Zane and Despair continued with their battle, the pure shockwaves of their previous exchanges giving way to a far more concentrated, lethal rhythm.
There were no wasted movements, no boastful taunts in the vacuum—only the calculated execution of absolute destruction.
Despair lunged, the dark miasma around his shoulders condensing into a singular, razor-sharp point. He swung his arm horizontally, unleashing his ultimate attack once more.
Despair used his" Blade of Sorrow techniques", but this time, The Blade of Sorrow crashed directly into Zane's chest. The shockwave was so intense it cut reality itself, leaving a jagged, bleeding, two-mile-long tear in the dimensional fabric of space, It was a critical hit, perfectly landed.
But it didn't cut Zane's chest, The blade did not sever his flesh, but the raw absolute physical power behind the demon's attack managed to damage he's skin.
It just scratched his chest, but he was bleeding.
A single, dark crimson line opened across the center of Zane's chest, the fluid seeping through his torn jacket and pooling against his skin.
Zane floated weightless in the dark void, his feet stabilizing against the atmospheric friction. He slowly raised his right hand, his fingers dipping into the wet, warm crimson blood staining his clothes. He brought his fingers back down, staring at the dark coloration on his skin.
"It's been long since I've seen my own blood," Zane said in his mind, his inner voice completely devoid of panic, sounding like a freezing winter wind.
The sight of his own blood did not bring fear; it merely brought a cold, terrifying confirmation of the stakes.
Despair smiled, his unhinged jaw scraping together as a hollow, echoing laugh rattled through his white bone mask. "You are quite fascinating for a human you really are. You've survived everything, I'm truly impressed."
The demon's praise carried no mercy. Before Zane could react, Despair brought his long, clawed hands together, interlocking his fingers in a complex, geometric seal.
The four crimson eyes on his face mask flashed with a blinding, absolute red ignition that shinned bright like a star.
"Like I said, you have too much hatred and guilt," despair whispered as he used one of his most dangerous moves: Nightmare Zone.
Instantly, the physical vacuum of the moving planet vanished. The cosmic void, the shattered asteroids, and the distant bleeding tears in space were entirely swallowed by an overwhelming, suffocating darkness. The environment changed entirely. The ground beneath Zane's boots dissolved, replaced by a massive, endless pool of blood and splintered human bones that stretched out into an infinite, horizonless void. From beneath the thick, crimson surface, thousands of decaying hands reached upward, while the disembodied voices of countless people screamed in agony as they were being tortured by their own personal nightmares echoed across the dark, echoing sky.
Zane's eyes went blank. The brilliant, cold silver light within his irises completely dissolved, leaving behind two dead, empty pupils.
9:00 AM.
The scent of warm, freshly baked bread and savory stew drifted through the air. The lighting was soft, a gentle, golden morning sun bleeding through the small, clean window of a modest suburban kitchen. It was a peaceful, domestic warmth that Zane had buried deep within the blackest corners of his memory.
A boy was in the kitchen with his mum. It was Zane, wearing a simple, unsoiled civilian shirt, stood near the counter, his hands gripping the edge of the wood as he watched the familiar, beautiful silhouette of his mother moving gracefully between the stove and the table. On the floor a few feet away, his little sister sat on the floor playing with a toy, her small, innocent laughter chiming like silver bells through the quiet room.
Across the table, his other brother, Tyson, sat hunched over, completely absorbed in a handheld gaming console, his thumbs clicking rapidly against the buttons.
"Zane, it's dinner time," Zane's mum said, turning around with a warm, radiant smile.
Zane and his family began to eat, sitting around the polished wooden table.
His mum was scolding Tyson for playing games while eating, her voice carrying that gentle, a disciplinary tone , Across from them, his younger Elias was smiling, carefully leaning over to feed his little sister a small spoonful of food.
Zane picked up his spoon, his hands trembling slightly as the sheer, overwhelming normalcy of the moment washed over his mind. For a fraction of a second, his heart wanted to accept it. He wanted to believe the war against Malkor was just a dream..
The spoon in Elias's hand turned into cold, rusted iron. The baby sister dropped her toy, her head snapping sideways with a sickening, wet CRACK. She turned her face toward Zane, and her smile twisted into a wide, unnatural grin. Her teeth became jagged, sharp needles, and thick, writhing black worms began to crawl out from her eyes, boring through her soft skin as she laid motionless on the ground, her small body turning gray and decaying in a matter of seconds.
"Zane, why didn't you protect me? Why, whyyyyyyy?!" his little sister screamed, her voice distorting into a deafening, high-pitched shriek that shattered the kitchen windows into millions of glass shards.
Zane's breath hitched in his throat, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped animal. He turned his head frantically toward the head of the table, his hand reaching out. "Mum—!"
As he turned, he saw his mum died. Her skin was already completely pale, her beautiful eyes wide and vacant as her body slumped forward onto the dinner plates. The golden morning light vanished, replaced by a dark, bloody crimson fog that choked the room.
