He's punishing us."
And the room fell silent.
---
Back on the road, Axel walked through a field of snow, his boots leaving red footprints behind him. The air around him seemed darker. He didn't walk like a man.
He moved like fate.
Like a curse.
Like the final chapter in someone else's story.
He walked toward the next outpost.
The wind whispered his name to the trees.
And none dared speak it aloud.
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We are a few chapters from the end...
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