CHAPTER 449: ALIVE

"We’ve got you, Booker!"

The phoenix caught the falling male in her talons, her grip surprisingly gentle for a creature of such power. Booker felt the rush of air as Feenie ascended, her wings beating furiously to carry them away from the explosion. Steam missiles chased after them, the hissss rattling Booker’s already battered instincts, but none could touch them. Feenie’s speed was unmatched.

As they soared higher, the rain began to let up. The clouds parted just enough for a single ray of sunlight to break through. Booker managed a faint smile and flipped himself out of the talons and onto the base of the tail.

"Ha." Booker wiped the blood from his mouth, only to find himself staring at more blood. His forehead had been bit badly. "You two get this chicken rested up."

"W-what? Are you sure you’re okay?"

The light was coming closer. A gap between the clouds. At the same time, Booker stared down the chasing steam missiles. "It is still tracking us. It’s still alive even with the explosions."

This infant...

Unlike with their mother, they had not and could not get rid or disorient its echolocation or magnetic sensing. Put simply, this was the full might of the Bake-kujira’s sensing capabilities. Even while being bombarded, it was capable of tracking them down.

Ridiculous.

He jumped and dived head-first once more.

’The bombs won’t kill, it will only permanently strip it of its power to birth monsters. If that’s the case, it’s going to adapt and learn. It is only an infant after all. It WILL learn.’

Fire. Acid. The plague. Its potential was limitless.

He needed to prepare. He needed Jules and her phoenix to be at full capacity. The missiles stopped ten inches from his forehead.

’Counterflow Stance.’

He slammed his arms into them, simultaneously breaking them apart.

Three bombs. Three hundred some explosions fusing together for something greater. The fiery projectiles had erupted outward in all directions and still

exploding. The lake was mildly churning and claiming the charred remains of whatever monsters the Bake-kujira was summoning.

Without the support of the fish, it flailed helplessly, its movements sluggish and erratic. Steam poured from its wounds. Bone did not heal easily. So what could Booker do? In midst of an explosion still going, against bone that did not break to the strength of man?

His eyes went razor sharp.

Booker Davis Jr. had never been one for titles. He wasn’t a king, a hero, or some prophet from the stars. But once—just once—the world had named him something.

A title lost to time.

But the power? That never faded.

BOOM.

He dropped like a meteor.

His foot crashed down with the force of a thousand strikes, a single perfect impact delivered to the crown of the Bake-kujira’s skull. The air around them detonated from the pressure. A shockwave erupted, blasting water outward in a perfect ring. The very lakebed cracked beneath the force.

The Bake-kujira screamed—a shriek of pain, of disbelief.

Because it cracked.

Not from a barrage of strikes.

Not from an army.

Not from a divine weapon.

From one attack.

Booker bounced off and whipped his head toward it. His fists clenched. His eyes burned. His skin crackled with power. He was suddenly on the water. He did not slip into it. At the very last second, his foot tapped at it and he was off. Charging right at a monster that he had no right to be fighting.

He caught its jaw with a hand.

A man. Catching a kaiju.

The Bake-kujira opened its maw, mist swirling—ready to unleash its Fire Annihilation Breath for the first time in its life.

No.

Booker reared back his fist and slammed it into the roof of the creature’s mouth. Another crack. Another detonation of force. The blast sent the whale staggering backward. Its breath failed—the flame dying in its throat.

It was an infant. He got lucky with its inexperience, with its slowness. So Booker didn’t let up.

He leapt. A left hook to the temple. A right jab to the eye socket. He was faster, stronger. A one-man army against a creature of legend.

He backed away the moment hundreds of steam missiles fired off. He leapt back, back, back, dodging with every ounce of his six senses.

Boom, boom, boom!

He couldn’t rip them apart, so he had them crash into each other. The Red Bake-kujira was smart. She knew he would dodge. The slow little monster had strategized and lashed out with its swinging tail.

Booker caught it.

He caught a three-hundred-ton tail with one hand.

His feet dug into the water, the force carving trenches into the lakebed. His arm strained, his body howled, but he held. He held.

And then, with a growl, with a roar that shattered the storm itself—

HE THREW IT.

Three hundred tons of vengeance, launched into the sky.

The clouds split. The winds screamed. The Bake-kujira’s massive body flipped, twisted—then crashed back into the lake, sending a wave so massive it flooded the shore.

Silence.

For the first time, the Bake-kujira hesitated.

Because the man it faced was no ordinary warrior.

He was the Former Chosen One of Earth.

And if he wanted to—if he truly put his mind to it—

He could kill a god.

****

"First the Great Sin, now the Chosen One..."

A laugh.

"Both walking in my Territory, both threatening the sacristy of the gods..."

She laughed harder.

High above the chaos, where the sky stretched endless and black, where stars flickered like whispers of old gods, she watched.

The winds did not reach here. The storm below was a distant hum, the scent of fire and blood no more than a vision This place—the space between realms—belonged to her.

A chariot, wreathed in shadow, stood still as if the very night had congealed into shape. Its steeds did not breathe, did not move, yet their presence swallowed the light.

She watched. And she smiled.

Booker Davis Jr stopped wars. Saviour of the old world. Saviour of another. He met the Great Sin. He met the one that should not be met. The one whom she sensed but could no longer find. The Chosen One and the Great sin, both impossibilities of humans.

How delicious.

The sins of the past, a man untethered from fate. A soul that should have burned away, and another who refused to be erased. Two forces, each enough to make the heavens shudder.

And the gods...

Oh, the gods must be so afraid.

Her fingers traced the air and the stars flickered as if wincing from her touch.

"Good."

Far below, battle still raged, but up here? Up here, where the weight of the sky had no hold, where eternity stretched unbroken?

She watched. She waited.

And she smiled.