"It's all your fault... you were too weak, too weak... you let me dieeeeeee!" she screamed, her jaw snapping out of alignment as a torrential wave of thick, dark blood came pouring from her mouth, spilling across the table and drowning the food. Her dead, cold fingers locked tightly around Zane's wrists, burning his skin like hot iron.
"Zane, Zane, Zane, Zane... I hate you, I hate you! You couldn't save me or your sister... it's all your fault, all your fault!" the voices of his mother and sister merged into a singular, agonizing chorus of condemnation that ripped through his sanity.
Zane fell to his knees, the wooden floor plates transforming into the infinite pool of bones and blood from the underworld. He clutched his head with both hands, his fingernails digging deep into his scalp as hot, heavy tears broke past his eyelids.
"No... no, no... I tried... I tried! Please forgive me... please, please..." Zane said, crying hysterically, his cold, unyielding demeanor completely shattered into pieces. The crushing weight of the guilt he had carried in silence for years—the absolute failure of the firstborn son—was laid bare.
The dead bodies of his mother and sister began to wrap around his limbs, their decaying arms dragging him downward, drowning him into the deep pool of blood. Zane didn't resist. He let his limbs go loose, his body sinking into the warm, metallic crimson depths, ready to let the darkness swallow him whole. He deserved this. He had failed them.
As he fell deeper into the blood, drifting through an endless, silent crimson abyss where the screams of the tortured grew faint, Zane saw a reflection of himself floating directly beneath him. The reflection didn't look broken; its eyes were narrow, sharp, and filled with a burning, unyielding anger.
"What do you want...?" Zane whispered through the blood, his voice weak.
The reflection didn't answer with words. Moving with an explosive, fluid velocity, his reflection punched him directly across the jaw, the sheer mental force of the blow snapping Zane's head back and forcing his consciousness to stabilize.
"It's our fault they died! We were too weak!" his reflection roared, its face twisting into a mask of pure, agonizing fury as it grabbed Zane by the collar of his jacket. "We made ourselves into a weapon so we could avenge them! We chose to carry that guilt so Elias or Tyson doesn't have to! It's our job! As the firstborn, it's our job!"
The reflection's grip tightened, its broad shoulders beginning to violently tremble as the fierce anger collapsed into raw, unfiltered grief. The reflection began to cry, thick tears mixing with the surrounding blood as its voice cracked with an ancient, heavy pain. "Mum is gone... and little sister is gone... we didn't even spend much... t... damn it! Damn it!"
Zane stared at the crying manifestation of his own inner soul. The realization hit him like a physical wave. He didn't pull away. Instead, Zane moved to comfort his reflection, placing a heavy, solid hand over its trembling shoulder, accepting every ounce of the pain.
"You're right," Zane said, his voice instantly regaining that freezing, absolute stability. The deadness in his pupils vanished, replaced by a rising, terrifying silver fire that began to boil the surrounding blood of the illusion. "It's my fault... and we must carry the pain, the guilt, and everything else so my brothers don't have to. I will never forgive myself...Never. ....I was weak... and I'll never, ever, ever feel weak again"
Outside, in the real space of the moving planet, Zane's physical body stood perfectly still, his eyes blank as the purple Nightmare Zone runes swirled around his silhouette. Despair smiled, his long white hair flowing as he raised his clawed hand, condensing a massive spike of cosmic energy to pierce Zane's head and end the fight once and for all.
As despair was about to kill Zane inside the nightmare zone, the illusion shattered into millions of red glass fragments.
Zane's hand snapped upward. Moving with an impossible speed that completely defied the paralysis of the technique, Zane caught his hand. His iron fingers locked around Despair's clawed wrist with enough pressure to crush the high-density bone armor into dust.
Despair's four crimson eyes widened in absolute, unprecedented horror. He looked down, and his breath hitched.
Blood rushed from Zane's eyes as he cried. Two thick streaks of dark crimson mixed with silver energy poured down his cheeks from his burning silver irises, his face a terrifying mask of absolute, unyielding sorrow and unbreakable will.
"You're right," Zane whispered, his voice vibrating through the entire internal sector, causing the foundational plates of the moving planet to violently groan. "I have so much hatred and guilt, and I'm not going to leave that behind. I'm gonna carry it for as long as I live.....I don't deserve peace, I couldn't save my loved ones because I was weak... and I'm not going to feel that way anymore."
The blue energy exploding from Zane's body didn't just push the dark miasma away—it entirely vaporized the Nightmare Zone, turning the unholy domain of Hell into dust.
Despair's eyes widened to their absolute limits, his massive silver frame trembling with an instinctual, primal fear he had never felt since his creation. "Impossible... no being has ever survived the Nightmare Zone... impossible! Who is this man... who is he?!"
Zane smiled, his silver-infused teeth flashing through the blood on his face, his grip on the demon's wrist tightening until the bone cracked.
"I'm Zane Walker."