Apocalypse Baby

Sylen's heart slammed against his ribs.

Not from fear, but from the cold, sick realization that the fight would've ended the moment it began.

Alex's blade was inches from his neck.

He'd been frozen, locked in place by Alex's movement suppression skill, but his summon had saved him at the last second.

Noctherion.

Sylen's eyes flicked to the shadows writhing around him—to the empty space where six of his shadow knights used to be.

And in their place…

The ancient deity stirred.

A faint tremor pulsed through the arena floor as thick black mist began to coil upward from beneath Sylen's feet, drawn from the void.

He had been so focused on how to counter the skills Alex had used against Tharnok that he'd left himself wide open to the only moment that truly mattered.

The present.

And now, only one thing had saved him:

His ace.

An ancient, fallen deity, gifted to him by Nuxaris.

Noctherion.

A being so old, its name had been lost to time.

Stripped of its divinity and crushed beneath millennia of decay.

But it wasn't dead.

Not truly.

It still held a flicker of divine power.

Barely enough to be called a god—but just enough to be something more than mortal.

And Sylen had fed it.

Nurtured it.

Sacrificed shadows, blood, and energy into it—until it responded.

Now, it only answered to him.

The mist thickened into form.

A towering silhouette emerged, wrapping around Sylen like a cocoon of darkness before clicking into place, forming death-forged armor.

It was jagged and organic. A grotesque blend of porcupine spines and bumblebee thorax, pulsing with necrotic energy. Dozens of shadowy hands flared out behind it in a fan, their fingertips glowing faintly like dying stars. Some bristled with blade-like extensions. Others twitched with surgical precision.

Each hand was carved from death aura.

Sylen floated inside the armor's core, the deity's essence fused with his, acting not just as protection, but as a second set of eyes, muscles, and instincts.

Still… even with all that…

Sylen wasn't confident.

Because Alex had managed to react to Noctherion.

A feat no ordinary person could achieve.

Now he just stood there.

Blade at his side.

Eyes calm.

—

Alex exhaled.

A breath.

One.

And then—he vanished using [Godspeed].

—

BOOM.

The air where he'd stood collapsed with a thunderclap as his body blurred past physics. One moment, he was ten meters away—the next, he was a step from Sylen.

His sword screamed forward.

A slash aimed straight for Sylen's face.

It should've landed.

But again—

BANG!

A deathly hand intercepted—barely.

Then another.

Then three more, exploding with reaction slashes as they tore through the space in front of Sylen like a defensive AI gone berserk.

Slashes of void power erupted, carving deep into the floor and sending cracks spiraling across its surface.

Alex blinked back, dodging cleanly.

His boots scraped as he landed in a low stance, a line of blood trickling down his arm.

A hair's breadth too slow.

His expression?

Amused.

Sylen stared at him, frozen again.

Not because of [Dominus].

But because of what he'd just seen.

Alex had blurred past his vision so fast, Sylen hadn't even had time to breathe.

His blade had been right there.

A fingertip away from touching his face.

From ending it.

And Sylen knew:

If it had been up to him alone, he'd be dead already.

His own body couldn't possibly keep up.

Couldn't react fast enough.

But the deity?

It had seen it coming.

It had moved first.

Saved him—twice now.

—

Alex landed clean on his feet, sliding backward across the cracked arena stone. Dust curled around his boots. His sword spun once in his hand before settling again into a low guard.

And yet, he grinned.

That wide, devil-may-care grin—like he'd just found a puzzle instead of dodged death.

His golden eyes shimmered faintly, still trailing residual light from [Godspeed].

But even with that level of velocity, even with his future sight active—

He hadn't been fast enough.

The Buddha Hands had reacted first.

Not just fast.

Faster than him.

Alex's chest rose slowly as he took in a breath, mentally calculating.

Those hands aren't just auto-defense. They're predictive.

And that slash…

He remembered the faint hum it had left in the air.

The way it carved space itself.

If I'd blocked that with [Aegis Arcane], it would've shattered. No doubt about it.

It wasn't just the power behind the strike.

It was something deeper.

The kind of force that didn't just break matter, but erased it.

His grin widened.

If I want to get to Sylen, I'll have to go through those hands.

And that was supposed to be a problem.

But for him?

It wasn't.

It was almost… easy.

—

Across the arena, Sylen's mecha-deity-looking armor pulsed with a deep, deathly glow, and Sylen's voice emerged.

It wasn't the calm, calculating tone Alex was familiar with—but a cold, distorted growl.

"Human… if you think this is going to be easy… you're wrong."

The moment the words left his lips, the air behind him rippled, twisted with black smoke and shimmer.

Then, shadows surged.

From the churning darkness, figures stepped out one by one. Solid. Detailed. Refined.

A cloaked mage. Thin. Hunched. Crackling with arcane energy that glowed from beneath its hood.

Next—a huge, bulky ogre-shaped knight.

Its flesh covered in craggy plates of shadow armor.

Then an elf shadow knight. Slender. Silent. Her bow drawn before her feet even touched the ground. Eyes glowing silver. Her arrows didn't look like arrows—more like thin, compressed beams of void.

Then the boar and the rest of the knights Alex had seen during Sylen's fight with Brakka.

And then came the beasts.

Hellhounds.

Dozens.

Their eyes burned crimson.

Their bodies were lean, malformed shadows with blazing ribs—like fire pulsed from within.

A chorus of growls filled the air.

The arena floor cracked beneath their steps.

The stage was now flooded with enemies.

A full strike team, with Sylen, the commander, at its center.

Alex tilted his head and smiled.

"Ohh…"

His voice was calm.

Low.

Amused.

"We're fighting with numbers now, huh?"

He tapped his chin with the flat of his blade.

A beat passed.

Then his voice dropped—playful, sharp.

"Should I do the same…?"

Sylen's eyes narrowed.

Was that a bluff?

Was Alex a summoner too?

Unlikely.

Humans weren't built for multi-class evolution. Their bodies broke under divergent training paths. They couldn't hold opposing energies like the demons could.

Unless…

He—or she—was an anomaly.

Which was exactly what Alex was.

Though Sylen wasn't aware.

Alex continued, snapping Sylen out of his thoughts.

"I guess I will."

Then, without flourish, he raised a hand, activating his cloning skill:

[Doppelking].