Chapter 145 - Idolatry, Part 4.

This work is a piece of fiction. While it may be inspired by real events, cultures, and practices in human history, the story blends factual history with fictional characters, dramatizations, and creative interpretation.

It is not intended to promote, glorify, or encourage any illegal activities, substance use, or harmful behavior. All depictions of sensitive topics are included solely for narrative and historical context, and are not intended to be offensive or provocative.

For the effects of the story, all characters are to be considered above the age of majority.

Reader discretion is advised.

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Earth-5H1N3, Year 2001.

"I realize now I should have been more careful with my mindless suggestion—sometimes I can forget the type of family my own is—but I must ask again, are we really burning Reality?"

Normally, when warping from a spatial coordinate to another, the change is seamless, like walking through a door from one room to another, but this time their destination was slightly special, so Plutusdrakon, Jean, Kitty, Irina, and Yelena were moving incredibly fast through a tunnel of space.

Their expression were varied, Kitty sporting a cocksure grin, Irina failing to mask her pyromaniac grin, Yelena smiling confidently, and Jean showing the resolve of someone about to end a Reality; different expressions with one thing in common, none of them showed hesitation.

Given their expressions and the lack of psionic energy for Plutusdrakon to comprehend what his aunts were actually feeling, he felt the need to act as the voice of reason.

Plutusdrakon knew that his aunt Irina was a pyromaniac and possibly his Granfather's most faithful and obsessed Therion, so he didn't doubt that the normally regal and listless bunny was 3000% behind this plan.

His aunt Yelena, whom his mother and grandmother always advised him to be careful with, cared almost as little about the world outside the Imperium as his pyro-aunt.

His aunt Jean, whom he had recently grown close to after she kidnapped him, was raised by his Grandfather and the Phoenix Force. He could not fathom what type of mentality she had, but he trusted her resolve in carrying out this crazy plan, which is why he was beyond concerned!

And his aunt Kitty... Yeah.

"It's our only play, Plutus." Irina's words came out without much emotional intonation, but that grin she was failing to conceal didn't fool him.

"We can always restore the timeline after dealing with the purple shitstain," Yelena added with a shrug of her shoulders and tails.

"I'm not at the level of erasing timelines yet, so rest assured." No, Jean's words didn't reassure him at all!

"It's even logical," Kitty added. "Thanos wields Reality and Mind. He may have found a substitute for Power, but he certainly lacks Soul, Space, and, most importantly, Time.

"He fears us, and he is right to do so; we would go at him at full force if he so much as peeks in our direction. Hence, the Mad Titan is hiding. What better to lure him out of the forest than by setting it aflame like California during a frying summer?"

"No, I'm following you because I can't think of another solution, but that doesn't mean we should not pause to consider this longer than a week," Plutus said.

"You know that initially we were going to wait for a few months before the incursion Aragorn sent our way found us, but he is attacking all life-bearing planets. Even humans, and other alien mortal life, have realized that they are slowly being suffocated to extinction," Jean said.

Initially, only a mind with the available resources like Reed Richards was able to discover the covert attack, but after five days, labs around the world began to register the falling levels of oxygen and the increasing levels of CO2.

The Nova Empire was not late in contacting the embassy in The Halo, logically concerned about the situation they were mirroring with Earth's.

It wasn't that oxygen couldn't be produced, or that other forms of sequestering carbon didn't exist; the problem was that Reality was being warped to slowly forget the free molecule O2, and that anything that produced CO2 was being altered to produce more than it should, even if the laws of thermodynamics and mass conservation were being ignored.

Some species that needed higher levels of dioxygen, or that were particularly sensitive to carbon dioxide, had begun falling, and sapient lifeforms that benefited from such conditions were falling to their knees in prayer to their missing deities.

"I think this Thanos, somehow, gained the same obsession as other Thanos: the Madame," Yelena commented.

"Aragorn once mentioned that the Thanos of this Reality didn't simp for our Madame," Kitty interjected. "The Chaos King must have done something!"

"In conclusion, no matter how absurd this plan is, we must act on it now," Irina said to Plutus.

With reluctance, Plutus nodded his head slowly and said, "I already have my Duskari ready to assist us if needed. I'm also ready to assist Jean."

"As I am," Irina nodded.

"Thank you." The gratefulness Jean displayed was real.

━━━━━━━ ● ━━━━━━━

From a corner of Reality-5H1N3, one of the countless locations empty of all life in the Universe, closer to the expanding edge of the space-time mesh than to the center of Reality, Thanos was slowly choking most life.

Realities in the multiverse of Marvel were abundantly teeming with life, sapient life, so, naturally, it was impossible to end all life by simply reducing the quantity of breathable air. Not all life needed O2 and was susceptible to CO2.

But, at least, more than half did, and that was all that mattered to Thanos.

Was he enlightened by the trial at the God Quarry? Or did his mind finish falling apart? If Aragorn were asked, he would reply that he certainly was enlightened, given that he discovered that there was no more perfect being than his Noona, but everyone else would beg to differ.

The enlightened Mad Titan realized that to enter the Realm of Death, he would need to stretch open the path souls take to it; hence, he needed a large, cosmic-large, number of souls pushing their way to the Realm of Death.

Usually, before a soul made it to the Realm of Death, it followed a cycle through the several repositories of souls, Hells, Purgatories, and Heavens, but after sealing the paths to the repositories—which had the pleasant side effect of locking the forces of his enemies out of Reality—the souls would default to the Realm of Souls.

Barring the end of a Reality, the paths to the Realm of Death were not equipped to handle such an impossibly large influx of souls.

However, Thanos' seemingly flawless plan began to crack two weeks in, when he sensed something was wrong.

He stood, alarmed, from his throne and gazed into the star-dotted deep darkness of space.

"My Liege?" Ebony Maw asked.

"I felt a disturbance in Reality... As if its voice suddenly cried out in terror... It knows something terrible will happen."

The power he gained from the God Quarry, plus his assimilation of the Mind and Reality Stones, allowed him a level of synchronization to Reality unmatched almost by all.

"Your command, My Liege?" Ebony Maw asked.

"We move, prepare the army, everyone!" Thanos commanded.

The red power of the Reality Stone pulsed from his body, and from the point of contact of his soles with the ship, the energy spread. A pulse of yellow followed, and a shroud of the same colour blessed Ebony Maw.

Thanos' wishes, basically commands to Ebony Maw, his expectations, and the information he had gathered from his senses from Reality itself, were shared with him.

While the rest of the psichics who relied on external psionic energy were currently crippled, the same was not true for those who sided with Thanos.

"Look to the firmament! It tells us the stars will be cold, that the void is a hollow sepulcher waiting to swallow the light of our Liege. It tells us we fly to preserve 'Reality'—that nebulous concept of existence that the scholars and the weak cling to in their terror.

"They are wrong. We do not bleed for the sake of 'existence.' We do not take flight to save the ephemeral dirt of a billion worlds. We fight because our Liege has willed it! Our horizon is not defined by the edges of the cosmos, but by the shadow of our Liege!"

