The sky above the Grimm Estate was not a sky anymore.

It had fractured – into long, burning fault-lines of light, as if the heavens themselves had cracked under pressure. Blue hellfire roared upward in violent cyclones, distorting the clouds, sucking the stars into spirals of flame and memory. Trees that once crowned the estate now stood as skeletal stumps, carbon shadows of what had once been life. The grass was gone. The earth had calcified into molten obsidian, crusted with gold veins that pulsed like a dying heart.

In the centre of it all: Max.

Or what remained of him.

His body shimmered with unstable geometry – a silhouette carved in blue flame and seething hatred. Horns curled backward from his skull like the crown of some fallen god. His hands bled azure light. From his spine, wings of pure hellfire unfurled in wild, jagged arcs – not feathered, not bat-like, but bladed, like the ribs of something too ancient to name. Where his feet touched, the ground melted. Where he looked, gold retreated.

He did not walk.

He advanced.

Across from him, Mammon, the last great ledger, rose anew from the cratered ruins. His mask, now cracked in three places, barely held shape. His robes were tatters, stitched together by threads of contract and wealth. Lines of glowing ink ran across his arms – tattoos of oaths, compounding interest, spiritual liabilities. Behind him, a corona of gold swirled, orbiting like planetary rings made of debt and acquisition.

Mammon raised his hand.

And the world responded.

Golden constructs surged from the void – swords made from expired futures, hissing vipers composed of cancelled prayers, scrolls that unfolded into blades mid-air. Currency writhed into form – paper and coin animated by contract and blood. A legion of metaphysical weapons screamed toward Max.

Mammon's voice cracked with effort – not divine, but desperate:

"All power must be collateralized!"

"All fire incurs debt!"

"Hell itself was underwritten – by me!"

The attacks hit.

And disappeared.

Max didn't block. Didn't dodge. He walked through them. Each weapon struck his hellfire and dissolved – not into ash, but into irrelevance. Like they'd never been created. Like their very premise had been erased.

He didn't speak.

He devoured.

Mammon staggered back – trembling. The flame warped the space around Max, turning metaphors into matter. His heat didn't radiate. It sucked reality inward – bending rules. Concepts. Balance sheets.

Then, Mammon snapped his fingers.

The earth heaved.

Behind him, the ruins of the Grimm Estate shifted. Foundations of old magic and debt-architecture coiled upward, forming a new construct – a colossal vault-sphere, shimmering with gold filigree. It was a planetary-sized fortress of contracts, rotating in mid-air, engraved with every name Mammon had ever enslaved. Every bargain. Every broken promise.

A sanctum of ownership itself.

He poured everything into it – all the energy left in his broken frame. His last defence.

And Max?

He stepped forward and sank his claws into the vault.

The golden sphere screamed – a chorus of voices from every dead soul trapped inside – as blue fire began to bleed through its seams. Max didn't flinch. His muscles coiled. His face – unreadable.

And with a growl like the end of language—

He began to tear it open.

…………………

Max stood inside the fire.

Not beside it. Not wielding it.

Inside it.

The inferno howled around him, not just sound but pressure – a hurricane of heat and judgment that twisted the world into something skeletal and scorched. Gold melted in every direction. Trees were gone. Walls were gone. Meaning itself seemed to disintegrate under the weight of his presence.

But inside… there was silence.

His fists dripped blue fire like they were bleeding light. Every breath he took shimmered with brimstone. His heartbeat was a percussion of tectonic shifts. And yet, through it all, through the glory and the wrath—

He saw himself.

In a sliver of Mammon's broken vault wall. A melted shard, curved and convex like a funhouse mirror… except it wasn't the mirror that was wrong.

It was him.

He leaned closer.

The reflection stared back – horns razored, fire-veins crawling like roots under cracked skin. His smile didn't reach his eyes. Because they were gone. Nothing left but blue: the colour of obliteration.

"Is this me?"

The thought barely formed.

Then came the voices.

Not from outside.

From within.

Liz's wept – "I begged." Chloe's defiance – "You're going to kill us all!" Dan's gasp – "Don't lose yourself!" Alyssa's roar – a girl who never broke. Victor's silence – a loyalty so heavy it hurt.

And April.

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Not a scream. Not a plea.

