He once ruled the world through fear. Now, he lies dying beneath the world's applause.
The final battle lasted over 1,000 hours—a cruelly long time for a war that had been predestined seventeen years ago.
"Thousands flooded the square, desperate to see the villain's death with their own eyes."
The sky above Arctis city blazed in a sea of fire and black smoke.
Shards of glass fell like rain as the tower of Fubuster Corporation exploded, drawing cheers from the crowd below.
"Kade Fubuster go to hell!"
"Monster!"
"Kill him! Chop him up!"
"Die!"
"Tear him apart! Carve him up!"
"Justice has prevailed!"
" Make him suffer!"
"Cut him down!"
Those cries resounded through the giant holographic screens, broadcast to every district of the city.
In streets, in bars, in living rooms, in hospital corridors—millions watched.
All eyes fixed on a single moment: the end of the villain who had ruled their nightmares for seventeen years.
Some cried, some laughed through tears.
Strangers—no one knew who—embraced each other.
How many years had they waited for this day?
No one could remember anymore, for the pain caused by that scoundrel Kade Fubuster was utterly cruel.
The sound of sobbing and wailing never ceased. Hundreds, no, thousands of people were condemning his sins—the evil villain. The name Kade Fubuster was dragged out for cursing and vilification, resonating everywhere.
Amidst the rubble, a tattered figure was trapped between burning hot steel beams.
His platinum hair was matted with blood, his black cloak scorched.
The eyes that once made the world tremble—were now just two silent pits of ash and embers.
Kade Fubuster. The man who once made the world kneel.
The one who forced the Superhero Alliance to set aside their grudges and unite under a single banner—just to confront him.
A villain possessing destructive power beyond all human norms, coupled with a cold, steely genius intellect that made the whole world shudder.
He wasn't just a criminal.
He was the embodiment of fear, the nightmare that justice itself dared not name.
For seventeen years, he built a massive underground empire - where thousands of villains rejected by the world knelt before him—the only one strong enough to impose order upon the darkness.
Every secret organization, every government, every major city was cautious when mentioning that name—Kade Fubuster, the "The Sinful Genius" of the century.
He burned down the Alliance headquarters in broad daylight, amidst screams and fire, 3000 lives vanished because of one chilling declaration:
"Justice too knows fear in the face of power."
He who once stood atop the world now lay there, amidst the ruins he himself had created. His body pierced, his blood mingling with the ashes, light shining through his chest—ending a blood-soaked legend.
An empire collapsed, an era closed.
And amidst the cheers of humanity, no one realized that, as justice celebrated its victory... the darkness Kade left behind was still silently spreading.
Now, he was almost just a corpse—cold and stiff in the sea of his own ashes.
The man once called the great villain was now nothing but a lifeless body, blood flowing in thick, blackened trails, spreading across the cracked ground.
The hands that had once drawn the map for world domination, that had manipulated thousands of lives like chess pieces, now hung helplessly limp, fingers still curled as if trying to grasp something—perhaps an unfinished ambition, or merely the darkness he once believed would forever be his.
His face still held an eerily calm expression, a faint, twisted smile etched on his blood-stained lips. His slightly open eyes stared blankly at the sky, bright with victory fireworks—the light of the justice he had once challenged.
Each breath felt like a knife cutting through him. Kade clenched a blood-stained piece of steel. Blood gushed from his mouth, mixing with the dust and smoke. Everything inside his body was shattered, yet his mind was strangely clear.
Above, Celestine, the strongest heroine of the Alliance, descended beside him. Her radiant wings of light shone brightly, illuminating his icy cold face.
Her gaze, devoid of any warmth, looked at him as if he were the most filthy and disgusting vermin. Those eyes seemed to declare clearly to the whole world: "You have lost. Repent for the sins you have brought upon humanity."
"Kade Fubuster," she said, her voice ringing like a bell across the battlefield. "You have destroyed too much. And today, justice has triumphed."
She raised her hand, creating a blade of light, and thrust it straight into his heart.
"Justice...?"
A bitter laugh escaped Kade, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.
"If justice were real... why would a monster like me have been born into this world?"
He muttered deliriously, his voice fading: "The irony. You believe you're better? An angel... committing murder before the eyes of the world."
Celestine was silent. Her helmet hid her expression, yet the faint light around her wavered for a moment. Not hatred. Something quieter. She hesitated— a pause so brief no one else noticed. But he did.
"The world needs this ending," she replied, and thrust harder.
The light pierced through Kade's chest, his heart exploded.
The sound of erupting energy merged with the shattering explosion of the tower, then faded gradually into a strange silence.
In that moment, he felt the world draining away from him. All sounds gradually faded. All sensations dissolved, leaving only one sound—the frantic cheers of humanity.
"He's dead!"
"The greatest villain has been destroyed!"
"Long live justice!"
"Burn the darkness!"
"Go to hell! Rot there, you demon!"
" So many died... all because of him…"
Those cheers, like daggers forged from belief itself, stabbed straight into his heart.
The name of Celestine echoed across the battlefield. Radiant glory poured down upon the victor's name
Kade felt nothing.
No pain.
No fear.
Only stillness.
Only emptiness.
Death had never frightened him.
Blood trailed from the corner of his lips.
His vision began to blur.
