Dante's POV
Reality ignited in a flash of incandescence, and millions died. My soul counter exploded. The feeling of the numbers climbing into the eight figures was giddying. If only I could spend a cent of it.
"Death tolls go well beyond expectation, Sir," Uriel said from our deck on the spaceship where we watched the devastation using the holographic display. And it was something to behold. Beyond terrifying. I'd known my Archsentinels were effective, but fuck, the fight really put things into perspective. They could conquer solar systems, probably even take over a chunk of the galaxy if I worked them hard enough.
And what did that make me, by extension?
"Everything went according to plan," Uriel continued.
"And that's what I'm afraid of. Get back in here, Rin," I said, looking into the ether, touching my ear out of habit rather than necessity. "I'm dropping the bombs next."
I'd gone into this fight armed with the power of several supernovas, and I didn't intend to stop until I was sure he was deader than dead. I could sift through Thanos's ashes for the Infinity Stones afterward.
"Roger tha—" Rin's voice suddenly cut off, and I teleported out there in panic, submerging myself in radiation several times thicker than Chornobyl, but not nearly enough to hurt me.
Thanos waited at the heart of the nascent space storm, dressed in exotic golden armor and Uru that looked to have seen better days, likely on account of Rin's assault. The metal screamed with heat and was flaked or broken up in places, but the center—his chest—remained unharmed. It was where two Infinity Stones sat.
A yellow and golden stone—they were the Mind and Soul Stones.
Crap. We had a counter for just about anything Thanos had in his arsenal, except the Soul Stone. I had no runes that could reliably fight against that—except the Yamato. Only Armando's Adaptation could help us now. It was just a question of surviving long enough to develop a complete immunity.
And from what I could see, Rin wasn't holding up too well. His soul was throbbing, and his body was slower to react. His entire armor lit up with runes as he squirmed underneath Thanos's literal thumb. His burned and skeletal hand was wrapped around Rin's throat.
Thanos's singular surviving eye snapped to me, a snarl flashing across his ruined face. The solar bomb had hit him like a Mack truck. He was covered in third-degree burns, but was clearly using his immense psychic and soul stores to ignore the burden. It was clear to me that he couldn't manage that forever, given the physical toll the stones take.
All we had to do now was help him along—shuffle the genocidal maniac into an early grave.
"You vermin," Thanos sneered. "Do you have any idea what you've done?"
My armor lit up in a flash of multicolored light as I activated my enhancement runes, boosting my physicality by over 1200 points. Severance appeared sheathed around my waist, and I hunched in an Iai stance as my Astral Wings flared out, driving the effectiveness of my Angel abilities through the roof. I layered my new and improved demon cloak on top of it.
"You destroyed my home. My armies. My children! I'm going to make you beg for death!"
He slowly closed his hand, eliciting more screams from Rin.
Cold rage burned through me.
"Do the thing, Uriel," I sent back to my ship just as I flickered.
I sent out the mother of all dimensional slashes straight at Thanos's neck, marshaling nearly 20,000 AE and DE—a tenth of my enlarged reserves. It traveled through space, appearing inches above his skin. A massive geometric shield appeared above his body. It was a mish-mash of eldritch magic, mind, and soul energy, and it was the first clear sign that this fight would not be easy.
The shield held for a microsecond.
It bought Uriel plenty of time to fire a teleporting shot from the invisible ship into Rin's side, dragging him through a crack in space and depositing him on board.
Thanos took advantage of our maneuver, too, his body blurring as he puppetted himself with telekinesis. He dodged most of the dimensional slash, taking the hit with his chest plate. It rang like the world's loudest gong, space warping in the aftermath, but Thanos pushed through with the shallowest of wounds, and his fist cocked back.
He marshaled a truly breathtaking amount of psychic and soul energy in an instant and brought it down on me like a hammer, driving the breath from my lungs.
My Ancient rune array flickered precariously as soul damage filtered through, the runes not specifically designed to counter this type of damage. I let out a surprised groan. My adaptive armor adjusted quickly, however, alleviating the pain almost immediately—enough for me to snap my fingers just as he reached me with his fist cocked back and teeth bared.
Hundreds of bombs appeared around us and exploded, eviscerating space with Anathema fire.
Thanos screamed, erecting dozens of warped Eldritch shields. I jackknifed into him with a knee, shattering his shield like glass, pulling deep from my Density, Gravity, and Mind Arrays to inflate the weight of my strike.
I grabbed him before he went flying off, and I teleported us to a nearby star system—one where Rin and Uriel could easily follow us.
We were miles away from the sun.
I punched him in the face, summoning Eryx, but he parried it using telekinesis, leaving my side open to a retaliatory strike that never landed.
I was suddenly behind him, unleashing a beam of Anathema Fire super-condensed with Gravity and Density.
It slammed into a hastily erected shield of Soul and Mind.
Thanos roared, pushing back while marshaling his will and mind again. I pre-empted his attack with one of my own, summoning a multitude of metal bombs right into his back.
They broke his focus, leaving him open to the Anathema fire.
It scorched him raw, blasting and devouring his armor and body in mesmerizing waves of heat. I could almost taste the victory—until Thanos's soul let out a primal scream that slammed into my mind and soul, rattling me so deeply the beam shut off.
Pieces of him sloughed off—body, armor, and soul—and his titanic bulk shrank until it was barely humanoid.
Then he began to heal, visibly and quickly.
Oh. Hell no.
I fired off another Anathema beam and peppered him with bombs, but panels of soul-stuff appeared rapidly, serving as tinder to my increasing aggression. It was bizarre and a bit nauseating, watching malformed souls with barely functioning minds perish ad infinitum.
After a second of failure, I switched tactics, summoning Aquila and Severance.
But that was when he stopped.
The souls vanished, and Thanos unveiled himself—whole and complete in his gold and Uru armor.
He had a golden blade in his hand now, and the level look of an experienced warrior.
And I could only stare on in confusion before it clicked suddenly.
His control of telekinesis was fine enough for atomic manipulation.
"So, you've realized," Thanos said. "I promised you pain, and I intend to keep that promise."
Fuck.
Read up to Chapter 258 on Patreon.com/artandcreativewriting