The boy looked taken aback when he heard Clyde’s words.
For a mont, the hatred and instinctive hostility faded from his eyes. Sothing fragile surfaced instead. Sothing that had been buried too deep for too long.
His lips trembled, and his gaze wavered, as if those words had struck a place inside him that had been aching in silence.
It sounded like sothing he had been longing to hear.
Soone actually cared about what had beco of him.
Once, he had just been a normal boy. Ten years old with nothing special. He had parents who loved him. A ho, a life small and warm and ordinary.
But it was before the Selection Stage, before the sky cracked open, before the world ended.
He rembered the day clearly.
They had gone on a picnic. The weather had been good. His mother had laughed when the wind caught her hair. His father had teased him for running too far ahead. The sky had been blue.
Then the sky cracked.
A sound like glass shattering echoed across the heavens. The clouds tore apart, revealing darkness beneath.
After that, monsters poured down like a nightmare made into the real world. Screams followed next and panic swallowed everything.
His father reacted first. He was a soldier. Trained, and he was able to calm under pressure.
He grabbed the boy’s hand, pulled his mother close, and ran. They fought their way through chaos, blood staining the ground behind them.
His father got the skills quickly. Strong ones. He protected them through the first scenario. Then the second. Then the third. Sohow, they survived the fourth.
The boy rembered believing they would make it.
Then ca the fifth scenario.
The monsters were different. Bigger, smarter, and crueler. The ground shook with every step they took. His father fought until his body could no longer move.
The boy rembered screaming as claws pierced his armor. He rembered watching his father die, still trying to stand even as his strength failed him.
His mother tried to run. She didn’t make it far.
The boy rembered the sound of her screaming as monsters dragged her down. He rembered blood spraying across the stone. He rembered her eyes locking onto his eyes one last ti, filled with terror and regret and love.
Then there was silence.
He was alone.
That was when the man in the white suit appeared.
He smiled kindly. Spoke gently. He offered him power. Said the boy could survive and could beco strong. Could make sure no one ever hurt him again.
The boy accepted.
However, the trials to get those powers were hell.
Pain beyond screaming. The boy felt his flesh torn and rebuilt. Poison forced into his veins. Bones broken and reforged. Every step of the trials was designed to break his mind. To strip away fear and hesitation and rcy.
He endured it all, clinging to the idea that there was still sothing left to fight for. He wanted to protect the people that were still alive.
But when the power was finally his, the world was already gone.
Cities lay in ruins. Humanity was dead. There was nothing left to protect. Nothing left to save.
So he stopped thinking.
He beca what the World Master wanted. A weapon. A monster. He killed everyone who ca to this tower. Again and again. It was easier that way.
Until now.
This ti, a young man had entered the floor. A man who looked at him not with hatred, but with sothing colder and heavier. It was a pity mixed with determination. And then those words.
Better than letting you live like this.
The boy smiled. It was small, sad, and peaceful smile.
"Yes," he said softly. "Kill ."
Then his body vanished in a blur of green smoke.
He charged at Clyde once more. His claws raised, acid roaring around him, faster than before.
Clyde gritted his teeth. He stepped forward and unleashed the Demonic sword’s power once more.
This ti, there was no restraint left. The heat surged far beyond before, no longer just burning but crushing, as if the fire itself carried the weight of his feelings.
The blade scread as Demonic veins flared violently, crimson light flooding the bone.
They collided.
BOOM!
Fire and acid clashed. The impact shattered the tenth floor entirely. The tower wall behind them exploded outward, stone and corrupted flesh torn apart in a violent shockwave. The force hurled both of them into the open air.
They were thrown into the sky.
Wind howled past them as they rose above the ruined floor, fragnts of the tower spinning around them.
Clyde twisted midair, forcing his body forward despite the pain screaming from every wound.
The boy t him without hesitation, green smoke streaming behind him like torn wings.
They clashed again in the middle of the fall.
Claws scraped against the Demonic blade, sparks and acid spraying outward. The impacts sent ripples through the air.
They struck each other again and again as gravity dragged them down, making them spinning, tumbling, locked in combat while the ruined tower rushed up beneath them.
Flas wrapped around Clyde’s arm. Acid burned across his side. Neither of them pulled back.
The ground rushed closer.
Clyde roared and drove all remaining Demonic power into the blade. The fire erupted, swallowing them both.
They hit.
BOOM!
The explosion consud the lower floors, fire and greenish smoke blasting outward in a massive ring.
The ground collapsed inward, leaving a scorched crater where the tower floor had once been. The stone vaporized. Flesh burned away. The shockwave echoed through the tower area.
Then the smoke slowly thinned.
The fire faded. At the center of the crater, Clyde stood.
His boots were planted deep into cracked stone. His body shook, his breath ragged, his blood running freely from countless wounds.
The Demonic sword was buried deep in front of him.
Straight through the boy’s chest.
The child’s body was held upright by the blade, armor shattered and dissolving into ash.
The green smoke leaked out weakly, drifting upward like a fading spirit.
The boy looked up at Clyde.
He smiled.
It was not twisted or cruel. Just a quiet, grateful smile.
Clyde’s throat tightened. His chest burned worse than his wounds. His vision blurred for a mont, but he forced it steady. He would not let the tears fall.
The boy’s body went limp. The light left his eyes.
The smoke vanished.
Clyde pulled the blade free and stood alone on the ruined floor, surrounded by silence and destruction.
He clenched his fist.
"I swear," he thought, voice shaking but firm, "I’ll destroy the Higher Realm this ti."
This pain... This cruelty... This world that broke children and called it entertainnt.
The boy’s suffering burned inside him as more fuel.
After that, the Demonic sword revealed itself.
—
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