Yet his eyes remained strangely calm.
Amidst the sea of people dancing in the thrill of victory, Kade heard another voice—smaller, shakier, but more piercing than any roar.
"Give me back my parents, you murderer!"
A little girl with a face smudged with mud and dried blood, her hair tangled in clumps. Her eyes wide open, filled with tears, holding a hatred too vast for such a small body.
She clutched a broken-headed doll in her hand—perhaps the only thing left from the rubble where her parents once lived.
The light from the fires illuminated those eyes. Reflected in the girl's tear-filled pupils was the broken body of Kade Fubuster, the man the whole world despised. The reflected flames burned like a halo consuming all his sins. And Kade, who had once made the world kneel, bowed his head before a child for the first time.
Kade looked at the girl. Unclear why, in the delirium of death, that image became clearer than anything else.
All other sounds dissolved, leaving only that heart-wrenching cry echoing directly in his mind.
Who were her parents? People I killed?
I've killed thousands—who were they among them?
How many eyes like these have looked at me before…? Not a single glance of pity.
It's true. I deserve to die.
His breath faltered. Each heartbeat was a tolling judgment bell.
The girl kept screaming, kept crying, kept waving her hand towards him—the one she believed was the cause of it all. And he, in his final moments, could say nothing. Could not justify, could not deny.
He closed his eyes slowly, escaping the child's gaze that held all the humanity he'd lost..
Looking into the girl's tear-filled eyes, each word felt like a dagger stabbing his soul.
"So, I had become the villain, since when...No. I never chose to become a monster. The world made that choice for me."
He wanted to laugh, but blood choked his throat.
The world before him faded, the final light snuffed out. The sun, however, was shining more brilliantly than ever.
The sun's rays were like divine light, redeeming the dead faith of so many people. The people here had found hope after so many days living in despair.
All because the villain—the cause of all tragedies—had been killed. Millions rejoiced as Kade Fubuster drew his last breath. Yet none of them realized—the monster was theirs.
No one needed to know, in the moment his heart stopped beating, whether Kade felt regret or not.
Kade Fubuster—in the moment between life and death, he had only one thought:
"If I could go back...
I would do it all over. I wouldn't become someone driven into a corner. I wouldn't let the world call me a monster again."
A tear—or blood—fell. He slowly closed his eyes completely.
"That's right. I should die for the mistakes I have made."
The last drop of blood fell to the ground, mingling with the girl's tears.
And the world, to him, closed amidst the echoes of curses.
One could only know that, as the wind swept by, the ashes from his body rose, swirling in the air—as if that darkness was not yet willing to disappear, merely waiting for another vessel to be reborn.
The thick night enveloped his entire being. Then the darkness swallowed him whole. Fubuster—the villain who sold his soul to the devil—had vanished forever as if he had never come to this world.
Cheers, cries, and thanksgivings rang out incessantly. The war officially opened a new era for humanity.
Everything went dark…
Tick tock. Tick tock.
A sound rang in his head. Thin and cold, like metal scraping against glass—then gradually turned into the sound of a clock reversing, tick by tick pulling him from the abyss of death.
Kade opened his eyes.
No more scorching light. No more devastated battlefield. No more humanity's frenzied cheers.
The first thing that hit his eyes was the shabby ceiling with a pale yellow light. It flickered incessantly. The trembling lights, as if about to go out, blinked with each of his heavy breaths.
The peeling walls were blotchy with paint stains. The whole room had a thick, unpleasant musty smell that made one feel nauseous.
Beside him, a rickety wooden desk was piled with blueprints, pages of formulas, and unfinished mechanical models covered in dust. A window was slightly ajar, the wind carrying the sound of old cars passing through some shabby street.
Kade was stunned.
That's right. The room I lived in when I was twenty. Everything was so familiar that memories flooded back like a tidal wave: this was the room he lived in when he was twenty years old—when he was still a young genius rejected by the world, when he hadn't killed anyone yet, hadn't become the villain cursed by humanity.
He raised his hand, seeing the slender, thin fingers, no longer the calloused, scar-riddled hands of someone who had killed thousands.
His heart beat violently, chaotically, both bewildered and cold.
"Have I... come back?"
His voice was hoarse, trembling slightly in the silent room. He couldn't believe what he was seeing.
He looked down at his own hands again. The pulse beneath his skin throbbed with impossible warmth
His hands were still clean, without bloodstains, and the silver ring on his ring finger shimmered in the light—a gift from Elira, the one he once loved, before everything began to collapse.
His breath caught. On the phone placed by the bed, the screen displayed the date. He calculated silently; he had gone back fifteen years.
Kade Fubuster, the evil genius, had just revived… on the day he signed his first contract with the Hero Alliance.
He closed his eyes lightly, letting his breath slip past his chapped lips. A thought crept into his mind—small, but bright as a spark in the dark night.
"This time…" — he told himself, his voice a low whisper to his own soul — "I will live a different life."
No more screams, no more blood and fire, no more people kneeling prostrate in fear of him.
If fate gave him a second chance, he would seize it—not to conquer the world, but to redefine himself. Whether this world welcomed him or not.
Outside, the rain began to fall—slow, cold, and heralding the arrival of a different beginning.
Darkness and light, bound within the same soul, waiting to see which would rise first.