A decade had passed in the abyss. Not ten years of peace. Not ten years of growth. Ten years of war.
Fury had fought endlessly. He had evolved past exhaustion, past hunger, past weakness. His blade had tasted the flesh of monsters, demons, and beings beyond comprehension. He had butchered gods and devoured legends. But the one standing before him now...
This was different.
The Ancient Monarch of Death loomed over him like an executioner at the gallows.
Shrouded in a cloak of absolute darkness, its skeletal form pulsed with an eerie, undying glow. Twin blue flames burned within its empty eye sockets, devoid of warmth, devoid of mercy. The abyss around them twisted and coiled, reacting to its mere presence.
"Mortal." The Monarch’s voice was not sound, but a force that scraped against the soul. "Your existence offends the balance. You do not belong in this realm."
Fury rolled his shoulders, his katana resting lazily in his grip. His crimson eyes gleamed through the void, filled with nothing but contempt.
"Yeah? You’re not the first thing to say that."
The Monarch moved.
Fury’s instincts screamed.
A skeletal hand pierced his chest.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
His breath caught. He looked down, eyes widening. The Monarch’s bony fingers were inside his heart.
Pain—true pain—exploded through his body.
"Die."
His vision faded. His limbs lost their strength.
Then—blackness.
---
He was standing in a field. A vast, empty wasteland, stretching endlessly beneath a crimson sky. The air smelled of blood and decay. His hands trembled. He felt weak.
Something moved. He turned.
And saw himself.
His own corpse.
Pale. Lifeless. A body long since rotted away.
A voice whispered in his ear.
"This is where you end."
His own decayed fingers reached for his throat—
---
Fury’s eyes snapped open.
His katana lashed out.
CLANG!
Steel met bone. The Monarch’s skeletal hand reeled back, its fingers dripping with black mist.
Fury staggered, clutching his chest. No wound. No hole. He was whole. But he had felt it.
He had died.
And yet, he was still here.
The Monarch tilted its head. "You resist? Pointless."
It raised a single finger.
Hundreds of hands erupted from the void.
Skeletal arms, rotten and deformed, clawed at Fury from every direction. Their touch was cold, suffocating—each one a fragment of death itself.
Fury twisted, his katana flashing in the darkness.
Slash. Tear. Destroy.
The hands vanished. But more took their place.
The Monarch was no mere brute. It was death incarnate. It did not fight with force. It fought with inevitability.
Fury grit his teeth. "I don’t give a damn what you are."
His blade ignited.
Not with fire. Not with magic.
With rage.
The air shook as he swung. The abyss itself split apart. The Monarch raised a hand—
TOO SLOW.
Fury’s fist crashed into its skull.
BOOOOM!
The Monarch lurched backward, its form flickering. Fury didn’t stop. He was on it, his katana carving into its skeletal body, shattering ribs, ripping apart the darkness it was made of.
For the first time, the Monarch felt pain.
"Impossible..."
The twin blue flames in its sockets flickered. Fury saw it. The tiniest glimmer of fear.
He grabbed the Monarch by the throat. Reality itself bent in his grip.
"You''re not sending me to hell." Fury’s voice was low, guttural. "I am hell."
His fingers crushed bone.
The Monarch of Death let out a silent scream.
And Fury ripped its head from its body.
The abyss collapsed. The darkness vanished. And Fury stood alone—the only thing left standing.
He exhaled. His katana dripped with black essence. The battle was over.
But deep in the void, something watched.
Something far worse