"Finality? I am Finality."
"Your Finality. The Finality of all things."
A low murmur echoed from within the unified body that governed reality, and the Reality Controller Thanos' hollow pupils snapped wide open.
The voice came from the god he despised—Selene. Her once clear and dignified tone now sounded in his ears like a funeral dirge. It was so vivid, so vicious, so distorted—more malevolent than any accumulation of darkness, despair, or death... more torturous than any dreadful word that could be conceived.
Hiss—
Overtaken by a sudden, violent palpitation, Controller Thanos let out an agonized groan that spread like a plague through the mind of the new God of All Things. It poured into him, diffused from within this newborn deity—who had barely half-stepped into dominion over all reality and was already preparing to annihilate everything in a void self-destruction.
Cracks of light utterly different from the "Supreme Power" tore mercilessly at his supreme body, dragging along all existence he symbolized and controlled. The crimson-purple blotches forced from him an unconscious shriek.
A shriek that resounded through every reality—as though countless multiverses, beyond number, were being drained of life alive—shattering innumerable fragile walls of space. Pure gold was stained with ominous purple-red.
The light of creation, the radiance of all things, the sacred brilliance—eroded by a profane shadow.
Thanos trembled.
All things trembled.
It was as though the corpse of reality itself were burning.
Purple-red streaks of light fell like tears from the edges of Controller Thanos' hollow eye sockets, pouring down in torrents. The tangled currents of reality that composed the God of All Things' "Supreme Power" seemed to sprout branches and bloom extravagantly under the weaving of this new usurper.
"No... this is impossible..."
Thanos' struggling cry was hoarse, filled with incredulous fury. "I walked ahead of you all. You were never qualified to be my enemies. My mission is noble—your narrowness is nothing but petty self-interest... They acknowledged me. All power follows me. I am the God of All Things. Reality awaits salvation from me."
He dared not admit it.
Selene still emanated the aura that made realms tremble and reality collapse—but what made Thanos shake even more was something else.
Familiarity.
Kneel. Submit to... Honkai.
Like an unquestionable command, utterly natural, Thanos felt a surging force erupting from within his body.
It originated beneath the "Supreme Power," yet also within the countless 'Thanos' entities across the timeline required to constitute Controller Thanos himself. There was nothing he could do to alleviate it.
Very soon, the sensation of self-immolation meant to destroy himself and detonate "AAO," Selene, and all realities and void vanished.
Controller Thanos' self-annihilation was halted.
In its place came a pain that directly acted upon the God of All Things' "Supreme Power"—far more intense than the total agony of all his past and present lives combined, beyond the description of any language or logic... as though at the very center of everything he could think or perceive, something cold was slithering—tearing, devouring...
"Do you recognize me now?"
Within the trembling blank void, Selene slowly approached and bent down. Her exquisitely delicate features—far too refined compared to the supreme abstract entities of Marvel, beautiful as though sculpted from ice and snow—blurred in an instant like light smoke and thin mist.
"You... Gorgon?!!"
Like awakening from a terrifying nightmare, Controller Thanos jolted upright.
The dream had ended.
Thanos opened his eyes.
When his consciousness brushed against the anomaly within him—already fused with the very concept of the Eternal race—he finally understood.
He understood everything.
From the moment of that battlefield in the Andromeda Galaxy within that universe, he had been stepping, step by step, onto a stage meticulously constructed for him by a god.
'Gorgon,' Esdeath, the Divine Empress Order, and the forces from Earth and across the cosmos that joined the war—these had all been deliberate hints and guided signals. The 'Gorgon' who had battled him twice and awakened the greatest potential of his life had been nothing more than a glove used by a god to interfere with reality.
Even the [First Firmament] had been the same. As the primordial creator of the universe and one of the highest-ranking abstract entities in all reality, the god whom the so-called 'Gorgon' seemed to serve—was merely a shallow smokescreen.
"Those 'primordial cosmic forces' were problematic!" Retracing everything after the fact once more, Controller Thanos finally realized where that lingering dissonance had come from—the feeling of near-death yet not death, of being wounded but never killed, of being spared when he should have been relentlessly pursued.
