Anthesis of Sadness
Chapter 133: A Puppet of Hatred

Chapter 133: A Puppet of Hatred

Everything inside me surged. Like a black tide, like a storm rising from the depths, like a scream forgotten for a thousand years and suddenly awakened all at once.

I no longer knew where I was. Nor what I was. There were no more limits. No more name. No more skin. Just that. That wave. That scream. That thing that wanted out.

— IT’S ALL BECAUSE OF YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!

The scream escaped me. It wasn’t spoken. It wasn’t shouted. It was expelled. Torn out. Ripped from me like a piece of flesh that had been suffocated too long. It was a bestial discharge, overloaded, monstrous. A cry that was no longer human. A wave of rage so pure, so raw, so naked in its ugliness that I felt the air itself tremble, vibrate in its bones, in its nerves, in its invisible veins.

And then, the blood from the sky rose.

A shiver ran through the space. A breath before the storm. As if the whole world held its breath. Even the light hesitated, wavered, as if overcome with vertigo. And then...

Everything that had spilled. Everything I had poured. Everything I was. Liters, rivers, crimson oceans, torrents of suffering, memory, liquid guilt. They rose. In spiral. In crown. In cry. And rushed toward her. Straight. Absolute. Like a divine sentence from a god that could no longer stay silent.

But they stopped.

Sharp.

Motionless.

Suspended.

Every drop, every streak, frozen in the air like a withheld warning, as if time itself had held its breath. She held them. Her. Not me. It was she who had control. She who still commanded my own blood.

Somewhere, far off in the stands, a spectator held their breath. They didn’t understand what they were seeing. No one did. But everyone knew this wasn’t normal. This was no longer a fight.

So I charged.

No scream this time. No words. Just breath, muscles, hate. Like a bull. Like a condemned creature. Like a thing that hadn’t been killed fast enough. My legs screamed. My heart exploded. I was no longer a being. I was a projectile.

I severed my own hand in one motion. To go faster. So the blood would flow, the speed would come, the magic would take. Pain? It had left my dictionary. I no longer had the luxury to feel it. The blood gushed in a spray, painting my passage with a crimson trail. A gash through space.

She retaliated.

I lost a foot.

It regrew.

I continued.

A voice passed through me — fleeting, distorted — "Slow down, you’re going to die." Maybe mine. Maybe the one from before. I crushed it. There was no more room for caution.

She slashed my flank.

My entrails fell out.

I stomped on them without slowing. Without thinking. They were extra. Dead weight. I was no longer a man. I was a red skeleton. A heap of hatred and shredded muscle. An incarnate scream. A vengeful scream.

And I reached her.

The contact wasn’t a blow. It was a fusion. A collision between two wills that nothing could stop.

My jaw clamped down on her throat. That was the moment, the spark, the bite that was supposed to change everything — the beast’s cry returning to the source, blood reverting to primal law. But nothing. My fangs exploded. Literally. Shattered. Reduced to shards, like glass breaking on marble. Her skin... wasn’t flesh. Not of this world. It was a divine surface, a wall of absolute. And I felt the shockwave ripple through my jaw to my skull, bursting something in my temples.

So I screamed.

Not a human scream. Not a beastly one either. A scream outside everything, outside the world, outside thought. A scream so high-pitched, so rending, it seemed to twist the space around me. A sound no one should be able to produce. A rasp torn from the depths of the abyss. A vibration too pure to bear.

I extended my claws.

And I struck.

I clawed.

I slashed.

I hacked.

I tore at everything I could, in a frenzy of brutal, rhythmic, compulsive gestures. But the claws exploded too. Ripped from my fingers, pulverized under the tension. There was nothing to latch onto. Nothing to wound. Her body was a fortress of eternity. And yet I kept going.

I was no longer a man. No longer a creature. No longer a beast. I was a fragment of rage. A shard of pure hatred, without words, without memory, without limits. A pulse. A living beat of refusal.

My body was no longer mine. It was a mass of burning nerves, a carcass animated by hate. Even my own limbs felt foreign — tools. Disposable weapons.

So I struck with my fists.

Then, when the bones cracked, with my slashed forearms.

Then, when the flesh burst, with my bones exposed from open wounds beaten raw — bones like dead roots still searching for one last hold in the soil of oblivion.

Then, when there was nothing left, I struck with my head. Shattered. Dripping. I smiled in the pain. I smiled in the loss. I smiled like one defies the abyss knowing it’s already too late.

And I continued.

I had no more goal. No more possible victory. Only the gesture remained. The refusal to give up. A senseless obstinacy. But I clung to it like a prayer.

With everything I had left.

A convulsing torso.

Bloody stumps.

A cracked skull, shattering with each impact like a cursed stele.

A gaping ribcage, opened like a book of flesh whose last pages no one wanted to read.

I struck with the impossible.

With the warped faith of despair.

With the forgotten love of hatred.

With myself.

I fought with my existence. No longer with my fists, no longer with my claws, no longer with what muscle or weapon remained. I fought with my breath, with my memories, with what identity I had left. Every blow, every motion, every groan torn from my guts was no longer driven by a body — it was my soul, raw, exposed, hurled at her like a final desperate offering. I struck her with my being. With my essence. With everything I had become. With everything I had lost. I struck her like one begs for an end.

Even sound seemed to have retreated. There were no more noises, no more echoes. Only the mute impacts of my agony. Only the absurd rhythm of a heart that refused to stop.

Blood escaped me from every possible path. From my eyes, my nostrils, my ears. Every orifice was an open wound. A leak. A bleeding of the soul. My skull rang hollow. My heart beat too fast, too hard, as if it too wanted to escape this shattered ribcage.

And still... I laughed.

I laughed like a damned soul. Like those who know nothing awaits them. Like those who no longer expect anything. I laughed like a mad king, standing in the flames of his own kingdom, watching the ashes fall like snow. I laughed because I no longer knew how to cry. Because sadness had left me, devoured by a rage too vast, too ancient, too pure to allow room for anything else. I wanted her to fall. To bleed. To explode in my hands. Or to destroy me. Reduce me to ashes, to crumbs, to dust. To erase me from the world.

But she was still standing.

Standing.

Unalterable.

And me... I was nothing. No longer a man. No longer a warrior. I was a puppet of meat and hate, a remnant of will gathered in a pile of convulsing flesh, crawling at her feet like a torment that refused to die.

I scraped the ground. Like a beast. Like a dying man. I tore my nails against the stone. I carved furrows of blood and shame across the floor. And I moved forward. I crawled. I offered her what was left of me. I begged her — not to be saved. Not to be loved. Just to be finished. Or hated. Let her reject me. Spit on me. Condemn me.

But she did nothing.

I expected a blow. A sentence. An explosion. But there was nothing. Nothing but that void. That chasm between her and me. That absence of action. As if the world had stopped believing in it.

Nothing.

She looked at me.

Simply.

She looked at me.

And that look... that look that didn’t strike, that didn’t speak, that didn’t tremble... that look killed me more than everything else.

Because it said everything.

It said: you’re not even worth my anger anymore.

And that’s when I knew. That there was nothing left to save. Not me. Not her. Not this world.