Ebony Maw's rousing call reached the Black Order, the Chitauri, the Outriders, the Sakaarans, and the legions of the countless Thanos had enslaved through the Mind Stone in preparation for the future.

Those who had no will or followed the will of a relay controlled by Thanos, moved out with the mechanical precision unmatched by any empire's army. Those who kept their will acted with the fanatic devotion of zealots answering to the will of the higher power they worshipped.

"The Therions await us in the abyssal dark, thinking they fight a coalition of the desperate. They think we are driven by the fear of extinction. Let them find only our certainty of our Liege's will and path!

"Your lives were never yours to lose; they were a prebend granted by our Liege, an allotment of time to be spent in his Service. If the Universe must be the theatre of our final revel, then let it burn with the fires of our obedience! Reality is but a stage for the one truth; our Liege is the only truth!"

Reality unfolded like a sheet, and the thousands, hundreds of thousands, and millions of vessels with mystical veins of crimson energy appeared.

Like turning on a machine larger than a star, Thanos' army rose up.

"Man your vessels! Ignite the engines and pierce the shroud of spacetime! We do not seek a rapprochement with the end; we seek the total extirpation of any force that dares stand against the divine Will of our Liege, the only will!

"When the history of the cosmos is written—if there is a hand left to write it—let it not say we fought to save the world. Let it be said we fought because we were commanded, and in that command, we found our immortality.

For our Liege! To the Center of the Universe!"

Have you ever concerned yourself with the morale of your army while you invade worlds across the Universe? With the power of the Mind Stone's blessing whispering Ebony Maw's zealotry directly into their minds, you don't have to.

Whether they possessed a will or not, they all roared like the madmen they were.

Thanos was everything to them. They ate, breathed, moved, and existed only for him.

Less than an hour later, an absurdly short time for an army of this size to mobilize, a black hole opened and swallowed the entire army.

With the power of Reality at his hand and the knowledge plundered from countless civilizations, including Titan's own, Thanos understood far more methods of spatial warping than most. And with the Celestials being entities that had been studied by almost all great civilizations, it had not been hard for Thanos to replicate their preferred method of travel.

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At the center of the Universe, the location suspected to house the Heart of each Universe, Jean, shrouded in Cosmic Fire, sat in a lotus position.

Despite being the center of creation, the point from which the Big Bang started, the location was not crowded with celestial bodies; if anything, it was about as empty as the edges of the Universe were.

Jean's emerald slitted eyes were closed, her being, not her skin, her being was peeling back, starting from the tips of her feet, leaving behind a brightness akin to a star.

She was slowly elementalizing into Cosmic Fire, but not the normal elementalization; it was an unstable application of it.

As a host of the Phoenix Force, the amount of power Jean had access to was directly proportional to her level of existence and skill at handling the nigh-omnipotent power.

This didn't translate to Jean having that full power at her beck and call. Just as a human could not exert their maximum strength without preparation, Jean could not start resetting the Universe with a thought and a gesture. Additionally, with her connection to Phoenix currently blocked, she could only rely on the source within herself and the external fuel she could get her hands on.

"My Kitty Sense is tingling," Kitty hissed.

Yelena, Irina, and Plutus didn't need her warning because their own 'Kitty Sense' was tingling as well.

A 'short' distance away, about as the distance between the Moon and Earth, a black hole materialized, curving light around its event horizon, and warping spacetime with gravity.

The black hole expanded and then shrunk into inexistence. Left behind were the millions of vessels-worth fleet pulsing with the crimson power of the Reality Gem.

"Hehehehehe," Kitty laughed.

"Hahahahaha!" Yelena cackled.

"He did come out," Plutusdrakon pointed out before switching to his dragon form.

"Ah, how much I will enjoy burning it to ashes," Irina murmured.

"Irina, Plutus," Jean called out with her eyes closed. "Don't stray too far from me."

"Roger that," Plutus hoarse voice rumbled.

"I'll never be further than a jump away," Irina nodded as a shroud of blue flames violently coated her.

"We take the vanguard, Lena," Kitty stated. With the sound Ffffkrrrrshhzzzwooooom..woom..woooom.. two purple lightsabers appeared in her hands, and her form shifted for battle. Feet turned digitigrade, her face streamlined like a feline, her nails became claws, her arms elongated, and her nine tails fanned out.

Similar to Kitty, Yelena's body became ready for battle and donned an armor of divine ice.

A pulse of crimson energy was the signal for the start.

A faint, almost imperceptible, hue of blueish-white flickered for an instant as the pulse of red engulfed them.

[That won't work, failed abortion.] Kitty maliciously replied through her divinity, ensuring her statement reached Thanos.

A second pulse came after, and solid ground appeared below them, along with the corresponding gravity.

Thanos' vessels launched projectile pods that, upon crashing with the newly born layer of ground, released his hordes of Outriders and Chitauri.

Even from such a distance, the Therions noticed and sensed what was wrong with the horde of willless aliens. Their bodies were engraved with red veins of Reality Stone power, and their heads were shrouded with the yellow of the Mind Stone.

With each step, lounge, and desperate leap, Reality warped to shorten the distance and to favor the horde.

The spaceship armada fanned out and flew parallel to the horde that was shrinking the distance on the ground. It was a composite assault, the horde from the ground, and the fleet above.

Like a wall of pulsing red and yellow about to tsunami the Therions.

[Reality and Mind grant less authority than Laws.] Kitty mocked, as if teaching a toddler.

Something hard to visualize happened. The fleet fired their energy and ammunition weapons, and the streaks of light flew straight to the Therions, yet, on their way, they veered off course violently and took random routes that all met at the ground, right above the first wall of the horde.

When the light of the explosion, fueled by the energy and ammunition weaponry, shone, annihilating a large part of the horde, it revealed the truth hidden from mortal eyes; the laws of direction had been altered between Thanos' forces and the Therions.

The Mind Stone granted absolute authority over anything related to the [Mind], and Reality did the same for [Reality], but Kitty's divinity of laws was more far-reaching. Obviously, her divinity was not as absolute as the Reality Stones, but it was more versatile.

Still, Thanos' usage of the Reality Stone was akin to reality-warping, so... A pulse of red energy later, and the laws of direction changed to favor the horde and fleet.

Like the billions of lights in a city at night, the warships lit up, announcing the start of the second volley.

Four of Yelena's fluffy, blue-tipped white tails coiled around four of Kitty's purple-black tails, and a complex magic circle manifested below them.

A pulse of negentropy flashed from the magic circle, powered by their divinity, and wave after wave of absolute zero besieged the horde and the volleys fired by the ships.

The pulse manifested like a freezing light, the color of the tips of Yelena's tails.

Most weapons fire a round of high-energy content meant to be transformed into released kinetic energy when colliding with the target, but if all of this energy is sapped before the payload is delivered, then the attack is disarmed.

