Apocalypse: becoming the hidden Ruler[English]

Axel stood silently, pouring wave after wave of Abundant into Charles’s broken body, desperately trying to reverse what could not be reversed.

Charles coughed lightly.

“Vince… Rosaline… let me speak with Axel alone. Just a few minutes.”

“Mr. Charles, stop talking!” Kaia cried. “Axel, don’t stop! Keep healing him! Captain—Rosaline—how long until backup arrives? Captain!”

Her hands clutched his tightly, shaking with panic and grief.

“Kaia… my good girl,” Charles said softly. “You’ve grown up beautifully. Let me talk to Axel alone for a moment. Just a moment, alright?”

Kaia bit her trembling lip. Tears and mucus streamed down her face as she shook her head again and again.

“You promised me… You promised you’d cook for me. You said I’d take care of you when you retired…”

Vince lowered his head and gently but firmly pulled Kaia away.

“Let Mr. Charles speak with Axel…”

At that moment, Charles’s skin began to harden—darkening into something like obsidian fused with charred wood. His teeth lengthened and sharpened.

Vince’s expression darkened. He dragged Kaia farther away.

From a distance, Axel watched as Charles’s body continued to mutate and succumb to infection.

A crushing weight settled in his chest.

For the first time since the battle began—

He felt like he couldn’t breathe.

Axel had taken the full brunt of the spiked Shikigami’s assault in the earlier battle, suffering grievous wounds. Yet even so, compared to the captain and the others, he still retained a fair amount of combat power. He knew he had no chance of escaping that woman if she truly came for him—but at the very least, he could have held off a Level Four Infected.

What he had never expected… was that Charles would burn out his own mind to save him.

Watching Charles’s body continue to mutate under the creeping infection, Axel crouched on the ground. He glanced toward the captain and the others in the distance, his chest squeezed tight with unbearable conflict.

After a long silence, he finally drew something from his Space Capsule and held it tightly in his hand. Gritting his teeth, Axel extended it slowly toward Charles’s mouth.

“Mr. Charles… open your mouth.”

His hand had barely moved halfway when Charles suddenly grasped his wrist with unexpected strength. Relief flickered faintly through his clouded eyes.

Cough, cough.

“I knew… I knew the Master wouldn’t lie to me,” he rasped. “Take it back, Axel. I know what that is.”

Axel trembled. “Mr. Charles…”

Charles gave a slight nod.

So… Charles was also a member of the Holy Light Organization.

No wonder he had protected Axel in Shiverstone.

No wonder he had been willing to burn himself out just now.

Axel’s hand was pushed back. With his last remaining strength, Charles gripped Axel’s wrist tightly.

“My… spiritual power is completely gone. Even without the infection, the result would be the same…”

His body convulsed violently. His clothes tore apart as his eyes flickered rapidly between warmth and chilling detachment.

Leaning closer, he forced out a whisper beside Axel’s ear:

“Axel… please live to see the day when the infected are cured. It will be… beautiful.”

Axel’s eyes burned red as he returned the Heavenly Spirit Fruit to his pocket. Staring at Charles—whose hair and beard had now turned completely white—he nodded slowly.

“Mr. Charles… I will.”

Charles coughed up two heavy mouthfuls of blood. Bone spurs and scales tore through his skin one after another, twisting his face in agony.

“One… last selfish request,” he wheezed. “The Obsidian kids… I watched them grow up… The road you’ve chosen is too dangerous. They will throw their lives away to protect you, to help you…”

“Do you understand what I mean?”

Axel shuddered. The question that had haunted him for so long finally had its answer.

“I understand, Mr. Charles.”

A look of relief passed through Charles’s eyes as he glanced toward the Obsidian squad.

“Kaia… eat well.”

“Phoenix… don’t be so damn honest in the future. You’ll regret it.”

“Rosaline…”

His voice faded rapidly. Kaia and Millers rushed to his side, sobbing uncontrollably. Vince stood rigid nearby, his eyes bloodshot.

