# Chapter 12: The Curtain Falls: An Empty Stage

The battle exploded across the city, a symphony of destruction reaching its crescendo. He dove behind an overturned taxi as energy blasts ripped through the air, carving smoking craters into the asphalt. She screamed, a fleeting sound swallowed by the roar of the conflict. The air crackled with raw power, the scent of ozone mixing with the acrid stench of burning concrete and melting steel. Heroes and villains, their faces contorted with rage and desperation, clashed in a brutal free-for-all, a whirlwind of flying fists, energy beams, and shattered hopes.

He saw Valiant lift a car and throw it to Centurion, but it was easily melted. He threw the molten metal back, and it quickly exploded in the air. The civilians screamed even louder.

She watched a child crying as a hero and a villain beat themselves near him. Nobody cared. This was the war.

He watched as Captain Victory grabbed a villain with electric power, and threw him to a nearby building, destroying the roof. No one even tried helping the villain.

She closed her eyes and tried to walk away, but the crowd was too strong. She kneeled down and closed her eyes, she had no hope.

The streets, once arteries of commerce and life, became rivers of rubble and blood. Buildings crumbled, their facades collapsing like broken masks, symbols of a society brought to its knees. Fires erupted with terrifying intensity, casting long, dancing shadows that seemed to mock the chaos. Lives were lost, extinguished in a flash of power, their stories ending abruptly in the grand, senseless spectacle.

He ran slipping on blood, looking for somewhere to hide, another explosion hit near him. More corpses near him. Was this really happening?

She couldn't take it anymore. She opened her eyes, and began walking, knowing she would die. She kneeled again.

He watched the world breaking. He thought he was ready for this. No one is ready.

Each blow exchanged, each building destroyed, each life lost amplified the sense of utter futility. The conflict spiraled out of control, fueled by years of simmering resentments, manipulated rivalries, and the insatiable hunger for power. The very fabric of society threatened to unravel, leaving nothing but a wasteland of shattered dreams and broken promises. All was lost.

Centurion and Valiant began flying in circles and doing some kind of tornado. The buildings began more and more distroyed as the powers of both beings began being expanded more and more.

"STOP THIS!!" She cried, trying to at least to stand up, but was too weak to even walk.

He stumbled as he heard it. He knew it was only a question of time.

He watched the mayhem, the ultimate expression of unchecked human rage, reaching its apex. Then, as suddenly as it had begun, everything stopped. An eerie silence descended, a pregnant pause in the symphony of destruction. the world stopped.

Faceless stepped into the arena. He casually strolled into the very heart of the battlefield, as if walking through a park on a Sunday afternoon. He seemed to move without effort, seemingly untouched by the destructive energies and flying debris. The heroes and villains, locked in their deadly dance, paused mid-strike, their faces etched with confusion and disbelief.

"Who...?" Valiant asked, before spitting more blood. Centurion didn't listen to him at all.

He walked and dodged an energy beam. He didn't seem to care about anything.

She stood up. She looked at the man.

He looked around looking at everything, then, took a few more steps.

Centurion landed suddenly. "Who are you?"

He said anything, as more and more people, heroes and villains, stopped fighting and looked at him.

There was a single moment that she began remebering his face from a few moments, but he has changed.

Everyone waited.

No one recognized Faceless. He was no one, and everyone, the embodiment of anonymity in a world obsessed with power and image. He walked, a silent figure moving through a tableau of frozen conflict.

He was in the middle of everything.

The fighting stopped completely. All looks were on him. He did exactly what he wanted, as always.

She looked in hope.

Then, he began to laugh.

He laughed loudly.

The only sound that echoed through the streets, cutting through the silence was his hysterical laughter. It was a manic, unsettling sound, devoid of joy or mirth, as if he were mocking the very concept of conflict itself. It was not the voice of madness, but a deliberate, calculated performance, a final act of theatrical absurdity.

She began crying even more.

The tension that was created broke the silence. He got a laugh.

What a comedian.

What a terrible sound. What a terrible show.

Faceless, the Wielder of Good Luck, removed all the pawns from the board. He didn't possess superhuman strength or mystical powers; instead, he employed a meticulously crafted strategy of manipulation, exploiting weaknesses, and calculated risk-taking.

"You.. you manipulated us!?" Centurion tried to yell.

"We are better than this" Valiant said quietly, "we could have won this."

He created a long, manipulated string of events with carefully planted evidence that was meant to create rifts and mistrust. Whispers had been sent, deals have been proposed. All of the actions were the product of pure creation. The idea was to break their will. Break the team. Explode.

She remembered how everyone tried, one after one to work together, but the world of them didn't allow that.

He caused communications between everyone that was a heroe or a villain. They all got backstabbed.

But he could always change his face, and body, and name. He could be anyone, and at the same time, no one at all. He has to be nobody. Even if he isn't it.

The luck he has was very convenient and easy. Everyone was a clown. Not just him.

