Chapter 13

The Demon Ape attacks!

Alex and Kairin ducked deeper behind the boulder as another barrage of splintered rocks carpet-bombed the street.

Several runners were hit. Those who figured out that they should be jumping for cover—since there was no running from this—couldn’t do so in time.

Helpless screams blanketed the wide street. The crowd that had gathered below the now collapsed airship was the worst hit.

As the panic rose to a crescendo, the stampede moving outward found itself getting in its own way, as people running away from the ape stumbled over debris and stalled cars, and over each other.

It was a grim reminder of the day of the first attack. In a mere couple of days, everyone stuck inside Sol City was back to where it all started.

And all it took was a simple spell cast by an evil demon wizard.

Alex looked on in horror as a bus stalled on the side of the street exploded after being hit by a giant rock. Those unlucky enough to be around it were blown away. The skeleton of a child’s bike shot into the air and crashed onto the ground, crooked.

Alex clenched his fists. The damned demon monkey had to be stopped!

Amidst all the chaotic carnage delivered by the concrete artillery, the watch on Alex’s wrist glowed blue once again.

“Alex!” came Clark’s desperate voice. “Alex, do you hear me?”

Kairin hadn’t heard Alex’s watch speak. She was too busy trying to sneak a peek at the monster ape from the other side.

Maybe she was looking for openings? Or weaknesses?

Did she really think she stood a chance?

“What are you guys doing here?” Alex asked Clark, panting.

Clark sounded helpless. “Alex, listen to me: You have to get them out of here. They are not ready!”

“No shit!” said Alex. “Why did you bring them here then?!”

“I did not! They ran off on their own chasing after that hawk.”

“What hawk?” said Alex. “All I see is a giant, crazy monkey!”

The crazy monkey seemed to be enjoying itself. Alex could hear celebratory snorts and whistles coming from behind that could only belong to the monster.

This was all a game for the demon ape. Nothing but a game.

Clark fell silent, deep in thought.

Maybe, Alex thought, Lucy and Aiden had seen the same floating figure from earlier fly past them over the mansion, and so they decided to chase after it. Maybe to them, it looked like a hawk. Maybe he dons the appearance of a hawk when flying, who knows!

Does that mean that whoever or whatever he was, he was based in the northern forests?

Them chasing after the flying demon hawk wizard explains how they got here so fast.

But they shouldn’t be here in the first place!

“Couldn’t you lock them in?” Alex shouted at Clark as the boulder that they were cowering behind shook with impact.

“I did! Dammit, I tried! But the pet’s got full access too; and I never thought he’d ever go against me. Evidently, he’s now more loyal to Aiden than to me!”

“Who is that?” asked Kairin, finally noticing Alex speaking to his watch.

“I’ll tell you later,” said Alex. “I’m in a bit of a bind here myself, Clark,” he spoke with his mouth almost touching the watch.

“I can see that,” said Clark. “I scanned your face out from the crowd.”

“You can do that?” blurted Alex, still surprisingly impressed by Clark’s abilities. “But what’s the point, huh?” he mocked as more of the concrete artillery flew over their heads. “Despite all your technological prowess, you got outsmarted by your own robot pet!”

“I trusted him!” Clark yelled. “I trusted him and he stabbed me in the back that little rebellious hunk of—”

Alex missed the last part as a huge block of something heavy smashed against the back side of the boulder. It wasn’t going to hold for long.

“I’m going to create a distraction,” said Clark. “You take the cue and get everyone out of here, you understand? There is no fighting that thing!”

“He’s right!” Kairin cut in. “Whoever he is, he’s right. This is way above my skill level!” She clenched her fists and jaw. Tears of frustration rolled down her reddened cheeks.

Another rock smashed against the boulder’s backside. Alex could feel the cracks widening.

“Whatever you’re planning to do,” Alex told Clark, “you better do it soon!”

“Blob!” shouted Clark. “You traitorous piece of junk metal, hand the controls over to me!”

Alex saw the fighter jet blow steam over the vehicle.

Guess that was a no.

“Okay,” said Clark. “I’ll ask nicely. Now that everyone’s out of the vehicle and I clearly cannot drive them back home, can you hand the controls back to me, please?!”

A split second later, the headlamps of Clark’s car-tank glowed bright.

“Yes!” Clark cheered. “Now watch this.”

The car’s wheels switched positions and alignment, so as to better hold the vehicle in place. The railgun at the top rose higher and began to charge up, glowing brighter, and brighter, and brighter, until…

BOOM!

