The storm had swallowed the world.Ashes danced with raindrops, hissing where they touched molten ground. The once-fiery battlefield was now a graveyard of smoke and ruin — the air still trembling from the echoes of war.
Nova stood in the heart of it, his breath ragged, his body barely holding together.His sealing papers had burned away. His sword, cracked and bleeding molten light, trembled in his grasp. His vision blurred, but his will — that stubborn ember — refused to die.
Across from him, the Magma Entity towered, its molten veins flickering erratically. The brilliance of its fire dimmed with every heartbeat. The creature was no longer roaring; it was breathing heavily — like a dying god clinging to what was left of its purpose.
The ground between them pulsed with heat and blood.Everything else had fallen silent — no wind, no screams, just two souls left in a world of ruin.
"You're still standing," the Magma Entity said, voice fractured, heavy."Why… won't you break?"
Nova's lips quivered as he raised his sword again. His arm trembled violently, but his eyes — dull and bloodshot — still glowed faintly with defiance.
"Because if I stop," he said, his voice hoarse,"Then everyone I've lost… dies for nothing."
The Entity tilted its head, molten blood dripping from its jaw like liquid sorrow.
"Everyone you've lost…?"
Nova lunged forward.No technique. No magic. No light.Just pure, raw desperation.
His blade slashed through the air, meeting magma and steel, fire and fury. The impact tore through what was left of the square — thunder in human form. Every strike came from pain, from memory, from a place far deeper than rage.
The Magma Entity blocked with its arm — the sound of cracking stone filled the storm. Nova kept striking, over and over, his body breaking faster than the enemy's. Bones screamed. Flesh tore. His vision tunneled.
But still — he didn't stop.
The Entity countered, slamming its molten fist into Nova's chest. The blow sent him flying, blood spraying across the broken earth. His ribs shattered. His sword clattered away.
Yet as he fell to his knees, he reached for the blade again — dragging himself across molten shards with one hand. His voice was nothing more than a whisper.
"Not… yet."
The Entity watched him crawl closer. For a moment, its fire dimmed — not from weakness, but from something that almost resembled sorrow.
"You don't understand what you're fighting," it said quietly."I was once like you. I only wanted to protect… my world."
Nova's hand closed around the sword's hilt. He forced himself up again, his silhouette trembling against the rain.
"Then why destroy it?"
"Because it destroyed me first."
The Entity's eyes burned brighter. Lava surged around its feet, consuming the corpses of beasts that had once obeyed it. The ground quaked violently.
Nova charged.The Entity roared.Their final clash shook the dying mountain.
Blades of flame and fists of magma collided in a storm of chaos. Every hit sent tremors through the broken land. Rain turned to steam. Lightning split the sky.
Then — a single sound.A sharp, wet crack.
Nova's blade — half-broken — pierced through the Entity's molten chest.
For a moment, neither of them moved.
The Magma Entity's eyes flickered — not with rage, but peace. Its voice came softer now, almost human.
"So… this is what it feels like… to be free."
Nova stared at him, panting, covered in ash and blood. The molten glow in the Entity's chest began to fade.
"Free…?" Nova asked weakly.
The Entity nodded.
"You… freed me. From this cursed world. From the chains of vengeance."
It knelt slowly, the lava cooling along its arms. Its massive form began to crumble — glowing cracks spreading like veins of dying fire.
"You fight… because you are trapped too, aren't you?"
Nova didn't answer. His throat tightened.
"You were mocked. Bullied. Rejected. Just like I was."
The Entity's voice grew faint.
"They called me weak. A burden. Even my own mother… she paid for my weakness."
Nova's eyes widened.The Entity's vision began to blur — but before the light faded, it saw something in the smoke. A memory.
A small boy, crying in a burning hut.Villagers outside, shouting. His mother shielding him with her body — the fire consuming them both as punishment for birthing "the weak one."
"Mother…" the Entity whispered."I can finally rest…"
Its body began to fall apart into molten fragments, glowing faintly like embers in the rain.Nova dropped to his knees, watching silently as the creature's last light faded into ash.
The battle was over.But victory felt hollow.
Rain poured harder, hissing as it struck the still-hot ground. The battlefield was silent again — a graveyard of beasts and broken men.
Nova's breathing slowed. He looked down at his blood-soaked hands — one still gripping the broken blade, the other trembling violently. The rain couldn't wash away the red.
He whispered to no one,
"You weren't the monster…"
Lightning flashed.In the distance, Walter stirred among the ruins. He groaned, clutching his head, forcing himself to stand.
When his eyes adjusted, he froze.
There, standing in the center of the devastation, was Nova — or rather, Nox, as the old sealers once called him.The rain fell around him like a veil of mourning. One hand held a shattered sword, the other dripped crimson blood that refused to be washed away.
He wasn't looking at Walter.He was staring at the sky — silent, empty, unreadable.
The storm clouds hung low above him, churning with the color of smoke and death.Lightning reflected off his eyes — dark, hollow, yet burning faintly with something deeper than life. Guilt. Pain. Responsibility.
He didn't speak. He didn't move.He simply stood there — broken yet unbowed — as if the entire world was pressing down on his shoulders.
Walter took a step forward, but stopped. Something in those eyes made his blood freeze.
Those weren't the eyes of a hero anymore.They were the eyes of someone who had stared into the void — and the void had stared back.
Rain dripped from Nova's chin, mixing with blood. He finally looked over his shoulder — meeting Walter's gaze for just a second.
That single look said everything.Regret. Sorrow. Endless exhaustion.
And then he turned back toward the storm.
The thunder rolled across the horizon, echoing through the ruins like a requiem.Nova's silhouette stood unmoving — the lone survivor of a war that should never have happened.
A broken sword in one hand.A bloodstained memory in the other.
And as lightning split the sky one final time, it cast his shadow long across the field of corpses — a dark figure in a world that had lost all color.
The rain could not cleanse him.The storm could not drown him.He was alive — but it felt like death.
And so, under that merciless storm,The hero who saved the world looked more like its last ghost.