Most fired ammunition didn't reach the Therions, and the energy weaponry fizzled out like the last light of fireworks.

The Horde's front crumbled down like tempered glass shattering.

Still, with distance, the attack lost power, and the red energy coursing through them was not for show, so the survivors, and the charging masses still pouring forth, adapted to the divine spell and kept marching forward with wild abandon, pulverizing the shattered remains of the fallen vanguard under their billions of feet.

"I don't think we have the time for this," Plutusdrakon commented while measuring Jean's progress. It was going slowly. "We'll be drowned in numbers before Jean is ready. By the time Thanos 'graces' us with his presence, you'll have tired out."

Plutusdrakon was not underestimating his aunts. They were all equivalent to Godheads in divine reserves, and their believers were so numerous that their recovery of divinity was as absurd as they were. The problem was that Thanos' cannon fodder was enhanced by the Reality Stone, and they were so numerous that it was not a joke to claim that there were more Chitauri in the horde than there were humans on Earth, and that was only the Chitauri.

No matter how divine, tricky, experienced, and prepared they currently were, they didn't have the leeway to exterminate the rabble before the heavy hitters descended.

Plutusdrakon knocked the ground with his heavy tail twice, and the advantage Thanos had conjured for his Horde was turned against them.

Like a recreation of Earth's volcanic eras, volcanoes erupted from the artificial ground, and lava, pyroclastic blasts, and earthquakes became the new theme of the battlefield.

"Plutus is right," Yelena acknowledged. "It's time to summon our horde."

With nods of agreement, they sent a signal through The System.

Far away from the incomprehensible battlefield, at an arm of the Milky Way, the Orion Arm, in the insignificant Solar System, the Halo lit up with cyan-blue circuitry at its outer rim. The structure hummed to life, and from Earth, the side facing the night, and those whose sight of the ringworld was not overshadowed by the hole to the Void Between realities, saw the outer edge of the Halo lit up with blue.

Instinctively, with practiced ease, they aimed their recording devices at it and waited with bated breath while keeping an eye on the international alert system. In their minds, they were already going over the nearest route to an underground shelter.

The Halo didn't disappoint. First, it pulsed with a cyan light, and a strange black hole appeared at the other side of Earth, while keeping Earth away from the shortest route between the Halo and it. This black hole was strange because Earth had not ended a few fractions of a second after it appeared so close to it.

{A/N: Don't make too much fun of my Paint skills.}

Then, the emptiness in the middle of the ringworld was filled with something that vaguely resembled an ocean; it was a portal.

From this portal, moving so fast they only appeared as streaks of light, like comets, vessels poured into the black hole.

Back at the center of the Universe, the exit of the black hole manifested behind the Therions, and an armada of warships poured out and fanned out.

The Imperium's ships imitated the deployment of the Horde, and launched pods to the ground, except that what came out of the deployment pods was not Duskari, or even humanoid beings; it was a metallic slime that resembled darkened mercury.

One after the other, the pods deployed an ocean of this metallic slime before the spaceships formed out opposite to Thanos' armada.

For a moment, the metallic slime didn't move, flow, or pulse, but then it erupted all at once.

It rose like a wall, before its surface changed with countless 'orifices' opening, aiming at the Horde.

Nanotechnology, when taken to the extreme, can be such a game-breaking thing. When all technology could be replicated by simply rearranging nanites, if you have enough nanites, isn't it like having an infinite armory with you at all times?

Or, maybe, an infinite army.

Light shone from the orifices, turning the wall of metallic slime into something akin to a kilometric panel of light. Then it fired.

There was no frequency to the attack, no round per second; it was a continuous laser. And the wall was advancing like a tsunami wave.

In the air, it was not that different. What initially arrived in the shape of spaceships shifted into amorphous cones with their bases facing Thanos' armada. Orifices opened in these faces, and the lasers poured out.

"Let's leave that to the kids, we'll wait for Thanos and his Black Order to 'lower' themselves to our level," Kitty commented with a chuckle.

In the Imperium, in capsules of immersive reality, the Duskari were controlling the metallic slime while following the orders of Vladarion, God of War and Progress.

Let it be no mistake, the Drachantheon Therion would not have carelessly opened an entrance to the Barrens while the Mad Titan knew they housed the other Infinity Gems. The portal in Halo opened up to a local pocket dimension, a pocket dimension Aragorn named 'The Armory.'

But, to control such a planetary flood of nanites, it wasn't as simple as leaving it to the in-built AI. Durkari minds were needed.

As the lasers were melting everything by a measure of X-area per second, a pulse of red attacked the metallic slime. But if only it were as simple.

Just as a bluish-white hue flickered in response around the Therions, it also flickered across the metallic slime.

It should be noted that The Armory was not the Imperium's, or Drachantheon Therion's armory; it was Aragorn's Armory. While it can't be claimed that the slime was reality-warping-proofed, it was resistant to it to an extent.

Two more pulses of red light later, and Thanos gave up.

The main ship, the one with the most crimson veins pulsing over it, projected a beam of light, and Thanos appeared surrounded by his Black Order outside of it.

[I was getting bored.] Kitty taunted.

Plutus noted how Jean's progress in peeling back her being was only at her ankles. "The outside world is scary. I want to return to my lair." The dragon sighed deeply before turning a ferocious roar to Thanos and the Black Order.

↓Part 2━━━━━━━ ● ━━━━━━━Part 2↓

The Void Between Dimensions, Year 13.8 Billion of the Seventh Iteration.

The shadows of The Chaos King's body coiled around my limbs and drowned my softly glowing scales with a darkness I was able to see through only due to the nature of my eyes.

The darkness entered my mouth, and pushed inside my nostrils, and eyeholes... Well, this body was not biological, so he found no purchase in that, only that his shadows touched my void stomach before pulling back.

}{?}{

-Void-chan? What's up?-

}{...?!}{

'I don't understand.'

Why had The Void reached out to me? Does it have something to do with The Chaos King touching my void stomach?

{What is this? Why can't I reach your core?} The Chaos King asked, the bewilderment and confusion were palpable even without my empathy.

|Core?|

The darkness coiled around me violently, then, like water down the throat of a drowning man, he poured himself into me, and the homosexuality of the act was not lost to me, which only caused me a faint impulse to call him out, but well, for us, homosexuality is not a concept... I guess my mind is starting to wander to weird topics due to my current predicament.

{How else are we supposed to join if I can reach your core, your center, what makes you you?}

|Are you referring to my Soul?| That was a strange way to refer to a soul.

{Don't presume to confound me, you don't have a soul.}

|That's true under the standard definition of a soul, but I do have something I recognize as my Soul. However, I fail to see how reaching my Soul would benefit you. You do know that we can't literally join, right?|

Abstract or not, if I were to be recognized as part of the Multiverse, any Multiverse, it would be the equivalent of permitting entrance of [The Void] straight into the core aspects of the Multiverse, and as proven by infinite Multiverses, The Void doesn't play around with Existence.

