The dim void-hole contracted, washing both the known and the unknown in devouring light. Like a black sun stretching its tendrils across the globe, an outer god loomed above the heavens beyond the heavens beyond the heavens.
Selene paid no attention to Thanos' furious glare. Half-concealed within the shifting radiance of "AAO," she reached into the conceptual sea of the Marvel world—now in the midst of reunified destruction. Because two masters of reality had appeared, what was once one had become two. The domain of concepts was at its most chaotic, ownerless state.
Chaos is not an abyss. Chaos is a ladder.
Selene could not help but think with malicious delight.
At least, for me at this moment, it is.
She carefully stirred the tangled veins of reality—different facets, different origins, different nodes. They were far too fragile. Every point, every line, every plane she touched was instantly stained a thick crimson... and occasionally, other colors.
Compared to the mad Titan, these things were far more important.
This was an exchange. Debt collection. Withdrawal of capital. Harvesting interest. And then running off with the principal.
She felt wonderfully relaxed, her mood utterly refreshed.
Like a perfectly healthy gourmand feasting and drinking his fill in a bustling night market.
No need for more words. One word—exhilarating!
She had poured in capital, paid immense costs to construct an entirely new omnipotent universe for him from the ground up, and continuously used her own power to fill the deficits. Whenever something was lacking, she had deliberately filled it with the countless universes conquered, discovered, and developed under her banner—each symbolizing "new increments." Was that all so she could earn a bit of hard-earned money and nibble on his leftovers?
No. She would drive the tiger to devour the wolf—seize the heavens and snatch the sun!
Before long, "You will regret this!!!" The raging void-darkness poured into the omnipotent domain of "AAO." From this moment onward, "AAO" was no longer omnipotent.
Thanos.
Within the reality he controlled, waves of golden ripples spread outward with his fury. Everything around him began to change.
The glittering conceptual veins and the profound wellspring of all laws collapsed and surged, twisting into grotesque distortions—coarse fragments and utter nothingness.
"Arrogant god, prideful god, hypocritical god—I am already the new creator and master of the omnipotent universe, the almighty Lord of Creation, the God of all things. I will no longer kneel beneath you! This is the responsibility granted to me by all existence. My mission—liberation, freedom, salvation!"
His teeth ground together with a clack clack as, in his fury, Thanos grew ever more resolute in his chosen path.
"If that is your choice. Child, you once again walk a road of repeated error. Your 'omniscience and omnipotence' is itself a mistake. Restore the world to its original state—if you truly wish to save it."
The stalemate between "AAO" and Selene formed a vast, star-studded vortex within the blank void. Distortion overlapped with real space. Much of the 'quantity' and 'mass' that once belonged to the Marvel world left His embrace, gaining new birth within purple-red-black cavities flickering with the Will of Honkai.
"AAO" understood clearly—Selene was striding upward step by step, ascending the endless path of "omniscience and omnipotence" by tracing His experience, drawing near to Him—perhaps even surpassing Him!
One must remember, He was now incomplete, imperfect. Selene, however, was whole and unified, flawless. Within her omniscient domain—within her Empire—there was no second master.
"Child, you must trust your Creator."
He continued suppressing Selene, speaking earnestly like an elder admonishing a child who had erred. "Since you exist, and that thing exists, it means it once existed and once occurred. Child, the safety of the world now rests in your hands..."
"Enough!"
Thanos rudely cut off "AAO"'s words.
"I said it before! I will no longer kneel beneath you! Your existence is a mistake—and I have already walked ahead of you!"
"The threats of despairing remnants are meaningless. A new dawn will descend upon this—and all other realities."
At this, Selene burst into laughter.
"What has been shall be again. What has been done shall be done again. Tsk, I told you so. Listen, my dear 'senior'—even your creation, returned from erased taboo, still seeks to climb above your head. He treats himself as the Creator and your gift as his due. Hahaha... your path is wrong. Mine is correct."
She added fuel to the fire at precisely the right moment.
"Why resist? My dear 'senior,' what ill intent could I possibly harbor? Merge peacefully with me. When the great work is done, you will still be my 'senior,' the God of all things managing this realm on my behalf. I will even excise this diseased lesion for you. United, we shall—"
"You as well!"
Before Selene could finish, Thanos' roar shook the entire blank void once more.
"I will drag each and every one of you down from your thrones!!"
"Tsk..."
Clicking her tongue and raising a brow, Selene ignored the devouring glare Thanos fixed upon her.
Business first.
Though subtle, Selene could sense that "AAO" had grown even more fatigued.
"If your previous 'wholeness' was a vast and unfathomable ocean, then what you are now is little more than a shallow strait, is it not?"
Say what she would to Thanos—curse him if she liked—but she had fixed her target.
Lock onto AAO—and drain.
Pull.
Forceful tearing.
Riiiip—
Like a delicate sand-table model crushed beneath careless feet, a faint brittle crack echoed through the blank void. At Selene's fingertips and beneath her feet lay the wreckage of annihilated universes.
The once brilliant and multicolored space-time lines were now covered in wounds. Though there was no longer any place for them within the ocean riddled with void-holes, they still clung desperately, trying to return to the nearly charred body of "AAO."
Selene brutally tore them apart and crushed them. Arcs of light flashed like momentary stars as timeline after timeline was utterly extinguished.
