Chapter 25: The Shattered Seal and the Ghost of Love
The destruction of Paradise was no longer just physical; the very air felt like it was weeping. Amidst the ruins of what used to be a celestial kingdom, Julius lay broken, a mere shadow of the god he once claimed to be. Blood, golden and shimmering, leaked from his wounds, but his lips curled into a sickening, poisonous smirk.
"Volt…" Julius wheezed, his voice trembling with a mixture of terror and malice. "You think you've won? You've torn down the pillars of heaven, but did you know... that the 'Light' you tried so desperately to protect nine millennia ago... is still rotting in my cage?"
Flashback: The Smile That Controlled a Monster
In an instant, the smell of smoke and divine blood vanished from Volt's senses. He was pulled back 9,000 years, into a memory so bright it hurt to look at.
Amidst his reign of darkness and absolute power, when the entire universe trembled at the mention of the Demon King, there had been one exception. Vanessa. She wasn't a goddess, nor a warrior of legend. She was a girl whose heart was as vast as the cosmos. To the world, Volt was an unstoppable calamity, but to Vanessa, he was just a lonely soul. She was the only one who could walk into the center of his storm and calm his wrath with nothing more than a gentle smile. Her love was the only anchor that kept the Monster King from drifting entirely into the void.
But the higher the love, the deeper the betrayal.
When the great war began, Lucifer and Julius hadn't just relied on their blades to defeat Volt. They were cowards who understood that a warrior with a heart is a warrior with a weakness. They had turned Vanessa into a weapon against him. While the universe watched the fall of the Demon King, Julius had secretly performed a forbidden ritual, sealing Vanessa's soul in the coldest depths of the High Heavens—keeping her as a "final hostage" for a day just like today.
The Devil's Bargain
Back in the present, Julius watched Volt's expression with desperate eyes. "Do you want to see her again, Volt? The girl you shed tears for when the stars went dark? I have sealed her essence within my own life-force. If you kill me now, the seal shatters, and she vanishes into non-existence forever. Your vengeance will be her execution."
The universe seemed to hold its breath. The tremors that were tearing heaven apart suddenly ceased. The overwhelming pressure of Volt's Power Level 55 flickered, slowing down as the memories of Vanessa's laughter echoed in his mind. For a few seconds, the Demon King looked human again—haunted by an ancient grief.
Julius felt a spark of hope. He thought he had found the chain to bind the monster once more.
Volt lowered his hand, his eyes staring through Julius as if looking at something far away. "Julius..." he said, his voice a low, terrifying rumble. "You truly believe that 9,000 years of agony haven't changed me? You think I'm still that same foolish king who let his heart be used as a leash?"
A Fate Worse Than Death
To Julius's shock, Volt didn't strike. Instead, he reached out and touched the air in front of Julius's chest. With a surge of the "Bundles" power, Volt didn't break Julius's life—he broke the seal. He reached into the divine fabric of Julius's soul and delicately extracted the essence of Vanessa, securing it in a sphere of pure energy.
Julius gasped, feeling the connection sever. He thought he was free, but then the true nightmare began.
Volt didn't kill him. Death was too kind. Using the absolute authority of the Demon King, Volt began to strip Julius. Not of his clothes, but of his very existence. He tore away the divine grace, the immortality, and every shred of power Julius had spent eons accumulating. Within seconds, the "God" Julius was gone. In his place stood a withered, fragile mortal—stripped of everything, destined to age, to feel pain, and to rot away like the very humans he had despised.
"Live, Julius," Volt whispered, turning his back on the broken man. "Live as a nothing, in a world that has forgotten your name."
Director by ( ahmed barozh)