{Lies, falsehoods, dishonesty, deception! None of them will stop us from merging!}

|...| His stupidity gave me a pause. I thought he meant to wield my power as his own, like slavery, when he mentioned joining him, not this utter stupidity! |Are you fucking serious?|

{Silence! We will join, and if needed, I will snuff those you cherish one by one, until I can guarantee your cooperation!}

|I'm a P̷̨̨̧̫̜͙̻̲̟̹̩͔̦̫̠̭͎͕̬̦̱̳̾͐̔͆̍ͅȃ̵̢͚̻̪͙̰͖̺̄́̐̓́͊͗͝͝ŕ̵̪̹͔̙͗́̽̿͐ͅa̴̧̧̨̧̡̛̜̮̗̞̻̞̮̹̱͔͙͚̤͉̬̺̜̞̖̣̠̟̬̭̫̠̞͒̈́̌̄̉̈́͗͂̽̐́͐́̚͜͜͝ḏ̵̢̛̟̰̗̲̫̻́͆̔́̅̀̃̏̌̈́̿̃̃̀̇̇̓̈́̏̆̇͒̈̋͒̋̌͆͘͝͝͝ö̸̧̢̢̡̮͉̭͙̤͙͉̗̤̘̺̯̜̹͓̥́͒̃͆̅̀͑͐̑̑͋͌̚͝͠͠͝x̷̢̢̡̫̥̜͇̥̟͍̟̻̥̙͇́̆̂̋͌͒̀͂̅̓̉̎̿̽̓͑̈́͘̕͜͝͝ ̸̢͕̗͈̟̪͇̦͚̰͓͈̞̽̃̃͒͒̇̃̅̌͑̈́̂̽͊͗̿͝! Do you understand what that means?!| {A/N: Paradox.}

|I'm a piece of T̸̨̧̡̢̩̻̬͙̣̙̟̹̜̯͙̯͕̖͖̠̣̀̅̏̿ḩ̸̧̮̪̜̲͓̰̝͙͖̻̱͉͚͇̠̞̫̍̈e̸͔̮͕͍͆͐̔͊̓̍͋̅̆̐̓͗̅̾̀͋̈́̐̾̇̕ ̴̡̡̡̡͖̟̮̲̲̥͕̼̜͖̰̰͙̬̹̘̭̥̀̅͊̃́̈́́̈́͗͝ͅͅV̶̧̡̥͖̘̮͔͚̭͔͈̙̙͓͇̱̞̫͈̪̪̘̟̈́͊͆̏̓̄̒̄̓̓͋͒̏͗͆̋̀̕͘͜͝͠o̴̢̧̧͙̬̯̤̤͎͙͇̩͙̣͖͂̄̐͆̀̅͂͋̐̅̂̒͌̾̊̑̅̈́͆͋̏̊̾͠i̴̧̧̩̻̦̗̩̓͗͑̓́̏̔̃́̓̅̽̍̀̀͆̇͜͜͝͠ḑ̷̨̪̩̘͔̘͉̙̟̹͈̙͓̝̞̬̲̺̋́͆̈́́̈́̓̌̀̓͐͗́̀͑̊̏͂̈́͑͋̀̔̑̄̇͆̇̑͘͘͝͝͝! Multiverses are not meant to interect with it!| {A/N: The Void.}

I felt the shadows shiver in response to my conceptual speech, the understanding of what I was, what I was a piece of, slamming directly into his cognition.

{... What?!} I saw and felt The Void Between Realities quake in response to its Abstract.

|I don't care about much, and all that I do care about is currently in your claws. So, do you want me to erase all Realities? Trigger the next Iteration? Fight the Cosmological Compass? I'm in, but merging will culminate in the obliteration of those you hold hostage against me. Do you see the problem now?|

This was frustrating. What kind of stupid idea is that? I don't want to die at the fists of The One Below All again. Additionally, the terms of my contract weren't clear, but I'm sure a stellar employee is not supposed to collapse the company that hired them.

Joining with this idiot, even if we somehow manage to survive The One Below All, would guarantee the summoning of Void-chan to this Multiverse, as much as I trust my handywork with my Therions' cores, I have no doubt they would collapse under the cognitohazard of The Void.

That's assuming the Aniki doesn't end them first to spite me for ending his Creation.

So, based on abundant evidence and clear-cut logic, merging, whether that is fucking possible or not, would NOT be in our absolute benefit; on the contrary, it would doom us all, literally.

{No, no, no, no, no, no, NO!}

|Yes, sí, Ja, hai, da, and, just to be ultra clear, Ÿ̸̬͔͉̻̠̲̜̠̦͍͖̝̘̝̞́̒̎̅̓͊̈́́̊̿̀͛̾̀̈́͜͝ͅE̴̟͚̣̦͓̳̼̭͓̻̖̤͎̳̼͐̈́̄̏̄̄̓̃̑̀̂̿̿̂̒͆̃̅́̐̈́̍̂̄̅̉͋̎͆͊͘͘͘͜͠S̵̡̢̡̛̼̺̘͔̼̙̞͎̭͓̟̳̦̪̙̱̞͈̦͎͎̠̞̝͎̹̋́͋̀͂̉̈́͗͠!̷̨̭̠̼͖̠̮̣͔͎͖̯̩͚͙͈͙̺̋́̎̏̽͌̉͐͐̔̋͂̀͂̆͌̓͒̉̾͊̂̈̀̈́͘̕͘͘͜ͅͅ!̸̛͔̬̣̝̗̫̫͖̞͐̀̊͒̏̋̑͗̒̑̏͋̋̊̽̈̀̇͗͛̇̓̓̏͊́͆͊̔͠͠͝!̷̗̩̳̜̖̮̳̮̱̗̅̆̽͒̈͋̏̃̂̈̎̊̾̄̊̓̐̽͌̌͑͘̚| {A/N: Yes!!!}

For a moment, like the prelude to the end of a star, there was a relative calm to the shadows and The Void Between Realities. The shadows didn't coil and churn around me more than they had been doing so.

This idiot may be the stupidest Abstract, but even he—especially because he had become such a fundamental part of Creation that he became an Abstract—must understand that the level of Inexistence he and I represent is different.

He and all of those related to Oblivion represent Inexistence within Existence. I represent something so complex, absolute, and empty that I can only classify it poorly under the words 'The Void.' We were not the same.

For an Abstract, any Abstract, merging with me was the equivalent of a mortal doing their best to force their heart to stop by sheer will.

There is a reason Noona gets all hot and bothered at the idea of merging her essence with me during coitus, the trill of the act, the depravity of it all, it gets her mad in arousal, but, no matter how lost Noona is in her love for me—madness which I reciprocate—Noona would never merge and become a single being with me.

