BOOM!!
Tyler and Vilgax collided in a whirlwind of dust and debris, locked in a stalemate. The Conqueror's mechanical eyes flared with shock. "The strength of this form... it exceeds even the Tetramand he used earlier!"
Tyler didn't waste breath on words. The narrow slits of his iron suit erupted with a blast of superheated radioactive air, striking Vilgax point-blank. The tyrant jerked his head back, his skin sizzling as he snarled, "Despicable rat!"
Tyler grabbed Vilgax's wrists, pinning him as he unleashed wave after wave of thermal radiation mixed with pure, jagged nuclear energy. Vilgax, for the first time in centuries, felt a flicker of genuine panic. He stomped the earth, shattering the road to break Tyler's balance, and finally managed to pull away.
"Speed and agility are your weaknesses," Vilgax panted, his gaze narrowing as he circled Tyler. "I've already won."
He was right. The Fallout-Forge was a tank, but Vilgax was a warrior king. He danced around Tyler's heavy swings, his counter-strikes beginning to crack the lead-iron plating.
If I stay in the suit, I lose, Tyler thought, the heat inside him reaching critical levels. But if I emerge, the radiation will kill Grandpa and the others.
A hundred yards away, the Rustbucket's engines roared. Ben had covered the RV as The Techno-Parasite, dragging it out of the wreckage.
"Grandpa, we can't leave him!" Ben yelled.
"We aren't leaving him, Ben! We're the only things holding him back!" Max shouted. "He can't use his true power while we're in the blast zone! Drive!"
As the RV sped away, Max explained the nightmare: the Fallout-Forge was an uncontained living core. Without them nearby, Tyler could finally vent his soul.
"Darn it!" Vilgax realized his tactical error too late. "I let the family escape!"
"Actually," Tyler's voice rumbled with a chilling, hollow mockery. "You've done me a favor."
BANG!!
Vilgax swung a fist at Tyler's head, but the helmet didn't just crack—it hissed open. A terrifying, dark red entity made of raw energy surged out of the lead sarcophagus. The collision scorched Vilgax's hand to the bone.
All the trees and grass within fifty meters instantly withered, turning to black ash. The energy demon hovered in the air, fangs bared, eyes glowing with a malevolent orange light.
Biu—Biu—
Suddenly, the red light on Tyler's chest began to pulse rapidly. The death countdown. Twenty minutes were up.
"No..." Tyler whispered, his eyes dazed. "Not yet. I still have the Killing Intent!"
He slammed his translucent, burning hand against the Carnitrix pattern. In a move that defied the watch's standard laws, the timer reset to zero. But the cost was immediate.
WHOOSH!!
A blood-red light bloomed over the mountain pass like a flare from hell. Vilgax felt a cold sweat prickle his skin. The pressure radiating from the boy was no longer alien—it was eldritch.
Tyler's figure descended, his head bowed. Endless destruction and a primal desire to tear flesh rushed into his heart, shattering his sanity. Kill Vilgax... then find the Rustbucket... then destroy the Plumber Base...
[Slaughter PROTOCOL: AUTO-ACTIVATED]
Tyler's eyes snapped open, glowing a violent, bloody red. He wasn't being possessed; he was being overwritten.
"Dazing in a fight? Die!!" Vilgax lunged, a killing blow aimed at Tyler's head.
Tyler's head remained down, but his body tilted with preternatural grace, the punch missing him by a fraction of an inch. He moved like a ghost, strolling through Vilgax's frantic barrage as if he were walking through a garden.
"How?!" Vilgax roared. "He isn't even looking at me!"
Tyler looked up. His eyes were no longer human. He slammed a fist into Vilgax's solar plexus, detonating the kinetic energy into a nuclear blast that sent the tyrant flying through the cliffside.
"You ignore pain?" Vilgax wheezed, looking at his shattered chest plate.
Tyler didn't answer. He lunged again. His style was insane, suicidal, and perfect. He ignored his own injuries, detonating his own limbs to blast Vilgax into the dirt. No matter how Vilgax counterattacked, he couldn't touch a hair on the boy's head.
The Conqueror of Ten Worlds was being crushed.
A moment later, Tyler was a mess of regenerating energy and scorched iron. Vilgax, broken and bleeding, trembled as he crawled toward him. "With no hands or feet left to swing... what will you do?"
Vilgax used his last bit of strength to ram his head into Tyler.
CRACK!!
Tyler opened his blood-red maw. Rows of energy-fangs exploded out as he bit directly into Vilgax's neck. He tasted the tyrant's blood, tearing and gnashing with animalistic fury.
"AHHHH! NO!!"
Tyler savored the taste of the copper-sweet blood. His Slaughter Protocol surged to 100%. His consciousness completely vanished, replaced by a fighting machine that performed with terrifying perfection.
High above in the Chimerian Hammer, the mechanical subordinates stared at the screens in utter silence. They watched the Earthling brutally dismantle Lord Vilgax—the most feared man in the galaxy.
"Azmuth... 'Peace'?" the drone whispered, trembling. "He calls himself a man of peace and he created that mode?"
The drone looked at the carnage below. "Azmuth is a monster... and that boy is his masterpiece."