The clouds moved in tight circles, covering the sky like a blank canvas. A cold breeze washed over the ground, making the trees shudder. No sound, no movement. Just a deep, unsettling quiet. It had been that way for weeks. When the first rumors spread about the Sky Sword, people shrugged it off.
They had no reason not to, really. It was only an old myth, an impossible tale passed down by those who couldn't tell their dreams from their nightmares. But over time, the clouds had grown heavier, more menacing, and the sky itself had darkened in ways it shouldn't have. People stopped looking up.
Max stood on the edge of the empty field, eyes fixed above. His fingers trembled as he gripped his jacket tighter against the wind. It was said the Sky Sword would come for them, a sword forged from the heavens, able to crush entire worlds with a single swing.
Nobody knew why it would fall. Some said it was to punish the living for their sins, others that it was merely a test of fate.
Max didn't know what to believe anymore. All he knew was that he could see it. The glint of steel, high up, just beyond the cloud line. Not a reflection, not a mirage. It was real. It was coming.
The ground trembled beneath him, just slightly at first, as if something beneath the earth were stretching, preparing. He had read the reports, heard the accounts. Every planet touched by the sword met the same fate: instant destruction.
Unimaginable devastation, like being torn apart by a god's wrath. But nobody believed it would happen to Earth, not in their lifetime.
He wasn't sure how long he'd been standing there when he heard it. A faint crack, like the sound of glass breaking from far away. It was impossible to tell where it had come from. The wind seemed to carry the noise everywhere at once. Max's heart pounded in his chest.
The air around him felt heavier now, thick with something unspoken, like the moment before a storm rips apart the sky.
The crack sounded again, but louder this time. The earth shook beneath him, more violently now, as if the ground itself was crying out for mercy. He stumbled back, eyes darting around, searching for something—anything—that might explain this madness.
But there was nothing. Nothing except the darkening clouds and the distant glint of the sword, shining more brightly with each passing second.
The noise grew, a cacophony of distant cracks and pops, as if the sky were splitting open. Max's body trembled. He felt a strange pressure in his chest, a kind of weight that sank deeper with every breath he took. The atmosphere itself felt like it was collapsing in on itself.
He turned to run, but his feet wouldn't obey him. It was as if the ground was holding him in place, forcing him to witness whatever was about to unfold. There was no escaping it. The clouds above him now swirled with unnatural speed, spinning faster than the eye could follow. The sky was closing in, a slow, deliberate crushing of the atmosphere, and at the center of it all was the sword. Its blade gleamed, sharp as death, waiting to cut the world apart.
Max's thoughts were a jumbled mess. His instincts screamed at him to move, but his mind refused to process anything. The sword was real. And it was close.
Then, the first lightning bolt struck, not from the sky, but from the sword itself. It shot downward with a deafening crack that rattled Max to his bones. The ground erupted in a burst of fiery energy, and everything around him was thrown into chaos. The trees splintered, the rocks cracked open, and the earth itself seemed to tremble as though it feared the weight of the sword above.
Max fell to his knees, his breath shallow and erratic. He couldn't breathe. His lungs burned. The sky above him was tearing open now, a jagged line of crackling energy stretching from one end of the heavens to the other. It was as if the world itself was being drawn into the sword's gravity.
The light from the rift was blinding, too bright to look at directly, but Max couldn't look away. He felt like he was being pulled into it, drawn to it like a moth to a flame, unable to resist the inevitable.
But even as he tried to tear his gaze from the sword, he could see the devastation it caused. The distant horizon crumbled, buildings collapsing, mountains cracking open like dry leaves. He heard the screams of the dying, faint at first, then growing louder. The end had come.
Max forced himself to stand, but his legs gave way, and he collapsed back to the ground. His heart raced as the ground trembled beneath him again, this time harder, as if the very planet was being torn apart from the inside. The air tasted like metal. It was wrong.
The sword—impossibly—grew closer.
Max's throat tightened as the first hints of despair settled in. He wasn't ready for this. He couldn't be. What was he supposed to do against something like this? He had always thought he was prepared for the worst, that he could handle whatever the world threw at him.
But this, this was beyond anything his mind had ever grasped. The reality of it crushed him harder than any blow could. This was the end of everything, and there was no stopping it.
The ground cracked open, large fissures appearing in every direction. The force was so intense it felt like the planet itself was being cut in half.
He could hear the sound of something massive coming from deep underground, something ancient, like the roar of a beast awakening from a long slumber. The earth had no choice but to give way.
Max watched helplessly as the world crumbled around him, feeling the pressure building inside his chest, suffocating him with every breath. His vision blurred with tears, not from pain but from an overwhelming sense of loss, a loss that was too large to comprehend. There was no escape, no refuge. The sword was too powerful, and the world too fragile.
As he stood there, paralyzed by the sight of destruction, the sword above him seemed to slow, almost as if it was watching him, considering him. Max's knees buckled, and he fell to the ground.
His vision spun, and the roar of collapsing worlds filled his ears. He could feel the ground beneath him breaking apart, and the pressure in his chest intensified until it felt like his ribs would crack open.
Then, with one final shuddering gasp, the sky released the sword. It plummeted downward, a flash of blinding light.
Max never had time to scream.
The last thing he saw before everything went dark was the face of the sword—its blade gleaming, impossibly sharp, as it sliced through everything in its path. The ground split apart like a dying beast's last breath, and the sky itself seemed to collapse in a rush of endless destruction.
There was no escape.
And then… there was nothing left.