Because it's illogical and stupid.

|Let's say I give up on everything and decide to become one with you. The Void eats the Multiverse away, and then we are left in The Void, if being trapped for a measly eternity or two in the Continuum got you this idiotic, a couple of Eternities in The Void later, and I would be all that remains of our union. Do you understand? You, no one, can permanently exist in The Void without my support or The Void's.|

The steadiness, almost a lulling pause, of The Void Between Realities accompanied the silence I received as a response.

{No.}

That was all I got before madness fully befell the Abstract of The Void Between Realities.

If before it was like the oceans were shyly attempting to pour into my void stomach through my mouth, now it was like I was swallowing at a rate of Realities-per-second.

|STOP THIS STUPIDITY!| Since we were communicating through will, I was able to make this demand.

I channeled my void energy through the seams of my scales and trashed like a pig being bled to its death.

My presence erupted, cracking The Void Between Realities with might alone.

My Eternal Flame roared and shone with a light equivalent to the stars of an entire Universe combined.

At the center of each of my scales, I blinked an eye open and channeled void energy through with no regard for what I was about to do. Because a damaged Reality could be fixed, but a Voided one couldn't.

When I channel my psionic energy through my eyes, I am able to infinitely extend the reach of my psionic energy to the target of my eyesight. Due to the All-Seeing nature of my eyes, that usually means that my range was as much as I needed it. When I channel void energy through my eyesight, I'm able to erase a 'visual concept.'

A visual concept is what I call those concepts I can visualize through my eyes, but this doesn't mean that a single concept encapsulates all related concepts. For example, if I target Gravity, it doesn't mean that all Gravity would be erased from Reality; it means that the Gravity I targeted would be erased.

Now, this is still hard to understand for most because, normally, concepts can't be quantified; you don't count one Gravity, two Gravities, and three Gravities, but my eyes were able to do precisely that.

So, what would happen if I erased one or two Gravities?

Realities, Domains, Realms, Dimensions, and other spaces of more than three dimensions are complicated things. Imagine a realm as a Jenga tower made of welded metallic blocks. To most, this Jenga tower is an untoppleable construction; it is seen as a solid object.

But, with my eyesight combined with void energy, I can erase the metallic bonds that fuse the construction into a piece. If I erase enough bonds, the Jenga tower would collapse.

That's what I was doing: I was corrupting the blocks of The Void Between Realities, almost irreparably damaging the realm.

And, for the first time, The Chaos King idiot showed a reaction to damage.

See, if before my breath attacks were chopping entire limbs, which he only needed to regenerate, now I was giving him a cancer that made Deadpool's cancer squirm in awe and jealousy.

I was corrupting his code with erasure.

{K-RAA—V-OIII—MNNN!!!}

It was one of the strangest cries of agony I've heard, but maybe it was because it was a cry born from conceptual damage, a cry of conceptual agony.

This did not mean I was turning the fight around. Oh no, I was sure I was going to meet Void-chan soon.

My void stomach was infinite, but not all infinites were the same. Same as how Infinity+2 was smaller than Infinity times Infinity, The Void Between realities was more infinite than my void stomach.

I was slowly being filled by him, and no, not in the way mortals enjoy.

From inside, he would attack, trying to reach my 'core,' and from outside, he was already peeling my scales back. Even if my physical body was not as connected to my [Mind] and [Soul] as it was for the mortals Trinity of Self, if he ends my physical body, my 'Core' would eventually end up exposed.

|STOP IT! YOU'LL DOOM US ALL!| I pleaded, but this idiot was too far gone.

I could not blow myself up and return to The Void, if I left this idiot here, he was sure to en my Reality.

I could not pull my Reality with me and escape; I was still within his Realm.

I could not reach his mind; his mind didn't operate based on psions, I realized after he came into direct contact with me.

And, he was pushing so much of The Void Between Realities in me, that I was sure he would accelerate the incursions across the multiverse, because he was reducing the 'distance' between Realities.

}{C0M3... 137 60... 83C0M3 M0R3... R37URN 70 M3... 8R1N6 17 410N6}{ {A/N: Come... Let go... Become more... Return to me... Bring it along.}

The Void spoke to me, reached into my [Mind] and shared her will.

I had an idea of what Void-chan wanted, an idea whose consequences I dreaded.

I was Aragorn. A'Heelah. Abner. Lucian. Lucy. Me. Myself. I. Void-chan and many other Selfs. I was many, yet we were all }{Lucivacui/Lux Vacui}{

But this... I didn't want this. And I was not hypocritical enough not to realize that when I became part of Void-chan, she went through what I was about to go through, but... This was a type of change I was not ready for.

The faces of my Therions flashed through my mind, rousing my resolve. The love of Noona warmed my being. The future of my unborn son steeled my motivation. Gaea's... Love for Noona and me became part of my strength. Jean's, my Firebird's dependence, pushed me forth. Hestia's filial care inched me forward. And then, I pulled him. I stopped pushing.

I delimited the part of The Void Between Realities that housed what he called a core. His core. I pulled it to me, to my exposed Soul.

{AGGHGHR.... !!!}

I don't know what he sensed, but he felt it because he reacted by fighting what he had pushed for this whole time.

|Don't you want to join me?| I manipulated my void energy to match the charm, lust, and desire I've seen the divinity of Love evoke. It was not a minuscule part of my energy, but my energy control allowed me to match the aforementioned divine energies.

I didn't see it, but I felt it, the maddening idolatry he ached for me, no, for my void energy. That was all it took. His desire for my void energy went beyond his desire for continuance.

Eagerly, he presented his core to mine.

The moment the boundary of our cores touched and began to merge, almost a faithful representation of an incursion between Realities, the multiverse shook in abject terror.

The tip of my tail blade shot forth, and the last action I took as 'myself' was to use the Key to The Below Place Boss Tribunal had given me after the event at Chile to open a Green Door before blowing ourself up.

...

...

...

Just before The Void pulled us into the spark of itself born from my previous selves' autodetonation, I felt a core, one created by our previous selves, intrude upon the most sacred part of our being.

━━━━━━━ ● ━━━━━━━

When Giants fight, the earth shakes; when deities clash, the heavens tremble; and when Abstracts battle?

The multiverse was ending.

No, to be precise, the multiverse was ending more.

Because the Beyonders started their plan to end the current iteration, it is known that the multiverse was already ending, but, given the cyclic nature of the Marvel multiverse, it isn't that shocking.

After all, since the moment the multiverse was sparked to life, since the start of the current iteration—the Big Bang—and the start of all iterations after the First Firmament, the multiverse is always ending.

Always ending, and then always rebirthing itself from the ashes of nothingness, like the Phoenix Force.

So, why did it matter that the multiverse was ending 'more' in consequence to the clash between monsters?

See, the multiverse was ending slowly. The multiverse was such a large construct that even the end by the incursion of all Realities, culminating in the brutal contraction of the multiverse, was not happening immediately. In fact, it had been happening for a long time, and the Cosmological Construct was doing its duty to delay the end, or control it.

