Chapter 37 – The Revenant's End
The cavern was no longer a place — it was an inferno.
Every breath burned. Every heartbeat sounded like thunder.
The explosion that followed Shin's grin tore the world apart.
Lava burst from the fissures in fountains of red and gold, swallowing the ground.
The ceiling collapsed — entire spires of obsidian crashing like rain. The Revenant, once a figure of molten majesty, was now a broken god drowning in its own unstable core.
And yet—
it still lived.
A roar like a collapsing mountain ripped through the storm of light.
The Revenant's body flared crimson, molten Qi leaking from fissures across its chest. It stood — hunched, mangled, and terrible — its claws dragging along the cracked floor, each motion searing a new wound into the world.
Shin stood amidst it all — one arm limp, ribs shattered, blood running down his face.
His smile had lost its mockery; what remained was pure resolve.
> "You just don't quit, do you…"
He spat to the side, red splattering against molten stone, and pushed himself upright. His blade hissed in his hand, metal beginning to melt from the heat.
Alicia's voice echoed distantly through the chaos.
> "Shin! Vaibhav! Stop—! You'll die!"
The words barely reached him.
He couldn't stop now — not when every second counted.
He turned his head slightly, eyes flickering toward the collapsed ridge where Vaibhav lay half-buried in molten dust.
> "Hey, Vyuk…" he muttered under his breath.
"If you're not dead, you better wake up. I'm running out of miracles."
The Revenant moved.
A blur of molten motion — faster than before, as if its agony made it lighter.
It slammed its claw downward, and Shin barely sidestepped. The impact vaporized the ground where he stood seconds before.
He used the recoil to leap forward, thrusting his blade into the Revenant's thigh. The molten flesh hissed, sealing instantly — useless.
The beast swung again. Shin brought his weapon up, but the force crushed through his defense.
The blow landed like a comet — his ribs cracked, his breath cut short. His body was flung backward, crashing through a wall of molten debris.
For a heartbeat, everything was silent.
Then Shin's laugh echoed through the smoke — broken, rasping, but still his.
> "This is nothing. Compared to the day I met inverted eye monster."
He spat blood again and tore a piece of molten rock from the ground, using it as leverage to stand.
His left arm hung limp, twisted from the shoulder. His legs trembled, yet his eyes — those faintly glowing eyes — burned brighter than ever.
> "Alright, big guy…" he whispered, blade trembling in his remaining hand.
"One more dance."
The Revenant screamed, molten Qi spilling from its mouth like magma rivers.
The air shimmered, distorting under the pressure of its unstable core — the radioactive compounds Shin had used earlier were now fully reacting. Each second warped space itself, energy folding inward and outward like a dying star.
Boom!
A burst of energy erupted from the Revenant's chest, flattening everything within fifty meters.
Shin was sent flying, bouncing across shattered stone before slamming into a pillar. His vision flashed white, and he felt something tear inside him — another rib, maybe two.
When his sight cleared, he saw the Revenant's chest split open — revealing a swirling, collapsing heart of molten crimson and blue radiation. The ground quaked under the pressure of its death throes.
> It's going to explode, Shin realized, blinking through blood.
This whole place will collapse if it does.
He pushed himself up, coughing hard, and shouted through the chaos—
> "Vyuk! Now! Finish it!"
For a long, terrible moment — there was no answer.
Then a sound.
A heartbeat.
The molten dust near the collapsed ridge began to move.
Slowly, Vaibhav pushed himself free, blood dripping from his forehead, his eyes shifting — sclera black, pupils glowing white, burning with primal calm.
The world seemed to still around him.
Shin froze, eyes widening. "No way…"
Vaibhav exhaled once — the heat no longer seemed to touch him.
Qi flared around his body in controlled chaos — black and silver arcs twisting together, forming a jagged aura like cracked glass reflecting firelight.
He said nothing.
He didn't need to.
Every movement he made was mechanical perfection — efficient, devoid of emotion, yet carrying a silent storm of fury beneath.
The Revenant turned toward him, roaring, molten claws raised.
Vaibhav didn't flinch.
He simply moved.
In an instant, he crossed the gap.
