Chapter 39:
"A Return to Hell"
Last Chapter
Arc 4: Chapter 5
POV: "???"
The battle in the skies above the capital continued.
Bruce, with the power of the Destroyer.
Empty, with the power of the Future.
With each swing of Bruce's sword, the sky contorted. It wasn't just the air that tore—it was the very idea of space that seemed to suffer. That was total destruction manifested in the form of a blade.
Empty dodged.
His body moved at angles that defied physics, anticipating each blow before it was struck. The future was his ally.
And then, he landed one.
A punch of the future—trained for forty years, he never lived, but the stone's power had granted him—struck Bruce's stomach square on.
Blood spilled from his mouth.
But he smiled.
And in Empty's mind, something came.
A voice. Old. Laden with hatred.
"BRUCE! YOUR MOTHER DIED!"
Bruce's next blow disintegrated Empty's left arm. Green particles scattered in the air before a new arm regenerated in its place.
Empty responded with another punch.
"UNDERSTAND!" the voice came again, stronger. "THIS HOUSE WAR... IS FOR THE DEFINITIVE LIGHT TO BE BORN!"
This time, the image came with it.
A young Bruce. Crying.
Empty saw. Understood.
"Now I understand..." he thought.
But there was no time.
Bruce gathered darkness in his fist—not common darkness, but something deeper, older. It pulled everything. Space. Time. Reality itself surrounds it.
"PUNCH OF THE SINGULARITY!"
The fist struck Empty square on.
"The stone... Protect her... L—"
The feminine voice didn't finish. Only Bruce heard it.
"You are..."
Bruce leaped.
From up there, from the skies, he created something none of them had ever seen.
An enormous black hole.
Orange and black. Pulsing abovea the capital like an eye opened in the firmament.
The city began to be pulled. Debris flew upward, sucked by the monstrous gravity. The singularity affected everything—not just movement, but existence itself.
Things below began to crumble to dust.
It was Bruce's strongest power of darkness.
And his strongest power of destruction.
Empty looked up.
Smiled.
Then, his own darkness emerged. The future. His mysterious power. His fist became green, crystalline, as if time itself had condensed in his hand.
Bruce raised Valkyria to the skies. All the power of darkness and destruction is concentrated in the blade.
Down below, Luna and everyone watched.
"KILL ALFREDO."
The voice echoed.
"KILL MARCOS."
"DO IT, SON!"
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Bruce shook his head. The voices no longer controlled him.
Empty flew upward.
His fists are laden with the power of the future.
Bruce, with his total power.
Both screamed.
Both smiled.
And they collided.
The attack didn't come from Bruce's hands. It came from the air around him, materializing instantly—a wave of pure destruction that advanced like an invisible tidal wave. Bruce reacted in the last thousandth of a second, wrapping himself in a cocoon of darkness and launching backward with the force of his legs.
Total Destruction swallowed the spot where he had been.
Created a perfect vacuum.
That imploded with a roar.
And at the center of it, Empty materialized with his power of the future, intertwined with Bruce's destruction.
The dark and purple roar.
The greenish roar.
Both exploded in the skies.
When everything fell, only Luna managed to see the direction of the bodies.
She ran.
Through the smoke and rubble, she found.
Bruce, mortally wounded.
Empty too.
But Empty had the Stone of Restoration. He began to heal.
"Shit..." Bruce murmured, spitting blood.
Even mortally wounded—organs exposed, blood forming a pool around him—Bruce stood up.
He took a cigar from his pocket.
Lit it with magic.
Empty just watched, rising as his flesh regenerated.
Bruce's eyes closed.
Acceptance, bitter and cold, began to settle in.
And then, the memories came.
A cascade of images invaded his mind.
A child. Green eyes just like his. Crying beside a hospital bed.
"Father! Mom died because of the curses! CYAN TOO, I—"
The father's punch. An even colder, larger man. Hitting young Bruce's face. Silencing him.
"You are weak, Bruce! It doesn't matter what they were! What matters is what they are! Hatred is your tool! War is your field! A man's worth is discovered in war, not in your false piety. Remember that! YOU NEED TO BE STRONG TO AVENGE! I WON'T BE HERE FOREVER!"
Bruce opened his eyes.
Empty approached.
"I saw what you are..." Bruce said.
Empty stopped.
"What do you mean?"
"I saw who gave you the stone," Bruce replied. "In your memories. I don't know why I saw."
Empty frowned.
"You're lying..."
"I saw."
Empty advanced. His hand grabbed Bruce's collar.
"THEN TELL ME... WHAT I..."
He didn't finish.
Behind him, Luna emerged. Fists of light raised. Ready to strike him.
Empty dodged.
Looked at her.
And Bruce leaped.
Not to hit Empty.