But, when The Void Between Realities clashed with The Paradox, when The Chaos King poured The Void Between Realities into Aragorn's void stomach at speeds of Realities-per-second, all Realities felt it.

Countless Sorcerers Supreme had the sorcery equivalent of seeking refuge from the tornado at an underground refuge.

The Old Ones, the Many Angled Ones in Earth-10011, observed from behind the universal wall of their corrupted Reality with both apprehension and kindship. They sensed a shared hunger for Creation in The Chaos King, and the familiar, yet foreign, eldritch nature of their kin in Aragorn.

They ached to join the fun. They craved it. They pushed against the universal wall, their cage, and desperately tried to escape their Reaity/Cage.

The Interdimensional Council of Reeds, which had built its hall in The Void Between Realities, overcame the waves of annihilation, shadows, and even erasure with the combined power of three Infinity Gauntlets, wielded by Reed-12498, Reed-98570, and Reed-99107.

"Brace yourselves, Brothers. The storm is not over yet," Reed-99107 said through gritted teeth. The power of all Infinity Gems being wielded at once was taxing even to him, even after all the modifications he had done to his body.

"How come we had no records of these two Abstracts?" Reed-98570 forced out. "The black one looks like Chaos King, but he was never an Abstract. The space between Universes had no Abstract!"

"I can't get a reading on the luminous multieyed one, but the other is definitely connected to the speculated Abstract of Emptiness. Maybe this is one of the first proofs of its existence, along with Knull's," Reed-12498 rambled madly.

Nathaniel Richards, Kang the Conqueror, Rama-Tut, Iron Lad, Myrddin, Scarlet Centurion, Immortus, and all other incarnations of Nathaniel Richards throughout the timelines of various Realities, they all sensed or witnessed it. Some felt terror, some concern, some observed the situation as if situated above it, and some, just as the Reed Richardses, they studied the situation and the Abstracts.

Hidden from the Celestials and most of the Cosmological Compass, the Aspirants, in the far edges of the Multiverse, noticed the contraction and corruption of the multiverse by the Paradox.

They were loyal to the First Firmament, the first iteration of the multiverse, and they awaited and plotted for the return of the First Cosmo, yet, even they, the monsters they were, could not help but pause and momentarily hold their metaphorical breaths.

Just as The Void was hostile to the current iteration, the Seventh Cosmos, Eternity/Infinity, paradoxes were also their antithesis, even if they predated the time of invasion of the first Paradox: the MOTHER OF HORRORS.

Sealed in a deeper hell than The Below Place, Vinruviel, the first Paradox of Marvel, the one existence that came to be without the interference of the One Above All, the void beast that invaded Marvel, it stirred against the shackles the One Below All chained her to.

In its eldritch mind, it recognized something with great longing and desire that was becoming part of the multiverse.

And, the moment the deepest part of }{Lucivacui/Lux Vacui}{ made contact with The Chaos King, when The Void Between Realities was polluted by Aragorn's Paradox, by the essence of The Void, Eternity/Infinity, Oblivion, and The Living Tribunal convulsed.

Phoenix, in The White Hot Room, sensed the dire situation and immediately moved Phoenix, her shard in Earth-616, to push Hulk-616 into the Void Between Realities, to force a Green Door open.

Death, in The Realm of Death, clenched her fists in despair. Without a care for anything, she reached the edge of her realm and was about to jump into The Void Between Realities to kill it, to bring death to what was hurting her loved one, her heart.

But, before any of this could happen, when the One Above All was about to summon his counterpart, Aragorn opened the Green Door.

The light of erasure is characteristic of when Aragorn blows himself up. A blueish-white flame of utter voidance. It consumed it all, even a couple of unlucky Realities that were 'nearby,' and then it contracted and pulled everything to a single point, a single spark of paradoxical nature, and right there, where the concentration of The Void was at its purest, an enormous green hand alit in the green flame, Extreme Gamma Radiation, reached for the spark with violence and snuffed it out.

A roar of wrath, destruction, ruin, demolition, annihilation, and obliteration shook all Realities as the hand grasped the edge of the door frame and began to pull the rest of the body out; the multiverse shook more violently than it had during The Chaos King and Aragorn's clash; it dreaded another type of end, but this time The Void's corruption had already been cleansed, and the Abstract of The Void Between Realities was not there to hide it from the Cosmological Compass.

In a regal golden light, The Living Tribunal manifested and raised a hand against the green hand of wrath, and 'pushed' the hand slowly back into the Green Door.

The door closed on its own, and tranquility returned.

The Living Tribunal disappeared, and his being manifested in the Superflow. One after the other, Oblivion, Eternity/Infinity, the Phoenix Force, Master Order, Lord Chaos, Mistress Love, Sire Hate, Life, Queen of Nevers, Galactus, and finally Death arrived.

"Phoenix, can you sense him?" Death asked.

Umbra-black dark hair, green eyes, almost black, pale skin, and scale-like markings on her shoulders and forehead, a recent acquisition. Yet, in all of that beauty that none of the Abstract entities and Cosmic Beings in the room could appreciate, there was an ache only the Phoenix Force could understand.

"Jean's connection to him was severed, as well as the Therions. Only one of them joined him, but at that point, the merging had already started, so even her fate is unknown," Phoenix informed her.

That interaction between them occurred in an instant before the court erupted in chatter.

"What was that?"

"We need answers?"

"My domain was forced out of balance."

"46 Realities can't be located."

"The Oblivion Void is in disarray."

"A new Abstract was born and ended."

"A replacement is about to spawn."

"Who allowed such risk to operate unrestricted?"

Because the multiverse may end and restart every few billion years, but the Multiverse, the Marvel Multiverse, even that which is outside the multiverse of Realities came into risk. That had never happened before.

↓Part 3━━━━━━━ ● ━━━━━━━Part 3↓

Earth-5H1N3, Center of the Universe, Year 2001.

Over the artificially created ground, the mindless, whether due to blind faith and devotion or the rape of their mental faculties, marched in wild abandon towards the veritable tsunami of metallic slime.

The Leviathans of the Chitauri flew at mid height, and even they were facing the wall of absurdity Aragorn created.

Below the wave of metallic slime, the artificial ground was being devoured by the nanites, atomized to be used as fuel and building material.

Lasers, lasers, and more lasers, the wall stretched upwards to allow for a greater area to face the Horde, and from this growing area, new star-like light would shine before more lasers joined the wall.

The skies, both above the artificial ground and in the space below it, the airships dogfought in a chaotic clash of two rabid swarms.

The spaceships Aragorn created were made of the same thing as the metallic slime.

When he was pondering what the ultimate technological weapon would be, he could not settle on one in particular, because he had too many choices available, and the possibilities were almost endless. Being as over the top as always, he chose to take them all.

Initially, the technology available was limited, and it was not capable of replicating some of the more esoteric tech trees. But, after spending more than 300 million years from the Carboniferous Period to modernity in Earth-199999 cataloguing life, Aragorn made staggering improvements.

