YEAR'S LATER --
Marek was the first.
But he wasn't the last.
His blood had barely dried on my blade before I moved on. One name scratched off my list, and a dozen more took its place. Titans who ruled over broken nations like self-proclaimed gods. Superhumans who crushed cities beneath their heels. Monsters who believed themselves untouchable.
I hunted them all.
For years, I carved my way through the strongest warriors this world had ever created. Their power, their so-called invincibility—it meant nothing. Because no matter how much destruction they could unleash, no matter how feared they were—
I was stronger.
And I proved it.
Again.
And again.
And again.
---
My name became a whisper in the dark. A myth. A nightmare.
Titans began to fear me.
They spoke of me in hushed voices, their arrogance laced with unease. Governments denied my existence. Mercenaries were sent to hunt me down—none returned. Warlords vanished overnight, their fortresses reduced to rubble, their bodies never found.
They started calling me The Butcher of Titans.
Butcher of gods.
Fitting.
Because I didn't just kill them—I erased them. I made sure they suffered. I left their corpses as monuments to their own destruction, reminders of what happened to those who wielded power without restraint.
No one was safe.
Not the Titan who set a city ablaze just to prove his dominance.
Not the warlord who turned his own men into grotesque experiments.
Not the Apex who called himself a god.
One by one, I cut them down.
And yet…
It wasn't enough.
The rage never faded. The hunger never dulled. No matter how many Titans I killed, no matter how much blood soaked my hands— I still felt empty.
So I kept going.
---
More Years passed. Maybe decades. I stopped counting. Time had lost its meaning.
I had no home. No allies. No purpose beyond the hunt. My body became a machine, moving from one battlefield to the next. It didn't matter where the fight was—I was always in the center of it.
Some Titans tried to challenge me.
They believed they were different. That their power set them apart.
They weren't.
They died just like the rest.
Some ran.
I hunted them down.
Some begged.
I made them suffer.
Some tried to reason with me.
I silenced them with my blade.
They thought Titans were the pinnacle of existence. That they were beyond human comprehension.
They were wrong.
Because I stood among them as their executioner.
---
I fought Titans in the ruins of ancient cities, our battles reducing history to dust.
I clashed with Apex warriors in the skies, our strikes parting the clouds, sending shockwaves that fractured the earth below.
I tore through entire armies, cutting down enhanced soldiers like weeds, their weapons useless against me.
I fought in deserts turned to glass from the heat of our war.
In frozen wastelands, where the ice beneath our feet splintered with every step.
In the heart of warzones, where blood painted the ground, and screams became the only sound I knew.
And still, I fought.
Because there was always another battle.
Because there was always another Titan.
Because there was nothing else left.
No home.
No family.
No end.
Only war.
Only power.
---
I stopped thinking of myself as human long ago.
Humans were fragile. Weak. Helpless.
I had surpassed them. Surpassed Titans. Surpassed everything I once was.
And yet, the more I killed, the more the world whispered my name.
Ethan Kael.
The Apex Titan.
The Butcher of Gods.
Some called me a hero.
They were wrong.
I wasn't a hero. I wasn't a savior. I wasn't here to protect anyone.
I was a force of nature.
A storm that never stopped. A blade that never dulled. A monster that even self-proclaimed gods also feared.
And as long as Titans ruled this world…
I would never stop hunting.
---
War had become my world.
I lived for battle. I existed to kill. Every Titan that fell beneath my blade was another step forward. Toward what? I no longer knew.
But then—she appeared.
A Titan unlike any I had ever faced.
One who didn't revel in power. One who didn't crush the weak beneath her heel.
One who, despite everything, still believed in saving this dying world.
Her name was Sophia.
And for the first time in years—
I hesitated.
---
First time I met her.
Moving to anothe battle.
The city was already dead by the time I arrived.
Flames devoured steel and stone. The streets were slick with blood, the stench of death thick in the air. A battlefield like any other. Another war waged by Titans who saw human lives as collateral damage.
Another slaughter. Another hunt.
I moved through the wreckage, my black combat suit stained with Titan blood. My sword—a weapon that had carved through Apex beings like paper—rested against my shoulder, humming with energy.
I was here for one reason.
To kill the last Titan standing here.
Or so I thought.
Because when I found her—
Instead of fighting, distrorying.
She was saving lifes.
***
Amid the rubble, kneeling beside a dying child, was a Titan.
Her long silver hair shimmered under the dim firelight. Her hands glowed with golden energy, mending the boy's shattered ribs, sealing wounds that should have been fatal.
Sophia.
A name I had heard before. The Healer of the Forsaken.
A Titan who refused to fight. A Titan who used her power not to destroy, but to heal.
A fool.
A naive dreamer trying to stop an avalanche with her bare hands.
But as I watched, my instincts screaming to strike her down—
I hesitated.
Because there was something different about her.
Something I hadn't seen in years.
Humanity.
***
She noticed me before I spoke.
"You're Ethan Kael."
Her voice was calm. Steady. Not afraid. Not like the others who had begged for their lives before I cut them down.
I stepped closer, my golden eyes locking onto hers. She didn't flinch.
"You're a Titan," I said coldly. Raising my sword. "That makes you my enemy."
She didn't move. Didn't prepare to fight. Instead, she turned back to the wounded child, pressing her glowing hands to his skin, healing what should have been unfixable.
"I am a Titan," she admitted. "But I am not your enemy."
I let out a sharp, humorless laugh. "That's where you're wrong."
Her golden eyes met mine, steady, unshaken.
"You fight because you believe power is the only way to fix this world," she said. "I fight because I refuse to let it burn."
I frowned. "You don't fight at all."
She exhaled. "That's what you think?"
And then—
The ground trembled.
A pulse of golden energy surged outward, not an attack—but healing.
The corpses around us dissolved into light, their souls given peace. The blood-soaked air cleared, the suffocating weight of death lifting.
I looked at her—this Titan who defied everything I believed.
And for the first time in years—
I didn't know what to do.
I could have killed her.
I should have killed her.
But I didn't.
Because for some reason, in that moment, I didn't see an enemy.
I saw something I had lost a long time ago.
And I had no idea what to do with it.
TO BE CONTINUE...