NOVPUBThe body of the Spirit King flew like a limp corpse, spinning through the air until it was caught by an invisible force. It stopped, suspended in the space like a puppet whose strings were moments away from being torn apart.
"I don't need your death, worm..." Strax said, his voice rumbling like thunder crashing inside a volcano. "First, I need a little satisfaction. After all... you killed people I truly loved."
And then—it began.
Strax took a step forward.
The ground caved in.
The air imploded.
And the King screamed before the blow even landed.
The first punch crushed half of his skull into a formless mass of bone, flesh, and memory. The impact created a shockwave that cracked the ruins around them and made the flames dancing nearby flicker and recoil.
The body fell. But Strax did not allow it.
He pulled it back with a gesture. The face began to regenerate—slowly, painfully—only to be destroyed again.
The second strike came from below, an uppercut that tore the entire jaw from the King's face, sending it flying like a useless hunk of meat. Teeth rained down like shrapnel from a living grenade.
"You were so arrogant moments ago. Why don't you keep talking?" Strax roared. "Oh right—you can't speak. Then be crowned with silence!"
With his other hand, he shoved his fingers into the open throat and tore out the trachea, making the King choke on his own blood, eyes wide, as if trying to scream — but no longer capable of producing sound.
The entire temple was collapsing, as if space itself refused to exist in the presence of such slaughter.
The third blow didn't come from fists. It came from claws.
Strax plunged both hands into the King's chest and tore him in half down to the waist like wet paper. Bones cracked, ribs opened like the wings of a fallen demon. A breath of spiritual energy escaped, trying to flee — but Strax seized that too.
"Not even your essence will escape me." And with a snap, he crushed the soul in his hands.
An ancient scream echoed across the skies — not from the King, but from the spiritual forces that once upheld him.
The fourth strike was a kick that launched what remained of the body far into the distance, tearing a hole in the firmament — and the sky responded with lightning bolts of pure terror.
The King tried to reassemble himself mid-air, but Strax was already there. With wings spread like the walls of destruction, he flew in and grabbed the King by the ankles, flipping him upside down.
And then, he started slamming him.
Against the ground.
Against the walls.
Against the ruins.
Again. And again. And again.
With each impact, chunks of the body were torn off. An arm. Then the other. Then a leg. And always, always, always… Strax rebuilt him with magic.
Regenerating him only to destroy him again.
Until even the King begged. Without a tongue. Without lungs. But with a soul vibrating in pure desperation."P… Please… stop…"
Strax slammed him into the ground and stomped on his chest. A sickening crack. More broken bones. More screaming.
"You dare ask me for mercy?" He pressed harder with his heel until the spine snapped, vertebrae shattering like brittle twigs. "You tore apart my wives. You made my family watch their own deaths."
Strax raised a hand. And with a gesture… turned back time by one second.
The same scream. The same fracture. The same pain. Again.
"You want to die?" Strax roared. "You won't die until the entire Spirit Realm itself rejects you as one of its own."
He began striking again — mystical blows, each one carving forbidden symbols into the King's body, burning flesh and soul, tattooing eternal curses onto what was once a divine being.
"You will be forgotten by all spirits. Abandoned even by the echo of your name."
With each strike, a rune appeared. A sentence.
"Traitor.""Coward.""Devourer of the Innocent.""Unworthy.""Eternal Prisoner."
Strax drove his hands into the King's chest once more — but this time, he pulled out the heart.
And when he did… he didn't crush it.
He swallowed it.
The sky exploded into black fire.
The roar that followed did not belong to any living creature.
It was a sound that would make angels bleed from their eyes.That would make gods kneel in despair.
Strax now stood over what remained of the King — a heap of flesh, fragmented spirit, and powdered bone.
But the King was still conscious.
Strax would not allow him to pass out.
Not for a single second.
"Are you ready to beg?" A weak nod. A look of pure terror.
"Speak. Say you belong to me. Say you're my slave."The King tried, through grinding teeth and whimpering gasps, to form the words.
"I-I…"
Strax smiled.And in that smile… even hell would seem merciful.
He knelt over what was left of the Spirit King — a twisted heap of forcibly regenerating flesh, shaking with pain and fear.
With a snap of his fingers, the King's entire body reconstructed in seconds.Bones aligned with wet cracks, muscles stretched like taut ropes, organs relocated with visceral spasms.The skin came last, stretching over the raw body like a sheet of agony.
The King breathed in ragged gasps, eyes wide, trembling, waiting for the end.
But the end would not come.
Strax wouldn't allow it.
With a roar, the Dragon lifted him by the throat, claws nearly piercing again."Tell me. How do I bring the Spirit Realm back?"
The King only shook his head, gasping. "I... I don't know…!" 𝘯𝑜𝘷𝘱𝘶𝘣.𝘤𝘰𝑚
Strax hurled him against a wall. Bones snapped. The wall collapsed.
"LIES!"The dragon blinked through space, caught him again, and with a savage movement, ripped both arms off like brittle branches.
Screams.
Blood exploded like crimson geysers, staining the floor, the ceiling, the sky.
