Kim collided with Russell the Cosmic, but every time he struck, the darkness evaporated like smoke.
Every attack, every flare of the "Eternal Flames," every soul drawn into the "Throne of the Abyss"… dissolved before the life-light pouring from Russell's body.
— Russell, in a cosmic voice: "O servant of the Abyss… you are but a shadow! Before the power of life… your fate is annihilation."
Kim roared and surged with a newly stolen skill from one of the heroes:
"Chains of Dawn" — celestial bindings summoned from the void to seize his foe.
The chains wrapped around Russell's arm… but the sacred light shattered them in an instant, even scorching the tips of Kim's fingers from the backlash.
— "No… impossible…" Kim hissed, blood spilling from his mouth.
The Book of Sin trembled in his hand, yet its pages did not answer.
Even the Scythes of Doom were broken with ease.
It felt as if everything he had built across five hundred years of madness amounted to nothing before the purity of life.
Russell drove his cosmic spear into Kim's chest again—this time piercing his heart.
Kim's body recoiled a step, his eyes lost their shine, and the darkness around him began to dissipate.
— "Is this… my end…?" he muttered as he staggered.
At that moment a voice sounded inside his head… it was Amon, the curse he had absorbed in past chapters:
— "Is that really you, Kim? Is this your end? How weak you are! I granted you my power… and yet you fall like trash!"
Kim, voice trembling, said:
— "Shut up…"
Amon sneered:
— "You swore vengeance… you swore to retrieve what you lost… your mother… Mary… and now you've even forgotten their faces. What have you become? A mere beast playing without purpose—what is your aim in this hell?!"
Kim fell to his knees. Who was Mary? He faltered, then fragments of warm life scenes flashed—did he once hold such a life? He murmured, "Was I that person… Mary… my mother?"
Black tears streamed from beneath the wrappings as he whispered:
— "M—Mother… Mary… how? How did I forget?! Why did I let myself get lost between madness and power?!"
Scattered images burst in his mind: his mother's laughing face, Mary's hand on his, his vow to return no matter the cost…
But all of it faded into the encroaching darkness.
He screamed—a cry that shattered the silence of the cosmos:
— "Whyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!"
The Abyss itself trembled.
The book opened a new page on its own.
The darkness around Kim was no longer mere smoke… it had become a storm of souls, wailing and crying his name.
He rose, though Russell's spear still pierced his chest.
He grasped the blade with his bloody hand; his smile trembled between tears and rage:
— "I forgot my purpose… but now I am it! I will tear you apart, Russell… as you tore me!"
Darkness exploded from his body; immense Abyssal wings unfurled behind him, and his blood turned into a black flame that flowed along the spear, beginning to melt the very life-energy itself!
Amon laughed madly within him:
— "That's it… that's the hatred I wanted to see! Unleash it, Kim… and be the death itself!"
— "Be silent, Amon—you couldn't control me; understand?" came his inward retort.
In that moment… the true battle of wrath began: Death versus Life, Kim the Abyssal Prince against Russell the Cosmic.