The traveler arrived just before the first crack of dawn. The world he entered was one of decay, consumed by a hunger that could never be sated. He had seen many worlds, many civilizations.
They all ended the same way: with a slow, miserable death. A crawling rot that sank into the bones of everything it touched. He had seen it all before. This world would be no different. He would make sure of that.
The ship settled on the ground, its sleek silver frame reflecting the light of the distant stars. It wasn't designed to be graceful, only functional. It had no need for beauty. It was built to get in, to take what it wanted, and leave. But this time, it was different. This time, there would be no leaving.
The traveler stepped out of the ship. His body, a reflection of the worlds he had traversed, was tall, lean, almost transparent in its strange fluidity. His skin was a pale, sickly shade, like a piece of paper that had been left too long in the sun. His eyes, black and hollow, absorbed everything they looked at.
The earth, the air, the light. All of it seemed wrong, too dull, too raw for his refined senses. The people here were different from the ones he had encountered before. They had a sickness to them, a desperation. A hunger.
The traveler had no interest in them, though. He didn't need to feed on them, nor did he desire their company. What he wanted was far simpler. He wanted to end it. End everything. The lives, the suffering, the ceaseless cycles.
His ship had brought him here not to conquer or enslave but to put an end to the grotesque display of existence. The end of all things, in one grand, final act of greed. And he would be the one to deliver it. The one to crush the world under his heel.
The morning came. A cold, biting wind swept across the barren landscape, carrying with it the smell of something rotten, something decaying. The traveler took a long, slow breath, filling his lungs with the scent of death.
He had been to countless worlds, but he had never felt the weight of it like he did here. He looked up at the sky. It was empty. Not a single star to be seen. Only a dull gray that stretched endlessly in every direction.
He walked forward, his footsteps steady and deliberate, though there was no real destination in mind. He had already been to the places that mattered. He had seen what he needed to see. The cities, the people.
They were all the same, all consumed by the same emptiness that had long since taken root in him. He was beyond them, beyond the need for any connection. All he had to do was watch it all burn, to take what was his and end it.
The traveler passed through empty streets. The buildings were broken, their walls cracked and weathered by time. The windows were shattered, their glass long gone. He could feel the eyes of the few who remained, watching him from the shadows. They knew what he was, and they were afraid. They should be. It was too late for them. It was too late for everyone.
He stopped in front of a tall, decaying structure. Its once proud face was now faded, its metal skin rusted and warped. A tower that had once been a beacon of human achievement now lay in ruins, a monument to the futility of it all.
He could almost hear the voices of those who had built it, their cries of ambition, their hopes of immortality. How small, how insignificant it all seemed now. It was all gone, wiped away in an instant.
The traveler ran a hand over the rough surface of the building, the cold metal scraping his fingers. His mind wandered, thoughts of the endless cycles of destruction and rebirth that had plagued every world he had visited. It always ended the same way: decay.
He had tried to fix it once, long ago. He had tried to stop the endless cycle, to repair what was broken. But it had been futile. There was no fixing it. There was no saving anyone. And there was no escaping the truth that had become clearer with each world he destroyed. The hunger, the greed, the corruption.
They were part of the universe. A fundamental truth that could not be avoided. He would not save them. He could not save them. The traveler's purpose now was clear: to be the last act of destruction, the final gasp before everything fell into ruin.
He began walking again, his pace steady, methodical. He could feel it then, a strange pull in the air, like a thread tugging at him. It was the last remnant of the planet's resistance, an echo of something that had once been alive.
It was weak, fragile, but it was there. He knew what it was: hope. It was a futile hope, a wish that things could somehow be different. It wasn't real, but it was still there. And it was that hope that had made him so disgusted by these creatures.
How could they still believe? After everything? They deserved to die, all of them. He would see to it himself.
His feet took him to a quiet alley, one that seemed forgotten by time. The wind had long since stopped here, leaving a stagnant stillness in the air. The buildings loomed above, their windows vacant, dark eyes staring down at him.
There were no people here, no sound. But he could feel them. He could feel the life of the world, hidden beneath the surface, struggling, weak, waiting for something. It sickened him.
He stopped in the center of the alley. There was something here, something that had drawn him to this place. He could sense it, feel its pull deep in his chest. It was like a whisper, like the distant murmur of a dying world calling to him.
He knelt to the ground, his cold fingers brushing against the cracked pavement. Beneath it, something shifted. A tremor ran through the earth, faint but real.
He leaned closer, his breath catching in his throat. There, beneath the surface, he could feel it. The last remnants of life, struggling to survive. A small flicker of something, of hope, buried so deep it could never reach the light again.
He reached down, his fingers digging into the ground, tearing at the stone. The pull grew stronger, more desperate. It was begging to be freed, begging for release.
But the traveler wasn't here to save it. He wasn't here to fix it. He was here to end it. To end everything.
With a final, forceful motion, he tore the earth apart, revealing the heart of the world beneath. It pulsed, faint but steady, like the beat of a dying heart. The last shred of life, the last shred of hope. He looked at it for a moment, his black eyes reflecting its fragile light. It wasn't enough. It was never enough. It would never be enough.
The traveler raised his hand, ready to crush it, to snuff out the last vestige of hope. But as his fingers hovered above it, something changed. He felt it then, the pull of it. The grip it had on him, the weight of its life.
It wasn't just a dying world. It was him. It was all of him, all of his failures, all of his greed, all of his endless pursuit of power and destruction. It was his own corruption, his own decay.
He froze, the realization crashing into him like a wave. There was no escaping it. No leaving it behind. He was part of this world, just as it was part of him. He had come here to destroy, but in doing so, he had already sealed his own fate.
The traveler's hand trembled, the darkness in his eyes flickering for the first time. And then, without a sound, the earth beneath him began to crack, and the last shred of life was extinguished. But it wasn't just the world that died. The traveler felt himself falling, his body consumed by the very thing he had come to destroy.
As he disappeared into the abyss, the last thing he heard was the sound of his own heart, pounding, louder and louder, until it was all he could hear.