CHAPTER 173: The Crucible of Chaos - Part X

CHAPTER 173: The Crucible of Chaos - Part X

Fénix dodged with increasingly slow and desperate movements. The white fire on his left shoulder spread with cruel slowness, consuming his flesh and his energy. Every time Darem's fire-black bayonets whistled nearby, he felt the cold of absolute annihilation. He knew he couldn't go on like this. He had to risk everything in one last move.

He saw a rusty metal bar, part of a collapsed scaffolding structure. With his good arm, he grabbed it firmly. It wasn't a sword, it wasn't elegant, but it was solid. Heavy. Real.

'This is it.' The thought was clear, a strange calm descending upon him amidst the storm. 'All or nothing. There's no other move. No more time.'

His gaze fixed on Darem's chest, on the spot where the cruciform Nail sank into his flesh. The final target. The source of all this nightmare.

'All my strength. Everything I have left. In this last breath.'

With a cry that was more a roar of agony and determination, Fénix lunged forward. He ignored the pain, ignored the thorny branches trying to ensnare him, ignored everything except the point he had to pierce. The metal bar, held like a spear, pointed directly at Darem's heart.

Darem, for his part, did not retreat. Seeing Fénix's desperate charge, a spark of something that might be respect shone in his supernatural eyes. He too surged forward, his fire-black bayonets crossing in front of him, forming a deadly X.

The world slowed down.

Fénix, with every gram of his being focused on the impact, felt the moment of truth. The tip of the metal bar made contact with Darem's chest... and found no resistance.

There was no wet sound of tearing flesh. No scream of pain.

Only a subtle metallic click.

Fénix, for an infinitesimal instant, smiled. He thought he had succeeded.

"I win...!" he managed to exhale.

But then, he saw the truth.

The metal bar had not penetrated. It had been cleanly cut, just centimeters from the tip, by the blazing cross of Darem's bayonets. The end he was holding fell to the ground with a dull thud. It hadn't even scratched Darem's tunic.

Time returned to its normal flow.

Before Fénix could process the failure, the horror reached him.

Darem had not stopped his movement. The bayonets, after cutting the bar, continued their trajectory. One sank into his throat with a horrifyingly silent sound. The other, into his lower abdomen.

There was no immediate pain. Only an absolute cold, a void that expanded from the points of impact faster than any fire.

Then, the flames erupted. They weren't just the cold white flames from before. They were black and blue flames, a spectral fire that enveloped his body completely, sealing him in a coffin of purging energy. Fénix tried to scream, but he had no voice. He tried to move, but his limbs didn't respond. He was paralyzed, trapped inside his own burning body, feeling his very essence begin to fade, to be erased.

Darem stood before him, slowly lowering his bayonets. The spectral fire illuminated his face, which showed an unusually solemn expression.

"Fénix," he began, his voice no longer mocking, but grave, resonating with an ancient authority. "You have fought with a ferocity I have rarely seen in all my years. You have defied fate, spat in death's face again and again. You came all the way to this final moment with pure courage and will. That is why, I tell you sincerely: it has been an honor to cross your path. You have been a worthy adversary."

The blue and black flames crackled, consuming Fénix's vital energy. He tried, with a last titanic effort of will, to move a finger, to contract a muscle. But it was useless. The flames not only burned; they immobilized, nullified. It was a perfect prison.

"But all things must end," Darem continued, watching as consciousness began to fade in Fénix's eyes. "This is not an ordinary death. It is not a simple cessation of functions. It is the purge. The final judgment for an existence that defied natural laws. Your regeneration, your strength, your indomitable spirit... all will be reduced to ashes. And from those ashes, no memory will remain. The universe itself will forget that Fénix ever walked this earth."

Fénix could no longer see. Darkness loomed over his vision, but he could still hear, could still feel the annihilation approaching.

"Rest," were the last words he heard, spoken with a hint of genuine pity. "The struggle is over."

And then, Fénix stopped feeling. The cold enveloped him completely, a shroud of nothingness that first extinguished the pain, then the sound, and finally, the last spark of his thought.

The struggle was a brutal dance of sweat and effort. Enid, teeth clenched and muscles trembling, held Viktor immobilized in a combat lock that threatened to break his arm. But a gurgling, blood-mixed guffaw escaped Viktor's lips.

"Naive!"

With a burst of supernatural strength, he broke free by twisting his body in an unnatural way. He pivoted on his axis, his fist whistling through the air toward Enid's face. She, however, was already moving. She ducked, the blow grazing her hair, and her hand closed around one of the sharpened copper pipes lying on the ground.

Without a scream, only with the dull grunt of someone giving it their all, she lunged forward and drove the pipe into Viktor's torso with all her strength, impaling him against the concrete wall behind him. A wet, metallic thud echoed in the room.

Viktor convulsed, coughing a jet of scarlet that stained the floor and his own clothes. But, terrifyingly, a twisted, blood-smeared smile didn't leave his face.

"What's the matter, Viktor?" Enid spat, not letting go of the pipe, her voice a whip laden with hatred. "Not so invincible anymore?"

Viktor looked up, his eyes, still filled with demented lucidity, observing her.

"Invincible... no," he managed to say between coughs. "Just... exasperatingly... difficult to eradicate."