In the heart of the destroyed city, two beings clashed, their battle nothing short of cataclysmic. One figure was clad in black armor, the other in a shifting mass of gray flesh and metal. Each movement from them shattered the sound barrier, releasing shockwaves powerful enough to pulverize concrete and send air pressure bursting outward like artillery fire.
Every time they struck, cones of compressed air howled from their limbs, reducing the already-ruined buildings around them to rubble. If any ordinary humans had survived the city's fall, they would have died the instant this battle began. The pressure alone could rupture lungs, and the thunderous noise would liquefy eardrums.
The one fighting for the Kingdom of Man was the squad leader, a super-soldier enhanced beyond natural limits, the same man who had crushed the Symbiarch as if it were a child's toy. His every motion radiated lethal intent.
Kicking off the ground, he created a crater beneath his boots, the pavement folding inward like clay as he launched himself forward. His body blurred, a living projectile tearing through the air so fast that friction ignited it. Trails of fire marked his path, setting the ruins ablaze in his wake.
His opponent was Xerxes, the True Apostle of Necrasys, a grotesque fusion of flesh and metal. Its eyes glowed with sickly blue light as it met the soldier's charge. For the first time since its transformation, the True Apostle felt fear. The human before it radiated death.
Xerxes reacted instantly. Its mechanical hand slammed into the ground, the impact shaking the landscape. Beneath the cracked streets, metallic roots groaned, and with a deafening shriek, massive steel beams erupted from the earth. They hurled themselves toward the soldier like spears, moving faster than sound, each one weighing several tons.
The super-soldier didn't flinch, pushing his reflexes past human comprehension. He ducked and weaved between the beams, each near miss tearing craters into the street, but even he had a limit. One of the beams appeared directly in front of him, too close to dodge.
If it struck, it would crush him with one hundred times the force of a truck going at full speed.
But the soldier did not falter. His eyes glowed beneath his visor as he tightened his grip on the combat knife, forming a fist. With a roar, he swung his arm upward, channeling every ounce of strength, acceleration, and kinetic force into one devastating strike.
The fist met steel, and the world exploded.
The beam twisted and shattered under the impact, molten fragments spraying outward like shrapnel. The explosion released a wave of searing heat, tearing nearby buildings apart.
The soldier landed, knees bending slightly under the recoil. But that brief instant of delay was all Xerxes needed.
With a guttural snarl, the True Apostle extended both arms. The earth screamed. A colossal metallic structure, a tower of warped girders and fused concrete, tore itself from the ground, rising hundreds of meters into the air.
Xerxes hurled it forward with all its strength. The sight was apocalyptic, like a titan's finger crashing down from the sky.
The soldier's senses screamed danger, but he did not lose focus. He raised his gun, firing bullets that moved at hypersonic speed toward the Apostle.
Xerxes raised an arm, forming a metallic shield from its own body, deflecting most of the shots, but not all. A few bullets grazed through, burning deep holes into its gray flesh and splattering blood that sizzled like acid.
Pain rippled through the abomination's form. Its control wavered, and the massive tower's trajectory faltered, enough for the soldier to leap aside. The tower missed him by meters but still struck the ground with cataclysmic force, burying him under thousands of tons of molten metal and debris.
"RUMBLE!!!"
The city trembled. Buildings kilometers away collapsed under the seismic shock. Dust clouds rose like mountains, and the sky itself seemed to darken.
According to the Nemesis System, a Grade 2 lifeform possessed the destructive potential of a fortress; a single full-power strike could annihilate an entire stronghold. But when two beings of that class fought, the devastation was unimaginable. Their prolonged clash could erase a city from the map.
Xerxes panted heavily, cracks forming along its metallic component. Its chest heaved with exhaustion, but a cruel smile twisted its face. It could taste victory, or so it thought.
The next heartbeat, the rubble below exploded outward.
The super-soldier burst free from the molten wreckage, a blazing silhouette wreathed in fire and dust. His armor smoked, glowing faintly from the heat, but his movements were steady. He raised his gun and opened fire once again.
Xerxes roared and threw itself aside, dodging most of the barrage but not all. One bullet still struck true, blasting through its left shoulder. The arm detonated, a burst of gore and molten metal painting the ruins red.
Agony consumed Xerxes. Its scream rattled the air, shaking windows in distant districts. But there was no time to recover; the soldier was already upon it, his combat knife flashing toward its throat.
With a surge of desperation, Xerxes unleashed a force blast. A concussive wave of pure force erupted from its hand, slamming into the soldier mid-strike. The impact hurled him backward like a ragdoll, his armored form crashing through one building after another. Each collision sent shockwaves rippling outward, demolishing entire structures in his wake.
But even that was not enough to stop him.
After being thrown through the third building, the soldier twisted midair, stabilizing himself. He landed hard against the side of a half-collapsed skyscraper, crouched, and used the momentum to propel himself forward again. He launched off like a missile, igniting the air behind him, the combat knife gleaming in his hand.
"Enough!"
Xerxes' voice tore through the city like thunder. The True Apostle raised its remaining arm, the air around it distorting from the pressure. As the soldier closed the distance, Xerxes caught him, holding him suspended in midair barely a meter away.
The strength it took to hold him was immense, even more than rising that massive metal tower. Xerxes' body trembled violently, blood seeping from its eyes as strain tore through its corrupted flesh. Yet it refused to release him. Its fingers tightened, the metallic plates of the soldier's armor groaning under the crushing force.
The soldier growled, muscles tensing as he struggled against the True Apostle's grip, but Xerxes was not letting him go.
The True Apostle grinned, its expression a bloody and cruel mockery of triumph. Half its body was torn apart, yet it was ready to use everything it had left to crush the super-soldier once and for all. But before it could act, something unexpected caught its attention.