Just her voice. Whispered from the part of his soul that had never healed:

"Come home, Max."

He staggered.

The hellfire recoiled.

For one breath, he almost broke.

He stood on the edge – not of death, but of permanence. He could lose himself here. Entirely. Burn so bright there'd be no Max Jaeger left. Just flame. Just fury.

He wanted to let go.

And then—

A memory.

Victor's voice again, clear and solid:

"You come back from this, Max. Promise me."

He clenched his fists.

The fire didn't lash out.

It curled inward.

Compressed.

Spiralled around his arms like twin galaxies drawn into collapse. The wings of flame folded behind him, pulled tight against his spine. His shoulders straightened. His jaw clenched. His teeth gritted not with madness, but with purpose.

He thought of everything Mammon had done.

Every contract. Every soul. Every life broken for a profit margin. Everyone who had to suffer like Liz had.

He stepped forward.

The reflection cracked.

Max looked at the ruined form of Mammon struggling to rise – half-reformed, glowing with stolen light. And as his fire spun tighter, into a single point, a singularity of vengeance—

He whispered,

"This is for everyone you broke."

And punched with everything he was.

…………………

Rebalance. Recalculate. Re-establish control.

Mammon's internal calculations surged like wildfire – lines of golden logic stitching themselves together in the dark. Every movement Max made should have meant something. Should have fit into the ledger. Should have obeyed the laws.

But they didn't.

Max was not just an outlier.

He was a deficit.

A variable born from grief.

Mammon's systems screamed beneath the surface of his gilded flesh – his vision flickered with decimal fractals and stock collapse spirals. Every punch the man had thrown had cost something incalculable. Contracts were unravelling. Souls were defaulting. And still, Max rose.

The fire wasn't fire anymore.

It was loss without a ceiling.

"Every action has consequence," Mammon whispered aloud, stumbling backward through smoke that was folding inward on itself. "Every value… must be counterbalanced…"

He raised a hand, tried to summon something – anything: a hedge spell, a ledger seal, a divine lien. But his magic twitched. Stuttered.

The system wasn't broken.

It was bleeding.

And then – Max was there.

Right in front of him.

Not sprinting. Not screaming. Just moving with purpose.

A singularity of purpose wrapped in cobalt flame.

Mammon's mouth opened to speak again—

"To balance—"

The punch landed mid-sentence.

And everything ended.

There was no sound. There was no light. There was only rupture.

The impact detonated like a verdict, a soul-level rejection of everything Mammon stood for. It cracked the sky. Split the surface. A column of blue Hellfire exploded from the crater, punching through the clouds and into the atmosphere like Earth itself had spat something out.

Mammon's body folded in on itself—

A colossal hole vaporized through his chest.

Not just flesh. His soul-symbols – gone. His contract seals – unwritten. The core glyphs that kept his being anchored to economic order – obliterated.

He gasped.

Once.

Gold poured from his mouth like vomit made of currency. His arms shook. His legs buckled.

He looked down at the ragged crater in his torso – saw through himself for the first time.

Max stood across the scorched ruin, chest heaving, eyes burning.

Wordless.

The collector of debts fell to his knees.

Melt began at the edges.

First his fingers – softening into liquid bullion. Then his knees – collapsing into radiant sludge. His mask crumbled, cheeks sloughing off into molten stock-blood.

His mouth opened.

His voice cracked.

"Systems don't die. They reinvest."

And then – he was gone.

No scream. No flourish.

Just a river of molten gold, seeping into the shattered earth, bubbling once.

Then vanishing into silence.

Beneath the scorched soil, something pulsed once.

A trickle of gold. Then nothing.

The battle was over.

For now.

…………………

Max fell to his knees.

The blue fire still curled around his shoulders, flickering like a candle in the wind, but it was dim now – hollowed. His body swayed forward, his weight no longer his own. His fists, the same ones that had just torn through Mammon and the systems that bound him, trembled like paper in a breeze.

He couldn't feel them anymore.

His horns cracked. One split entirely and dropped into the ash. A second followed. The fire peeled back from his face. His skin, what was left of it, steamed under the cold sky.

He blinked. Once. Twice.

No one was there.

