Cosmic Dominion: Rise Beyond Realms

The impact of my landing cracked the already scorched earth beneath me, sending a cloud of dust and ash billowing into the air. I stood in the middle of what was once my city—my home—and for the first time in years, I felt something other than rage...

It was grief…

Pain…

Intense pain….

My eyes scanned the ruined landscape, taking in the sheer devastation around me. The once-proud skyscrapers that pierced the clouds had crumbled into piles of twisted metal and shattered glass. The streets that used to buzz with life were now filled with silence…

Skeletons lay scattered everywhere. Some were slumped against the walls, while others sprawled across the cracked pavement. A few skeletons still clutched onto each other, frozen in their final moments of terror and desperation.

My gaze fell on the remains of a stroller lying overturned, the tiny skeleton of a baby curled up inside.

"God…" I whispered, my voice trembling. My throat tightened, and my chest felt heavy, like someone had driven a dagger straight through me.

I stepped forward, the crunch of bone and debris beneath my feet echoing in the stillness. Unburnt papers fluttered in the faint breeze, their edges singed, carrying remnants of a world that no longer existed. A torn corner of what looked like a family photo floated past me, the faces smudged and burned beyond recognition…

"I… I was too late," I muttered, my voice barely audible as I trudged through the ruins and destruction. "They're all… gone."

I wanted to cry, to let the overwhelming despair pour out of me, but I couldn't. Something inside me was broken, hollow. My eyes burned, but no tears came.

Every step I took felt heavier than the last. The air reeked of ash and burnt human flesh, a metallic tang that stung my nose and throat. My fists clenched at my sides, trembling with the weight of my helplessness.

"This is my fault," I whispered, my voice cracking. "I should've been here. I should've done something… anything."

As I walked through the remnants of what used to be my home, my gaze locked onto a particular skeleton, and my feet froze in place.

There, amidst the rubble, was a skeleton hunched protectively over another smaller skeleton. The larger one's arms were wrapped around the child, shielding them from whatever horrors had come in their final moments.

I couldn't move…

I couldn't breathe….

The sight hit me like a hammer to the chest. My lips trembled as I tried to form words, but nothing came out. My knees buckled, and I dropped to the ground in front of them, my hands trembling as I reached out but stopped just short of touching the skeletal remains. "Even in the end…" I said, my voice shaking, "They didn't let go. They… they held on."

But then something caught my eye. Wedged between the ribs of the larger skeleton was a small, dust-covered object. Squinting, I reached out cautiously, my fingers brushing against it. It was smooth and rectangular—a card of some kind…

Curiosity tugged at me, and I gently pulled it free, careful not to disturb the remains. I stood up slowly, my legs wobbling beneath me. My grip on the card tightened as I stared at it, trying to make out what it was through the layers of grime and ash that clung to its surface.

"What's this?!" I muttered under my breath, my voice hoarse and shaky. "Looks like an ID or something!!!"

I wiped the dust away with my hand, but the ash was stubborn, clinging to the surface. Bringing it closer to my face, I blew on it, the fine particles scattering into the air. Bit by bit, the details of the card came into view.

The words and image hit me like a speeding train.

"No…" My voice was barely a whisper, my hands trembling violently as I stared at the name and photo on the ID card. "No, no, no… this can't be…"

It was Maki.

Her face stared back at me from the faded photograph, smiling in a way I hadn't seen in years. Her name was printed in bold letters beneath it. The woman I had loved more than anything in the world. The woman who had taken me in when I had no one. The woman who had been my anchor.

I dropped to my knees, my breath hitching as the realisation tore through me. The skeleton…this skeleton…was her's.

"Maki…" I choked out, my voice breaking into a thousand pieces.

My hands shook uncontrollably as I reached out toward her remains. I hesitated, afraid of touching her, afraid of breaking even a single fragment of what was left. "No… please…" I muttered, my voice trembling. "This can't be real. This can't… be happening…"

"This is a dream…. Right!!!!"

"This has to be some type of bad dream…"

Carefully, with great gentleness, I gathered her skeleton into my arms. The brittle bones felt so fragile, so delicate, that I was terrified they might crumble at my touch. My hands cradled her as if she were still alive, as if she were still here.

Tears I didn't think I was capable of began to stream down my face, burning like acid as they fell. I held her closer, my forehead resting against the top of her skull, and I broke.

"I'm sorry," I whispered, my voice barely audible. "I'm so… so sorry…"

My chest heaved as sobs tore through me, raw and unrelenting. "I… I should have been here. I should've been here to protect you… to protect all of you…"

The ID card slipped from my hand, falling to the ground with a soft thud. My entire world had crumbled to ash, and I couldn't do anything to stop it.

"I promised…" I muttered, my voice cracking. "I promised I'd come back. I promised I'd never leave you…"

I clutched her skeleton tighter, as if holding her closer could somehow undo all of this, could somehow bring her back to me.

"Please…" I begged, my voice rising to a desperate wail. "Please, Maki… come back. Just come back…"

My screams echoed through the empty, ruined city, bouncing off the broken skyscrapers and shattered streets. "Take me instead!" I roared at the empty sky. "If anyone's listening, take me! Bring her back! Take me, goddammit!"

But there was no answer.