The first slash came from the side — not flashy, not forceful, but precise. It severed the Revenant's right arm at the joint. The beast roared; Vaibhav spun, his next strike carving an arc through the creature's ribs, leaving trails of burning Qi in the air.
The molten giant retaliated, claw sweeping sideways — but Vaibhav ducked under it, leaving an afterimage of silver smoke. He thrust upward, his blade piercing through the Revenant's chest, reaching its unstable core.
For a second, everything froze — sound, light, even breath.
Then—
BOOM.
The Revenant's body erupted with a deafening explosion of molten blood and radioactive flame. Vaibhav was blown back by the force, his arms burning.
Shin raised his arm to shield his face, his body nearly thrown off his feet. He staggered through the storm of energy toward Vaibhav's collapsing figure.
> "Vyuk! Get out of there!"
But Vaibhav didn't move.
He stood amidst the explosion — his blade still buried in the Revenant's core. His aura flared violently, trying to suppress the explosion from within.
> Shin shouted: "You'll die if you—"
The explosion intensified.
The Revenant's body became translucent — a blazing skeleton of molten Qi and nuclear light.
Lava rivers reversed direction, flowing upward into the storm. The ground cracked apart, opening into bottomless voids of molten chaos.
The cavern was collapsing in real-time.
Alicia's scream echoed faintly in the distance — but the sound was swallowed by thunder.
Shin gritted his teeth and forced his battered body to move. His right arm barely worked, but he grabbed his baton-blade and launched himself forward.
> "I'll help you finish it!"
He jumped, spinning midair, and slammed the weapon into the Revenant's remaining arm, slicing through it with a surge of crimson Qi. His movement was wild, desperate — but it was enough.
Vaibhav's blade reached deeper into the Revenant's chest — piercing the unstable core.
The creature howled — a sound that shook the mountain.
Its molten veins split apart, light spilling out like blood.
Cracks spread through its entire body — from its skull to its heels — as if reality itself was fracturing.
Shin shouted over the roar, voice ragged—
> "Now, Vyuk! End it!"
Vaibhav gripped the hilt tighter, forcing his body to move even as his skin blistered and cracked under the radiation.
He twisted the blade — and his Qi surged outward.
The Revenant's core collapsed.
A blinding white light devoured everything.
Molten Qi turned to vapor. The cavern's ceiling disintegrated, sending rivers of lava pouring down.
The shockwave ripped through the ground, creating concentric rings of destruction.
Alicia was thrown back, shielding her face as the light consumed the horizon.
And in that chaos — Shin reached Vaibhav.
He caught him just as the explosion peaked, wrapping an arm around him and using his last bit of Qi to form a barrier — a thin, flickering sphere of crimson light.
> Shin (hoarse): "You idiot… you're supposed to cut it… not become part of it!"
> Vaibhav (turned normal but barely conscious): "Then… you shouldn't have taught me to overdo it…"
The world exploded.
For what felt like hours, there was nothing — just endless white and soundless destruction.
When the light finally faded, the cavern was gone.
In its place was a hollow crater of obsidian and glass — molten rivers flowing into the emptiness, glowing faintly beneath an open scar in the earth.
Shin lay motionless amid the ruin, his clothes burned away, his weapon shattered beside him.
His breathing was shallow but steady.
Vaibhav lay a few feet away, unconscious, the black aura around him flickering like dying embers. His blade, half-melted, was embedded in the ground beside his hand.
Above them, chunks of rock and ash rained down — silent, almost gentle.
Alicia stumbled into view, her body covered in burns and ash. She fell to her knees beside them, shaking Shin's shoulder.
> "Shin…? Vaibhav…? Wake up— please…"
Her voice cracked. Tears mingled with the soot on her face.
Then — a cough. Weak, hoarse, but real.
Shin's eye twitched open, and he gave her a faint grin.
> "Told you… I don't die easy."
Alicia let out a strangled laugh, half relief, half despair. She turned to Vaibhav — his chest rising and falling faintly.
> "He's alive… thank the heavens…"
Shin exhaled, staring at the sky above — a hole torn through the mountain, showing distant stars beyond the smoke.
> "Alive, huh…"
"Then… we won."
He closed his eyes, exhaustion finally taking him.