Wolfen was barely standing.
His pulse was low—dangerously low—draining out of him with every second, every breath, every beat of his struggling heart. The one who looked like him stood across the crater, his eyes and hair burning grey, his smile wide and sharp and hungry.
"Hahahaha!" The laugh echoed off the ash, off the glass, off the nothing that stretched for miles.
Wolfen activated pulse amplification. Blood rush. Solar lava pushed to its limit—beyond its limit, past the point where his body should have been able to contain it. His veins burned. His bones ached. His heart stuttered.
They clashed.
It wasn't a clash of monsters. It wasn't a clash of metahumans. It wasn't a clash of destroyers. It was a clash between deaths—two versions of the same end, the same ending, the same inevitable conclusion that neither of them could outrun.
Wolfen made a hammer—Umbralite and fire, massive and brutal—and swung. The impact sent the other Wolfen flying, tumbling through the ash, bouncing off the crater wall, disappearing into the darkness.
Wolfen channeled fire through his legs and launched himself like a rocket. He hit the other Wolfen mid-air, driving him further, deeper, through the ash and the smoke and the ruins of what used to be a forest.
They landed far beyond the crater. The ground here was still intact—snow-covered, silent, untouched by the earlier destruction. It wouldn't stay that way.
Wolfen made a scythe. The other Wolfen did the same.
They charged.
The scythes met in the center—CLANG—sparks exploding outward, hanging in the air, turning into fireballs that rained down on the snow. They moved, clashing again and again, their weapons singing the same song, their bodies moving in the same rhythm.
Fireballs flew between them, past them, through them. They dodged. They struck. They moved.
A fireball—Wolfen's—met a fireball—the other's—in the center. The colors mixed, grey and red and orange and white, swirling together, becoming something new. Something bigger.
It exploded.
Both of them were caught in the blast.
Wolfen emerged from the flames,he saw an opening, his scythe extended. He cut the other Wolfen's arm off at the elbow. The limb hit the ground, steaming.
The other Wolfen cut Wolfen's left arm off. His left leg off.
Wolfen fell to one knee. His pulse was at thirty percent. His leg was gone. His arm was gone. Blood sprayed across the snow.
He sent twenty percent of his remaining pulse to his leg. The bone knitted. The flesh sealed. It healed in seconds.
Ten percent to his left arm. It grew back—pale, new, weak.
Ten percent to his right fist. For power.
The rest—barely anything—to the rest of his body. To keep his heart beating. To keep his lungs breathing. To keep him standing.
They clashed again. Here. There. Everywhere. Their weapons were blurs, their bodies were ghosts, their fire was the only light in the darkness.
"Hahahaha!" The other Wolfen laughed, enjoying this, savoring it.
"Dominance Sphere."
Both of them activated it at the same time.
Wolfen's sphere was solar lava—white-hot, blinding, absolute. The other's sphere was dark grey—wrong, hungry, consuming. The two spheres pressed against each other, grinding, crackling, neither giving ground.
This was no longer a battle of strength or speed or power. This was a battle of will. Two forces, perfectly matched, locked in a deadlock that could only be broken by something outside themselves.
The spheres held. Neither dominant. Neither yielding.
The deadlock held.
And then—a third party arrived.
A beam of energy—white, blinding, precise—shot from the darkness and struck Wolfen in the chest. He staggered, his sphere flickering, and turned.
Zane stood at the edge of the crater. His mechanical arm was still smoking, still extended, still aiming. His face was half-metal, half-flesh, his one human eye cold and empty.
"Who the hell are you?" Wolfen's voice was ragged.
He vanished. Appeared behind Zane. Hit him—once, twice, a hundred times, two hundred, five hundred—in the space of two minutes. His fists were blurs, his fire was everywhere, his rage was absolute.
Zane flew backward. Landed far away. His body shifted—metal plates sliding, limbs reconfiguring, his form changing into something fully mechanical.
"Data processing complete. Strength level: Tier 2 Omega."
The robot stopped beeping. Its eyes went dark.
It wasn't Zane. It had never been Zane. It was a machine—sent to collect data, to observe, to report back.
Wolfen turned. The other Wolfen hit him in the face. The impact sent him flying, tumbling through the ash, coming to rest in a heap.
The spheres dissolved.
"It was fun," the other Wolfen said. "But you have to go now."
He extended his hand. Grey fire surged at his palm, building, growing, preparing to end it.
An icy attack hit him in the ribs. The bones scattered, piercing his lungs, his heart, his stomach. He staggered. An electric beam hit him next—high voltage, high density, sending his nervous system into freefall.
He hit the ground. Maya descended from above, her fist connecting with his chest, driving him deeper into the earth.
Wolfen pushed himself up. Leo stood at the edge of the crater, his hands still crackling. Maya stood beside him, her scales still visible, her eyes burning. And behind them, a woman—white hair, pale skin, her presence vast and cold.
The ice woman. The one who had saved Derek. The one who had killed another Wolfen.
The other Wolfen pushed himself up. His ribs were healing. His chest was healing. His smile was gone.
He made a blade—Umbralite, sharp, hungry—and drove it through his own heart.
No. Through Wolfen's heart.
Wolfen saw it coming. He didn't move. The blade went through his chest, through his ribs, through the organ that had been failing for years.
The other Wolfen smiled. Blood leaked from his mouth.
"You will choose our path," he said. "Soon. For it is your fate."
Wolfen looked at him. At the blade in his chest. At the blood on his hands.
"I reject my fate." His voice was quiet. "Whatever I'm supposed to do with my life—I'll do it my way."
He killed him.
The other Wolfen collapsed. Dead.
Wolfen stood over the body, his heart pierced, his pulse nearly gone, his blood pooling at his feet. He looked at the other bodies—the crying one, the laughing one, the still one, the scarred one, the Architect, the fire one, the faceless one, the zombie. Ten versions of himself, scattered across the ash and snow.
He had killed himself ten times.
And felt nothing.
He pulled the blade from his other selves chest. Dropped it. Watched it dissolve into nothing.
Leo reached him first. "Wolfen—"
"I'm fine."
Maya grabbed his arm, steadying him. The ice woman—Selene—stood apart, watching.
"You're not fine," Maya said. "Your injuries —"
"It'll heal."
Wolfen looked at her. At Leo. At the woman he didn't know.
"It'll heal," he said again.
He walked away from the bodies, from the ash, from the crater that used to be a forest. He didn't look back.
Behind him, the snow began to fall.
The anomaly walked away feeling nothing for his evil version's . He barely ever felt sorry for himself.
Wolfen welfric walked away after killing him self 10 times.