I buried my face against her remains, my shoulders shaking as agony ripped through me like a blade. "I'm so sorry," I whispered over and over, the words spilling from my lips in a torrent of guilt and grief. "I'll never leave again. I'll never go. Please, Maki… please…"

I lifted my head, my tear-streaked face in pain as I screamed at the heavens. It was a guttural, primal sound, filled with every ounce of rage, despair, and regret that consumed me.

But no amount of screaming could change what had happened. No amount of begging or pleading could bring her back.

I looked down at her skeleton, clutching her fragile skeleton in my arms, staring blankly at the empty, scorched world around me. My vision was blurred—not with tears, but something heavier, darker. A faint warmth slid down my cheek. I blinked, expecting it to be a tear, but it wasn't.

A single drop of blood fell from my eye, hitting the cracked ground below with a soft yet deafening sound.

Drip…

I froze, my breathing ragged, staring at the crimson stain on the ground. The weight of the moment crushed me. My mind spiralled into a vortex of grief, despair and then something else. Something darker. A fire deep within me began to burn.

I gritted my teeth, my hands trembling as I clutched Maki's remains tightly.

The blood continued to drip from my eyes, each drop igniting the ashes on the ground, sparks turning into tiny flickers of flame. The heat around me intensified. The air itself grew heavy and suffocating, as though everything around me knew something monstrous was awakening.

"I'll kill them…" I muttered under my breath, my voice low and venomous. "I'll kill every one of those bastards who did this… I will rip them to shreds…"

The energy inside me, that relentless, unyielding force that had been dormant for so long, began to stir. I could feel it leaking out, pulsing with every beat of my heart. The flames from the destroyed buildings around me started to burn brighter, their orange hues shifting to an intense, almost blinding white.

Then, a voice…

It came from within, deep and malevolent, slithering through my mind like a serpent.

"Let the rage consume you. Destroy everything."

Its tone was intoxicating, evil, yet so… familiar. It wasn't foreign—it was me. The darkest, most twisted part of me, whispering promises of vengeance, of carnage.

I clenched my jaw, my fingers digging into the brittle bones of Maki's remains. For a moment, I hesitated, clinging to whatever shred of humanity I had left. But then I looked down at her skeleton—crumbling, broken, the last fragment of my world—and something inside me snapped.

I spoke through gritted teeth, my voice a low, guttural growl.

"Yes… Yes. Let it all burn."

The moment I agreed, the energy inside me erupted. It didn't just leak anymore—it surged, bursting forth like a dam breaking under the weight of an unstoppable flood.

The flames around me roared to life, rising higher and higher, their brightness rivalling the sun itself. The ground beneath me cracked and split apart as rocks and boulders began to lift into the air, defying gravity, spinning wildly around me like a chaotic dance.

"Maki…" I whispered, my voice trembling as I looked down at her skeleton. "I'll avenge you. I'll destroy everything…"

But the energy was uncontrollable. My hands trembled violently, and the very remains I held so carefully began to disintegrate in my arms. The bones turned to ash, slipping through my fingers like sand in the wind.

"No… no, no, no!" I yelled, trying to grasp the ashes, but they slipped away. "Maki! No!"

And then, with a horrifying finality, the last fragment of her—my last connection to her—crumbled completely.

Something primal and monstrous rose within me. My breathing became erratic, my chest heaving as I clenched my fists.

"Whoever did this, they will pay for this. Every last one of them will fucking pay!"

The voice inside me spoke again, louder, more commanding. "Unleash it all. Don't hold back. Destroy everything."

The air around me warped and twisted, shimmering with the raw heat of my energy. My eyes burned—literally burned—as if they were on fire. A crimson glow erupted from them, leaking outward like molten lava. The edges of my vision blurred red, and the heat vision seared from the corners of my eyes, giving it a terrifying appearance like my eyes were melting into flames.

I screamed—a guttural, feral roar that tore through the fabric of reality itself. The sound was deafening, shaking the world, the air, and the space beyond it.

"ARGHHHHHHH..."

The roar reverberated across the planet, and reality began to collapse. Cracks formed in the very fabric of space-time, stretching out like spiderwebs in the void. The energy within me wasn't just destroying the world—it was threatening existence itself.

Fires raged brighter, consuming everything in their path. The flames spiralled upward, reaching toward the heavens as if trying to devour the stars themselves. The boulders and rocks spinning around me were pulverised into dust.

The sun above me, already massive in the sky due to the lack of atmosphere, began to distort. Its surface rippled unnaturally, responding to the sheer force of my energy.

The voice inside whispered one last time,

"End it. Burn it all."

I raised my hand to the blazing sun, my eyes glowing brighter than ever, and screamed with every ounce of rage, despair, and hatred in my soul. And then, the sun exploded….

It erupted into a massive supernova, its brilliant light consuming everything in its path. The Earth was obliterated instantly, the surface turning to magma before being incinerated completely. The entire solar system disintegrated in the wake of the blast, planets reduced to ash, moons crumbling into dust.

The explosion rippled outward, spreading through the galaxy, consuming everything in its path—stars, planets, entire systems. The universe itself seemed to scream in agony as reality fractured under the weight of my unleashed rage.

And then, there was silence.

TO BE CONTINUED