He organized a series of events: poisoning rivalries with carefully planted evidence, using hacked communications to turn allies against each other, and rigging environmental hazards to neutralize the superpowered, designed to dismantle the conflict from within. Some fell to their own hubris, others to carefully orchestrated "accidents," and a few directly to Faceless's own hand, a silent blade in the chaos he created.

"You are nothing more than a pawn!!!" A random villain screamed.

"A pawn!!!!" Another echoed.

The irony was lost on them—pawns calling another pawn a pawn, puppets shouting at a puppet who had momentarily tangled their strings. None of them saw that they were all fools in the same circus.

His motivations were pathetically simple: a desperate need to matter in a world that never noticed him. He wasn't a mastermind but a fool who stumbled into effectiveness. He didn't craft a grand plan—he merely observed how heroes and villains naturally destroyed themselves and gave them a little push. He wore so many faces, played so many roles, that he forgot he was nothing but an audience member who wandered onto the stage. Everything seemed easy when you had no understanding of consequences. Then, inevitably, everything exploded.

He started clapping.

Each clap he made echoed through the city. Like thunder.

The whole story was rapidly retold in five minutes, a rapid-fire montage of deception and manipulation. His faces went through her mind again and again, making her crazy. She had enough.

He came to this world to do this. This was the reason.

Valiant tried running to Faceless, but his feet were attached to floor.

Centurion couldn't fly.

Everyone was as shocked as she was, the chaos of the moment did not allow it to happen.

It was the day they lost the world.

It was all to give some meaning to his existence, to carve a place in history. All he wanted was to show them, but at what cost. The war did not matter. He only wanted it.

"This, this is my roll! This this is what this is the world means to me" he stated, without changing his emotionless tone "This is a circus, and I am the clown"

He turned and said "Now, the real part is the end".

She prepared.

As he spoke, everyone closed their eyes for a secont, but then it was open again.

After his confession, after the unveiling of his grand and absurd design, Faceless just died. No heroic sacrifice, no final burst of power, no dramatic monologue. He did't even suffered any attacks. He simply collapsed to the ground, like a puppet with its strings cut, his body hitting the pavement with a dull thud. He got to die. Someone knew his name.

The laughter stopped, replaced by another, more profound silence. The heroes and villains, finally freed from his machinations, stared in disbelief at the lifeless form. Here they were, ready for destruction, now this? Many realized things were never as easy as supposed for them. Others looked in hope. But for now, they were all fools.

He had achieved nothing, that was what anyone thought. He only took more lifes. He was an actor.

She felt more free than before. She didn't like him or he liked anyone, but at least the show had stopped.

It was the end.

The chaotic, theatrical life of a man was complete.

A new world may begin.

With Faceless gone, a void was left, a gaping hole in the tapestry of the city. The puppets were free. The world broke through. Some wanted the clown back. And then there weren't anymore heroes, and villians. There was nobody.

The city was now an empty stage, the sets still standing, but the actors gone, vanished along with the puppeteer. The once-gleaming skyscrapers stood as hollow monuments to ambition, their windows reflecting the vacant sky above. The streets were deserted, the silence broken only by the whisper of the wind. The world she hated.

He walked to her side and said "Now is the time to rebuild it"

The gangs disappeared. The corrupt people were gone. There was more to create, to build. It would be hard, but at least it could be possible.

Centurion turned to Valiant and said anything. Then, he left. He never was seen again.

Valiant turned to streets as the camera did. Then, he disappeared. He never was seen again.

***

In another reality, beyond the reach of human understanding, worlds are born and die in endless cycles. Universes bloom like flowers and wither just as quickly, each with its own rules, heroes, and catastrophes. The original creator – a being of pure concept rather than form – watches these cycles with distant amusement, neither interfering nor particularly invested in their outcomes.

Yet somehow, outside this grand design, beyond even the creator's reach, there exists a realm untethered to any natural law. Within this realm stands a throne, crafted from the essence of pure chaos – a seat formed from nothing, belonging to nothing, acknowledged by nothing. It is an aberration, a cosmic joke without a punchline.

And stumbling toward this throne comes a figure – not guided by destiny, but by blind, fumbling chance. It was Faceless, or perhaps one of his countless identities: Jesuit, the Face Carrier, the Smile Bearer, the Clown. Or perhaps none of them. Just a man who had changed faces so many times that he no longer remembered which one was real, if any ever were.

He stumbles, trips, and falls onto the throne. A bumbling fool accidentally seated on a cosmic aberration.

The universe does not recognize this moment as significant. The original creator does not even notice. No prophecy is fulfilled. No destiny realized.

The Faceless Mask grins stupidly, and reality hiccups in response – not with a grand shattering, but with the awkward silence that follows a poorly delivered joke. Another world begins and ends, just one more in an infinite series, with a fool seated on a throne that shouldn't exist, ruling nothing, understanding nothing, being nothing.

The cosmic janitor sweeps up the remnants of yet another failed world. The clown remains, still grinning, still fooled by his own importance.

The thouight was a lie, a mere joke.

The joke, as always, is on him.

The Faceless Mask Smiled, And That's How The World Shattered.