Chapter 52: Alexander, The Lord Of Hope

Pow! Pow! Pow! Pow!

The Russian fired four bullets in one swift motion—each aimed to corner Alexander, converging like a steel net meant to snare the wounded boy.

But Alexander’s eyes caught them.

With a twitch of pain in his brow, he launched himself upward on one leg, twisting midair to evade the two bullets slicing vertically along his left side. In that suspended moment—blood pulsing, breath stolen—a truth he hadn’t known flared into being: the pain in his leg wasn’t enough. Not enough to dodge them all.

Two bullets struck.

They punched through flesh like needles through wet paper, carving twin tunnels beneath his skin, severing fibers, shredding muscle.

“Aaah!”

Alexander screamed—a raw, guttural sound torn from his chest. Veins bulged at his temples. His ears rang like church bells in a storm. He was trapped in agony, pinned by the cruelty of the moment.

“That’s what is representing your clan ?” Captain Blue mocked, voice slick with theatrical cruelty.

The Russian threw his head back and laughed—deep, guttural, thick with his native accent. “Hah! Hah-hah! You scream like a puppy!”

No remorse. None. This man had long since bathed in blood until it felt like water. From his first kill to this one, he’d watched countless souls return to the dust they were born from—and he’d never once flinched.

“I held the Grid Lions in high regard,” he sneered, balancing the pistol lazily on Alexander’s chin, barrel pointed skyward like a scepter. “But now? They recruit pathetic little boys like you? Pah! Disgrace!”

He stared at Alexander with open disgust, as if the boy were less than mud on his boot.

Then, slowly, savoring every millisecond—he curled his forefinger around the trigger. Extended it. Pulled back with deliberate, almost loving slowness.

Until

Pow!!!

The final bullet erupted from the barrel.

And struck Alexander square in the chin—the softest, least protected place on his body.

The bullet sailed through bone and brain like a comet through empty sky, meeting no resistance, no barrier. It burst out the top of his skull in a crimson plume, trailing gore and vaporized thought.

Blood rained down.

The crowd roared, not in horror, but in ecstasy. It wasn’t death that thrilled them. It was who had died. A Grid Lion. A rising name. And watching him fall? That was poetry.

They weren’t scared. Not even as Alexander’s eyes bulged, straining as if trying to leap from their sockets, his face locked in silent suffocation.

Bray, however, clapped a hand over his mouth. His face went pale. Tears shimmered at the corners of his eyes, trembling but unshed.

“You want me to learn from that?” Captain Blue crowed, now more ringmaster than rival. “He’s dead!”

“No, he isn’t,” Captain Fiona cut in—sharp, calm, shattering the smug aura Blue had draped around himself like a cape.

“He shot him point-blank!” Blue snapped, defensive. “Not even I could walk away from that!”

Fiona shook her head, disappointment etched into every line of her face. A soft clickclicked in her throat—disdain made audible.

“Look again,” she said, her eyes flicking upward with urgent intensity.

Three figures stood silhouetted against the moonlit canopy—perched on tree branches, cloaked in shadow, motionless as statues carved from night itself.

“Four minutes,” Alexander’s voice rang out, clear and steady, slicing through the victor’s celebration below. His gaze remained fixed on his system screen, its glow reflecting in his pupils like twin stars.

The Russian’s eyes crawled upward—slow, predatory, sensing a shift in the wind.

And then they widened.

As if he’d just seen a ghost rise from his own grave.

“That’s how long it took to handle a bullet wound?” he muttered, voice low, clinical—like a scientist noting an anomaly in his experiment. “Pathetic.”

His gaze darted between the two other Alexanders flanking the original—identical down to the tremor in their hands, the sheen of sweat on their brows.

“I get it,” he growled, realization dawning like frost on glass. “You cloned yourself.”

He studied the trio, eyes narrowing. “And to make them bleed… to make them scream like real men? That’s not just skill. That’s artistry.”

In the stands, the crowd stood frozen in awe. What they’d just witnessed wasn’t just One Man Army—it was evolution.

From the start, fakes vanished the moment they took damage. That was the rule. But Alexander? He’d broken it. He’d found a way to *sustain* the clones—even after injury. To make them suffer, bleed, *feel*… long enough to confuse, distract, and dismantle.

Captain Cain of the White Jaguars lifted his chin, silent until now. Curiosity burned in his eyes—sharper than any blade.

“It’s tied to the number of clones, isn’t it?” he murmured, half-question, half-declaration, aimed squarely at the Grid Lions’ captain.

The captain cleared his throat, straightened his coat, and stepped forward as if addressing a council of kings.

“At Grid Lions,” he began, voice heavy with pride and warning, “we do not merely use skills. We *reforge* them. We push past limits until the impossible becomes our signature.”

Murmurs rippled through the arena.

“That kid… incredible!”

“No wonder they recruited him!”

“He’s rewriting the rules!”

Indeed, something new had bloomed in Midworld. A noob—barely seasoned—had outmaneuvered a veteran. Not with brute force, but with cunning, with innovation. Hope, long buried under layers of despair, flickered back to life.

And now, only one thing remained: to kill the old guard. To prove that the throne wasn’t eternal.

From the crowd, a man rose—cloaked in the simple robes of the Medusa Faithful. He hesitated, hand trembling… then thrust it skyward with sudden conviction.

“Lord of hope!” he cried.

“Lord of hope!” he shouted again, stronger this time.

Two more joined. Then ten. Then hundreds.

Soon, the entire stadium thundered with the chant—”Lord of hope! Lord of hope!”—a tidal wave of voices lifting Alexander not as a player, but as a symbol.

In the VIP section, clan masters sat stunned. This wasn’t mere fandom. This was rebellion. The players weren’t just cheering—they were *choosing* a new path. And if this spread, if more followed… the entire economy of Midworld—the games, the bets, the control—could crumble.

High above them all, the Middle Goddess watched, lips curling into a knowing smirk. The boy she’d marked for death in her divine wager now stood bathed in adoration, hailed as a messiah.

She didn’t fear it. She *relished* it.

“Shine bright, my anchor being,” she whispered to the wind, eyes gleaming with the endless intrigue of humanity.

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