Aragorn was sure that, so long as he understood its creation, the metallic slime would replicate anything.

The advantage was overwhelming; however, the enhancements brought by the Reality Stone were rule-based, meaning that they did not follow the path of physics, hence, after millions of them being evaporated, a change happened.

It started with one of them, but it just needed one of them.

The Horde, Thanos turned it into something akin to a living organism with the Reality Stone. Because Thanos knew that the Therions, the deities raised by the monster of Paradox, were not going to be easy targets he could slap away with a well-placed swat of his Infinity Gauntlet, he followed a similar path to Argorn.

The Reality Stone, at its base, could alter all things matter and energy, and after Thanos synced with it, it could do more. So, while he pondered what to prepare his Horde for, he decided to prepare it for all.

Adaptability, a nightmare to the Universe, the real curse of life, was what he believed lay behind the overpopulation of life in the Universe. He took this facet of life and boosted it to unthinkable levels. Then he connected all members of the Horde.

All it took was for one of them to adapt to the lasers' burning light; the rest followed almost instantaneously.

It was as if the Horde, collectively, pulled back their fist before delivering a powerful straight punch. The lasers became no more harmful than low-energy waves from the electromagnetic spectrum to mortals.

Nevertheless, Thanos did not fear Aragorn for nothing.

The moment the Duskari in the Barrens noticed the adaptation, with no panic whatsoever or surprise, they added 'adaptation' to the parameters to consider for the metallic slime.

The code was something created by Aragorn, optimized by Spark and Seraph. The ultimate tech weapon changed.

If the enemy were adapting, then it would change. It would create more variables for them to adapt to. How many variables? As many as needed.

The lasers initially shone with a bluish-white light characteristic of Aragorn and his inventions, but the moment the new variable was added, the lasers became torrents of purplish plasma.

Lighting crackled erratically, but the metallic slime also used that to deal damage.

Millions more were eradicated, but then, like pulse, the Horde adapted. In response, the metallic slime introduced another variable.

Thanos, surrounded by Corvus Glaive the Immortal, Proxima Midnight the Butcher, Ebony Maw the Cursed Voice, Black Dwarf the Unstopable, and Supergiant the Ravenous, floated opposite to Kitty, Plutusdrakon, Yelena, and Irina.

If Thanos was desperate enough to grant adaptability to the Horde, risking them adapting to his control, it was no surprise that the bodies of the Black Order pulsed with crimson glowing veins full of Reality Stone power, and that their heads were shrouded in the yellow energy of the Mind Stone.

"The lawless Goddess of Laws, the servile Goddess of Fire, the licentious Goddess of Ice, and one whom we ignore. You stand between me and the host of the Phoenix Force, who has turned against her purpose and now threatens to burn Reality to ashes," Thanos said, his eyes pausing on each of them. "What would the Universe think of its so-called protectors?"

"Ehh? Protectors of the Universe? I never claimed to be that. What about you?" Yelena mocked while asking her family.

"Not even Aragorn is fargone enough to make me Reality's guardian," Kitty chuckled. "And that title 'The Lawless Goddess of Laws,' I don't know if you invented it, but I claim it now. I'll have my manager contact you for the transfer of patents."

"Do you have a manager, Aunt?" Plutusdrakon asked. "By the way, since you don't know me, that means that you got most of your info from Harry Hart, right?"

"Plutus, at times like this, you must introduce yourself grandiously; that's common knowledge," Kitty scolded. "Let me do it for you. This is Plutusdrakon Draconisphilius, God of Economy, Undergrounds, and Neets."

"I'm not the God of Neeets," Plutusdrakon murmured under his breath.

"Enough!" Thanos roared, and Reality echoed his roar.

"Fools be those who fail to grasp our Liege's majesty and magnanimity," Ebony Maw declared with disgust and anger.

"They can't be reasoned with, My Liege," Corvus Glaive said. "They are attempting to destroy the Universe to lure you out, My Liege."

"You don't say!" Yelena mocked out loud. "Here I thought we were inviting you to a casual Thursday orgy."

"Please, Lena, even you must have standards," Irina icily stared at Ebony Maw, Corvus Glaive, Black Dwarf, and Thanos with disgust.

"Those pussycats don't look bad, but I bet their souls would make Aragorn squirm in disgust," Yelena replied, her eyes almost licking the curves of Supergiant and Proxima Midnight.

"They are stalling," Supergiant noted. Her eyes were locked on the growing light covering Jean's feet.

"Obviously," Plutusdrakon snorted. He pulled his head back, his chest glowed, and released a scorching breath loaded with raw divinity. That was the start of the battle.

The breath of scorching heat, loaded with divinity, splashed harmlessly over the Black Order and Thanos.

At the same time, Yelena, Irina, and Kitty sighed deeply.

"Yeah, obviously, he proofed himself and his children against divinity," Yelena grimaced.

Exteral psionic energy was a no-no, and now, divinity was also banned.

"These hackers!" Kitty complained.

With a sigh as deep as The Below Place, Plutusdrakon's body was covered in magic circles before he barreled into Black Dwarf and Supergiant with his gigantic dragon body.

[Plutus: I'll handle these two. I'll probably die, though.]

With that ominous and depressing message, Plutusdrakon dragged the two away.

The double-bladed ax found purchase into Plutusdrakon's scales, drawing blood on the first try and sinking deeply.

Supergiant, a psionic parasite enhanced by the power of the Mind Stone, forced her way into his mind, or at least tried.

"AGhhhgg!" With a wet gurgle, she was rebounded by the protections in Plutusdrakon's mind. Blood, something akin to blood, flowed from her eyes, nostrils, and mouth.

"Not even Thanos, wielding the Mind Stone, can peer into our minds," Plutusdrakon ridiculing stated.

His body shone with a bluish-white light, and the upper layer of his skin exploded with void energy directly extracted from his core.

Even with their age, most Therions were still unable to wield skillfully void energy, but they could channel it and even use basic applications.

The bluish-white explosion clashed with the red hue of Reality on their bodies, and, just like how the Therions protected themselves from the pulses of reality warping, Supergiant and Black Dwarf withstood the almost suicidal blast of void energy.

Plutusdrakon, his skin and scales regenerating as he observed the result of his move, was not disappointed with the results of his gamble.

Making a quick math, Plutusdrakon determined that he had enough biomass to end Black Dwarf and Supergiant before ending massless.

[Plutus: Grandpa's energy works.

DarthKitty: Not that well with Stupid Thanos! He is wiping our asses!

GoddessOfLust: These three are beating the shit out of me! Why did you take the psionic parasite, Plutus? That one is basically a freebie!]

↓Part 4━━━━━━━ ● ━━━━━━━Part 4↓

Yelena, by design or bad karma, ended up facing Corvus glaive, Proxima Midnight, and Ebony Maw.

'Stupid Reality Stone! When I get my hands on the little shitty magic pebble, I'll reforge it into a buttplug and show it its place!'

