Belial clawed at the dirt as he pulled himself up from the crater. His arms trembled. The ether lines along his ribs sparked and flickered like broken wires. His left shoulder was dislocated, and his knee, he wasn't sure if it was fractured or shattered. Breathing hurt. Thinking hurt more.
And still, he stood.
His claws dug into the earth, carving furrows in the blood-soaked mud. Smoke rose off his frame, curling into the night air like the last gasps of a dying fire. The remains of his Hellion Form were flaking away like burnt armor. Chunks of his plated shoulders crumbled and fell, revealing torn sinew and black veins riddled with overuse. Every pulse of his heart sent a fresh wave of pain through his body, a reminder of how close he was to breaking entirely.
He wasn't just hurt.
He was slipping.
Too much of him was broken now.
Each step forward was a gamble. On pain, on breath, on borrowed time. His vision swam, the edges blurring into a haze of gray and red. The forest around him was a graveyard of splintered trees and scorched earth, the aftermath of a battle that had raged for hours. The air stank of ozone, blood, and the acrid tang of ether burning itself out. Somewhere in the distance, a low rumble shook the ground, the dying echo of a world unraveling under the weight of their conflict.
And yet, he advanced.
The monster was still looming, still twitching but slower now. Less aggressive. Its massive form, once a blur of impossible speed and precision, now jerked like a corrupted animation. Every breath it took gurgled, staggered, as if its lungs were drowning in its own ichor. Its limbs moved unnaturally, joints grinding, muscles spasming. The creature's hide, once gleaming with an otherworldly sheen, was now mottled with dark patches, veins of black-green corruption threading through its flesh like a spreading plague.
Belial narrowed his eyes, his single functioning pupil contracting to a slit. His other eye was swollen shut, caked with blood and dirt. He grit his teeth, the taste of copper flooding his mouth. Something was off. He could feel it, a subtle shift in the air, a wrongness that went beyond the creature's faltering movements.
He activated his ether vision.
The world bled into colorless gradients, the vibrant chaos of the forest fading into a stark map of energy flows. Ether particles glowed in his mind, tracing the paths of life and power through the creature's body. Muscle structures pulsed faintly, their rhythm disrupted by jagged webs of damage. And then, inside the creature, he saw it. Something familiar.
A corruption.
A swirl of black-white light, threading through its limbs like a parasite burrowing into a host. It wasn't natural. It wasn't ambient. It was his.
Poison.
His poisoned blood.
Belial blinked once, twice—then let out a low, bitter laugh that scraped against his raw throat. The sound was barely human, more a growl than a chuckle, born of pain and defiance. His lips curled back, revealing jagged broken teeth stained with his own blood. Something twisted inside him, something feral, hungry, mad.
"You think you're inevitable?" he rasped, blood trailing from his mouth to drip onto the ground. His voice was a cracked whisper, but it carried the weight of a curse. "You're not even worth the blood you drank."
He stepped forward, his claws dragging behind him, steaming with residual ether. The ground beneath his feet hissed as the last of his power bled into the earth, leaving scorch marks in his wake. His body screamed in protest, every muscle and tendon stretched to the breaking point, but he forced himself to move. One step. Then another. Each one a defiance of the inevitable.
"You're just some abandoned boss fight," he said, his voice growing steadier, colder, "a stupid system thought might be Useful."
A pause.
The air seemed to still, the world holding its breath.
Then—
"Well, think again, you worthless Witness."
The creature twitched. Its eye or what was left of it glared, a glowing orb of malice set in a ruined socket. Its body surged forward, claws raking the air, jaws snapping with a sound like breaking stone. But it wasn't as fast anymore. Not like before. Its movements were sluggish, its precision dulled by the poison coursing through its veins.
"You're starting to crack, Witness," Belial said dryly, a dead calm settling over him like a shroud. "Just like me."
Then he charged.
There was no elegance in his movements anymore, no trace of the fluid grace that had once defined his Hellion Form. That Belial was gone, burned away by hours of relentless combat. What remained was something primal, something savage, a starving beast fueled by rage and desperation.
His fighting style had descended into chaos. Gone were the precision strikes, the calculated dodges, the careful manipulation of ether. Now, he fought like a cornered animal, bleeding ether from every wound, letting it leak into the monster with every contact. His claws raked across its flesh, leaving trails of corrupted blood that hissed and smoked on impact. Each strike was a gamble, each movement a step closer to collapse.
