I Ascend Alone-Chapter 134: The Birth of National Level Part XIII

But he recovered with the fury of an ancient titan.

His wings snapped open and down, launching him into a corkscrew spin. Lava trailed from his body like comets, and when he reappeared above me—he was holding a spear.

Not forged. Not summoned. Torn from his own spine.

The molten weapon spun once in his grip before he hurled it down.

I threw both hands upward and let the Abyss form a dome above me—not a shield, but a wound. A gap in reality.

The spear struck it and vanished.

Silence.

Then, on the opposite side of the dome, behind him—it reappeared. Unharmed. Undeterred.

He barely spun in time, swatting it away, but the moment it left his hand—I was already behind him.

My elbow smashed into the small of his back. He turned to retaliate, but I ducked under the counter-claw and drove my fist upward into his jaw.

This time, he didn't stagger.

He caught my wrist—his molten hand searing into my skin.

Pain flashed white-hot, but I didn't pull back.

Neither did he.

"Enough games!" he roared—and then his entire body ignited.

The burst of flame was nuclear. Not magical. Elemental. A city-leveling detonation meant to disintegrate anything still standing.

The Weapon District vanished into firelight.

Everything—everything—turned white.

From the barricade, President Vaughn lunged forward. "Pull the feeds! Pull—"

"No!" Mirae shouted, voice ragged. "Don't look away!"

The screens, though nearly blind from the overexposure, kept rolling.

Drone feeds caught it—zoomed and distorted, then slowly clarifying as the blaze settled.

And I am standing still in the center, cloaked in layered tendrils of black.

Smoke coiled from the burn wound on my arm. Half of my coat was gone. My body radiated a silent, formless gravity that made the air fold.

I raised one hand—and the shadows behind me lifted like a second army. Spears, blades, halos of pure entropy.

He let out a final growl. "You... are no mortal."

"No," I agreed.

Then I moved.

The exchange that followed was too fast for drones to track.

To the watchers around the world, it was chaos.

Explosions, eruptions, spatial fractures ripping the district apart.

We became motion.

Blades of flame screamed across the district, carving molten scars through asphalt and shattered alloy. Abyssal lashes cracked like thunder, tearing chunks from ruined buildings and peeling entire facades off their foundations. Each of us moved faster than light was willing to follow.

Claw met fist. Flame met shadow.

Pyraethrax's strikes grew more erratic—no less powerful, but desperate. He struck with the strength of a god who had ruled too long without question, and now found himself tested by something far older than fear.

I slammed a knee into his gut. He drove an elbow into my temple. We both staggered, then clashed again midair, cratering into the rooftop of a fallen mech-forge tower.

Glass rained. Concrete buckled.

And then he stopped.

Not because he was broken. Not because he'd surrendered.

But because he knew something I didn't.

His claws lowered. The magma in his veins still roared, but his voice was suddenly quiet—distant.

"You can kill me," he said, gaze burning into mine, "but it won't matter."

I didn't speak. My chest rose and fell, shoulders tense, fingers curled in a partial guard. The Abyss crackled at my back, ready to finish what it started.

But Pyraethrax didn't move.

"Even if you strike me down here, the end has already begun," he said. "The moment I emerged... the seal broke. The cycle turned. A calamity will befall upon this land, Human."

And that was when I remembered.

That moment. The warning.

***

"One more thing, Ryzen Kael."

I turned back toward him slowly, feeling the chill of anticipation creep up my spine again.

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"Before you return to the world of mortals... know this." Abyssal Arbiter's voice no longer whispered—it rang out, laced with foreboding.

"A calamity stirs on Earth. A force older than your nations. Older than your Hunters. It has begun to awaken."

***

I stared at him.

"You knew," I said quietly. "You knew you'd die here."

He smiled, just barely. "I had hoped not. But even the proud are not exempt from prophecy."

I took a step forward, shadows pulsing with silent wrath. "Then say it. What's coming?"

His expression didn't waver.

"You wouldn't believe me."

I raised my hand—darkness coalescing like liquid nightmare at my fingertips.

"Try me."

He exhaled, smoke curling from his jaw.

"The ones who taught us fear. The ones who forged me, only to abandon this realm to rot. My death is the signal. They're listening again."

Pyraethrax's voice trembled with fury, but his eyes held a strange calm—like a king delivering his last decree.

"But know this," he growled, the ground quaking beneath his claws. "Even if my death is written into the stars—I will not go quietly."

His wings snapped wide.

The flames around him turned white. No longer just fire—plasma, laced with pure destructive intent. The atmosphere buckled. Glass liquefied in windows half a district away. The very air ignited, warping reality around his form.

Reporters screamed. The live feeds distorted into static for several seconds before stabilizing—just enough for the world to glimpse what was coming.

President Vaughn's voice cracked through clenched teeth. "Is that monster trying to take the whole city with him?!"

Agent Hale shouted into his comms. "Evac status—now! Move, move, MOVE!"

Mirae's heart dropped, her breath catching as she stared at the screen.

"Ryzen..." she whispered. "Please don't..."

Because I was no longer just standing still. My body began to shift.

Not physically—but metaphysically. A ripple—silent and bottomless—spread out from where my feet met the scorched earth. Reality pulsed, then bent inward like it was afraid of me.

The shadows around me didn't rise—they knelt.

And from the center of my chest, a deep black glow ignited, pulsing with the beat of a sovereign heart.

Then came the voice—Vorathos, whispering with reverence.

"Claim your throne, my King."

My coat was torn away by the force of it, replaced by a mantle woven of pure abyssal will—alive, writhing, and regal. Crown-like horns of shadow curved upward from my temples, faintly flickering with indigo flame. My eyes—no longer human—burned with a cold, endless void. My skin shimmered faintly with abyss-forged etchings, glowing with symbols no mortal tongue could name.

Around me, the air crystallized with pressure. The clouds overhead split, not from heat—but reverence.

The Abyss Monarch had awakened, and the entire world was watching.

One drone feed, stabilized, zoomed in—

—And the chat erupted into madness.

***

"THAT'S NOT A HUNTER!"

"He's not using mana—what the hell IS that?!"

"Did he just bend space???"

"We need to EVAC CITY-A!"

"...it feels like I am staring at a bottomless abyss!"

***

Pyraethrax staggered in fear. "You... what are you, really?!"