The gun fired a long-ranged energy blast similar to Clark’s plasma blast attack. It was discernibly weaker than the output from Clark’s suit, but it was still a massive attack.

The energy blast flew past Alex and Kairin and seemed to have connected with something big behind them.

The rock and concrete barrage paused. Something about the size of a two-storey building let out a deafening wail of pain.

The demon ape was hit!

This was the cue.

Alex grabbed Kairin and sprang out from behind the boulder and bolted toward Lucy and Aiden.

Meanwhile, the car-tank slowly morphed its shape to become more car than tank. It must be made of the same programmable metal that Clark’s suit was. However, it was slow to morph, and a lot less malleable by the looks of it, when compared with the robot blob.

Still, thought Alex. We had a tank!

Was that good enough? He had no idea.

In this situation, lacking all knowledge about what this creature is and what it’s capable of, he had no choice but to trust Clark and Kairin’s call to run.

The car-tank now resembled a 2022 Dodge Challenger, but a bit bulkier as it was attached with all kinds of weird alien weaponry—primarily the massive railgun on top, which had now shrunk in size a little.

Clark was trading off firepower for maneuverability.

But why? The energy blast from the railgun seemed to have done decent damage! Why give that up?

The only reason he could think of was this: Clark knew that the demon ape wasn’t going to anchor in one place throwing rocks anymore, now that he’d been struck with a powerful attack. The car must match the demon ape’s mobility if it had any chance of landing another hit.

All the damage in the world would make no difference if you can’t land the hit.

The engine roared to life, which Alex thought was nothing but a scare tactic since the car definitely did not run on diesel. The round headlamps opened to reveal a set of what seemed to be harpoons.

Was he planning to bound the monster monkey’s legs together?

Alex couldn’t believe it. Even Clark had watched The Empire Strikes Back!

“Watch out!” Clark yelled through the watch.

The demon ape had recovered sooner than expected. Alex and Kairin couldn’t reach Lucy and Aiden in time, and had to jump behind a bigger, more secure-looking slab of concrete as the giant ape roared and thumped its chest once again.

Only now did Alex find the opportunity to properly observe the ape.

It was as big as The Chancellor, perhaps a couple feet taller. Grayish white fur covered most of its body, except its clear chest, and its palm and feet. Each of its fingers and toes had long and sharp claws growing out of it. The area above its mouth and under its gaping wide nostrils was red, and its eyes were black as death. Finally, Alex noticed its huge, bushy tail, that was almost half as long as its body.

The ape roared and dug its hand into the rubble of a collapsed building nearby and pulled out a massive chunk of rock and concrete, which he crushed between its palms into smaller rocks.

“Alex,” came Clark’s voice through the watch 0nce again. “I’ve armed the watch on your wrist with a static blast. Just point your fist at the target and squeeze. You got one shot, you got it? One shot. Use it to protect them when they need it, and get them out of here! Do you copy?”

Alex’s heart began to race.

“Please tell me you got all that,” Clark begged.

“I got it,” Alex nodded. “One shot.”

“Good luck,” said Clark.

The car’s rear wheels spun violently in place. The miniature fighter jet charged its boosters.

The demon ape hopped and twirled around, taunting them to come at it.

“Now, Blob!” Clark roared.

The car and the jet shot forward.

The demon ape stopped hopping around and narrowed its beastly demonic eyes.

The jet opened with a barrage of bullets as it approached the ape; which did little damage, but forced it to shield its face with its giant gorilla hands out of annoyance.

Clark’s car perfectly maneuvered through the rubble on the streets and got in close to the demon ape’s legs.

When close enough, the car shot the two harpoons aimed at the ape’s giant feet.

The demon ape was too distracted by the barrage of bullets. This could actually hit!

Alex wasn’t sure whether this was enough to incapacitate the ape by itself, but if it landed, it could create a wide enough opening to land some sort of finishing blow.

The firepower in Clark’s car-tank was no joke. And they also had Kairin… Maybe she could spot an opening of her own and fire an ice nuke; or drop an avalanche on it, freezing it in place.

The harpoons were inches away from connecting, but then—

The demon ape jumped. And the harpoons missed their mark.

Dammit! thought Alex. This could have been it!

But it’s fine. Based on how Clark fought The Chancellor, he always had a backup in place.

The miniature jet had flown past the ape over its head and had already banked into a curve.

