The tunnel exploded in light and rubble.
Max's fist struck Vanity's glass body like a meteor. The walls cracked, split, and then shattered entirely as the Pure Vice was sent hurtling through the exit, through glass and steel, launching into the open world above.
For a moment, everything was silence.
Then Max stepped out of the dark.
The wind hit his face. Cold. Open sky. Collapsed buildings stretched like broken bones across the horizon. And in the center of it all, Vanity's body lay crumpled in a crater of shattered mirror and concrete.
Kaz stumbled out behind him, carrying Mira. Samira followed, knife in hand.
"Is that... still Max?" Kaz muttered.
Max didn't wait for them. His boots barely touched the ground as he moved. It wasn't flight. It was something worse. Something unnatural.
He was there, then gone, then there again.
Vanity was still regenerating when Max arrived, flame spiraling in green tendrils down his arms. The Vice tried to rise, tried to lift its warped, mirrored limbs—
Max blurred forward and punched again. Once. Twice. The third hit cracked the sound barrier.
Glass erupted skyward like fireworks, and with it, Vanity flew—sent smashing through a collapsed shopping mall.
Max followed, not by jumping but by moving with such speed that the world couldn't track it.
Samira's mouth opened slightly. "How is he that fast?"
Max landed on Vanity's back mid-air, slamming it down into a parking lot, then dragging its skull through three lanes of asphalt, green fire erupting behind him like a storm.
The Vice twisted mid-slide and retaliated with a glass-blade swipe—
Max tilted his head, and the blade missed by inches.
Then he floated backward, arms open wide, fire crackling at his heels.
Vanity launched a barrage of shards—dozens of bladed reflections, all aiming for his chest.
Max's body blurred again—disappearing from their path, appearing above the Vice's head, upside-down.
He whispered something.
And dropped.
The punch hit like a cannon. The shockwave cracked nearby buildings, windows bursting for blocks.
Vanity shrieked—its voice wasn't a sound but a distortion. Something that made your vision warp if you listened too long.
It grew taller, limbs extending into towering scythe-arms of mirrored flesh. The ground beneath warped into a glossy surface, reflecting Max back in hundreds of twisted ways.
Each reflection stepped out of the ground. Glass-clones of Max with smiles carved into their faces.
Kaz lifted his weapon. "We gotta help him!"
"No," Samira whispered, frozen. "That's not Max anymore."
Max didn't hesitate.
He vanished again.
This time, he weaved through the clones like smoke, his fire igniting them before they could even react. One by one, they exploded in green-tinted flame.
Vanity came from above, its massive arm cleaving downward like a guillotine.
Max raised both hands.
Caught it.
And smiled.
The earth cracked beneath him, but he didn't move. His eyes were dead. Empty. Something else was looking through them now.
He spoke in a voice that wasn't entirely his:
"I see it now. You're not even beautiful."
He hurled the Vice over his shoulder, sending it crashing through an office building. The walls collapsed inward, glass raining down in spirals, catching the green firelight like stars.
Max moved again, faster than before. The world slowed around him. The air bent at his shoulders. He wasn't running anymore. He was tearing through existence, slipping between the beats of reality.
Vanity struck back, limbs spinning, its body now a monstrous cathedral of glass and reflections.
Max slammed into it mid-strike, and the two soared into the sky like broken gods—clashing, splitting clouds, collapsing towers, dragging the city into their chaos.
Glass rained across rooftops. Fire spread like veins through buildings. The city groaned under the weight of something ancient and furious.
Max landed atop the ruined hospital building where they'd first entered Zone K-8.
Below, Vanity rose from rubble.
It had grown massive—its head now a crown of rotating glass halos, its body a warped sculpture of shifting reflections.
But Max didn't flinch.
He looked down at his hands—green fire cracking across his skin, crawling higher, darker.
No thoughts. No fear.
Just fire.
Samira's voice reached him faintly from the distance. "MAX! DON'T—!"
He raised his head.
Eyes empty. Voice calm.
"I'm not Max anymore."
Max dropped from the sky.
Straight for the heart of the Pure Vice.
The Vice of Vanity roared, its massive arms rising in defense, its cathedral-like body expanding in a final attempt to shield itself.
But it was too late.
Max slammed into it with a force that tore the sky open.
The world blinked — and then shattered.
An eruption of green flame and light swallowed the battlefield, engulfing buildings, the street, and the skyline in a bloom of destruction. Glass burst in waves. Steel bent like paper. A thunderclap rang out so loud it silenced everything for miles.
The sky turned white.
Then black.
Then nothing.