Battles need to end quickly.
Owen looked at Graviton, the man who could manipulate gravity however he pleased.
One of the stronger ones out there.
Not among the most dangerous on the planet, but dangerous enough to become a real problem if he was allowed to grow.
Pure arrogance. Power that had rotted him from the inside. The kind of man who believed the world owed him everything simply because he existed. Truly a nuisance in its purest form.
Owen let out a quiet sigh as his body remained wrapped in his aura of repulsion, countering the gravity that kept trying to drag him toward Graviton. Around them, explosions echoed without pause, the result of the battle between Hercules and Sentry. Each one only made his irritation grow a little more.
"Before we start whatever it is you're planning to try… could you tell me why you attacked the island?" Owen asked, looking directly at Doctor Hall.
"Perhaps, if you defeat me, I might explain—"
Before he could finish the sentence, Owen vanished in a burst of energy.
His body shot forward, breaking the sound barrier again and again as blasts of repulsion detonated beneath his feet, appearing directly in front of Doctor Hall's face.
The man was still holding that strange bow of pure gravity in his hand.
Graviton's eyes widened as Owen disappeared in that flash.
An instant later, a fist appeared right in front of his face.
"Ah—!"
He shouted as he quickly raised his hand, pointing toward Owen's back. A gravity bubble formed almost instantly, trying to counter him.
And that slowed Owen for a moment.
But Owen gave him an amused smile.
His punch shifted direction at the last second, veering toward the sphere of gravity Graviton was holding in his hand. At the same time, his fist began to charge with that red energy, radiating an enormous amount of heat and repulsion at once.
Then he struck.
The impact landed with full force on the arm.
The bone didn't hold.
The arm exploded in a spray of flesh and blood.
Doctor Hall was thrown backward as he screamed in pain.
Owen remained floating in the sky, countering the gravity of the sphere behind him with his own repulsion. From there he watched as the doctor, who believed himself superior to everyone in intelligence and everything else, fell like a broken comet.
All because of his own mistake.
Because Owen had used the very gravity Graviton displayed with such arrogance to propel himself even faster.
Technically… Doctor Hall himself had helped him land the blow.
"Damn you!" Graviton shouted when he finally regained control of his flight. His face twisted in pain as he held the bloody stump where his arm had once been.
Owen glanced down slightly at his glove. It had the same pattern as the arm guard he used to wear, the one marked with arrows pointing in different directions. But this time he wore it on both hands. And as gloves, they were much easier to use.
"You made a mistake if you thought you could challenge me," Owen said coldly. "I'm not like Hercules, a warrior who enjoys fighting for fun. I'm a soldier. And when a soldier has a job… he finishes it quickly, or people die."
Then he turned to look at the gravity bubble behind him. He could still feel the pull trying to crush him inside it. Only his ability kept that from happening.
Owen looked back at Graviton.
The man was growing more furious by the second.
Graviton raised his hand and pointed it at his own ruined arm. The flesh immediately began to compress. Doctor Hall screamed as gravity crushed the blood vessels, sealing the bleeding.
Owen couldn't help feeling slightly surprised by the man's resolve.
"Now… I will kill you," Graviton said, his eyes red with pain and fury.
Around him, several spheres of gravity began to appear. Each one seemed to devour everything nearby.
Even the oxygen.
Even Owen could feel his body beginning to be dragged toward Graviton despite his repulsion.
"Tsk."
Owen clicked his tongue as he watched the mad professor.
Then he stopped resisting.
For a full second, he allowed gravity to pull him in.
The moment he lost the force countering the pull trying to devour him, Owen's body was sucked forward at a speed even greater than before.
Almost instantly, friction turned the air around him into fire.
His body tore across the sky like a red meteor.
At the same time, that very friction triggered his ability again, absorbing the kinetic energy surging through his body.
When he reached Graviton, his body stopped abruptly in midair.
Now he burned inside his red aura, which seemed to cover him completely like some kind of liquid fire.
All that energy gathered in his fist.
Graviton smiled maliciously when he saw it. He moved a finger, and one of the spheres around him reacted immediately, shifting his body sideways to dodge the strike.
At the same time, the other spheres rapidly surrounded Owen, threatening to tear him apart from multiple points of gravity.
But Owen's fist didn't stop.
It simply changed targets.
This time it was aimed directly at one of the spheres.
When the two powers collided; gravity against repulsion; the air around them trembled violently.