On its way back toward the ape, the jet fired a missile.

The miniature missile connected with the back of the demon ape’s head while he was still in the air and exploded. The impact was surprisingly powerful enough to jerk the ape’s giant head forward while his feet were still suspended in air, causing him to flip forward and smash his face flat on the ground.

“Yes!” came Aiden’s voice through the watch as the jet flew past Alex and Kairin. Clark must have connected everyone to the same voice channel. “That was awesome!”

“Aiden!” cried Lucy. “How the hell do I turn this thing on?!”

“I already showed it to you!”

“Then show it to me again!”

“You’re wasting precious time. We need to hit him while he’s down.”

“I agree!” Lucy screamed in frustration. “So help me turn this goddamn thing on!”

Alex saw Aiden press a button on the futuristic gun Lucy was holding, before it too glowed to life.

What were they thinking? They need to get out of here right now!

“Guys!” Alex screamed at his watch. “You need to run. Clark and Blob are just creating a distraction. This is a C-rank demon.” He nervously looked at Kairin for approval, but she was peeking around the outer end of the slab, closely observing the fight. She hadn’t noticed Alex talking to his watch again.

Alex brought the watch closer to his mouth and yelled, “You need to run, now!”

No response. Alex’s voice wasn’t being transmitted to them for some reason.

Dammit!

He spotted Lucy and Aiden aim their guns at the downed demon ape. Strange mechanical wheels on the guns spun into action, which seemed to be charging the weapons. From a fair distance away from the ape, Lucy and Aiden opened fire.

The demon ape covered the back of its head with its hands once again, trying to protect against the barrage of what looked like high-caliber bullets being shot at an insanely fast rate. The bullets glowed hot red, similar to The Chancellor’s ammo fired from his giant crossbow-ballista.

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The car-tank used one of its harpoons to latch onto a pole and swing back around. It now faced the demon ape’s body from behind, and the railgun on top opened fire with a rapid burst of blue laser beams.

The ape curled into a ball as he was attacked from both sides. The parts of his body that were tanking the double barrage seemed to have hardened.

This should be good, thought Alex. The plan to hold him in place had worked.

All that was needed now was a finishing blow!

He looked at Kairin enthusiastically. Maybe she could come up with a finisher attack now! A massive ice spike, straight through the heart.

However, her expression was nowhere near celebratory. She now looked more concerned than ever.

The demon ape was gearing up for something. And Kairin knew.

Alex now had a bad feeling about all this.

The demon ape grunted and growled. He pulled its limbs closer and curved its back, shrinking in place like a turtle retracting in its shell.

The parts of its body tanking the bullet and laser barrages had hardened, but the skin-shield was blasted to pieces every time it formed. The bullets and the beams were now doing some real damage!

The jet soared vertically upward and curved into a drop headed straight for the downed ape. Its nose glowed purple, just like Clark’s hands did when he charged the plasma blast!

Holy shit! The robot blob was carrying a damn plasma cannon!

Alex remembered how the firepower from the cannon had shred The Chancellor’s thick, regenerating hide.

He didn’t know whether the blast would be as strong as the one from Clark’s suit, but if it’s even ten percent of that, it should be enough to dry roast this monkey.

This was it. The Blob was about to deliver the final payload.

Suddenly, Clark’s laser beams stopped firing.

What was going on?

Barely a millisecond later, the demon ape who had curved itself into a ball launched itself upward with its tail, heading straight for the jet.

Lucy and Aiden stopped firing a little too late. Clark’s car was hit with the barrage of bullets from their guns for a full second before they managed to stop the fire. The car took some heavy damage to its front, but still appeared functional.

The railgun, however, had smoke coming out of what looked like bullet holes. It was now out of commission.

Shit.

Up in the air, the jet fired the plasma cannon straight down. The demon ape uncurled its giant body and flipped into a backward somersault, dodging the beam by mere inches.

The jet was able to fire the plasma beam for only a second before the bushy tip of the monkey’s tail sketched an arc and slammed into the fighter jet, wrapping itself around the robot blob’s body.

The tail then got the blob full circle and flipped it into the air in front of the demon ape like a ball, which the ape caught with one hand.

“No!” Aiden screamed. “Lucy, fire at him! Fire right now!”

They opened fire, but the ape was a moving target in the air too far from them. They could barely land a single hit.

The stray bullets that did connect were easily blocked by the ape’s hardening skin.

