CHAPTER 126: Hell in Berlin-19

CHAPTER 126: Hell in Berlin-19

Phoenix's world crumbled in a second, as if a veil had been drawn between him and reality. Those images he had kept at bay for so long—the faces, the voices, the voids—burst forth with the force of an avalanche: Anna falling, Alucard unraveling into dust and light, Lucio imploding, so many names that were now silence. Each memory hit harder than the last, until all sense of time was pulverized.

An inner voice, sharp, began to scream among his thoughts: *What for? Why did they sacrifice themselves? For me?* And the answer, brutal and clear, seared into him like a hot iron: *Yes. For you.* That certainty devoured him. He saw himself in every scene: his orders, his decisions, his presence. An unbearable loop of guilt and fury closed around his chest.

Phoenix clenched his hands with such force that the skin gave way. Blood welled up between his knuckles; the sting and heat traveled up his wrists. He didn't feel pain in the calm sense of the word: he felt an eruption that anchored him to the moment, a physical reminder that something had broken forever in his soul.

Rage filled him completely: a black, ancient rage mixing impotence and hatred. Dark thoughts piled up in his mind like hungry flames: the idea of tearing apart, of destroying, of leaving nothing alive in his path. *Let it all burn. Let them pay. They all deserve to die.* They weren't reasoned thoughts; they were visceral explosions, oaths born from the bone.

He rose to his feet with effort, his legs trembling but firm. His fingers were still stained with his own blood, and each heartbeat hammered in his ears. He walked towards where Alex still stood, his gaze blazing, his breath tearing the air. Fury made his voice stammer, but what came out was a scream that split the tunnel's silence like a cut:

"Damn you! Coward! For everything you tore away and for everything you stole from me... I'm going to rip your life out by the roots!"

It wasn't a calm promise; it was a primitive urgency, a wave pushing him forward. His words bounced off the walls, little daggers completing the open wound in his chest. For an instant, there was only the image of Alex, smiling, and the certainty that nothing would ever be the same until he had paid.

Alex didn't wait. With a savage howl, he swung the scythe in a descending arc meant to sever Phoenix's head. The blade gleamed in the gloom like a dark lightning bolt.

But Phoenix was no longer the broken man who had whimpered seconds before. In a movement that left no room for doubt, he drove his right hand into the scythe's shaft, stopping the blade a hair's breadth from its task. The impact reverberated up his arm like a hammer, but he didn't let go.

With his other hand, he clenched his fist and delivered a sharp, brutal blow to the hilt. The metal yielded with a sharp crack: the scythe split in two. One piece fell to the ground, the other remained in Alex's hand like a useless handle.

Alex gasped, surprised by the strength, but before he could recover, Phoenix wasted no time. Without pause, he gathered all the momentum in his shoulder and hip, and with the contained fury of one who has nothing left to lose, he threw a punch straight to Alex's face.

The blow wasn't aesthetic or clean: it was raw truth. The hardened surface of Alex, that skin which during the fight had responded like stone, cracked under the force of Phoenix's hand. It fissured in lines like cracked porcelain; fragments of the false armor flew off, but there was no macabre spectacle, only the evidence that something in Alex had given way.

Alex staggered backward, surprise painted on his face. For the first time since it all began, he saw the other clearly: not the exhausted man or the toy he amused himself with rituals, but the hunter. In Phoenix's eyes burned that cold, sharp light—ancient, concentrated—that had seen so many die and now returned to collect debts.

A tremor ran through Alex, barely perceptible, but enough; his hands loosened on the broken shaft. The mocking smile slipped away like sand through his fingers.

Phoenix didn't smile. He just breathed, slowly, controlling the heartbeat hammering at his temples, and took a step forward, ready to continue the hunt.

Phoenix didn't let the rage consume itself in silence; he let it ignite like a bonfire needing heat, and used it as fuel. As he struck Alex again and again, his voice came out ragged, cold, like a sentence.

"You took everything from me," he said between impacts. "You took Alucard. You took Anna. All for your game, for your insane ego." Each name was a stab. "Do you know what it's like to watch them fall? Do you know what it's like for them to break because of you?"

There was no plea in his words; there was merit and accusation. Alex, who still retained arrogance in his face, lost his composure with each memory driven into his forehead. Phoenix gave him no time to react: he combined punches and knee strikes, brutal shoves that dismantled the enemy's mask of toughness.

With a speed and strength born from pain, Phoenix trapped Alex's right arm in a hold of his own—a violent twist that sought more than to dominate: it sought to disable. Alex screamed, not from spectacular pain but from the loss of control. With a sharp movement, Phoenix took the lock to its limit; there was no morbid gesture, only the breaking of the bone at its joint. The arm hung useless, without strength. Alex groaned and retreated, his hand transformed into a hindrance.

Phoenix continued without pause: a blow to the abdomen—centered, precise—that made the hardened armor covering Alex's chest crack. The plates that seemed like diamond fissured under the violence. Alex coughed, staggering; the false invulnerability now showed deep cracks.

The end came with a final blow, an impact loaded with everything inside Phoenix: pain, rage, oath. The fist found the torso with such force that Alex's superficial armor gave way completely. The vampire was thrown backward like a broken doll and slammed against the curve of the tunnel with a dull thud. He remained there, choking and beaten, unable to get up immediately.