The blow was aimed at Luna.
Empty moved.
His hand—clean, perfect, human—pierced through Bruce's chest as if the armor and muscles were mist.
His fingers closed around the heart.
Bruce stopped in mid-air.
His gaze dropped to the hand in his chest. Then rose to Empty's face.
There was no pain in his expression.
Only surprise.
And then... understanding.
A final smile. Ironic. Terrible.
Empty stood in shock.
He had never truly killed anyone.
Luna also stared. In Bruce's eyes. At the mortal wound—a hole piercing through his chest, that you could see through to the other side.
Bruce kept smiling.
"THE ENEMY ISN'T THE CURSES, BRUCE!" his father's voice surfaced in his mind once more.
His hand moved. Slow. Painful.
He took the Stone of Destruction from the device on his chest.
Handed it to Empty.
Empty took it.
Luna watched, paralyzed.
"Why?" the question escaped her lips.
"THE TRUE ENEMIES ARE... THE LIGHT!" his father's last words, spoken on a deathbed, echoed in Bruce's mind.
He smiled.
Blood dripped from his mouth. His organs were melting. Death consumed him from within.
"Tell me..." his voice came out weak, drawn out, each word a superhuman effort. "My dear 'granddaughter'..."
The word granddaughter came out with mockery.
"How many people will need to die for your..."
He coughed. Blood.
"...for your uselessness with the definitive light?"
Bruce's gaze met Luna's for one last instant.
Then, the Strongest Man in the World fell dead to the ground.
Luna stared.
Her grandfather's body. Motionless. Empty.
Rage came like a wave.
She attacked Empty. A punch. Anything.
He struck her stomach with a dry blow.
She fell.
Empty looked at her. Fallen on the ground. Small. Fragile.
She said nothing.
He extended his hand.
An automatic movement. As if something inside him—something ancient, something predating everything—wanted to reach her.
Then he stopped.
Suppressed it.
Luna, fallen, saw Bruce's body.
And just screamed.
"AAAAAAH!"
Empty began to walk.
Through the rubble. Through the streets he had destroyed.
Fallen people are being treated. People flee at the sight of him. Soldiers trembling. Commanders are being hastily attended to.
The same woman with her son—the one who had rejected the flower—now looked at him with terror. This time, with reason.
Empty ignored her.
He walked to the Tower.
Science soldiers emerged before him. The commander. Veronica.
Empty was already inside.
He took the last stone.
The Stone of the Present.
Blue.
Put it in his pocket.
Left.
Before him, Fencer.
Standing. Just watching.
Empty stared at him.
There were no words.
Only a smile.
Empty flew upward. Left.
The soldiers running to confront him reached Fencer's side too late.
Fencer looked up.
And smiled.
Baring all his teeth.
Empty flew.
He flew over the Safe Zone. The cities. Curious people looking from the windows. Commoners watching from behind the walls.
Like thunder, he crossed the dome.
Exploration soldiers down below just watched.
Empty reached the Infernal Zone.
He walked through it.
The curses were there—the same ones he had eliminated when he was just Empty.
Now, he was Everything.
Returned to what he had always belonged to.
The lesser curses gathered in the shadows around him. They didn't attack. Just watched with animal fear. Instinctive.
The hierarchy had changed.
The supreme predator had returned.
Empty walked to the throne.
Sat down.
The weight of the seat was nothing compared to what he carried.
He raised his hand.
The old broken mask—the one he had worn for so long—materialized.
He stared at it for a long moment.
Then, placed it over his face.
Hiding his human features once more.
From his back, a long, heavy cape wove itself from darkness. The color of soot and dried blood. It wrapped around his shoulders.
He sat on the throne.
Master of a kingdom of death and shadows.
The mask hides any remaining emotion.
The heavy stone door moved at his will. Creaked.
Closed with a final thud.
Sealing him in darkness.
He had become, finally, what his name had always announced.
Everything.
And, sitting on that silent throne, at the epicenter of the nothing, he ruled...
He was also, more than ever.
Empty.
And then...
When Empty placed his hand on his head....
"AH!..."
A boy woke up.
The sound of birds came through the window.
There was no Hell Zone.
A man in armor.
No.
Just a beautiful bed. Soft sheets. The morning sun painted the room gold.
At the window, the scene was normal. A tree. A street. A person passing by on a bicycle.
The boy put his hand on his head.
The door opened.
"It's time, son. School soon."
The woman smiled.
"Okay, Mom."
On the small table beside him, a drawing.
A man in armor.
With a greenish stone in his hands.
The boy put his feet on the floor.
Looked in the mirror.
"Stupid dreams... Get rid of them," he said to the mirror.
"That's who you are, Fabio!"
And left the room.
Mini-Arc (Arc 4)
The Battle of the District
End.