He slammed his clawed hand into the monster's chest, pushing ether through the strike like a firehose, trying to infect, to sabotage, to burn it from within. The creature roared, a sound that shook the earth, and retaliated with a knee to his stomach that cracked his back teeth. Pain exploded through his body, white-hot and blinding, but Belial snarled and bit into the creature's arm, ripping free a chunk of putrid flesh. The taste was vile, a mix of rot and metal that made his stomach churn, but he didn't stop. He couldn't stop.
They traded blows in the mud and the dark, surrounded by the rotting bones of trees and the stink of blood. The Witness grabbed his face and slammed him into the ground—again and again, each impact driving the air from his lungs and sending fresh waves of agony through his broken body. But Belial clawed at its neck the entire time, raking, digging, drawing more of its foul ichor. His nails tore through flesh and sinew, leaving behind streaks of his own poisoned blood.
Then he ducked under a wild punch, stepped in with a snarl—
—and bit into its tail.
The monster shrieked, a horrid, otherworldly sound that ruptured the trees nearby, sending splinters flying like shrapnel. Belial's jaw unhinged wider than it should've, his teeth—jagged, infused with ether—sinking deep into the tail's thick hide. The creature thrashed violently, its massive body twisting in a desperate attempt to break free, but Belial held on, muscles locking down like a bear trap. His vision blurred, his strength fading, but he refused to let go.
With a guttural roar, he ripped the tail clean off.
Tendon snapped. Bone cracked. The end came loose in a grisly shower of black fluid and poisoned blood, splattering across the ground like ink. Belial spit the severed appendage to the side, his face soaked in gore. His remaining eye blazed with a manic light, his claws twitching with insane, uncontrollable energy.
The Witness stumbled, its massive form swaying. For the first time, it wasn't just injury that slowed it—it was fear. Its single eye widened, the glow within flickering as if it could sense its own unraveling.
Belial wasn't fighting like a man anymore.
He had become something worse.
They clashed again, two titans born of ruin, tearing at each other with reckless abandon. Belial clawed at the monster's side, wrapping a leg around its massive frame and dragging it down with sheer force. It smashed him in the ribs with an elbow, cracking armor and bone alike, but Belial grinned through the pain, his blood-slicked teeth bared in a feral snarl. He kept swinging, kept clawing, kept biting—each motion laced with ether, each contact spreading more of his venom through the beast's system.
The Witness tried to grapple him, its massive claws closing around his throat, but Belial responded by jamming his claws into its jaw, then ripping the lower mandible downward with a sickening crack. The monster shrieked again, a guttural wail that echoed through the shattered forest, its body convulsing as the poison spread deeper.
They rolled through the underbrush, locked in a death struggle, neither winning, both unraveling. Flesh tore. Bones cracked. Ether sparked wildly between them, a thunderstorm trapped in a bottle. Belial's vision blurred again, his legs buckling under the weight of his injuries. His body was done, every nerve screaming for rest, for release, but his mind refused to yield.
Break, damn you. Break like I am.
The creature finally broke free, its massive arm swinging in a desperate arc. The backhand caught Belial across the chest, sending him flying backward. He crashed through yet another tree, the impact splintering the trunk into kindling, before slamming into the wet, blood-soaked earth. The world spun, his vision whiting out as pain consumed him.
He didn't move.
His hands twitched, fingers curling weakly in the mud.
His shoulders steamed, the last of his Hellion armor flaking away, leaving only charred flesh and open wounds beneath. Blood pooled beneath him, mingling with the creature's ichor to form a grotesque mire.
He blinked through the blood and static, his single eye struggling to focus.
The monster stumbled again, its movements corrupted—twitching violently, limbs jerking in unnatural spasms. Its breathing was wrong, labored, each gasp a wet, choking sound. Its mouth foamed, black-green corruption seeping from the corners. One eye was missing, a ragged hole where Belial's claws had struck true. The other now bled from the corner, the glow within fading to a dull ember.
Belial lay still.
He couldn't move.
But he could still smile.
The battle wasn't won. He wasn't victorious. He was likely dying.
But the monster was dying with him.
Breath rattling in his chest, he turned his head, his gaze locking onto the beast.
And grinned.