"HOW?!"
"I swear… I swear… I don't know! I don't know…!" he screamed, now limbless, crawling like a mutilated worm.
Strax slammed a foot onto his back and tore off both legs, one after the other, as if dismantling a broken puppet.The joints burst apart with wet, brutal sounds, ligaments stretching like elastic cords before snapping.
The King cried. He begged.
But Strax did not waver.
With another gesture, he restored him completely.
The King was whole again.
But inside… he was shattered.
Strax grabbed his hair and dragged his face across the temple floor — a floor littered with jagged fragments, ashes, and broken bones.
Each inch of ground peeled layers off his face.
Nose? Scraped down to the bone.Lips? Shredded.Eyes? One popped out of its socket, dangling by a thin nerve.
His jaw scraped along the floor, leaving a trail of blood and shattered bone.
By the time Strax stopped, the King's face was a blood-soaked skull, quivering strips of flesh barely clinging to it.
And still… no answer.
Strax's roar made the pillars around him bend.
He looked to the sky.
He looked to the beam of white energy on the horizon — where Tiamat, Ouroboros, Cristine, Rogue, and Artemis stood, holding the seal, preventing that transcendental force from escaping and devouring reality.
That light — the fracture point between realms.
Strax narrowed his eyes. He felt the truth echoing within.
There was no way to restore the Spirit Realm through questions.
The answer lay within the mistake itself.
He grabbed the bloodied body of the Spirit King once more.
And then he flew.
He tore across the skies, ripping through clouds with his titanic wings. The winds fled from him. The world recoiled.
The white light before him pulsed like a cosmic heart on the verge of bursting...
Tiamat looked up and whispered, "Strax… what are you going to do?"
He replied with a single, dry phrase. No hesitation. No mercy."Burn."
And he hurled the Spirit King directly into the pillar of light.
The body screamed — and it was not a scream of pain alone.It was a scream of absolute disintegration.Of erasure.
The King's soul tried to resist, but that light was pure origin.Pure creation and end.Pure justice beyond language.
His body writhed in the air like paper catching fire.The skin dissolved.The spirit was peeled layer by layer, every memory ripped out with a scream.
His name was erased.
His title undone.
His story annulled.
What once was the Spirit King became a particle.
Then… not even that.
A speck of cosmic dust… consumed and absorbed by the light.
Silence.
A heavy, total silence fell over the world.Tiamat lowered her arms. Ouroboros exhaled slowly.
Strax hovered in the air, watching as the energy that once threatened to destroy everything now shone… differently.
Calmer.
Purer.
Strax descended.
His feet touched the ground with a muffled thud.
The transformation slowly began to recede.The scales fading.The wings folding inward.The claws reverting into human fingers — but something in his eyes had changed.
Now… there was silence.
Heavy, absolute. A void that seemed to echo through the soul of everyone present.
Until a voice — one Strax had only heard once in his entire life — cut through the silence like a whisper of wind through the ruins.
"I'm sorry... for making you go through this. I should have stopped it."
He turned slowly, eyes widening with the weight of disbelief.
There, standing among the ashes and shattered remains of the temple, was her — the Elven Queen.In flesh, in bone… and in imminent death.
A tragic beauty clung to her.Her body fragile, skin pale and translucent, eyes glassy and hollow, filled with a pain no spell could mend.Her life-magic was fading — slow and inevitable — like the last flame in a cold night.
Strax stepped forward, surprised but steady.
"You're dying. Why did you come here?"His voice was harsh, but not cold. There was real concern in it.
She stumbled as she walked, almost falling, but remained standing.
"I came... to recreate the Spirit Realm," she said, voice weak but unwavering."I'll… simply fulfill what was always my purpose."
She continued moving toward the column of light where the Spirit King had once been consumed.
But before she could take another step, Strax extended an arm and caught her, stopping her from going any farther.
"Stop." he said, his eyes as hard as obsidian. "Don't do this to your daughter."
The mention of Evelyn made her shudder. The Queen's eyes closed for a moment, as if trying to erase the weight of that name.
"She will hate you." Strax continued. "She will break inside. And I… I promised to protect her."
The Queen lifted her gaze, now with tears in her eyes, but a smile almost sarcastic on her dust-covered face.
"Come on, Strax... I know you'll turn me into a demon after this, won't you?" Her voice trembled, but there was strength in it. "So shut that arrogant mouth and... let me finish what I started."
She tried to pull her arm away, but Strax didn't release her. The silence between them lasted an eternal moment.
Her gaze said everything: guilt, burden, redemption, sacrifice.
His gaze responded with anger, pain, and a deep desire not to lose anyone else.
But he also knew.
He knew that, deep down, she was the only one who could do this now. That her essence, as Queen, was the last spark capable of reigniting the heart of the Spirit Realm — even at the cost of her own soul.
His hand trembled. Not because of Frieren, but because of Evelyn. But he let it. As she said, he could bring her back as a demon.
And so, slowly, he released her. "Then go." he said, his voice so low it almost got lost in the wind.
