Extra's POV: My Obsessive Villainous Fiancee Is The Game's Final Boss-Chapter 440: Is That All You’ve Got?!

The street was filled with rubble.

Whole buildings had collapsed around them, leaving only splintered beams jutting up into the sky like broken ribs. 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

Smoke and snow mingled in the air, and the ground was slick with blood, most of it Thorn's.

Tam stalked forward through the haze, golden eye blazing, water sloshing from his shoulders like liquid armor.

Every step left puddles in his wake, those puddles steaming faintly as if they carried the heat of his fury.

Thorn stood across from him, chest heaving, his bone armor cracked in half a dozen places.

His right arm hung limp, ribs punctured through the plating, every breath a knife twisting inside him. Still, he raised his guard, bone claws lengthening from his left hand.

"Still standing?" Tam's voice was quiet, more dangerous for its calm. "Then I'll break you again."

He blurred forward, propelled by an eruption of water at his heels.

Thorn shifted charges into speed, his body jerking unnaturally as he forced himself to match. Their fists met in the middle of the ruined street.

The impact split the ground.

Thorn's armor shattered further, splinters of bone spraying into the air.

Tam barely slowed, his other hand slamming into Thorn's gut like a battering ram.

Thorn's body bent around the blow, blood spraying from his mouth as he was hurled into a crumbling wall.

The stones cracked on impact, collapsing over him in a cascade of rubble.

With a roar, Thorn shoved the stones off and staggered upright.

He shifted charges into strength, into bone, into anything that would hold his body together. His armor regrew, spikes bristling across his shoulders.

"Come on then!" he shouted, his voice raw.

Tam obliged.

The Tidecaller hurled a drill of spinning water straight at Thorn's chest.

Thorn crossed both arms in front of him, bone thickening into a shield. The drill smashed into it, water shrieking like a saw against stone.

For a moment, Thorn held. Then the drill detonated.

The explosion ripped his armor apart, shards of bone embedding into his own flesh.

Thorn was sent tumbling end over end through the wreckage of another house, skidding across the cobblestones until he came to a halt in a heap.

He tried to push himself up, but his arms buckled. His vision swam, golden sparks from Tam's cursed eye burning in his sight even when he closed his own.

Footsteps approached.

Tam stood over him, water dripping steadily from his clenched fists. "This is what you chose. Death."

Thorn coughed, blood streaming from his lips.

His body screamed, every muscle tearing, every bone cracking under the strain of keeping him alive. He could feel himself breaking, piece by piece.

Tam raised a hand, water spiraling into another drill. The glow of his golden eye was merciless.

Thorn closed his eyes.

Ren's face filled his mind.

Not as he was now, resolute and unyielding, but back then, when they were still nothing.

When they were just boys fighting in the mud, dreaming of strength they couldn't even comprehend.

Ren had dragged him this far.

Through calamities, through madness, through despair.

Every step Thorn had taken was because Ren had been there, pushing, pulling, refusing to let him fall behind.

"I can't…" Thorn whispered, forcing his jaw to move through the pain. "I can't let him down. Not here. Not now."

Tam's drill whined, its edges sharpening. "Then die remembering him."

But Thorn's body shifted. Charges flooded through him, frenzied and reckless.

They stitched torn muscles, forced bones to knit, and dragged blood back into his veins even as it spilled.

His back straightened. His legs locked. His ruined arm twitched, then clenched into a fist.

Step by agonizing step, Thorn climbed to his feet.

His bone armor reformed in jagged spikes, glowing faintly from the sheer energy he was funneling into it.

His breathing was ragged, but his grin was feral.

"I'm not done," he spat, blood running down his chin. "Not while Ren still needs me."

The air shook with the sound of his charges working overtime, like a living engine forcing him forward.

Tam's golden eye narrowed as Thorn raised his fists again, defiant even on the edge of death.

"So, you want to die standing." He scoffed. "I'll oblige."

Thorn chuckled, his legs trembling under his weight.

Even as it knitted together, his bone armor kept cracking into jagged pieces and flaking away with every movement.

He could feel the strength leaving him. His vision went woozy for a second before stabilizing.

Blood ran freely down his side, every breath a shallow rattle. Yet his grin remained, lips split and teeth red.

"Still here," he growled, voice little more than gravel.

Tam snarled back. "Then I'll have to erase you."

He hurled forward, water bursting from his heels to propel him.

A spinning drill encased his arm, roaring as it cut through the air.

Thorn surged to meet him.

He dumped his last charges into strength and bone, forcing his body to obey though every muscle screamed in rebellion.

His arm thickened into a jagged club of ivory, and he swung with everything he had.

They collided.

The impact cracked the street apart, the sound deafening.

The shockwave hurled rubble away like chaff.

Thorn's bone cracked under the force, his arm fracturing in a dozen places. But he held, pushing back against Tam's relentless drill.

The stalemate went on for a few seconds, sparks flying in the air, neither side willing to give an inch.

Then they both shoved, staggering back.

Thorn grinned, wiping the blood dripping from his lips.

He chuckled, surging forward with claws of bone growing on his fingers.

They clashed for a few seconds, bones meeting water drills.

They traded blow for blow, stubborn and unyielding, warriors refusing to bow even as their bodies screamed to fall.

Thorn could feel his breath getting more ragged but he didn't care.

Blood streamed from his mouth, but he laughed, a low, savage bark.

"Is that all you've got?!"