Apocalypse Baby

The explosion wasn't just loud—it was biblical.

A dome of blinding gold and blood-red flame surged outward like the wrath of some forgotten god. It didn't just swallow the battlefield. It devoured it—sucked up the sound, bent the sky, erased the lines between reality and destruction. The impact fractured the arena's skeleton, cracking the earth in seismic bursts that rolled for miles.

A pressure wave blasted upward, ripping through the sky like a divine gavel declaring its final verdict.

And then came the breaking point.

Malik's domain—the Infernal Throne—couldn't take it.

It fought for a breath.

Cracks bloomed across the blood-red heavens, tracing the outline of its runes as they dimmed one by one, flickering like candles in a hurricane.

Then came the shatter.

No sound. Just silence.

A breathless implosion.

And the Infernal Throne collapsed into itself, vanishing into an ashen void.

In the same moment, Alex released his own domain.

His golden dominion broke apart—not in a violent collapse, but a graceful fading. Panels of geometric light dissolved midair, drifting down like sacred petals caught in a funeral breeze. They mingled with the glowing embers of Malik's fallen world, gold and crimson falling together like twin prayers to a god who had long since stopped listening.

And from the center of it all, Alex descended.

He floated through the wreckage like a sovereign from the heavens, untouchable, quiet, divine. His chakra form unraveled in layers of golden light, each one shedding from his limbs like sun-drenched cloth.

By the time his boots touched the cratered earth, silence had reclaimed everything.

Smoke rolled back.

Revealing the aftermath.

But there was no battlefield now. No arena.

There was only ruin.

Everything that once stood—platforms, statues, floating tiers—was gone, reduced to jagged stone and slag. The inner sanctum of the coliseum had caved in, walls twisted inward like melted bones. Blackened metal jutted from the ground like broken swords.

And in the very heart of the devastation, at the lowest pit of a molten crater…

Malik.

He lay sprawled like a fallen titan, arms limp, limbs cracked and charcoal-black. His skin was ruined, fissured like scorched bark, trails of dead fire etched into every inch. He wasn't glowing anymore. Not burning.

He was just…a corpse a breath away from the abyss.

Alex stepped closer to the edge of the crater, the heat rising around him like the breath of something ancient and dead.

He stood there a moment, gazing down.

Then he spoke. Quietly.

"I enjoyed the fight."

A twitch.

Malik's eyes fluttered.

Then opened.

No fire behind them. No light. Just… rage. Bitter and broken.

"…Liar," Malik rasped. His voice was dry, papery, like bone rubbing against stone. "You toyed with me."

Alex said nothing.

"You could've ended it whenever you wanted," Malik hissed, his body trembling under the effort to stay conscious. "You let me burn everything… just so you could watch me fail."

He spat, and the blood hissed as it hit the molten ground beside him.

"You're not a warrior. You're a monster."

Alex tilted his head. His lips curved—not in mockery, not quite in agreement. Somewhere in between.

"You're not wrong."

He'd done it before. With Brakka. With Sylen. Letting them fight. Letting them burn. Not out of strategy. Not always.

Sometimes… he just wanted to see how far someone would go.

Malik laughed—a cracked, rattling sound, more painful than amused.

"You're sicker than I am."

But Alex had already tuned him out.

He wasn't here for a debate. He was here to collect.

Malik was still alive, and what this meant was that that he could use [Mimicry].

Alex stepped forward, kneeling beside the broken body. His hand glowing faintly as he pressed them against Malik's scorched chest, then activated the ability.

"Alright...let's see what you've got for me—"

Alex said to himself.

But just as he said that Malik's body jerked.

A strange aura enveloping him.

His body spasm violently and Alex with his eyes wide with shock withdrew his hands.

His instinct screamed, and leapt back instantly, boots carving grooves into the molten wall as he launched away.

Malik then began to scream, his voice like something being exorcised.

His eyes snapped open—and glowed green.

But it wasn't power. It wasn't life.

It was wrong.

Black smoke burst from his mouth in tendrils—twitching, pulsating, slick like leeches. They didn't smell like mana. Didn't feel like flame. They moved with purpose, a hunger that couldn't be reasoned with.

Corruption.

The veins tore outward through his cracked flesh, fracturing him into pieces. His body spasmed, arched, then began to collapse under its own rot. Something was eating him alive from the inside.

Alex's hands were already moving.

He slammed a palm to the ground, casting [Exploding Touch], and multiple sigils blinked into place and darted toward Malik's limbs and chest, latching onto his twitching form.

If whatever this was tried to stand again, it wouldn't get the chance.

Then...

He felt it.

A tremor—not in the ground.

In his inventory.

Something deep inside the system stirred—something usually quiet, buried behind layers of mental filters.

Alex's eyes narrowed. He blinked open his system interface.

Scrolled.

Then stopped.

One item was glowing.

A sword.

The blade Grugrim's had given him.

Trembling.

He frowned and summoned it. The blade materialized with a hum, ancient script glowing along its edges, whispering in a tongue older than war itself.

"What the hell are you doing…" he muttered.

The sword thrummed in his grip like it was alive. Like it recognized something.

He scanned its data.

---

Name: Doom Slayer

Type: Sword

Bonus: +500 to all Attributes

Special Effects:

— Elemental Slash (Fire, Lightning, Ice, Decay)

— Energy Beam Projection

— Vitality Drain (Restores health equal to 50% of inflicted damage)

— Doom Creature Suppression (Damage multiplier x3 against Doom-class enemies)

Status: Bonded to Alex Knight

Activation: Pending

[The presence of a Doom activates the sword]

---

Alex froze.

The last line caught his attention.

The presence of a Doom activates the sword?

"Doom?....

"Is that was this was?"