The Abandoned City was very peaceful. Of course it was abandoned. But that doesn't mean it could be peaceful. It was peaceful, but the question was why was it peaceful?? Because it was peaceful!?!
Wait... Damnit. And then—
A CAR JUMPED OVER A BARRICADE.
The tires slammed back onto the cracked road with a violent screech.
Inside the vehicle, Henry gripped the steering wheel tightly, knuckles pale against the leather. His black hair stuck slightly to his forehead from sweat.
They were coming.
The creatures didn't move like animals. They folded through space in grotesque bursts.
One of them crawled across the broken road on limbs that bent the wrong way. Too many joints twitched like strings pulled by invisible hands. Its torso looked half-melted, ribs exposed but moving independently, opening and closing like gills.
Instead of a face, it had layers of translucent skin stretched tight over something shifting beneath. As if dozens of tiny mouths pressed outward from inside, whispering silently.
Another creature leapt from a shattered rooftop. Landing on all fours atop an abandoned truck. Its body was long and skeletal, spine protruding like a row of jagged blades.
Its arms were uneven. One massive and swollen with muscle. The other thin and stretched impossibly long. Fingers dragging along the ground like hooks.
Its head hung sideways. Revealing rows of teeth that curved inward like barbed wire. The car rattled violently as Henry swerved around debris.
From the passenger seat, Roland clutched the handle above the door like his life depended on it.
"HENRY! THIS IS NOT DRIVING—THIS IS ATTEMPTED MURDER! GOD! BLESS THIS DAM-HOLE CHILD!"
Henry didn't answer. He simply turned the wheel sharply, drifting around a fallen signpost.
Roland groaned loudly.
"You call this control? My grandmother could drive smoother and she's been dead for ten years!"
From the back seat, Avery leaned forward between them gripping the headrest.
"Roland, stop insulting him! At least he's driving away from the monsters, not toward them."
Roland pointed accusingly at Henry.
"He almost did drive into that wall five seconds ago! He thinks we are already GHOSTS!!"
Henry finally spoke,
"You are more annoying than a mosquito at 3am."
Roland froze. "...Tch, I will see you.".
The vehicle flew in sky after the tires crashed into stone piles.
Roland had both hands gripping the dashboard now.
"I swear! If we survive this, I am never sitting in the front seat again! I am writing a will as soon as we get home!"
Avery rolled her eyes,
"Roland, you don't own anything worth putting in a will."
"I have dignity!" he snapped.
Henry didn't respond. His eyes stayed focused on driving. And then suddenly, something moved ahead.
One of the monsters launched itself from the front, dropping from the side of a collapsed tower. Its body twisted mid-air, limbs stretched outward like tearing fabric.
Its mouth, if it could be called that, split open vertically across its face, revealing rows of needle-like teeth rotating inside like grinding gears.
Henry's pupils shrank. "Brace yourselves."
Before the monster could land...
A bolt of lightning fell from the sky.
WHAAM!!!
The lightning struck directly in front of the truck.
Henry slammed the brakes instantly. The truck skidded violently across the cracked road. Stopping just inches from the smoking crater.
The monster was gone turning into ash.
Reduced to charred fragments scattered across molten concrete. Smoke curled upward slowly.
From the side of the road, a figure emerged through the fading smoke.
An average young man walked forward casually. Hands tucked into the pockets of a sleek, fitted uniform.
The outfit was stylish rather than bulky. Dark indigo fabric layered with sharp golden trims along the collar and shoulders.
A long coat hung loosely behind him, swaying with each step like he was walking onto a stage rather than a battlefield.
His hair was short, jet black, styled too perfectly for someone standing in monster-infested ruins. A pair of thin, decorative pins shaped like lightning bolts rested along his collar.
He stopped beside the crater. Then lifted his chin slightly.
"Ozymandis is here. Bearer of thunder, breaker of skies, ruler of—"
Henry leaned out the truck window, "Idiots."
Ozymandias blinked once. Henry pointed sharply at the smoking ground.
"That lightning could have hit our truck."
Ozymandias tilted his head, unimpressed.
"Relax. If it hit you, I would have adjusted."
Roland leaned toward Avery, whispering loudly. "I don't like him."
Avery ignored Roland and leaned forward slightly.
"Ozymandis. We've already destroyed the Core Egg."
That caught his attention. He turned toward her.
"You did?" he asked. Avery nodded.
"The primary nest is gone. These monsters are just remnants now. They will scatter without coordination."
Ozymandias exhaled slowly, stretching his shoulders as faint sparks flickered around his fingers.
"Good. Then my job just is to become a broom."
Henry shifted the truck into gear again.
"Handle the leftovers, kid." he muttered.
Roland waved mockingly out the window.
"Try not to vaporize yourself, lightning prince."
Ozymandis smirked mischievously.
The truck pulled away. Engine roared back to life, dust rising behind it as the three disappeared into the distance.
Ozymandis remained standing alone in the ruined road.
Ozymandis walked forward alone. Boots crunched softly over charred fragments of bone and melted asphalt.
His hands stayed tucked into his coat pockets, posture relaxed. As if he were strolling through a garden rather than a battlefield that smelled of burnt flesh.
A grin formed on his face. The kind that suggested he was amused by things most people would find terrifying.
"Funny world. People worship the ones above heaven… until the heaven arrives at their door. Then suddenly, they want peace."
He glanced upward briefly at the dark sky. "Power isn't feared because it's destructive. It's feared because it reminds people how little control they actually have. Damn world. Full of shyts... Cardboard marriages... Bottles of semen drowning in ocean with tragedies in it... I wonder what would happen if sea was feminine. Uhh, whatever."
He exhaled slowly. His shoulders loosened as he continued forward.
From the ruined buildings and broken ground ahead. They were not two, three or twenty.
The monsters gathered again. Crawling over each other like spilled insects. Their twisted limbs scraped against concrete. Their distorted bodies folding and snapping into motion as if drawn toward him by instinct alone.
Ozymandias stopped.
His right hand slipped into his coat and pulled out a single red crystallized dart. Thin and elegant, glowing like condensed lightning frozen into shape. He rotated it between his fingers casually, studying the sky once more.
"My Astra performs best under sunlight but night has its own charm. Darkness makes explosions feel more adorable. Hehehe."
He raised the dart and pointed it toward a distant stretch of broken land where the monsters clustered thickest. He didn't throw it or launch it. Just pointed.
He simply pressed it gently into the air itself, as if space were solid enough to hold it.
Then... the far distance collapsed into white light.
A detonation erupted outward like a newborn sun, swallowing the monsters in an expanding sphere of heat and pressure.
The ground lifted upward, shattered and folded beneath the force. Sound was erased for a moment. After that, came a monstrous roar that tore through the ruins like divine punishment.
The Entire Abandoned City was gone.
Ozymandis stood motionless. Coat fluttered violently in the shockwave. Hair rippling back as flames rose like a blooming flower across the horizon.
He smiled faintly, "Kings rise… empires fall…
Yet calamities remembers no throne.
For in the end, all crowns are dust and lightning writes the final name in stone."
He looked back. Then forward again.
" Dang, that giant mushroom looks cool tonight."