Apocalypse Baby-Chapter 322: Alex vs Malik [9]

[Demon’s Ultimatum]

He had done the unthinkable—sacrificed the very core of his existence to unlock this infernal form. Not just metaphorically, but truly, literally. His life essence burned with every passing second, steadily consumed like candle wax on the brink of collapse. But it didn’t matter. Not now. Not if he could finish Alex before the toll claimed him.

This was Malik’s ultimatum.

His final, blazing gamble.

His white-hot gaze locked onto the only person that mattered now. Alex. The man who had danced through fire, laughed in the face of pressure, and parried every blow with infuriating calm.

The air quivered as Malik stepped forward.

Reality warped.

Boiled.

His body pulsed with unbearable heat, runes etched across his skin glowing with an infernal brilliance. They weren’t symbols anymore—they were living circuits, pumping molten energy through his limbs, each pulse syncing with the tortured thrum of his overclocked heart. Flames didn’t just surround him anymore. They breathed through him, flowing from his pores, whispering promises of absolute destruction.

He no longer radiated power.

He was power.

Every movement scorched the space around him. The stone beneath his feet cracked—not from the weight of his steps, but from the intensity pouring out of his very being. And then—

He screamed.

A sound of fury, pain, and conviction.

He launched forward—and the world exploded behind him in a storm of fire and wind.

The cracked arena floor shattered beneath his charge, molten fire igniting in his wake. Every step became a torrent of flame, the heat bending sideways, pulled into the vacuum he left behind. The ground didn’t hold him. It submitted.

Alex reacted instantly using [Aero Vale].

A blast of compressed air detonated beneath his feet, propelling him upward like a launched blade. He twisted midair, narrowly evading Malik’s opening strike—missing him by a sliver of breath, a hair’s width of space.

Then came the second strike.

Then the third.

The fourth followed instantly.

Each blow was a cataclysm. The heat behind them wasn’t mere temperature—it was destructive force incarnate. Pillars of obsidian melted, reformed, and disintegrated within the same instant. Malik’s onslaught was a white inferno, too bright to watch, too fast to track.

And yet, Alex weaved between it all.

Not dodging. Dancing.

He moved like wind through collapsing trees, fluid and untouchable. Flame licked at his heels but never found purchase.

Then, without warning, Alex landed—feet sliding against the scorched ground.

Malik roared.

He thrust both arms outward, and from his chest erupted a tidal wave of white fire. It tore forward like a living tsunami.

But Alex was already gone.

[Terra Phase]

The earth rippled, and he vanished below it like a phantom diving beneath the tide. The torrent passed over harmlessly, carving deep trenches in its wake.

Then—

FWOOOM!

He burst from the ground several meters away, golden light flickering at his fingertips. Blades of shimmering energy spun in the air around him—dozens of them.

[Spectral Barrage].

The sky lit up.

Each dagger curved in a perfect arc, zeroing in on Malik from every direction like celestial harpoons. Malik snarled and raised his arm to shield himself, but the projectiles sliced clean through his defense. They struck with brutal precision—piercing his chest, shredding his ribs, exploding against his legs.

He flinched—actually flinched.

Then—

Alex blinked.

And appeared directly in front of him.

Time cracked.

[Echo of Annihilation]

A sonic boom tore through the battlefield.

WHOOOOM!

Malik was hurled backward, spinning through the air, crashing end over end across the length of his burning domain.

Before he could recover—

Alex blurred forward again, blade already drawn.

A silver flash.

A clean arc.

Malik’s head was cleaved from his shoulders.

But only for an instant.

White fire twisted violently. Molten bone spiraled. And within less than a breath, his head reformed, emerging faster and hotter than ever.

Malik’s eyes burned wide.

His teeth clenched. His hands shook—not with pain, but with rage. Humiliation.

He roared and detonated outward, spinning in place and unleashing a spherical storm of slashes. The arcs of fire tore through the air in every direction.

Alex backstepped, his form vanishing behind a flash of light as the attacks struck his barrier—[Aegis Arcane] shimmering against the pressure. The barrier absorbed the hits, cracking but unbroken.

Malik trembled.

He was burning everything—his body, his core, his soul—and yet Alex looked untouched. Calm. Annoyingly calm.

Alex tilted his head, casually walking forward like the fight hadn’t started yet.

"Come on now," he said, voice light, mockery dancing on every word. "Don’t let all that power go to waste. Come at me, baby demon."

Malik’s face twisted into something primal.

"ENOUGH!!!" he bellowed.

Both arms rose into the sky, the infernal runes on his body flaring to their brightest. A suicidal torrent of mana surged through him, more than his form could handle. His bones screamed. His veins split open.

He didn’t care. freewebnσvel.cѳm

He forced it through anyway.

And the sky responded.

A shriek of reality. A rupture.

A burning tear opened above the arena, wide as a canyon.

And from it descended a monster of the heavens.

Not a meteor.

Something worse.

A sun-fragment.

A bleeding shard of solar mass—city-sized, impossibly dense, its light so blinding it was agony to look upon. Flames peeled space apart. Gravity distorted.

[Solar Ruin].

The fragment roared downward. The very sky split. The barriers shielding the arena strained and shrieked.

Malik collapsed to one knee, body failing.

He grinned.

Let it end.

Let it all end.

If he died, but Alex died too—he would die satisfied.

But Alex...

Didn’t move.

He raised one hand.

[Aegis Arcane].

The translucent sigil-layered barrier unfolded with a hum, glowing softly as the sun-fragment fell.

And then—

BOOOOOOOOOOM!

The world shattered*.

The arena cracked open like an eggshell.

The foundation beneath it fractured with a groan of tectonic agony.

Even the gods must have blinked.

The explosion swallowed all light, all sound. For ten whole seconds, there was only fire.

Then silence.

Smoke cleared.

And standing in the center of it all—was Alex.

Unscathed.

Steam rolled off his coat. His barrier was flickering, spiderwebbed with damage—but it had held. Barely. But it had held.

Malik stared.

No words.

No thoughts.

Just disbelief.

It hadn’t worked.

It should have worked.

It was impossible.

Alex let the silence sit. Then he sighed, lifting his hand again. The damaged barrier glowed faintly.

"You..." he said, tone flat. Disappointed. "You just don’t learn, do you?"

The air trembled.

[Aegis Arcane] pulsed.

And then—

It inverted.

Malik’s face dropped.

He knew this.

He had seen it before.

With Grugrim.

The counter that had nearly ended that fight.

[Full Counter]

Alex released the skill.

The meteor’s force—stored, compressed—now surged outward in a divine beam of raw destruction. Not a sphere. A ray. Clean. Focused.

A divine railgun.

Malik’s eyes widened.

It was too fast.

There was no time to dodge.

And no shield he could summon with the little energy he had could do anything to o stop it.

He was screwed.

BOOOOOOM!

The beam struck him dead center.

An explosion of light ripped the sky apart.

A sound like the death of stars echoed through the heavens.

And Malik’s world went white.

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