Elias stood amidst the debris, his ash-colored skin fading back to its natural tone as the overwhelming surge of power began to recede.
His burning red eyes, completely devoid of mercy, locked onto the trembling figure sprawled across the glassified ground before him.
Malkor—the self-proclaimed conqueror of the stars, whose authority had once made galaxies tremble—was reduced to a pathetic, crawling wretch.
His golden aura was shattered, completely extinguished, leaving behind a bleeding, broken shell of a god.
Elias stepped forward, his voice a low, chilling whisper that cut through the silence like a razor blade.
"You killed them without a single thought," Elias said, every word dripping with a terrifying, frozen malice. "You wiped out a home, a life, everything I had, and didn't even look back."
Malkor pressed himself backward into the dirt, his golden eyes wide with an absolute, paralyzing terror. He tried to speak, but only a wet, choking gasp escaped his bloodied lips.
"But killing you right now would be too easy," Elias continued, stepping closer, casting a long, heavy shadow over the fallen conqueror. "I'm gonna make you suffer. I'll break every bone in your body, cut you piece by piece, and then I'll kill you slowly. I'll make you cry and beg .
even death itself would beg for your mercy."
Malkor shuddered violently, a fresh wave of panic washing over him as he heard the cold promise in the boy's voice.
"That's not all," Elias said, his voice rising in pitch, laden with an eternity of vengeance. "I'm gonna kill you over and over again, no matter what. Across every star and every lifetime, as long as you exist, I'll exist just to end you."
Malkor's breath hitched. Deep down in his chest, a primal dread gripped his soul.
*This boy... he's worse than death. He's a demon,* Malkor thought to himself, his mind unraveling as absolute panic took over. *Not even Valkhyre was like this. This isn't just vengeance; this is a curse. I have to run... I have to get away from him.*
Desperate to escape, Malkor dug his fingers into the molten soil, trying to drag his body away.
Elias didn't even blink. He raised his foot and brought it down heavily, snapping Malkor's leg with a sickening crunch.
A piercing shriek of pure agony tore from the conqueror's throat as he fell back into the dirt, reduced to crawling feebly with his remaining strength.
Elias walked slowly forward. The immense strain of the true evolution form had finally caught up to him, draining his reserves to the absolute limit.
His body flickered, his glowing halo dissolving into thin air as he transformed back to his original form.
The sheer backlash of the power forced him to his knees for a fraction of a second.
His body was bleeding, battered, and screaming in protest, but Elias didn't fall. He refused to stop.
He kept walking, his steps heavy and deliberate.
He reached down, grabbed Malkor's hand, and twisted it sharply, snapping the bones with a dry, cracking sound.
Malkor screamed, his arrogant facade completely shattered, tears mixing with the dirt and blood on his face. "I'm sorry! Please, let me go! Please, just spare me!"
Meanwhile, deep within the infinite seal used by Malkor to trap Zane, a blinding, all-consuming light shone from the abyssal depths.
*Atomic Erasure!*
It was Zane. Breaking free from the infinite temporal seal, he had surged upward from the black hole.
He emerged without a single scratch.
Zane landed heavily on the surface, expecting to find an ongoing war.
Instead, his eyes swept across the ruined landscape and locked onto Elias standing over the crawling, weeping form of Malkor.
Zane stopped dead. The horror of what he was seeing—the hollow, vengeful look in his younger brother's eyes, the blood, the sheer devastation—hit him like a physical blow.
Tears instantly broke free, spilling down Zane's cheeks.
"Elias, no..." Zane choked out, his voice cracking with unbearable guilt. "What happened? What have I done...?"
A short distance away, Tyson was struggling to his feet, pulling his battered, bruised body out of a pile of rubble.
He took a slow, agonizing step forward, moving toward Malkor with exhaustion etched into every line of his face.
Before Tyson could reach them, Zane moved. In a blur of motion born from desperation and a twisted sense of atonement, Zane intercepted the space between them.
He raised his hand toward Malkor, unleashing a concentrated wave of his own power.
"Atomic Erasure!"
The blast hit Malkor dead-center.
There was no scream, no final plea. The conqueror was instantly compressed, vaporized, and erased from existence, leaving behind nothing but drifting dust.
Malkor was dead, gone in a fraction of a second.
But Elias didn't feel relief.
As the light cleared, Elias's eyes narrowed into a dangerous, feral glare.
"You got in my way," Elias snarled, his voice no longer sounding like a human boy, but like a cornered beast. "I'm gonna kill you."
Before Zane could even process the warning, Elias rushed forward with terrifying speed. He lunged directly at Zane, his teeth sinking straight into his older brother's neck.
Tyson, who had just managed to stagger upright, stopped dead in his tracks.
He stared in absolute, paralyzing disbelief, his mind completely blank as he watched Elias attack the very brother who had just tried to save them.
Zane didn't fight back. He didn't push Elias away or summon a defense. Instead, as the warm blood trickled down his neck, Zane simply wrapped his arms around Elias, holding him tightly in a desperate, loving embrace.
Zane cried out, his voice breaking into a ragged, heartbroken wail.
"I'm sorry..." Zane wept, tears mixing with the blood on his shoulder. "I did this. If I was here... if I hadn't failed... this wouldn't have happened. I can't ask for forgiveness. I don't deserve it. But please... please let me take away all the pain and anger."
Zane buried his face against Elias's shoulder.
"Give it to me," Zane begged, his voice trembling as he willingly offered himself up to his brother's fury. "I'll carry all the pain from you and Tyson. So you guys can be happy... so you can live. I don't deserve peace. I don't..."
The words hung heavily in the air, echoing across the silent wasteland.
Suddenly, Elias froze.
The vicious, burning fog in his mind parted for a single, agonizing heartbeat. His eyes widened as the realization crashed over him like a tidal wave.
He wasn't biting an enemy.
He was biting his brother.
He was hurting the one person who had tried to protect them all along.
The fight drained out of him instantly. Elias's knees buckled, and he collapsed against Zane, the aggressive red light vanishing from his eyes entirely as he began to cry—a loud, tearing, soul-deep sob that shattered the last remaining pieces of his composure.
Deep inside the fractured landscape of Elias's mind, a parallel torment was playing out.
The terrain of his mental domain was shaking violently. Elias B—the dark shadow who had embodied his wrath and driven him to the edge of destruction—suddenly stumbled and fell hard to the ash-covered ground.
The cynical, mocking sneer was entirely gone, replaced by a look of sheer, unadulterated horror.
"What have I done...?" Elias B whispered, his voice trembling as he stared down at his own shaking hands.
Tears welled up in his red eyes, spilling over his cheeks as he looked up toward the bright, silver-lit horizon where his counterpart stood.
"Zane... I'm sorry," Elias B choked out, his form flickering unsteadily against the dark sky. "What have I done... Now someone I love is going to live a life worse than death because of me."
Inside the mindscape and out in the real world, the tragedy of their vengeance finally came in
to focus, leaving a wound that no victory could ever truly heal.