The demon ape smashed his other palm into the one holding the jet. The impact caused an explosion erupting through the ape’s now-interlocked fingers. He then pressed his palms against each other even harder, crushing the robot blob stuck in between.

“Nooo!” Aiden screamed louder. “Clark, do something! Please Clark!”

Alex looked on in horror as the realization hit him.

The railgun was out of commission, and the harpoons would not reach that high up.

If there was something Clark else could do, he would’ve done it already.

The demon ape pressed its palms together harder. It shaped the crushed metal into a jagged ball and flung it in Lucy and Aiden’s direction.

The ball crash landed into the ground with a huge thud, about ten meters away from Lucy and Aiden. Unmoving.

The demon ape finally landed on its own two feet, right where it had defensively curled into a ball just a few moments ago. The impact of its landing shuddered the ground, sending a small tremor in all directions.

In one fell swoop, the demon ape had flipped the table. It now walked menacingly at the robot blob’s collapsed body, aiming to finish the job.

“No, you bastard!” yelled Aiden.

Alex quickly turned his head to look at Aiden. He better not do anything stupid now!

But Aiden was nowhere to be seen. Lucy stood there alone with the gun in her hands and a look of pure terror on her face as she gazed at the giant ape make its way toward the blob.

The ape’s steps were slow and deliberate. It could have gotten there much quicker, right? Then why?

Was it injured? Had the fancy backflips cost it too much stamina?

Or was it just toying with them now?

Alex pulled away from a terror-struck Lucy and looked at the blob, and—

Aiden was there!

How the hell did he get there so fast?

He was crouching next to the robot blob’s body, trying to lift it by himself and carry it out of there.

The damn kid had spirit!

But he was going to get himself killed.

The demon ape stopped a few paces away from Aiden and Blob and roared at them with his arms extended, thumping its chest in a quick rhythm.

The damn ape knew it had won. It was just taunting them now!

The ape finally threw its arms wide open once again, and prepared to pounce.

But then, Alex heard a couple faint pops, like the sound of a car backfiring.

The two harpoons were shot once again, this time at the ape’s extended arms. Each harpoon—which now looked like grappling hooks—wrapped itself around each of the demon ape’s arms right below its elbows. The car put itself in reverse, and its wheels furiously spun in place.

The car didn’t move an inch. Its tires burnt out. But it was able to hold the demon ape in place.

“Aiden, get out of there!” Clark’s voice blasted through the watch.

Clark’s screaming acted like a sort of wake-up call for Lucy. She quickly raised her gun and opened fire at the trapped demon ape, as she slowly made her way toward Aiden and Blob.

The ape closed its eyes and raised its chin to shield its face from the bullet barrage. Its chest hardened as it tanked majority of the fire.

But despite all that, Alex knew it was taking damage as it wailed in pain.

Lucy reached Aiden and Blob. But, by then, her gun seemed to have finally overheated.

And the firing stopped.

The demon ape lowered its head slowly and fixed its menacing gaze toward Lucy, Aiden, and Blob.

“Now, Alex!” Clark screamed through the watch. “You have to do it right now!”

There was no time to think. It was as if Alex’s feet moved on their own, and he bolted toward them.

As he ran, the world around him slowed down.

The street blurred out of vision. It was like he both was and wasn’t there anymore.

A faint white glow covered his peripheral vision. Lucy, Aiden, and Blob were still straight ahead, but now just a blur.

And the voice spoke to him once again.

“Well, well, well,” it growled slowly. “Here we are again.”

“Shut up,” said Alex. “Not… now…”

“Trying to play the hero again, are we?” mocked the voice. “Remind me how it all turned out the last time?”

“Not. Now!”

“You’ve grown, Alex,” said the voice that sounded so much like his own. But it was different, somehow.

But how?

“Where is the self-doubt? The hesitation? The fear?” the light, yet deafening growl continued. “Never mind those… I see the delusion is still intact.”

Alex ignored it. He tried to run as fast as he could. He had to get to them, now!

“Rushing in to the fight without a second thought, that is so classic Alex!” the voice continued to sneer. “What are you hoping to achieve, exactly?”

Alex continued to ignore it. It needs to go away. It needs to go away right now!

“Did you forget about the curse? You will only make it worse.”

“They will die!” Alex screamed. “If I just stand by and watch, they will die!”

“And now,” the voice laughed. “You will die with them!”

Alex reached the spot. The white fog disappeared in a snap.

