[Kol Mikaelson POV]:
Kol stood over yet another world map, ruined by inky blood, his locator spell failing yet again.
He had been trying to find Max for the better part of an hour — With no success. Beside him even lay a pile of ruined world maps, reminding him of his failure.
'A millennium worth of magical artifact knowledge, ingenious magical applicable uses and my own magic returned to me despite my Original vampire status, and I cannot find the one man I love!' thought Kol in frustration. 'This is bloody humiliating!'
Beside Kol, Kai Parker had his own pile of ruined world maps — Evidence of his efforts to find their mate even despite repeated failure.
Kol and Kai have both tried everything they could to find Maximus. Going so far as to combine their magic powers alongside Marcus' own magic power a few times — To no avail.
Even Sebastian had tried using his psychic vampire abilities to help — Also to no success.
"We need to find him," Kol muttered, feeling antsy and ready to go on a murder spree.
"I agree," Kai snarled, setting a bag of potato chips aside. But do we have any idea how? Marcus asked, perplexed. "Any ideas? Anyone?"
Kol looked around at the 3 other men gathered around none of them offering a new perspective. His fist clenched and his frustration threatened to make his eye veins darken, his fangs to drop and his temper to explode.
He may have exploded at the next thing to piss him off, too, if it weren't for Kai, who, seeming to sense Kol's wrath, walked up beside the Original until he brushed up against the vampire, surprising Kol, who turned to lock eyes with the siphoner. "What are you—?"
"We will find him," Kai urged, hand on Kol's shoulder, sounding surprisingly reassuring, which was in and of itself strangely comforting coming from Kai Parker of all people. "And when we find out who's responsible," Kai's face darkened. "We'll rip them limb from limb."
Kol nodded, some pressure off his shoulders at Kai's confirmation.
They all felt it when Kaleb died. The bond through the Verbatim Stone crest etched into their abdomens were likely stronger than a werewolf pack bond and almost as strong as a sire bond for them. For Max, though, the bond was even stronger than that, so it was no surprise that when they felt Kaleb's bond to the mate dissolved, Max was already gone — After all, Max was connected to all of them in a way stronger bond than they were connected to each other.
'Unfortunately, the twat didn't decide to bring us with him,' Kol thought, frustration building as he released breath through his nose. 'Thankfully, Mason is out there right now trying to track Max down, but I doubt he'll find anything...Sigh…,' Kol nearly hadn't sensed it in his frustration. The magical fluctuations of astral energy around them seemed to fold.
"I have an idea," a new voice sounded and all men looked towards the source — A bronze skinned young man in black trousers with a bronze belt, brown boots and a black, longsleeve tunic, its sleeves rolled up.
"And who are you?" Sebastian asked.
"Max's mate... or his new one, I guess. We met in the mountain temple," the young man said, garnering Kol's undivided attention. "My name is Barshamsha, but you can just call me Bar."
"Well, Bar," Kol asked, eyebrow raised. "What is this idea of yours?"
"Me," Bar said, surprising everyone present. "My idea is me. My dimension is linked to Max's. If we channel the location spell through me, we're likely to find Max easier."
Kol and Kai locked eyes.
"Well, I'm convinced," Kai grinned eagerly.
"Let's get started then," Kol cleared the desk, pulling out yet another world map.
[Maximus Westphall-Bennett POV]:
In Max's dimensional version of Mystic Falls, the town was in flames,
Its many buildings lay in ruins and the very sky seemed to come alive with loud booms, as if something fast were repetitively shattering the sound barrier or something heavy was repetitively colliding with something else just as heavy…
And, on the ground, a few meters from where the Salvatore House resided, a large, unnatural tree of jagged bones propped up a bloody and clearly dead corpse, its full-body cloak, torn and ripped, still showed the #7 even in death.
Beside this tree of bones stood the one hooded and cloaked #4, who watched the fight going on above him with an unconcerned gaze, not at all phased by the tree of bones holding the corpse of his compatriot beside him.
"Those two are stronger than Prometheus on their own. Together, they should be able to face a full-fledged lesser god... And yet," Number 4 narrowed his eyes as Number 6 fell out of the sky towards the Earth like a meteor, crashing with an earth-shattering BOOM! "They're having difficulty forcing this mortal into submission... Did we underestimate him...?"
WHOOOSH!
A column of hellfire alit the darkened sky like a rising sun. It was followed by a column of phoenix fire that brightened the sky even more than the hellfire had. This column was followed by two new columns made one — both of hellfire and phoenix flames.
The aftermath? Whatever remained of Number 5 fell from the skies in ashes.
And Maximus? He was wreathed in hellfire and phoenix flames, ginormous wings of fire spread behind him—however even as his body seemed to be made of fire. He looked down at a chuckling Number 4, sure of his victory.
