The Heroine is My Stepsister, and I'm her Final Boss-Chapter 162 - 163: Number 5

The battlefield was a slaughterhouse. Ash and blood slicked the ground in overlapping layers, as if the earth itself had been painted in grief. Atlas Von Roxweld stood at the center of the carnage, the butcher in a waltz written by war.

His golden eyes blazed with too many emotions layered into one expression: rage, exhaustion, clarity. His black hair clung to his scalp, soaked in sweat and gore, the ends crusted with dried mana that hissed faintly whenever it brushed the dust-laced air. His limbs screamed with fatigue, his skin hummed with fever. The virus clawed through his blood, whispering death in every heartbeat. But his will—

His will was a crucible.

Number Seven and Number Ten lay broken before him, twitching in the dirt, battered but breathing. Their prime-tier resilience clung to them like a curse, forcing them to endure. Above, the airship flickered, its illusion spell unraveling like old cloth, and Number Five’s presence descended like frost across Atlas’s spine.

His Truth Eyes surged to life, burning through the veils of mana with ruthless precision. They devoured deception, mapped power, hunted weakness. He saw through the craft’s hull as if it were glass—saw Five standing still, arms crossed, expression unreadable.

Atlas exhaled, slow and heavy, his breath fogging in the scorched air.

A thundercrack split the air as Iron Palm met Seven’s spear. The shockwave rippled outward, tearing loose stones from the blackened soil, scattering ash in every direction. Claire stumbled back, her green eyes wide, lips parted. Her mana flared, instinctively rising in defense.

Beside her, the healer didn’t move.

She simply watched.

The soft glow of her staff pulsed like a dying star. Her yellow eyes were vacant but alert—curious, detached. A scientist observing a patient moments from collapse.

Atlas landed hard, boots dragging, carving new trenches into blood-muddied soil. His wrist throbbed, nerves numb, his knuckles slick with crimson. Ten didn’t move. Not a stagger. His armor was dented like a crushed can, but he still stood, one eye bloodied shut, the other bright with something savage.

"You’re fast," Ten said through gritted teeth. "But you’re human and You’re dying."

Atlas tasted copper as he spat blood to the ground. The sizzle was subtle but sharp, as if the earth itself recoiled from him.

".....Human...me? You don’t know me ..."

His fingers curled. Mana ignited like oil. Sharpness. The veins along his arms blackened, hardened, his fingertips becoming jagged blades. He lunged forward

a shadow made flesh.

Slash.

Duck.

Pivot.

Ten lifted an arm. Too slow.

Atlas’s hand tore through armor and sinew alike, blood blooming in the air like red ink in water. The scream Ten gave was brief. Atlas didn’t wait for it to end. His elbow cracked into Ten’s jaw with a snap that echoed, bone giving way, teeth spinning like thrown dice. Ten reeled, dazed.

Seven lunged.

Her spear aimed at Atlas’s spine, the air behind its tip bending with focused mana.

"ATLAS!" Claire shouted. Her voice was a whipcrack, fear braided with command.

He didn’t look back.

Instead, he stepped into Ten, close enough that Seven had to hesitate—a heartbeat too long. One more moment. That’s all it took. He twisted mid-air, slammed his boot into Ten’s chest.

Thunder.

Ten’s body hit Seven, and together they crashed, a mess of blood and shrapnel. They hit the earth so hard that the crater trembled. Fairy dust ignited like firecrackers around them.

"You’re predictable," Atlas said, breath hitching, his voice low, amused. "....You protect each other."

Seven coughed, spitting blood, her red eyes glaring through tears. "And you fight alone....also a weakness..."

The insult cut deeper than her spear ever had.

Alone.

He stood still, shoulders rising and falling. The wind moved around him.

He saw the firelight inside the command tent. Kurt’s shoulder, brushing his. Claire’s laugh, soft and raw. Lara curled beside him, dagger clutched in small fingers. Ghosts. Shadows now. Swallowed by the war. Swallowed by his decisions.

"Alone?" he repeated. "No. I carry ghosts."

The wind howled.

Above, the ship shimmered, the invisibility spell collapsing like wet silk. Five’s silhouette came into full view. His mana expanded in warning, the air thick with it.

Atlas pointed up, voice rising.

