Bolts of crimson lightning larger than starships crashed into me from every direction. Torrents of hyper-pressurized water followed immediately, striking with enough force to shatter mountains and forcing me to deploy multiple defensive arrays.
The surrounding darkness churned in response to her command. Monstrosities rose from the void, flanked by my massive ships numbered in the hundreds of thousands. They were not dead, abstract, shadow figures woven from Lauren's magic.
They were very much alive, likely the main thrust of her galactic army. I spotted singular fighters too, and my senses immediately told me they were other Omega-level mutants, demons, and other remarkable fighters she'd pulled from the other dimensions to fight little old me.
She'd hadn't deployed them even when I burned and cut her. I thought Shin had taken them off the table altogether, but it would seem the servant and the god were going for broke.
I swallowed, a tiny trickle of unease running through me. Wholesale slaughter always left a bad taste in my mouth, but there was nothing for it.
I met the charge head-on. My hammer collided with one of Storm's bolts and shattered it into a million smaller arcs. I expanded it on the weapon on the back swing, coating it with lightning just as a thundering figure charged me. He was coated in a reddish film that built more and more momentum with every meter of space he crossed.
The Impact fried the human cannonball, through and through, but it didn't stop his momentum. I teleported him out of the system and slashed out with my Kurogiri, spinning as I banished my hammer and bisected a beast that had been trying to flank me head to tail. Fire touched the carcass, consuming the creature before it could regenerate, and that was when the ocean of kinetic weapons and laser fire poured on me.
Walls of multi-colored runes leaped from my orbs, and thousands of spells and wards flashed into existence. They absorbed, reflected, and retaliated against the ships and armies that assailed me while I contended with the elite of her army.
I tore through Arclight with a bolt of accelerated Anathema fire, piercing the oceans of shockwaves she generated around herself. She died before she realized it. A density sphere crushed another mutant who transformed into living sand, and I bisected a third who seemed capable of reversing any damage I inflicted with a full-powered Dimensional Slash.
For several seconds, I balanced the fight on a knife's edge, dodging attacks, teleporting, and moving so quickly that nobody could pin me down while I ripped through the endless army.
All that changed when Storm rejoined the battle.
She emerged from the darkness in a flash of crimson, carrying oceans' worth of water with her, compressed into absurd densities and accelerated to relativistic speeds. They struck like cosmic artillery, forcing me to divert energy from my offensive constructs to prevent damage to my armor.
Red clouds spread across space, somehow existing in a vacuum, and lightning descended in continuous sheets. Every bolt bore traces of Lauren's reality manipulation woven into it, making them nearly impossible to absorb or reliably reflect. The attacks crashed against my shields relentlessly while Storm pressed forward, her body transforming into lightning as she drove a spear toward me.
I ducked and lashed out with my hammer, striking the haft of her weapon and driving her back. She was no slouch physically, either, and she fought far dirtier than I remembered. I vanished a bolt of water aimed at my midsection and tore a chunk out of her with a swift Dimensional Slash before she reappeared above me, wrapped in a hurricane of compressed water, air, and electricity.
The storm hammered down, and entire fleets of ships were torn apart by the devastation. My skin-tight rune shields carried me through the assault, and I sliced upward through the center of the tempest, accelerating with time-compression runes and blazing astral wings.
Anathema lightning poured through the battlefield in great arcs projected through spatial disruptions, assailing the rest of Lauren's armada while they were distracted by our duel. Those who didn't combust outright were reduced to ash. New monsters emerged almost immediately to replace them.
The army seemed truly endless, and it forced me to reconsider the progress I was making. Every second I spent fighting Storm was another second Lauren had to recover and scheme.
So I stopped holding back.
Stretching my hands outward, I opened a portal and sent thousands upon thousands of runic formations through it. They emerged in spiraling patterns around Storm, trapping her beneath layers of telekinesis and mountains of telepathic chains.
I approached her with Kurogiri in hand, fully prepared to end it, but something in me screamed in protest. It was my conscience. She was Jean's mentor and friend.
Storm noticed my hesitation. For a brief moment, genuine clarity broke through the madness clouding her mind.
"You need to kill me," she choked out telepathically.
"No," I said immediately. "There has to be another way."
She gave me a sad smile.
"There isn't."
Lightning exploded from her body reflexively. I set it ablaze and diverted it aside, the motion more instinct than conscious thought.
"Then fight it!" I demanded. "Scott will never let me hear the end of this if I just let you give up."