The Grimm Estate was gone. Just shattered foundations, blackened trees, a sky full of blue cracks that hadn't healed yet. The wind dragged smoke across scorched earth.

But beneath him—

Miles below, through vaults of broken stone and melted iron—

They were there.

Liz. Victor. Dan. Chloe. Alyssa.

He couldn't hear them.

Couldn't see them.

But he knew.

Max forced his arm forward. It shook violently, fingers splayed like they were being pulled apart. His palm kissed the ground. His forehead followed. The dirt tasted of cinders and regret.

With the last reservoir of Hellfire left in his heart, Max pushed.

A coil of flame burst from his palm – spiralling downward. Not an explosion. Not an attack.

A drill.

The fire spiralled tight, cutting through soulsteel, bedrock, contract-wards, and vault seams like a divine scalpel. The earth hissed as the tunnel burned downward. Blue light bled from the cracks.

Deeper.

Deeper.

Max's breath shuddered. His fire flickered.

Please.

At the bottom of the molten shaft – light.

Faint.

The ruins of the containment vault glowed with reborn warmth.

And then—

Movement.

Chloe.

She staggered forward, crouched low, one eye swollen shut, blade dragging at her side. Her coat was torn. Her body barely standing. But she was there – braced over Liz's pod, shielding it with her own frame.

She looked up.

Saw the tunnel of fire.

And through the searing light—

Saw him.

Her face cracked into something like a laugh. Or maybe a sob.

Max didn't smile. He couldn't. His mouth was blood.

But he spoke.

Soft. Final.

"Come home."

…………………

The tunnel glowed behind them, but the fire had gone.

Smoke curled in slow, mournful ribbons over the shattered remains of the Grimm Estate. The Institute below – once a labyrinth of secrets – was now a hollow scar in the earth. No walls. No roof. Just slag and ruin. Stone had liquefied into black glass. Trees stood as skeletal stumps, charred down to marrow. Of the great mansion, only the front steps endured – cracked, crooked, jutting from the rubble like a jaw full of shattered teeth.

Max stood still at the edge of it all, swaying. His legs barely held. His breath came shallow, lips split, body wrapped in the remnants of flame. Not even armour now – just heat clinging to old scars. The horns were gone. His skin was wreckage. But his eyes were clear.

Behind him, the others climbed from the tunnel.

Victor emerged first, limping, shoulders hunched like an old soldier pulling himself from a trench. His claws were dulled. One eye was swollen shut, his hair matted with blood. But he smiled when he saw Max. Didn't speak. Just nodded.

Dan came next, helping Chloe – her coat torn at the sleeve, one arm still wrapped tight to her side. Her phase-light flickered dimly, barely a spark. She carried Liz's pod with both hands, Dan lending his strength with what little aura remained in his fractured frame.

Alyssa was last. She had to be lifted – pinned ribs cracked, armour warped. Max dropped to one knee and helped dig her out, muscle by muscle, no words spoken. Her hand met his halfway. She winced. "Took you long enough."

She coughed blood, wiped it with her gauntlet, and forced a smirk. "Next time, I'll carry you."

Her hand trembled in his. But she didn't let go.

Together, they brought Liz's pod to the surface.

Max knelt beside it. Slowly. Every movement an ache. He laid one burned hand on the glass.

Inside—

Liz remained still. Her aura faint but steady. The glyphs no longer screamed. The containment held.

For now.

The others stood behind him. No formation. Just presence.

Dan looked at her through his fractured eye. "Told you she'd outlast us all."

Chloe with her head bowed, eyes on the girl she swore to protect. Victor crouched low, one claw idly scraping the dirt. Alyssa sat with her back against a chunk of fallen stone, not speaking.

They didn't talk.

There was nothing to say.

Not yet.

Above them, the sky was fractured – cracks still healing across a gold-streaked canvas. Mammon's influence was gone, but the wounds remained. Light filtered through those scars. Softer now. Less harsh.

A breeze moved across the battlefield.

Cool.

Clean.

Max inhaled once. Shuddered. Then stood.

He turned his back to the wreckage.

To the crater.

To the temple of pain they'd burned to the ground.

Behind him: Liz's pod.

Beside him: the people who had bled for her.

He didn't speak.

Didn't need to.

Together—

They walked forward.

Out of the fire.

Into whatever came next.

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