The Heroine is My Stepsister, and I'm her Final Boss-Chapter 151 - 152: Signal

"...what... are... you?" the Prime croaked. His voice was a thread of torn breath, a sliver of sound barely audible over the soft crackle of burning leaves and the distant drip of blood off bent steel.

He wasn’t standing. He wasn’t kneeling. He wasn’t anything anymore.

His arm was twisted backward, bone jutting out at a grotesque angle. One eye had been split open, its white turned to a pink mess of bursting vessels. His ears leaked blood like a slow, steady stream, and one of his legs—no, his leg—was still in Atlas’s hand, dangling like meat.

"...told you..." Atlas breathed, voice calm, terrifyingly quiet. "...I am your death."

Then he threw the severed limb aside with a wet flop, as casually as one would discard spoiled cloth. The sound it made against the ground was hollow and final.

The Prime whimpered, arms trembling as he tried to drag himself back—some instinct deeper than pride clawing at the possibility of survival.

"No... no... have me...rcy..."

Atlas tilted his head.

"Oh, fuck off."

His tone didn’t rise. He didn’t shout. Rage no longer surged. It sat. It stewed. Cold. Composed. Inescapable.

Then he gripped the Prime by his remaining leg and again...swung.

The body arced through the air with a sickening whistle, a human sack of broken flesh and gore.

SMASH.

The Prime’s torso slammed into the earth like a meteor, bones cracking, blood erupting into the air—mud and viscera mixing into a sticky mess across the forest floor.

And again.

SMASH.

And again.

CRUNCH—CRACK.

Atlas’s breath grew heavier, his motions not slowing but tightening—like a predator frustrated by how long it took for the prey to stop twitching.

"...Why the fuck are you alive?" he muttered, panting, his grip tightening around the mangled ankle. The Prime’s body flopped like a slaughtered pig, spine no longer working, limbs bent into unnatural hooks.

The face was unrecognizable. The armor no longer armor—just torn strips of metal half-welded to broken ribs. And yet, somehow, there was still movement. A blink. A twitch. Breath.

"You—shouldn’t—be—moving!" Atlas roared.

Each word came with another slam, his voice cracking like thunder, his arms hurling the Prime’s body again and again, until the final strike ripped the last leg clean off. It flew in a lazy, wet arc and landed with a dull splat far off in the trees.

The body didn’t even scream anymore. It just lay, scattered. A thing. A remnant.

Atlas stood still, panting. His chest heaved. The warmth of blood on his gloves seeped through the leather, clinging to his skin. His muscles pulsed with mana, the crimson aura around him flickering violently. He blinked, and his Truth Eyes dimmed just a little—orange and green shadows retracting.

"For fuck’s sake..." he exhaled, glancing toward the horizon where the last limb disappeared. "Now I have to search for him again..."

His voice was quieter now, not from calm, but exhaustion. The kind of exhaustion that followed fury—a bone-deep ache not of the body, but of the soul.

A voice called out, cracking through the silence.

"Atlas!"

He turned sharply.

Claire stumbled into the clearing, her hair damp with sweat, armor scuffed, hands glowing faintly with the afterglow of healing magic. Her eyes widened the moment they landed on him.

"Where the fuck did you go?" she snapped, breathless. "We’ve been searching for—"

But her words stopped.

Her eyes flicked to what was in his hand.

"...Who’s leg is that?" she asked, her voice thin.

Atlas looked down. Blood dripped from his glove. The limb still twitched, nerves firing uselessly.

He tossed it aside with a grunt. "...someone useless..

," he muttered.

Claire stared at him for a second longer, then sighed, wiping her mouth with the back of her wrist. "...What the fuck happened here?"

"....things," Atlas said flatly. His expression didn’t change.

"Barely looks like a person anymore..."

"He wasn’t."

She didn’t ask more. Some truths were obvious.

"Did you heal Kury?" Atlas asked, already walking past her.

Claire nodded. Her voice dropped. "I did what I could. But she needs a proper healer. Fast."

Atlas didn’t respond. He walked forward, his boots squelching in blood and dirt. The trees around them seemed quieter now—like the forest itself was holding its breath.

And there she was.

Kury.

Sitting upright beneath a slanted tree trunk, her back against its mossy bark. Her face was pale, but visible now—faint light falling across her features. Strips of a dead knight’s cloak were wrapped around her shoulders like a makeshift shroud.

Her body trembled slightly. Her hands clenched in her lap. And when she saw him—her pupil dilated, lips twitching—not with fear.

With shame.

She looked down, eyes shadowed. Not a word.

She had once stood above him—commanding, unyielding, the kind of warrior whose presence made battalions straighten. And now... now she looked like a girl lost in her own broken armor.

Atlas approached quietly.

He knelt.

And gently, without ceremony, wrapped his arms around her.

"Don’t worry, Kury," he whispered. His voice was different now. Warm. Tired. Real. "Your dignity and sanity—they’re safe. There’s no shame in defeat."

Her shoulders trembled. Just once. Then again. Her fists relaxed. One tear rolled down her cheek. Just one. She didn’t sob. She didn’t cry out. She leaned her forehead to his shoulder, her voice no louder than a breath.

"You remember.... when I told you to ...always keep your back ...straight?" she murmured.

"I do."

"...It was because I... thought I’d always be there to catch... your fall."

His grip tightened. "You were. You taught me to rise. Even if I had to fall first."

She nodded, letting the words settle like dust on a battlefield.

"Okay," he whispered, rising slowly, helping her stand. "Let’s go now. Heal you all the way."

.

.

The Prime—what remained—twitched. His eye, the one not destroyed, opened slightly. Blood bubbled at the corner of his mouth. His fingers scraped against the dirt, dragging toward his belt.

A knife.

One he hadn’t even gotten the chance to use.

He could barely move. Every nerve screamed. But in that final burst of dying awareness, one instinct burned louder than pain.

Survive. Warn them.

He pulled the knife into his palm.

His hands shook.

But he turned the blade on himself.

With what might have once been a scream, he stabbed it into his own chest—shhk!

Mana flared.

Not in attack.

In signal.

An automatic spell activated—one of the Empire’s tracking seals carved into his very heart . His location surged like fire across the threads of magic, pinging to every Prime in range.

Atlas turned, sensing it.

"...Shit."

Claire’s eyes widened.

The Prime gurgled, blood pooling in his throat. "They... must... know... he... needs to... die today...any means....necessary." he wheezed. "Otherwise... the Empire... will..."

His voice vanished.

He didn’t finish the sentence.

He never would.

His body now lifeless.

Overcoming with Death.

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