"I see you, coward....I think it’s better I take care of that one first," Atlas said, golden eyes narrowing. His voice was low, almost casual, but there was a snarl coiled beneath it. "I don’t know how many of you are still hiding inside that balloon of yours."

He didn’t wait for a reply. His gaze snapped to the treeline—his instincts screaming, his Truth Eyes catching the twitch of mana above, threads woven in the air like a spider’s trap.

With a sharp inhale, he pivoted and bolted toward the nearest tree, the ground cracking under each step. Bark scraped his forearm as he slammed his fist into the tree’s center, the dull thud of impact echoing through the forest like a war drum. The wood groaned, the sound wet and raw.

Atlas gripped the tree around its core—thick, rough bark tearing into his palms. His muscles screamed in protest.

He growled through clenched teeth, tendons bulging, his feet anchoring into the bleeding soil. The roots resisted—veins of earth and memory clutching the tree to the land like a mother clinging to a dying child.

"Come on," he muttered, as if coaxing an old enemy to rise one last time.

With a guttural roar, he yanked.

The earth cracked.

And the tree came free—roots and all.

A scream tore from his lungs—part pain, part triumph—as he spun in place, every muscle fiber stretching near rupture. The tree whistled through the air, an executioner’s axe in his hands, whirling like a star of vengeance.

"AaaaaAAA—!"

With a final pivot, he launched it skyward.

The massive trunk, thick as a warhorse and crowned with limbs like gnarled spears, spun into the clouds. Dirt and stone still clung to its roots like a comet’s tail.

The airship hovered above—a bloated shadow veiled in a flickering illusion. The tree struck it dead-on, spearing through the thin membrane of enchantments and tearing into the hot-air balloon structure. The sound was grotesque—canvas ripping, metal warping, a chorus of buckling wood and shattering glass.

Fire bloomed in the sky like a twisted flower.

Inside the cockpit, the pilot’s scream broke the stillness.

"Sir Prime! We have been hit! We’ve been hit!" His voice cracked under the weight of panic, trembling beneath the hiss of escaping gas and collapsing steel.

But Number Five did not move like a man in crisis.

He moved like a shadow waking.

He sat still for a heartbeat longer, eyes closed, the chaos around him irrelevant. Then, slow and deliberate, he drew the linear blade at his side—silver, long, narrow as a whisper, too elegant for the storm it was born to cut.

He didn’t shout. He didn’t pray.

He stood.

The craft tilted violently, its frame grinding against itself, flames licking up its sides. The pilot grabbed the controls, shrieking for balance, screaming for help.

"Sir?! Sir, we—?!"

But Five had already stepped toward the exit, never glancing back.

With a simple motion, he fell from the ship, no more panic than a feather cast from a raven’s wing. His body sliced the air like a needle, cape fluttering behind him, his mana flaring cold and composed.

Behind him, the airship cracked open like an egg, the fire roaring as the balloon burst and spiraled toward the earth.

He never looked back.

He didn’t need to.

His deep blue eyes were already locked—on the man before. On the Prince. On the broken, dying thing that shouldn’t have been standing. And yet was.

Atlas Von Roxweld.

The Mad Prince.

A boy who should have drowned in his own plague.

A boy their god-empress wanted alive.

A contradiction wrapped in prophecy.

Five drew a breath and straightened, his spine a line of ice.

"...Atlas Von Roxweld," he said, his voice too soft for the blood it promised. "The prince of Berkimhum. Son of Henry Von Roxweld."

Atlas’s head tilted slightly. He didn’t smile. He didn’t blink. But something in his eyes gleamed like a blade remembering its first cut.

Five gave a shallow bow, too rigid to be honor, too precise to be mercy.

"I greet you," he said, and as he drew his blade across his side in a ceremonial line, the wind moaned between them.

"...And it shall also be our final goodbye."

For a breath, the world held its breath.

Atlas flexed his fingers, blood dripping from his knuckles. His side still bled from Seven’s last desperate strike, pain radiating like a second heartbeat. His lungs were iron weights. The virus gnawed at him like wolves at bone.

And still, he stood.

"You’re not the first to say that," he said, voice raw. "But if you want a last goodbye..."

He raised his hand, palm open. The dirt quivered.

"...you’ll have to take it from me."

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