[Scene Shift: The Tree of Life]
The Arcon of Life collapsed to her knees, her eyes wide with terror as she watched the projection. "That spear... it's not just energy. It's a gravitational singularity. If that thing explodes, the chain reaction won't stop at the galaxy. The entire universe will collapse into itself!"
Alya and Techyon watched, frozen. The stakes had reached the absolute limit of existence.
[Scene Shift: The Battlefield]
The spear of erasure hissed, tearing the fabric of space as it reached Yoru . But she didn't explode. She didn't even flinch.
With a casual, bored motion, Yoru reached up and caught the giant, universal-destroying spear with one hand. The friction alone turned the surrounding air into plasma, but she held it like a toy.
"You know," Yoru said, looking up at Gudmaro with a mocking grin. "I'm in a playful mood. Let's play a game of volleyball. If I win, you're finished. If you win... well, then this Earth is finished. Seems fair, right?"
"What are you—?!"
Yoru didn't wait for him to finish. She tossed the spear into the air and kicked it like a football.
BOOM!
The "Galaxy Eraser" screamed through the sky. Gudmaro, driven by pure survival instinct, caught it with his own warped mana and hurled it back at her. For several minutes, the two highest beings in existence passed a universe-ending weapon back and forth across the sky, each hit creating shockwaves that were felt in other dimensions.
Finally, Yoru yawned. "Okay, I'm bored now."
She raised one hand, her palm glowing with a terrifying, static-filled golden light. "FINAL ELECTRO BEAM!"
Instead of firing a blast, she punched her own palm into the back of the spear. The impact didn't just push the weapon; it accelerated it past the speed of causality. The spear didn't just fly—it punched a hole through the multiverse, disappearing into another universe entirely.
Gudmaro felt the wind of the attack pass his face. He instantly warped his body out of the way, his sensors red-lining. 'If that attack had hit me...' he thought, his mechanical core trembling. 'I wouldn't just be dead. I would be completely vaporized from existence.'
Yoru ascended through the vacuum, her movements fluid and silent like a predator in deep water. She stopped just inches from Gudmaro, her golden aura now burning with a calm, terrifying intensity.
"My muscles are warm now," she said, her voice vibrating through his very circuits. "The blood is flowing properly. I don't think I need to use 4% of my power anymore. It's a bit of an overkill, don't you think?"
Gudmaro felt his logic processors stutter. "You... you're bluffing! That's impossible! No biological being can move like that at 4%! You're lying to hide your exhaustion!"
Yoru tapped her chin thoughtfully. "Actually, you're right. Now that I think about it... I'm probably using much less than 4%. Maybe two? It's hard to tell when the opponent is this fragile."
"SILENCE!"
Gudmaro snapped. Driven by pure, unadulterated terror, he unleashed his maximum speed. His obsidian arms became a blur that defied the laws of time. He was throwing 70 million punches per second, each one carrying enough kinetic energy to crack a tectonic plate.
To the Arcons watching from the Tree of Life, it looked like a wall of red light. But to Yoru, it looked like a fly buzzing in slow motion.
"Let's make this fair," Yoru sighed, her hands dropping to her sides. "I'll only use my feet for this part of the fight. I wouldn't want you to feel overwhelmed."
Gudmaro roared, redoubling his efforts, but Yoru moved like a shadow. She wasn't just dodging; every time her feet moved, the air pressure from her movement damaged Gudmaro's armor.
'Each of her kicks... it feels like a multiversal collapse is happening against my skin,' Gudmaro thought, his internal systems failing. 'I can't adapt... I can't even see the impact!'
Suddenly, Yoru's heel snapped upward, connecting with the side of Gudmaro's head.
BOOM!
The "God" was sent screaming back down to Earth, crashing into the dirt and kicking up a massive cloud of obsidian smoke.
"Don't bother hiding in the smoke," Yoru called out, descending slowly. "I can sense your mana perfectly now. You're leaking it like a broken toy."
She waited for a moment, but the smoke didn't move. 'He's trying to play dead?' she thought.
"Fine. Split Blade."
Yoru didn't even touch the ground. A giant, jagged blade of pure golden pressure manifested from her palm. She made a "pulling" motion, and the blade lanced through the smoke, skewering Gudmaro through the chest and hoisting him into the air like a fish on a hook.
"You... you pig!" Gudmaro spat, black oil and blue mana leaking from his mouth. "Let me go! I am the Galaxy Eraser! I am the end of—"
"You're a nuisance," Yoru interrupted.
[Scene Shift: The Tree of Life]
Techyon let out a long, relieved breath, watching the screen where Yoru held Gudmaro skewered like an insect. "I don't think we need to worry about interrupting anymore. Even if that monster reached a 'Perfect Form,' he'd still lose. Yoru is playing a different game entirely."
"You are wrong."
The voice was weak but heavy with authority. Neweland groaned as he tried to sit up. Alya rushed to his side, her eyes wide. "Father! You're awake! Please, don't move, let me help you stand."
Neweland gripped Alya's arm, his eyes fixed on the projection of Yoru. "Listen to me... y-yoru is only winning because she is hiding her mana. Gudmaro is a parasite; he cannot drain what he cannot sense. In his Second Form, he is blind to her. But..."
Neweland's voice trembled. "If he reaches his Perfect Form, he won't need to 'sense' her mana. He will sense her existence. If he achieves perfection, there is no one in this multiverse—not even Yoru—who can stand against him."
[Scene Shift: The Void Battlefield]
Yoru looked down at the skewered, twitching mess of Gudmaro.
"You called me a pig?" Yoru asked, her voice dropping to a dangerous, icy whisper. "Look at your own body, 'God.' You're leaking oil and mana in the dirt. You're the one being slaughtered. And I don't think your cells have the strength left to regenerate from this one."
Gudmaro looked down. The wound from the Split Blade was cauterized by pure physical friction; his regeneration was stuttering, the obsidian skin failing to knit back together.
'I need it...' Gudmaro thought, his core pulsing with a desperate, dark hunger. 'I need a massive surge of mana. If I can just break the limit... if I regain my Perfect Form, this woman will be nothing more than a memory.'
Yoru raised her right hand, her palm beginning to crackle with a sound like a thousand dying suns. The air turned into a vacuum, and the ground beneath them began to disintegrate into atoms.
"Looks like everything ends now," Yoru declared. The golden light in her hand turned a deep, lethal violet. "Annihilation Volt."