ECHOBURN

Aoto pulled himself out of the collapsed den, fingers clawing through stone and ash.

His body was a joke—bones loose inside his skin, muscles twitching with phantom pain. One eye wouldn't open. His jaw felt unhinged. The taste of blood never left his mouth.

And yet, he laughed.

It was a breathless, cracked sound—like something snapping under pressure.

He stumbled to his feet, using the last unbroken slab of stone to balance himself. The cave was gone. The wolves were gone. Even the cursed blade had shattered somewhere during the Alpha's second form.

Didn't matter.

He looked up through his ruined bangs.

The sky was still there.

"Go on," he muttered."Burn it all."

The ground around him was already scorched from the last battle, but he knew the Alpha hadn't left. He could feel it. Watching. Listening. Waiting for a reason.

"You missed your chance, you divine piece of shit."

He dragged himself forward, step by agonizing step. He wanted to be in the open. He wanted to be seen.

"I'm still here."

"So do it.

I dare you."

High above—above the clouds, above the light—the Alpha moved.

It didn't descend.It didn't roar.

It simply appeared in the sky like a second sun, glowing with radiant silver flame, its third form so bright it drowned the heavens. The rings of its antlers turned with impossible geometry. Its body pulsed like a living weapon.

And then—

It fired.

The world didn't scream.

It was simply gone.

The sky folded inward.A single pulse of light swallowed the land, instant and final.

The forest ceased.The rivers evaporated.The stone turned to ash, and the ash turned to vapor.

Aoto's body cracked under the pressure—disintegrated in silence.

He didn't move.Didn't run.

His lips were split open in a grin as the light erased him.

I'll come back.

Silence.

No world.No light.No sound.

Then—

Breathing.

A wet cough. A gasping wheeze.

Aoto lay on the melted ground, surrounded by an endless black wasteland.

Everything was ash.

The sky above was a dark orange scar, glowing faintly like dying embers.The trees were gone. The rocks were smooth glass.Not even ruins remained.

He sat up slowly. His skin flaked. His nails were black. But he was alive.

"Again," he whispered.

He looked at his hand. Still burned. Still broken.

Then he laughed—hoarse and quiet.

"You erased the world…"

He stood. Shaky. Defiant.

"And I came back in the fucking crater."

There was no one left to hear him.No Alpha. No life.

Just the wind, dragging ash across the bones of the map.

But he didn't stop.

He walked forward—into nothing.

Because he knew now.

This wasn't survival.

This wasn't luck.

It was something worse.

Something wrong.

"So go ahead," he muttered to the ghost of the god above."Keep killing me."

"I'll learn how to kill you back."