"I can't."
Storm came apart.
Her entire body dissolved into a blur of flesh and energy that splashed against me as my runic prison shattered. I gagged and sputtered in surprise. Five Laurens emerged from ripples in space. They attacked before I could process Storm's death, before I could wipe the blood from my armor, before I could even think.
Runic helixes surrounded me instantly, but the Laurens didn't attack physically at first. All five screamed in unison, battering me from every direction and cracking through the sparse psychic shielding I'd devoted to mental defense. Earlier in the fight, I'd designated psychic resistance as a low priority because of my own telepathic growth.
Now I recognized the decision for what it truly was.
Hubris.
Psychokinetic shrieks hammered against my armor and ripped through vulnerable sections almost instantly. The attacks slammed into my mind, forcing me to grind my teeth against the pain. My remaining orbs immediately moved to compensate, weaving new defensive formations as fast as they could.
The first two orbs got as far as weaving a dozen or so runic patterns before they were torn apart by redirected psychokinetic blasts.
My runic shielding weakened, and the Laurens pounced.
Claws made from bone, spears of ice, and waves of twisted reality magic crashed into me simultaneously. I answered with lightning and fire, only to discover they'd evolved counters to both. Stone-like flesh covered their bodies, grounding and dispersing electricity, while freezing breath and magical frost devoured the heat from my Anathema flames, much to my frustration.
A dagger tore through my runic shielding too quickly for me to catch in my addled state. They carved through the enchantment and arcanite on my left hand, taking the hand clean off.
I let out a choked cry as a claw dug into my chest next, skewering my heart. A third attack shattered my third orb and nearly split my helmet in half.
Pain exploded through me, and I activated TIME STOP immediately. The universe stilled, but Laurens didn't. Their speed had been cut dramatically. But they were still fast enough to hurt me badly if I didn't use my borrowed time wisely.
I estimated I had just about enough time to reweave my shielding or heal myself, but not both.
Eyeing my planetoids in the distance, I chose a third option.
Thick runic patterns wrapped around me and all five laurens, and we teleported right into the heart of the building singularity.
It bloomed violently on command. Light bent inwards, and the darkness chugged inwards. The sheer gravitational pull of the black hole forcefully deactivated the Bankai, paradoxically stripping the solar system of all of its darkness. All of a sudden, the Laurens weren't as strong or fast.
Their bodies stretched under the pressure of the singularity, drawn to its unknowable center, while I floated unbothered, runes flashing over my frame.
My planetoids had, of course, made sure I was immune to its pull. Asteroids, shattered planets, and fragments of dead worlds screamed past us and into the event horizon.
The Laurens screamed, and then the reality stone flashed. Laurens started popping. Five strings turned to four, and then two, and finally one.
One who swelled in size and power as the others merged into her. Flesh twisted. Bone Cracked. Energy surged through her frame as she forcibly resisted the pull of the singularity. Blood poured from her eyes, and cracks spread across her cheek. And I felt her soul collapse even from far away.
It was the sound of a cathedral full of shattering glass. Her snarls were inhuman.
"YOU THINK THIS IS ENOUGH…I am ETeRNAl. CoRVUS wiLL BlEEd YoUR WoRLd. My NEcrO BLaDE wiLL BLoT OUT GalaxiES. I—" The soul pain cut her off, and I was barely paying attention by this point.
My missing arm regenerated. My heart knitted itself back together. The wounds across my body vanished beneath waves of energy-enhanced restoration.
I stared at her, something akin to pity blossoming in my heart. Her death felt inevitable by this point. Still, I had no good reason to chance it. Not when I could put all of this to bed once and for all.
Three new orbs emerged from my armor, bringing my total set back up to four. Together, they joined my armor, planetoids, and my massively overinflated affinities, weaving the mother of all attacks.
Lightning and density intertwined into a bow as tall as a school bus. Gravity warped around its limbs. Space bent beneath its weight.
Then came the arrow. Solid Anathema fire compressed into a physical form. It was packed with so much density, gravity, fire, and lightning that it warped the color of the original projectile, turning it pitch black. Thousands upon thousands of runes surrounded it, shaking reality.
And as I drew back, understanding crossed Lauren's face. She screamed, drew even more from the reality stone. Her soul pounded like somebody had taken a hammer to it, but she still held on barely.
Something crossed her face. Fear. And she finally let herself despair.
"No!"
The arrow leaped from the bow and reappeared deep within her soul, combusting it.
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