He looked up at the menacing demon ape from up close, struggling and growling, its foaming mouth desperately trying to grab a bite like a rabid animal.

Then, the ape’s face contracted as it focused its strength.

With a swift, coordinated jerk of its muscular arms, the demon ape managed to snap one of the metal cables holding it back. It then pivoted to grab the other rope with its newly-freed arm, which released the tension on its other arm as well.

With both its hands now grabbing the metal cable shot out of Clark’s car-tank, the demon ape hoisted the car into the air and spun it around a couple times, before using the momentum to launch it off into a small building in the distance.

“No!” yelled Clark. “My car!”

The car smashed into the building and was buried under the rubble as the structure collapsed upon it.

The demon ape now turned back to Alex and the gang, with a terrifyingly satisfied expression on its face.

Alex gave it no time to think or react, or gloat.

He pointed his watch at the demon ape and squeezed his fist.

A blast of purple sparks shot out of the watch, hitting the demon ape square in the chest.

The sparks instantly spread throughout its body, and the ape collapsed on its knees, paralyzed.

Alex let out a huge sigh of relief. “That’s right,” he muttered through gritted teeth. “Stay down you stupid monkey.”

The watch on his wrist was destroyed. He turned around to face the others. “We gotta move.”

“Alex,” Lucy cried, struggling to get the words out. “Thank you!”

Alex smiled at them. “Let’s save all that for later. We need to move, now.”

Aiden shut his eyes in frustration. His voice quivered uncontrollably when he spoke. “My leg,” he said, shivering. “I twisted my leg. I’m sorry!”

“It’s okay,” Alex reassured him. “I’ll carry you out of here, just like before. Come on!”

“What about the robot?” asked Lucy, looking at the hunk of metal crushed into a ball.

“He’s fine!” Clark’s voice came through three separate watches. Apparently, he’d given a couple to Lucy and Aiden as well. “Don’t worry about him, just get out of there!”

Alex dug his hands under Aiden’s body.

He was about to lift him up, but then the ground shuddered once again.

Alex dropped Aiden, grabbed his gun, and turned around.

The demon ape now laid flat on the ground on its back. It smashed its giant arms into the concrete on either side of it, thrashing around like an overgrown baby throwing a tantrum.

It then threw its legs over its head and backflipped once again, brushing the ground with the tip of its fingers once, then bouncing backward and landing firmly on its feet.

It was free.

And it was angry.

With steam coming out of its fat nostrils, the demon ape charged straight at Alex and the gang like a raging bull.

It was too fast now, thought Alex. Too fast to be slowed down by gunfire.

“Duck!” yelled Clark. “Duck as low as you can!”

Once it was close enough, the demon ape leaped toward them, raising one hand above his head with the aim to crush all its enemies in one swift hand slam.

Everyone dropped to the ground, laying as flat as they possibly could, bracing for impact.

But it never came.

Instead, the demon ape’s head smashed into an ice wall that conjured out of thin air, shielding Alex and the rest from the ape’s raging assault.

The demon ape crashed to the ground, unmoving.

“What the hell?” Lucy breathed.

Alex scrambled to his feet.

A gush of platinum blonde hair and ice white skin flew to his side.

Kairin.

“Are you insane?” she yelled at Alex. “Do you have a death wish?”

Alex couldn’t believe her. “Didn’t you tell me to do the right thing… and damn the consequences?”

“I wasn’t talking about killing yourself for a bunch of random, wannabe heroes!”

“Hey!” said Aiden. “We’re real superheroes!”

“And they’re not random,” said Alex, mildly surprised at his own words. “They’re my friends.”

Kairin paused to look at him. Something told him she understood. “That stupid thing is not powerful enough to kill a C-rank!” she said pointing at his destroyed watch.

“I didn’t know!” said Alex.

“It was meant to buy time,” came Clark’s voice through all the watches, except Alex’s. “Which you now have plenty of, so ru—”

He was cut off by the sound of that resembled a huge wall of glass shattering.

Only that this one was made of ice.

The demon ape was back on its feet. Its fist was extended toward them; the same one that had presumably just shattered the ice wall in one punch.

This time around, it wasted no time slow walking. The ape launched itself into a quick sprint and was instantly on top of them.

It raised both its hands in the air, ready to smash.

“Kairin!” Alex screamed.

“I know!” she shouted.

A thick dome of opaque ice conjured around them, shielding everyone from all sides.