Its eyes widened in disbelief as it turned toward one of the ruined streets. From the dust and smoke, a car came speeding straight toward it, its engine howling, tires shredding over the broken asphalt.
A car.
That alone was strange enough, but the driver made the sight truly absurd. Behind the wheel sat a Thrall, a creature of the Myceliarchy, a mindless husk animated by fungal tendrils and decay. Such beings did not act alone, let alone drive vehicles. They were incapable of intelligence, let alone coordination.
The weight of holding the super-soldier and the confusion of the moment caused Xerxes to hesitate. By the time it realized the danger, the car was already almost upon it.
Of course, a Grade 2 lifeform could easily survive something as trivial as being hit by a car; even a collapsing building would barely slow it down. But then Xerxes caught sight of what was inside the passenger seat… and its expression changed instantly.
Inside were more than half a dozen cracked plasma energy cores, humming with unstable light. Nestled among them, rolling loosely against the seat, was an antique fragmentation grenade, its pin already pulled.
There was no time to react.
"BOOOOOOM!"
The explosion swallowed everything.
The plasma cores detonated simultaneously, triggering a chain reaction that unleashed a blinding wave of light and heat. The blast tore through the ruins, disintegrating stone and steel alike. The super-soldier was thrown back through the air.
A storm of raging plasma fire engulfed the battlefield. The air itself ignited, melting metal and glass, turning entire buildings into rivers of molten slag. At the heart of the inferno stood Xerxes, still alive, but barely.
Half of its body had been incinerated. Its mechanical parts glowed red-hot, circuits melting and sparking.
Xerxes staggered, vomiting a mouthful of black blood. Its breathing was ragged, its mind foggy from the damage. Every mechanical system within its body malfunctioned, twitching and sparking uncontrollably. Even standing was a struggle.
And then, it felt something.
Its remaining eye widened again as it turned to the side, just in time to see a young man leaping toward it through the burning haze. His right hand gripped a metallic spike, his gaze burning with hatred and vengeance.
He descended like a comet, the tip of his weapon aimed straight for Xerxes' remaining eye. The True Apostle roared, forcing its damaged body to move. With the last of its strength, it froze the metal spike mid-air, just before it pierced its skull.
Then, with what remained of its right arm, Xerxes clenched its fist and punched.
The blow hit Sylar square in the chest.
The impact was devastating. The young man was blasted backward like a rag doll, crashing through the cracked pavement and rolling across the ground before slamming into a half-collapsed tower more than two hundred meters away.
Sylar spat blood, his vision swimming. He could feel his ribs shattered, his lungs collapsing. Every breath was agony. Even in its half-dead state, a Grade 2 lifeform's power was monstrous.
And yet, even as pain wracked his body, Sylar smiled.
He raised a trembling hand to his right ear and tapped it once.
Xerxes frowned. It did not understand. But a moment later, its body convulsed violently. Its legs buckled, and it collapsed to the ground, twitching.
Only then did the True Apostle feel something foreign, a sharp, invasive pressure within its skull. Slowly, it raised its trembling hand to its right ear. Its fingertips brushed against something solid, something embedded deep inside.
A fragment of bone.
A bone spike had pierced through its ear canal, burrowing straight into its brain.
Xerxes froze in horror. It finally understood. The metallic stake Sylar had wielded in his right hand had been a distraction. The real killing weapon had been hidden in his left, a bone spike.
As the realization sank in, its mind began to crumble.
The boy whose screams had echoed as his family was slaughtered now stood victorious over the abomination that once regarded him as less than an insect. Their eyes met one last time, the dying True Apostle and the vengeful survivor.
Xerxes' heart was full of regret and frustration as its body convulsed one last time before collapsing completely, limbs twitching in lifeless spasms. The light in its remaining eye flickered, then faded into darkness.
Xerxes, the True Apostle, was dead.
A deep sense of satisfaction welled within Sylar, a feeling that reached all the way to his soul. He had done it. He had slain one of the two monsters responsible for destroying his family. It had cost him nearly everything: blood, pain, and a dangerous gamble with his own evolution.
Using the Neural Web Node's mutation, he had taken a massive risk to make the Thrall he found on the road obey his commands. It had worked, just long enough to carry out the suicidal strike. Every sacrifice, every wound, had been worth it.
He had avenged them.
[Special Quest: Ensure the death of Xerxes, the True Apostle of Necrasys.
— Quest Completed —
Missing Grade: 2
Reward: Psychic Power – Magnetism Manipulation (Grade +2)]
[You have gained a new title: Bane of Necrasys]
[You have reached Level 15 – 10 Free Points Available]
[You have reached Level 16 – 10 Free Points Available]
[You have reached Level 17 – 10 Free Points Available]
Sylar's vision blurred. His body lay broken among the rubble, blood pooling beneath him. The messages flashed dimly across his consciousness as he began to lose awareness.
He had already used his previous Free Points to enhance Agility, the only reason his final strike had connected. But now, as his heart slowed and his vision dimmed, one last thought echoed in his fading mind.
"All to Vitality."
The instant before he lost consciousness, an overwhelming surge of energy burst through his body. His bones cracked and reformed, his lungs repaired, and his heartbeat steadied. His wounds were far from healed, but he was alive, barely.
He would recover, given time.
Yet the battlefield was far from safe. He was unconscious, surrounded by the ruins of a city crawling with monsters and abominations.
Then, footsteps echoed through the ash.
From the smoke emerged the super-soldier, his armor blackened but his posture unbroken. His visor reflected the inferno as he glanced down at the corpse of the True Apostle, then turned toward Sylar.
A faint, unreadable light flickered in his eyes.