“Vince… I’m entrusting them to you…”

Blood gushed from his throat.

At that moment, Gideon and Dale finished off the last Level Five Infected. The battlefield fell into a deathly silence as all eyes turned to Charles.

“Vince… kill me.”

Charles gently closed his eyes.

Kaia threw herself onto him, crying desperately. “No! Don’t kill Mr. Charles! Please!”

Vince closed his eyes. He pulled Kaia to her feet, bowed deeply, and spoke in a trembling voice:

“Mr. Charles… may you rest in peace.”

The blade flashed.

And Charles’s voice vanished forever.

......

“Who was that woman? Axel… she came for you. Tell me the truth, please.”

Kaia’s eyes were swollen and red as she wiped away her tears.

Everyone turned to Axel.

He stood in place, head lowered, vision blurred.

“I… I don’t know,” he murmured.

Rosaline and Vince frowned, their expressions dark and complicated.

Axel looked at them in confusion. He carried too many secrets buried deep inside—but this time, more than anything else, he wanted to know why he had become a target for no apparent reason.

As the final moments ticked past, faint streaks of green light slowly began to gather.

Axel’s focus snapped back instantly.

His gaze locked onto the corpse of the woman wearing the ghoul mask.

Maybe… the answer is in her.

Suddenly—

A warning bell exploded in his mind. His adrenaline surged.

There was no green light around her body.

“Millers—watch out!!”

The woman who had been lying motionless on the ground sprang upright without warning. Her hair was wild, her claws lashing out toward the nearest target—Millers.

Everything happened in a split second.

Axel lunged forward without hesitation and shoved Millers aside.

SwoOSH!

A razor-sharp claw pierced straight through Axel’s abdomen.

Disbelief flickered across the woman’s beautiful face—then pure fury.

“Idiot. So careless with your own body.”

Her rage twisted into deep resentment.

“I’ll have you… sooner or later.”

Her eyes turned blood-red. With her free hand, she slammed a pale green syringe straight into Axel’s body.

“Die.”

At that instant, Vince’s sword and Rosaline’s ice barrage arrived simultaneously.

Suddenly, massive patches of scales erupted across the woman’s body—like a fusion of granite and obsidian. Vince’s strike only split her skin without drawing blood.

Bang!

Her face was now completely covered in black scales, turning her ghostly beauty into something utterly feral.

She spat out a mouthful of blood, using the recoil to fling herself backward—then dropped to all fours and fled like a wild beast.

“Sky Curtain—now! Lock onto her scent!” Rosaline roared.

The Havoc Division guild leaders, still dazed from exhaustion, snapped into action and activated the formation.

But the Sky Curtain had already been shut down after Valerie’s death to save resources.

One minute later, Rosaline’s face was ashen.

“Too late… she’s already gone.”

The woman was already at the peak of Level Five. After altering her body again, her speed had become utterly terrifying.

“If I’m not mistaken…” Gideon’s voice drifted over grimly, “she’s become an Infected.”

Everyone’s pupils contracted sharply. The image of her blocking both Vince and Rosaline replayed in their minds.

“Scales… bone spurs… claws… This is impossible,” Finnegan laughed bitterly. “Infected and human forms switching freely. We’re in deep, deep trouble now.”

That information… was far more terrifying than Valerie’s death.

“Axel, Axel—what’s wrong?!”

Millers’s panicked shout cut through the chaos.

Only then did everyone remember—Axel was still critically wounded.

“He was still able to walk around a few minutes ago. How did he suddenly end up like this?!”

“What the hell happened?”

Thanks to Axel’s Abundant healing, the gaping wound in his abdomen had already closed, leaving only a narrow, blood-smeared gash behind. Yet his skin color kept shifting unnaturally—ashen one second, flushed the next—and his consciousness was clearly unstable.

“Poisoned?”

“Did he get stabbed with something just now?”

Everyone crowded in, frowning hard, but no obvious additional wounds could be found.