Space itself seemed to distort.
Like glass about to shatter.
Suddenly, as if every force in the area had vanished, sound and movement froze in place.
As if gravity itself had disappeared for an instant.
Owen barely moved his eyes toward Graviton.
Doctor Hall's face was completely twisted with panic.
As if he understood exactly what was about to happen.
For a fraction of a second, the world seemed to fall into absolute silence.
Then the sound returned.
At first it came as a deep murmur, a low roar that seemed to howl as it grew stronger, spreading with such force that it could probably be heard for miles.
Graviton turned immediately, as if everything around him had slowed to a crawl while he tried to escape.
Owen's body, meanwhile, was completely covered in his aura, now pushed to its absolute limit.
Even Hercules and Sentry seemed to move slowly, turning their heads in that direction with visible confusion.
Until they saw where the sound was coming from.
There, suspended in the air, a crack appeared.
It was no larger than a fist.
But the sky should not crack.
Then the fracture widened slightly.
And then it gave way.
A monstrous explosion burst from its center.
The wave of destruction tore through everything in its path.
Energy burst outward violently, shoving everything before it as if the world itself had been struck by a furious god.
Even the planet seemed to shudder.
The heroes heading toward that point barely had time to react when they saw the shockwave tear open the sky itself as it rushed toward them.
Many turned immediately and fled.
Even so, several were thrown through the air by the force of the blast.
Even the satellites orbiting the planet seemed to shift toward the same direction at the same time.
Images began streaming across the world.
They showed how, suddenly, a massive void had formed on the surface of the planet.
A gigantic hollow where nothing remained.
No air.
No clouds.
No dust.
Only a vast empty space carved into the Earth itself.
And when the dust finally began to clear, what appeared beneath it was a colossal crater.
A crater so enormous it could swallow an entire city.
The nearby ocean had been violently pushed backward by the explosion.
But only for a moment.
Then it returned.
First as a towering wall of water rising along the horizon.
And then, like a colossal tsunami, the sea crashed into the crater, filling it rapidly as waves slammed against the newly shattered walls of rock.
From the center of the crater, something shot into the sky.
It was a body.
The body was covered in blood, broken bones jutting beneath torn flesh. One of his arms was already completely gone, and the wound tore open again under the strain. His body looked on the verge of total collapse.
Above his head floated a sphere of gravity; the only thing keeping him suspended in the air.
"Huff… huff…"
Graviton breathed with difficulty. His body was utterly ruined as he tried to escape. But he could barely move.
Every movement felt as if it ground the remains of his bones to dust.
Then a black dagger pierced through his back.
A thread of metal, incredibly thin yet impossibly strong, was attached to the hilt. The wire tightened instantly and yanked the dagger with violent force.
Doctor Hall's body lost what little stability it had left.
And he began to fall.
Straight toward the raging tsunami of destruction below.
At the other end of the metal thread stood Owen.
His condition was not much better.
Perhaps even worse.
His body was covered in deep wounds, and more than one bone was likely reduced to powder. He remained barely conscious, supported by a muscular man who was also injured, though in far better condition than he was.
"Sorry for interrupting your fight," Owen said in a tired voice.
Hercules wore a faint smile.
"Oh, it's fine. We just took a pause," he replied calmly.
As he spoke, he glanced at a golden flash rapidly retreating in the distance.
Sentry.
Even from afar it was clear he was badly injured as well.
"Hahaha… you really are tough," Hercules said, looking at Owen, who by all rights should have been dead in that state… and yet was still conscious.
"Oh yes. It's my curse," Owen replied with a weary sigh. "I'm suffering more than you can imagine."
He paused briefly before continuing.
"But it was better to kill that guy now. If he discovers a new ability while fighting you, we don't want him creating wormholes and throwing them around like rocks."
"When you recover, fight me, Owen Colt," Hercules said immediately, as if nothing Owen had said truly mattered.
Owen glanced sideways at him, exhausted.
"How about I find you a Norse god to fight instead?" he answered simply.
"Sure. It's a deal," Hercules said enthusiastically.
Without another word, he leapt in a massive bound back toward where they had come from, carrying Owen with effortless ease as the man silently endured the pain.
Meanwhile, neither of them noticed something.
Several drones hovered around the devastated area.
Many of them could barely stay in the air due to the damage they had taken.
But they remained there anyway.
Watching.
Analyzing.
Recording every second of the battle.