Chapter 1165. Turns Out ’It’s Complicated’ Doesn’t Cover Genocide, My Bad

Chapter 1165: 1165. Turns Out ’It’s Complicated’ Doesn’t Cover Genocide, My Bad

Rex watched it happen in real time. He stood motionless, a statue of flesh and bone, as he witnessed the systematic dismantling of Apollo’s sanity.

He watched Apollo’s eyes, those bright, hopeful eyes, dart across the details that refused to be explained away. He watched them trace the familiar height, the specific muscular build, and the way his shoulders set when he braced for impact.

Apollo’s gaze lingered on the small, jagged scar just below Rex’s left ear. Apollo had asked about it once, months ago, in a sun-drenched training yard, receiving nothing but a dismissive joke in return.

Rex watched Apollo’s pupils dilate as his mind desperately spun through contingencies: ’Shapeshifting. An illusion. A mimicry spell.’

But Apollo’s own tactical training betrayed him; he knew the Lustful Villain’s abilities never included sophisticated illusion magic, and more damningly, Rex’s voice now unmasked, raw, and unguarded hadn’t shifted an octave.

"Rex," Apollo said again.

His voice had dropped to a whisper, a fragile sound that seemed to plead with the very fabric of reality to intervene. "Rex, please... tell me this isn’t you."

"Tell me it’s a trick... a complex illusion..."

"Or some kind of twisted magical feedback... Give me an explanation... Please."

"I could tell you that."

Rex’s tone had reverted to the easy, infuriating warmth and casual, fond cadence he used when they shared drinks in a tavern above ground.

The effect of hearing that familiar comfort come from this blood-streaked face, in this twisted violet domain, was worse than any demonic growl. It was more intimate than any attack; it was a violation of memory.

"It would be a lie, though," Rex continued, his voice steady, almost conversational. "And I think you’re old enough by now that you don’t need any more of those today."

The rejection hit Apollo with more force than any physical blow. His legs simply gave out.

There was no stumble, no collapse from exhaustion. Apollo’s divine constitution had been fully restored twenty minutes ago; the golden ichor of his power was still humming faintly beneath his skin, ready for war.

But his body had decided it could no longer support the weight of his soul. His knees hit the violet floor with a hollow thud.

One hand flew to his chest, fingers clawing desperately at the cracked armor plating over his sternum, as if something vital underneath his heart, his very essence, had come unmoored and he could hold it together through sheer physical pressure alone.

Tears began to carve pale, clean tracks through the dried blood and grime coating Apollo’s face.

"Why?" Apollo choked out.

The word broke in the middle, splintering into two separate agonies. "Why would you do this?"

He gasped for air, but each breath sounded like he was inhaling broken glass. "I trusted you..."

"I didn’t just trust you, Rex... I loved you like a brother!"

"We bled together! We trained until our bones screamed!" His voice rose, cracking with a desperate need to remind Rex of the shared history that now felt like poison. "You pulled me out of that plaza when Tremor had my ribs caved in. I can still hear the sound of them snapping!"

"You sat with me in the dark after Calivara’s funeral when I couldn’t bear to see another human face!"

"You saved Elliot’s life during the Goblin King raid before we even truly knew each other!"

"You took an axe across your back for him, and I can still see you bleeding on the ground, dying for them—"

A violent sob caught in his throat, wracking his entire frame. He had to fight for air, struggling through the physical pain of a chest that felt like it was collapsing inward.

When he spoke again, it wasn’t a question; it was an accusation aimed at the heavens.

"Was all of it a lie...? Every single moment...?" Apollo looked up, his eyes bloodshot and drowning in grief. "Every time you said you cared?"

"Every time you helped me with Kaelira?"

"Every time you guided me through my harem, through my life... was that all just... reconnaissance?"

Rex listened to the entire confession without so much as a flinch. He stood there like a monument of indifference, letting Apollo’s grief spill across the violet floor like blood from an arterial wound.

His expression held nothing that could be mistaken for remorse. There was no flicker of guilt in those dark eyes, no downward cast of his head.

What he held instead was patience, the particular, unsettling patience of a predator who has no intention of hurrying a prey animal through its final, desperate confession.

"Some of it was a lie," Rex said when Apollo finally ran out of air.

His voice was terrifyingly calm, cutting through the sobbing silence. "Some of it wasn’t..."

"I actually did enjoy our time together, Apollo... not gonna lie."

"You’re not a boring person to be friends with, which is rarer than you’d think in our circles..."

"I’ve spent countless hours with people I found tedious—drones, sycophants, dullards—but you... were never one of them."

"But it didn’t stop you!" Apollo’s voice suddenly sharpened, the grief cracking like breaking glass to reveal a raw, bleeding vein of fury underneath.

The golden light around his fists flared erratically, casting jagged shadows across the domain. "It didn’t stop you from slaughtering my people in the streets!"

"From tearing Veylor away from Iris’s arms while she screamed for mercy!"

"From killing Calivara... from butchering Eryndra... from turning Theo into—"

"No."

Rex cut him off, not with anger, but with a flat, factual finality that was infinitely more devastating. "Nothing stopped me."

"Because there was never a reason for me to stop."

Apollo raised his head, his face flushed with rage and tears, looking up at the man he thought he knew.

Rex was standing with his arms folded loosely across his chest, weight shifted onto one hip. He looked relaxed, almost casual, in the posture of a man leaning against a fence post while discussing the weather with a neighbor.

There was nothing performative about it; there was no theatrical villainy, no manic laughter, no grandiose posturing. That was the part Apollo’s mind simply could not process.

For months, Apollo had been constructing an image of the enemy, a monster fueled by hatred, a demon driven by some consuming vendetta. He expected a demon, nor did he expect a monster.

What he was looking at instead was a man who appeared to be mildly interested in the conversation and otherwise entirely comfortable in his own skin.

"I still believe," Apollo said, the words tumbling out of him with the desperate, suicidal momentum of someone who has decided to keep walking into a stone wall. "I still believe there is a part of you, the Rex I knew, that can still be saved."

"All of this... it has to have an explanation."

"Maybe you were coerced... Maybe there’s some ancient contract, some divine designation, some curse god, or whatever patron you serve has placed upon you that you can’t."

"You want an explanation," Rex interrupted. His tone remained conversational, almost empathetic, which made the words feel like poisoned honey. "I understand the impulse, Apollo."

"I truly do... People always crave an explanation because it makes a thing smaller."

"It makes it manageable."

Rex took a single step forward, the violet floor rippling beneath his boot like disturbed water.

"If I tell you I was coerced, then what happened to your people was done by circumstances, and you can direct your anger at the abstract concept of fate."

"If I tell you there’s a curse, you can hate the curse instead of me... Every version of the story where I had a reason is a version where you get to keep some part of the world you had this morning."

"You want to believe in a reason because without one, you have to face the truth."

Rex paused, letting the silence settle like ash.

"And the truth is much harder to live with than any lie."