The air smelled of ozone and ash.
Or maybe it was the scent of space itself being torn apart.
Around me, the remains of what had once been a fortress floated in an endless void, slowly dissolving into spirals of cosmic dust. My body—what little remained of it at twenty-two years old—screamed with every movement. The marks on my arms weren't wounds; they were cracks in the porcelain of my existence, the price of forcing reality beyond its limits.
My opponent lay a few steps away, his laughter a grotesque bubbling mixed with blood.
"Hahaha… PUAGCHK!" He spat out a black clot. "Look how far you've come… for nothing. All that effort to protect the ones you love. For nothing. You're alone now. And this world… will be consumed along with us. Ha!"
I clenched my fist, feeling the fragments of power still flickering around my knuckles. Pain was an old companion.
"I… don't give… a damn," I managed to say, each word a struggle. "As long as… I can end you… once and for all. All the pain you caused… ends here."
I dragged my feet toward him. There was no elegance left—only raw, brutal determination. He tried to stand, but my first strike slammed him back into the rubble. This was no longer a fight.
It was an execution.
"PUGH! Idiot!" he gargled. "Do you think it was easy?! What I did is nothing compared to what this world did to me! They tore me from my home! From my family! From the woman I loved!"
His eyes—deranged, overflowing with hatred—locked onto mine.
"And for what? To be discarded… condemned… once they no longer needed me! AND THE SAME THING HAPPENED TO YOU, ALEXS! AL PUGHSHK!"
Hearing my name from his lips was the final spark.
I grabbed him by the throat.
"Maybe," I whispered, my voice as cold as the void surrounding us. "But you made one mistake. You went after my people. The ones who trusted me. The ones who never did anything to you. That was your greatest mistake. If you felt no remorse… then neither do I. Goodbye. I hope you find yours… in the afterlife."
There was no final spell.
No beam of light.
Only the dry crack of something breaking—never to be whole again.
His body deflated, and then, as if he had never existed, began to disintegrate into specks of stardust, carried away by the dimensional wind.
I collapsed to my knees, adrenaline leaving me all at once. Around me, the scenery looked like the most depressing apocalypse imaginable. And in the "sky," that torn wound in reality—the portal through which all this hell had begun—was closing.
A portal.
Like in those damn isekai anime I used to mock so much. The irony was so bitter it almost made me laugh.
Almost.
"I wonder… if I'll make it," I muttered to myself, staring at the shrinking light in the distance.
I already knew the answer. I had nothing left. No strength. No magic. Not even the will to live.
But—
"Fuck it. At least no one can say I didn't try."
With a scream torn from my very core, I pushed off the ground as it crumbled away beneath me. I flew—or rather, hurled myself—toward the fading light. Every inch was agony. Dimensional radiation burned my skin, dissolving me piece by piece.
The light slammed into me head-on.
And then…
Nothing.
Darkness. Absolute silence.
And voices.
Distant voices, like angels… or screaming teenagers.
How the hell did I end up like this? I thought—or maybe I said it—as my consciousness unraveled.
Ah… right. I remember now.
A ghostly smile formed on what little remained of my being.
What an idiot.
And then, I faded into the void.