"You did well against those 3," he clapped, removing his hood to reveal a young black, bald man's face, his eyes glowing crimson, the only thing revealing his rage. "They were restricted to the laws of this reality. Unfortunately for you, I am not. I have the true physiology of a Kryptonian under a yellow star and the skills of General Zod. You are a defect unto the Order of this world. An anomaly. I will have order again... even if I have to kill you to ensure it, Maximus Westphall."
Much warning, Number 4 rushed forward like a bullet, faster than Max could react. Almost instantly, his hand was clawed around Max's throat, so tight that the change in oxygen nearly made Max pass out.
Then, as Number 4 intended to extend the torture session, he chucked Max across the sky by a whole kilometer, falling to the Earth faster than he could right himself. Max collided with the very ground in a loud, destructive cataclysm.
BOOOM!
Every house within a mile radius went up in splinters and the very Earth cratered beneath the collision.
Max groaned, willing his healing factor to work overtime to heal every bone in his body, which was likely shattered. He even used his authority over this dimension to temporarily speed up his healing, stopping time around him, including the crazed Kryptonian that had just chucked him like a volleyball.
'If I didn't have complete authority of this dimension, I would be fucked,' Max noted as the healing process completed itself. 'But I do. And that's bad... for him.'
Max teleported directly in front of a mid-charging Number 4. He tapped the bald man's temple with both hands, mentally imprinting a virus into the man's head — One that would only activate at Max's will.
Then, placing a palm to the man's chest, Max placed a self-destruction curse on him — One that would slowly destroy all of the man's arteries, organs and skeletal structure, but only slowly — It, too, remained dormant until Max willed it.
And, finally, Max teleported backwards, thrusting a hand forward, he mentally prepared the command word — A word that would increase Number 4's personal gravity to be the equivalent of the collective gravity of the entire planetary solar system.
"Gravity," Max commanded at the same time as he willed time to return to normal.
The last thing Max saw of the one known as Number Four was his widening eyes before the increased sudden gravity forced the man to plummet down to the ground almost instantaneously, creating a deep, single, man-shaped hole into the crust of Max's private dimension.
"50 miles. 160. 100,000. 200, 000. Wow, and it's still climbing... Or falling, I guess," Max murmured. "I should probably stop the gravity soon... Reverse it, maybe? I don't want him to fall into the next layer by accident. That fire abyss isn't what I want him in quite yet..."
"Reverse gravity," Max commanded, willing the same amount of gravity forcing 4 to fall, to rise him up.
In no time, #4 returned to the surface, with Max returning gravity to him normally, unceremoniously dumping the Kryptonian onto the ground. He seemed battered, bruised and covered in filth, like a homeless person. His clothes remained in tatters.
'Yet, despite all of that...' Max pondered, noticing how #4 rose to slightly shaking legs. 'He can still fight? Kryptonians are scary. I should come up with a contingency in case I ever come across someone with a similar physiology. Imagine facing someone like Superman or Sentry but, like, enhanced... with no contingency. Nightmare fuel. The multiverse is too vast not to think I won't come across any other isekai souls, and I think this Hand of Nature has just proven that point. If I'm to traverse the multiverse, then certain contingencies need to be made.'
Max hovered before the battered Kryptonian, not making a move yet.
'The psychic virus won't kill them. It will merely buy me time to traverse the omniverse to empower myself,' Max thought. 'That curse, however, will definitely kill this guy once I activate it, though I may wait to do that until I'm ready to assimilate the guy's abilities as my own... Or maybe I'll activate it and force his body and soul to act as fertilizer for psychic abilities... I've yet to decide that last part.'
'The first part, however,' Max mentally chuckled, grabbing the Kryptonian's chin and forcefully imprinting his mental will to his mind. "You will return to the Hand of Nature — Or wherever you bastards come from — You will let them know what happened here today. And you will tell them that I am coming for them. All of them. Tell them that Maximus Bennett aims to do to them what they did to his kin. You got that?"
Eyes blank, devoid of conscious will, Number 4 nodded. "Yes."
"Good." Max shoved 4 out of his private dimension and watched the bastard fly away. 'With this, there can be no more fooling around. It's time to expedite plans. Train. Become even stronger.'
Then, with a snap of his fingers, the dimension returned to its normal form with only a few tweaks — First, the bone tree was now fully integrated into the dimension, fueled by #7's very soul and dead corpse, so the bastard felt everything, even in death. The bone tree was wreathed in eternal hellfire. Second, #6 and #5 both became new tenants in Max's personal Hell layer of his dimension.
As Max returned to his normal self, he noticed the sudden arrival of 6 of his men and he thought to himself, 'Maybe just one more time before I get to work?...' his Omega Pheromone Rune already making all 6 men's noses flare...
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P.S: The next chapter will have some heavy smut scenes. It will be the last smut scene of this particular arc, so you're going to be in for a hella surprise XD! We goin' out this arc with a BANG! LOL! Please feel free to comment below or add your paragraph comment if you're using WebNovel. I've decided to stop posting on FanFiction.Net due to the diffuculty of posting tegular chapters there. Just FYI.
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