One multiverse after another found its escape cut off by the void-iron net Selene had cast. In the end, they withered, disintegrated, and died as drifting dust.
Many abstract conceptual veins did not even have time to comprehend what had occurred before collapsing in an instant under the tug-of-war between Selene and "AAO," leaving behind a bone-chilling, absolute silence... To describe the scene as "Heaven itself has perished" would not be an exaggeration.
Strictly speaking, Selene had no need for these Marvel multiverses in their entirety. What she urgently required were the abstract concepts, primordial essences, and origin laws torn apart and crushed from them—absorbed and transmitted to complete herself, to perfect her Honkai omnipotent dimensional domain, to perfect her Sacred Empire.
Selene said to "AAO," "Return to me. That is the best choice before you."
"..."
"AAO" remained silent, as though temporarily stripped of rational consciousness.
Selene's indifference. "AAO"'s silence.
Enraged to the point of laughter, Thanos moved. Supreme power surged.
With a sweep of his arm, he smashed apart the infinite conceptual barrier of the void-realm. Amid a roar that pierced the heavens, he charged toward "AAO."
"All things have chosen me. I am the true God of all things."
Boom! In the next instant, the destroyed [Marvel Omnipotent Universe] reality reappeared, everything restarting anew.
The momentary resonance between the Reality Controller's power and "AAO"'s supreme authority interrupted Selene's extraction—but only for a moment. Thanos and "AAO," two wills manipulating reality, were ultimately imperfect.
Most crucially, Thanos' objective was still to devour and unify—to replace "AAO."
He is not even targeting me?
A ripple of surprise flickered through the crimson depths of Selene's eyes. She narrowed them.
Stop him? No.
She wanted to see what medicine Thanos kept in his gourd.
Crack crack crack—
The blank void, split into countless facets, trembled.
"Be still, my dear 'senior'!"
Watching calmly with a faint smile, and offering Thanos her most sincere blessings in her heart, Selene held "AAO" firmly in her grasp, violently extracting all the experience and history she required from within Him.
"Thanos."
"You are the sinner of all things."
With the former Lord of All Things delivering an eerily calm proclamation, the tides of chaos and madness had raged within the blank void for far too long. And now—
"No! I am the savior. I will be connected to everything, whether living or lifeless!"
With an unquestionable command, new power, new will, a new Lord of All Things rose from within "AAO"'s hazy radiance.
He collided with Selene's Honkai extraction lines. Wave after wave of their power pierced beyond the [Material Layer], spreading toward different [Dimensions]...
"I already rule all reality. But it is not enough."
Half-step unified "AAO," Controller Thanos who had usurped the authority of the God of All Things, looked toward Selene and grinned. With lightning speed, he reconnected the shattered extraction lines, as though intending to cooperate with Selene in plundering and devouring "AAO."
"You will not succeed."
"Oh?" Selene laughed softly. "Is that so?"
Ignoring Selene's contempt, Thanos spoke like a martyr. "The world has been polluted by you."
"This pollution is so heavy that all life must cycle endlessly, becoming playthings to your moods and whims. Even resetting everything cannot correct it!"
"I have seen the entirety of the world. I have focused with all my being upon its rise and fall. I witnessed the decisive moment of every ending—that was the ultimate abuse. From it, I learned one thing... the more I understand you, the more I perceive the horror of the present world... I will not become you."
"To save all beings, to break free from the puppet strings you have woven, I understood my mission—to bring true finality, to end everything."
"You cannot control us." Thanos smiled and spread his arms.
Buzzzzz—
Light.
Carrying the profound aura of annihilation, unprecedented golden brilliance illuminated everything about Thanos—and illuminated the half of "AAO" fused into him.
Golden supreme energy, the energy symbolizing the source of all laws and all things, flowed like liquid across Thanos' body. It shone brilliantly, surging violently. The void-realm cracked inch by inch, revealing beyond the curtain a deep, variegated white canvas—that was the primordial world, the original Marvel landscape.
In an instant, the pale blank void was ignited by dazzling golden energy. Countless Honkai extraction channels anchored within "AAO"'s concepts melted like candles in the golden inferno storm, backflowing with the supreme energy of all things.
Self-destruction...
Thanos' salvation was to end all realities and all void.
Erase everything, and naturally there would be no more control, no more manipulation of fate.
What a twisted genius of logic.
However—
Selene's lips curved slightly upward. Her crystalline, resplendent, strangely beautiful eyes gleamed with a trace of triumphant amusement.
"This is exactly what I have been waiting for."
Snap!
The curtain lifted high. A light flick of her fingers.
Gold was stained with a touch of purple-red.
So deep. So dark. So sinister. So greedy.
Under Selene's devil-like gaze, at the very moment of Thanos' self-destruction, his skull-like face gradually became speckled with purple-red radiance.
"Little Titan, having received the gift of 'Reality' and borne the blessing of 'Honkai,' did you truly believe everything was due to your uniqueness—your destined fate?"
"Where did you find the courage to wield the 'Limiter,' to raise the power bestowed by 'Honkai' against its true master?"
"Finality? I am Finality."
—
—
26 Advanced Chapters Available on Patreon:
Patreon.com/DaoOfHeaven