The demon ape’s arms smashed against the thick wall of ice bricks and it did nothing. The ape growled in pain.

The shockwave from the impact was felt by everyone inside the massive, sturdy igloo.

“Holy shit, who are you?!” Aiden yelped.

Before any of them could say anything else, the demon ape wailed on the giant dome of ice repeatedly.

Alex could feel the shock waves deep inside his chest.

The sides of the igloo that were connected with the ground broke through the concrete and sunk deeper. Small cracks began to appear in the ceiling.

Kairin looked terrified.

Don’t tell me, thought Alex. That she too had jumped in without thinking!

Thud!

The demon ape was relentless. The rhythm of its beating clearly indicated that it was growing increasingly frustrated.

Kairin raised both her hands. Mists of ice flowed out of them, reinforcing the cracks.

But Alex could tell—it was nothing but a temporary fix!

If this keeps up, it was only a matter of time that one of the demon ape’s attacks gets through.

If they’re not squashed in the one that breaks through the dome, it’d get them in the very next one.

Thud!

“Ice witch!” yelled Clark through the watch. “Please, please tell me you have more spells than just defense!”

Kairin’s voice cracked. “I am not… an ice witch… yet!”

“Shit!” screamed Clark. “Holy shit!”

THUD!

“I guess I’ll never be!” Kairin sobbed.

He had to do something. Kairin could only do so much. He had to figure something out!

This was it. They were out of chances.

This was it!

But then, the thudding suddenly stopped.

The demon ape’s limbs smashed to the ground and grew fainter.

“What’s going on?” Lucy said. “Is he running away?”

Kairin frowned her eyebrows at the ice ceiling and part of it turned transparent.

All of them peeked through the window. But the ape was nowhere to be seen.

After a few minutes of scanning the streets in silence, “There!” yelled Aiden. “Over that building.”

The ape had almost finished climbing a forty-storey skyscraper on the far side.

It hopped over its parapet and turned around, glaring at the ice dome.

It then roared, thumped its chest twice and jumped even higher into the air, disappearing into the clouds.

All their eyes were fixed to the sky. The silence, in anticipation, was deafening.

A couple of dreadful seconds later, the demon ape popped out of the clouds, having curled its body together once again, in the shape of a cannonball.

A massive cannonball headed straight for the ice-brick igloo.

There was no way the ice dome was going to hold against that!

Maybe they had enough time to jump out of the way.

Maybe Lucy could manage that… maybe Kairin could too.

But Aiden and Blob would be crushed nonetheless.

It’s okay, he’d grab them both.

He could grab them both, right?

He tried to open his mouth to make the call, but nothing came out. All their eyes were fixed on the rapidly-approaching demon cannonball.

As Alex glared at it, reality dawned upon him. The cannonball was huge. There was no running from this. Even if they managed to dodge the ball, they would still be caught in the fallout.

This was it.

He was going to die.

Lucy, Aiden, Blob, and Kairin… they were all going to die.

It was over.

It was… over.

Alex closed his eyes, accepting his fate.

At least now, at the end, he did not run away.

At least now, he had rediscovered his old self. And the curse had failed to freeze him in place.

He had jumped into the eye of the storm to protect his friends.

To protect his friends… Just like he had.

Ojii-san would be proud.

Won’t he?

Well… guess he’ll get to ask him that in person, in just a bit.

The calm spread through his veins like wildfire, once again.

Just like it had against the threat of that brute’s finishing blow from eight years ago.

Just like it had a couple days ago against the reptile demon as it prepared to charge at Alex.

“It’s getting too hot in here!” Lucy coughed, her voice quivering with fear. “Is that monkey-ball on fire?”

Alex’s vision blurred as the heat emanating from every pore on his skin intensified.

Somehow, he knew what must be done.

Alex walked out of the ice dome without resistance. The thick ice wall melted away as he approached.

Once outside of the dome, he noticed that his t-shirt had completely melted away too. Random pieces of cloth remained charred to his skin.

Alex looked up at the falling demon cannonball approaching them like a massive meteor.

His eyes burned red and his vision cleared into a sort of hyper-focus, even though his brain was still clouded by the white fog.

There was no thought. Only calm.

And then, there was fire.

Burning hot flames engulfed the entirety of his upper body. But the heat did not bother him. It did not harm him.

It was in fact… soothing.

“I knew it!” came Kairin’s screaming voice from behind. “I knew you had your secrets too!”