The climb to the top of the DoomSpire was supposed to be glorious.

Instead, it felt like dying in slow motion.

Your legs barely held you. Your breathing tasted like blood and smoke. Every step up that final, spiraling staircase felt like a punishment from the universe itself. You had carved your way through an entire army brutes in obsidian armor, spectral soldiers carved from ash, mechanical constructs that didn’t know the meaning of mercy. At one point you weren’t even sure if you were climbing anymore or just crawling upward out of spite.

But you made it.

And the moment you hauled yourself onto the final platform… you realized you might’ve preferred dying somewhere on the stairs.

The top of the DoomSpire was an arena carved into the very bones of the sky. Storm clouds cracked with red lightning overhead, and the winds screamed like they were warning you to turn back. And there, standing in the center was him.

Doombringer. The God of Justice. The God of Destruction. The Executioner of the Pantheon.

Twenty-five feet of raw, carved fury.Armor like volcanic rock fused with steel. A single molten eye glaring from beneath his helm. And his arm cannon the one you had heard stories about whirred quietly at his side, too calm for something that could vaporize a fortress.

For one single, terrible second, he didn’t move. He stared you down. Measured you. Judged you.

And then you felt it. regret. Immediate. Absolute. Crushing.

This wasn’t a god. This was the sword the Pantheon used when diplomacy failed.

You staggered forward, gripping your weapon of choice blade, hammer, bow, gun, scythe, whatever you had agonized over forging for this moment. The weight suddenly felt pathetic in your shaking hands.

He didn’t speak. Gods like him didn’t need to.

Instead, his first action was—

A kick.

Not a shove. Not a testing tap. A kick that hit your stomach with enough force to make your soul consider ejecting.

The world flipped. Your spine bent like a folding chair. Air whooshed violently from your lungs as your body launched skyward—higher than the top of the arena, higher than you ever wanted to be while injured.

And below, far below, you heard it..

WRRRRRRRRRRRRRR—THOOM

His arm cannon spun to life. Red energy built at its core like a dying star collapsing inward.

You’d barely regained enough sense to stop yourself from falling straight back down to your death. Every muscle screamed. Your vision blurred. Gravity clawed at you, hungry.

Then—

FWOOM

The cannon fired.

A beam of raw, divine annihilation tore through the sky, aiming directly where your face had been half a heartbeat ago. The shockwave alone felt like getting punched by a hurricane.

You twist barely feathers of hair singed by the blast.

And there he was, far below, already preparing to jump. Because of course he was. He wasn’t going to let you catch your breath.

The god of Justice didn’t grant mercy. He granted lessons.

And right now? You were about to learn exactly why no one challenged him twice.

“Stand up,” his voice finally boomed, echoing through the red-lit clouds as he crouched, ready to leap after you.

“If you can’t survive a kick… you’re not worthy of a title. Or a grave.”