What nonsense about Lady Death's love making 'Gorgon' wary, about her repeatedly being forced to interrupt the killing blow to permanently eliminate him—giving him chances to reverse the situation?
Bullshit!
That had only been Thanos' own wishful thinking! At that time, he had been madly infatuated with Lady Death. He wanted to believe it. He refused to think further and disdained to. He only wanted to achieve his goal quickly, arrogantly convinced that he would win her true affection.
Naively and foolishly believing that as long as he could rest in Lady Death's embrace, everything would be fine.
"Hahahaha..." The moment he grasped this truth, Thanos laughed—a bitter, self-mocking laugh.
Love—that damned, illusory love!
Foolish! Utterly foolish!!
For the first time in his life, Thanos—who always looked forward and never regretted the past—felt something called regret. He wished he could slap his former, groveling self to death.
"Then I should feel deeply honored... cough... so that means Gorgon, Esdeath, Achilles, Hassan, Diarmuid, Scáthach, Heracles... those things were false from the very beginning, weren't they?"
The source regarded by abstract entities as the origin of all laws spilled from his parched throat. Blood bubbles rippled across his body. Thanos stared with dark sockets glowing with terrifying red light. In his rapidly blurring vision, he could now see only purple-red silhouettes.
Fine cracks spread across every surface, point, and line of reality, wrapping around Controller Thanos' hollow body. They even pierced into his 'skin,' sucking his 'blood,' extracting everything he possessed.
"It's good that you understand."
Gently plucking the threads Thanos had actively linked together—threads that included the Reality Controller and "AAO" like strands of silk—Selene felt within them the romance of myth, the profundity of the cosmos, the brilliance of civilization, the vastness of the infinite, the beauty of intellect. For a fleeting moment, her expression seemed to contain countless complex emotions. Yet in the next instant, they all fused into a faint calmness.
Leisurely calm.
"To me, your despair, your pain, your collapse—your attempt to personally destroy the cradle that birthed you, nurtured you, and shaped you—is nothing more than a vivid little drama to pass the time."
That was a lie.
Though she spoke so lightly, there was not the slightest relaxation in Selene's heart. Laugh as she might, revel as she might—her face radiated contempt for all beneath heaven, as though everyone were mere playthings—but inwardly her vigilance had risen to the extreme.
The riper the fruit, the closer it was to falling—the more reckless one must not be.
It had not been easy, pushing a mere Titan from his humble beginnings to this point.
Using the dispersed primordial cosmic spiritrons released upon the deaths of Heroic Spirits as anchor points, Thanos had required an immense quantity of cosmic energy to push the bloodline of the Eternals to an unprecedented limit. His spiritual foundation and spiritual vessel had long since fused completely into his underlying structure.
Among them, the role of the "Limiter" had been pivotal.
After being developed—whether shallowly or deeply—by one Heroic Spirit after another, the activation of the "Limiter" had enabled Thanos to rapidly transcend the divide between mortal and divine, stepping from a worldly emperor into the realm of a cosmic god.
From the outbreak of war to its end, Selene had either directly intervened or struck from the side. In short, she had never given Thanos a single moment of rest.
Whether through physical assault or through the psychological blows and interference inflicted jointly with [Death], she never allowed him the chance to reorganize himself. At the same time, with her highest authority, she had temporarily severed the conceptual link between the hidden Honkai spiritrons within Thanos and the "Limiter," concealing them completely—allowing them to cooperate with him flawlessly, like extensions of his own limbs.
As though Thanos himself were the God of Honkai—and Honkai merely one of the countless Marvel realities beneath his dominion after seizing control of reality.
The moment he grasped the Reality Controller, the explosive inflation of power—leaping from the first tier to trillions upon trillions of levels—left Controller Thanos impatient to exact revenge upon [Death], who had abandoned and scorned him. He devoured and unified Her.
Thereafter, the unification of the Marvel gods granted him mastery over countless realities. The hidden Honkai and the "Limiter" within them became nothing more than the most inconspicuous fragments of the whole. He was all things—so what if all things were slightly mixed? He had no intention of sorting through them.
Fully immersed in nihilism, prepared to end himself and all existence—to become the executioner of every Marvel reality and thereby grant salvation and freedom to all beings—Thanos resolutely chose self-destruction.
