The Taste of Defeat

Flames leapt and twirled over the shattered ruins, their flickering light casting eerie shadows on the remnants of destruction. The air was heavy and oppressive, saturated with the iron tang of blood and the acrid stench of burnt flesh that clung to every breath. The battlefield resembled nothing less than a vast, desecrated graveyard, strewn with the broken bodies of Hell's mightiest warriors. Each lifeless form lay as a silent testament to the massacre, while the biting aroma of death mingled with the distant, mournful groans of crumbling buildings. From the rubble, fires crackled incessantly, ravenously consuming what little evidence remained of a city now completely erased from memory.

In the heart of this devastation stood Toshi, a solitary figure caught between fury and exhaustion. His chest heaved laboriously as he struggled to draw in air, and his trembling fists betrayed the tempest of rage that coursed through him. It wasn't mere exhaustion that plagued him—his entire being was consumed by a burning, uncontrollable ire.

Blood dripped steadily from the edge of his blade, pooling in a dark, sinister mirror beneath his feet. The bodies of the fallen Elites, their vacant, accusatory eyes wide with disbelief, were scattered carelessly across the battlefield. They had come with the intent to slay a monster, yet fate had twisted the narrative—and they became nothing more than its hapless victims. The profound silence that blanketed the scene was almost tangible, punctuated only by the sporadic flicker of flames and the persistent, gentle pattern of blood dripping from his fingertips.

And then—

A voice shattered the oppressive silence.

"Wow, you actually killed all my elites."

The tone was disarmingly calm, imbued with an amused nonchalance that made light of the surrounding carnage. Toshi's head snapped upward, his eyes—streaked red from the fury burning within—locking onto the figure at the very edge of the battlefield.

It was Zokaris.

The King of Hell himself.

Casually, he stood with his hands tucked nonchalantly in his pockets, the long, sweeping coat around him swaying languidly in the heat-warped air. His face, marked by an expression of mild curiosity, regarded the massacre of his most formidable warriors as though it were nothing more than an intriguing, imperfect spectacle.

Without a moment's hesitation or a thought borne of caution, Toshi lunged forward.

In a burst of raw determination, his blade sliced through the oppressive air at a speed that blurred its edge into mere gasps of motion.

Yet Zokaris remained unnervingly still.

At the very last heartbeat, his head tilted ever so slightly, a minimal adjustment that allowed him to sidestep Toshi's deadly arc with an almost imperceptible elegance.

Again and again, Toshi swung his weapon—a furious ballet of lethal intent—but with an effortless grace, Zokaris evaded every strike. One attack after the next, Toshi's desperate flurries of desperate motion met only air, his every blow failing to meet its mark.

Frustration coiled within him like a living thing. His movements grew faster, wilder, and increasingly reckless; his furious strikes carved through the air with devastating force, sending shockwaves that scattered debris like fallen leaves. Yet, each time, Zokaris dodged with a disdainfully calm poise, his perpetual smirk never faltering.

Then, in a single, swift moment that defied the simmering intensity of the battle—

Zokaris's hand shot forward with the speed of a striking serpent.

Before Toshi could muster a reaction, slender, almost delicate fingers coiled around his throat. With a casual ease that belied the brutality of his act, Zokaris hoisted him into the air. Toshi's struggles were frantic, his hands clawing desperately at the wrist that gripped him—yet it was as if he were contending with unyielding steel.

Tilting his head ever so slightly, Zokaris regarded Toshi with a detached, analytical curiosity.

"Hmmm... from what I can see, you're definitely not human. But you're not a devil either."

His smirk broadened into something more mischievous, his voice dripping with a sardonic amusement as he added, "Could it be... did Ikaris send you?"

The question, delivered in a tone that mingled mockery with intrigue, sent a disoriented shock through Toshi. His struggling began to wane, and his breath came in short, ragged gasps.

"Who... Ikaris? Who are you talking about?" he managed to choke out, his voice thick with confusion and pain.

A low chuckle escaped Zokaris, rich with derision and amusement. "Oh? So even you don't know? That's interesting. Let's take a guess—who could have sent you?" he mused, his tone teasing yet unnervingly cold. With a slight tightening of his unyielding grip, he made Toshi gag, accentuating the power he held.

"Ah, but it doesn't matter, does it? Because now... you're in my hands."

Toshi bit his lip in bitter defiance, trying vainly to push against the inexorable force that was Zokaris's grasp. His fingers dug into the devil's wrist, his eyes flashing with the raw heat of unbridled rage. Yet for every ounce of his desperate resistance, the grip only tightened like chains forged from pure steel.

Zokaris sighed, his head tilting as he observed Toshi with a mix of pity and curiosity. "You're an anomaly. Someone like you shouldn't exist. But here you are. Now, what should I do with you?" he mused aloud, his eyes gleaming with a curious pleasure.

A glimmer of dark humor sparked in his eyes as he continued, "I don't feel like killing you. So what should I do?"

Even as Toshi struggled more fiercely, desperate to escape, Zokaris held him with an unyielding might. "I have an idea... I'll let you go. But under one condition," he whispered ominously as he leaned in, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial murmur, "I won't forget you. And you won't forget me."

Toshi's teeth clenched into a grimace as he spat out, "Just die…"

Zokaris's laughter rippled across the battlefield—a dark, mocking chortle that seemed to encapsulate the absurdity of the moment. "Oh, but I can't trust you. What if you forget me?" His smirk darkened, morphing into something far more sinister as he added, "Ah… I'll leave you with something to remember me by."

Before Toshi could even register the impending horror, in an explosion of brutal, searing pain—

PAIN.

A blinding, explosive agony ravaged him as Zokaris's grip tightened with inhuman force, tearing mercilessly through flesh and bone. A sickening crack echoed across the devastation—a sound as resounding and final as the tolling of a death knell.

And then, in a moment that felt both surreal and irrevocable, Toshi's right arm was violently ripped from his body. Blood exploded from the wound like a crimson fountain, spraying the scorched earth in a grotesque display of violence. A sharp gasp tore from Toshi's lips as his vision wavered, dimming at the edges under the weight of shock. His knees buckled, slamming him harshly against the unforgiving ground, while his body swayed uncertainly in its defeat.

With a disdainful flick, Zokaris discarded the severed limb as though it were nothing more than a piece of refuse. "Now you'll never forget me," he declared coolly, his tone echoing with the finality of a verdict, before turning away and striding off as if the gruesome act were merely a trivial inconvenience.

Toshi remained on his battered knees, his remaining hand frantically clutching the empty space where his arm once existed. The world spun wildly around him, his ragged, shallow breaths punctuating the silence, as dark blood pooled beneath him like a spreading stain. For the first time since his rebirth, he tasted the bitter flavor of defeat.

The surrounding fires crackled with a mocking energy, their embers reflecting in his wide, disbelieving eyes. His mind raced and pleaded for some form of salvation while his body betrayed him, rendered immobile by the crushing weight of his loss. He had waged countless battles, his blade having sung of death so many times, yet never before had he experienced such a profound, all-consuming powerlessness.

Clenching his teeth in a futile bid for defiance, he savored the iron tang of his own blood as his vision began to dim at the edges. And then—

The overwhelming darkness swallowed him whole.

—

Chapter End.