The freedom of death was also freedom.
He chose no construction, brought forth no new possibilities, never once considered prospering the "omniscient and omnipotent domain" of Marvel. His mind was filled only with extinction. As the God of All Things, he was utterly unqualified.
A monkey crowned in finery.
Of course, his incompetence was precisely what Selene desired.
"To let me become a character within your play and dance with you— even in death, you should have no regrets."
Thanos knew that look.
Plaything.
"Tyrant! I am the one chosen by all things! I can dominate every reality I control! Even if your schemes cannot save all beings, I can save half! You cannot grasp everything!"
Controller Thanos roared. He had never known submission. If the fish dies, the net tears!
Without hesitation, he linked his reality to Selene's for a martyr's detonation. Grinding his teeth, Controller Thanos once again swung his authority tyrannically. This time, he forcibly mobilized the reality within himself, detonating only the Marvel Reality Controller he commanded and the portion of "AAO" he had absorbed.
But in the next instant...
"Stop."
Selene merely parted her crimson lips and softly uttered a single word.
The moment her voice fell—
The violently swelling light of creation was smoothed, as though brushed by an invisible, gentle breeze.
"Aaaahhh—"
In the clash of two wills, the divine body of all things constructed from the "Supreme Power" exploded with bang bang bang, bursting into golden mists of blood under unbearable strain.
The self-detonating reality burned within the blank void. Endless golden flames wrapped around the pure destructive roar, resounding through the cosmos.
"You think you can control Honkai as well?"
These losses were unavoidable. Controller Thanos was, after all, half a God of All Things. Facing Thanos, who had fallen completely into hysterical madness and struggled in self-destructive frenzy, Selene felt neither joy nor sorrow.
"Beggar-like wretch—did you think you could reach this realm on your own? Who granted you your present?" And you dare contend with me for control of Honkai? I am not yet dead.
There was no other reason she could command Honkai, manipulate Honkai.
It was simply because of her will...
What she willed would inevitably be realized.
What she rejected would inevitably fail to be realized.
No reason was required.
No prerequisite was necessary.
"I am Honkai."
Beneath the starlight, Selene revealed a faint glimpse of pearly teeth, her breath fragrant. "Kneel."
A command.
Heaven's decree carried upon her lips.
In that instant, before Controller Thanos could react, not only did fractures spread—his body began to melt and dissipate. Hunched over, knees bending, his self-destruction halted once more. His body itself was resisting him.
"Raaaghhh—" Thanos roared, but the realities he commanded rebelled against him!
"AAO, if not now, when?"
Selene parted her lips once more and rebuked sharply.
"Destruction or continuance—which do you choose?"
"...Sigh..."
A sigh.
"My 'junior,' in the grasp of the human heart, you have won. I have lost. Long ages of stagnation have eroded my passion. I did not expect you would open a new path and walk this road to defeat me."
"AAO"'s weary voice echoed from within Controller Thanos' body, filled with helplessness.
What else could He do? The erosion of stagnation was dull. He had chosen a junior, hoping she would assist His cultivation while He gained the greatest benefit at minimal cost. What fault was there in that?
Indeed, in the early stages it had been so. Selene's investment had earned Him immense profit. He had guarded against her true body and the digestion of new 'variables,' yet who could defend against the thief within?
A madman like Thanos was truly one of a kind.
And unfortunately, he was also His fatal weakness—the mess left behind from His own immature development long ago. He could blame no one else.
"I hope you will honor your promise."
There was no need to deliberate. "AAO"'s instinct made the choice.
Between two harms, choose the lesser.
He had no desire to self-destruct alongside Thanos.
Especially since this time—because this was a taboo reality once erased—under Selene's interference, destruction might truly mean destruction.
Bzzzzzz—!
"A wise choice."
Selene laughed softly and abruptly extended her right hand. In her palm, with "AAO"'s cooperation, gathered the portion of Marvel's supreme authority that belonged to Him and was now being transferred.
The authorities of Honkai and "Above All Things" were complete!
Now.
"Thanos of Titan—disappear."
God spoke.
Finality spoke.
The Goddess of Honkai spoke.
Above All Things—the God of All Things—spoke.
—
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