While having vivid fantasies of surprising Johnny, and/or Irina, with her asscheeks spread with a red gem over her chrysanthemum pulsing with the power of Reality, she was getting jumped by her opponents.

Her first pain in the ass—not the pleasant kind—was Proxima Midnight; more exactly, her spear.

For reasons she remembered Aragorn explaining, the spear could change its density to match a star's, and it was poisoned with something she began to suspect was approaching the level of conceptual poison. She was certain that if that spear pierced her—not in the pleasant way—she would only get rid of the poisoning by dying and getting a new body.

Luckily, her ice armor was holding on; all banged up, but holding on.

Her second pain in the ass—not the pleasant kind—was Corvus Glaive; more exactly, his glaive.

That thing was unfair! It could split atoms! Her ice armor was clearly not doing much to stop the assault of cuts being regenerated every instant.

And she knew that to kill Corvus Glaive, she needed to destroy that absurd weapon, which, aside from being unholy sharp, also granted him immortality. But, so what? Obviously, her first attempt was aimed at the glaive, but it shone with a crimson light she was developing an allergy to.

'Kitty was right to call these cheaters hackers!'

Contradictorily, Ebony Maw, whom she held most weariness against, was not being as problematic as she initially feared. It was true he could wield psychokinesis when she couldn't due to the ban on external psionic energy, but she, part of a race of psychics, didn't know how to deal with psychics; she might as well swear herself to chastity and die of lack of coitus.

All it took was to activate some of the Script engraved in her bones to create a skintight field of psionic disruption. Sure, Ebony Maw could still annoy her with projectiles, but that was a nuisance, not a life-ending crisis like the cursed spear and the unfair glaive!

Now, because the bullying scenario was not yet complete, added to the aforementioned disasters, their bodies and minds were also enhanced.

If, normally, they were considerably slower and weaker than her, now they were evenly matched in physical stats.

In conclusion, she was getting jumped... and ugly.

She twisted with a dexterity and flexibility that spoke of supernatural collagen, her ice armor flexing seamlessly with her contortionist movements, and she avoided a stabbing thrust of the cursed spear. Three of her tails shot out, aiming for Proxima Midnight's knees, and obscured her with the overflowing fluffiness for a second from the Butcher's sight.

Her spine twisted more than 180 degrees to the left, and she avoided a slicing cleave from the unfair glaive. Five of her tails shot at Corvus Glaive's face, and the remaining tail helped her stabilize her body.

With her tails, hiding her form, she aimed an ice spear of absolute zero to their support, Ebony maw.

Watching the ice spear almost tear apart space in its pursuit of Ebony Maw's head, she could not help but think of the last pain in her ass—not the good kind.

They had been made divinityproof. Corvus Glaive and Proxima Midnight were an item; if her divinity could still affect them, to win the fight, all she'd have had to do was bless them with lust and watch as they would have fallen into a maddening heat. She didn't know about Ebony Maw, but those two would have been particularly affected by her blessing of lust.

Ebony Maw's pupilless eyes widened with horror before pulsing with red and shrinking his immediate distance to the right just in time to avoid losing his head to eternal ice.

By the time his eyes returned to Yelena, she was already pulling her tails back to avoid losing them to the unfair glaive and the cursed spear.

'Stupid void energy!'

Across her skin, organs, and bones, the Script that had been engraved or tattooed lit up with its characteristic bluish-white light.

'Pull back!' Ebony Maw warned through the telepathy the three had been using to gain their unnatural coordination.

Corvus Glaive and Proxima Midnight didn't need to be told twice; their Liege had warned them plenty about avoiding any light remotely blue or white coming from anything or anyone related to Aragorn.

Almost condescendingly, they shot Yelena a smirk while they jumped away, as if telling her with their eyes that she was just wasting her time. Yet, Yelena returned the look equally.

The bluish light converged into her left hand, and she ripped the brilliantly glowing hand with her other hand before shoving it with all of her strength at a perpendicular direction to her three opponents.

The hand flew straight into Black Dwarf's vicinity.

"What?" Ebony Maw asked out loud.

Black Dwarf, by instinct of the skill honed by years of experience in slaughter, shielded himself behind his double-bladed ax and tried to jump away from the hand-shaped bomb. However, at that exact time, against his movement, Plutusdrakon's tail violently smashed into him in a sweeping arc.

The light flashed brightly, and after dimming, Black Dwarf, missing his right hand and leg, and most of his right side, stood defeated. The red of the Reality Stone was pulsing erratically, as if attempting to repair something whose form it forgot.

While watching her hand regenerate, Plutusdrakon appeared next to Yelena. She jumped to his neck, right behind his draconic form, and instantly covered her nephew in ice armor.

"Just because your purple ballsack cut our connection with external psionic energy doesn't mean we are not coordinating between ourselves," Yelena smugly declared.

"That guy is not out of the fight yet," Plutusdrakon reminded her.

"I know, but they would have jumped me again if you had not come," Yelena explained.

Plutusdrakon glanced at Jean and noticed that her progress had barely passed her ankles. "I really miss my underground lair."

Although he said 'lair,' it was more like an underground world, but the feeling was understood by Yelena.

"Why did Jean even kidnap you, to begin with?" Yelena cocked an eyebrow while keeping her eyes on the opposing trio.

"I was oathed to silence." Plutusdrakon's body began to glow with a bluish-white shine, magic circles appeared, boosting his movement, and he shot forth like a released arrow.

With tacit understanding, or maybe communication through The System, Plutusdrakon bought time for Yelena to load another handbomb.

Not far away from them, Kitty and Irina had managed to painstakingly drag Thanos to another corner of the cosmic ring to face him.

If Yelena's situation was dire, theirs was tragic.

Irina was missing everything from her sternum's manubrium upwards, yet still in the fight, even with her lungs, ribcage, and part of the crown of her heart exposed.

Kitty was using her tails as legs because her legs were gone, and the red power coiling on her stumps was staving her regeneration off.

Yet, even with these grievous wounds, Thanos had not been hurt.

"Futile, your pointless resistance is nothing but futile," Thanos judged. "Yet you oppose me just as eagerly as in the beginning. What are you if not insane?"

"Pal, when have we claimed to be sane?" Kitty, despite her state, mocked him.

Irina, with her arms barely attached, waved her hands in support of Kitty's question.

One was legless, the other headless, and her arms appeared to be moments away from falling off, yet their spirits remained undefeated, Thanos could tell. They were still standing between him and the Phoenix's Host.

"Admirable, or insanity, it matters not," Thanos declared.

Red power pulsed, and Kitty burst in response with purple divinity.

... Nothing happened. Or, better said, Thanos tried to reality warp, and Kitty manually readjusted all that was warped almost instantaneously in response.

If measured by the level of mastery and compatibility of their divinity, Kitty rated at the top of the Drachantheon Therion, right next to Yao, Wanda, Madelyne, and Hela.

By altering the laws, not the results like reality warping, Kitty was locally counterwarping the power of the Reality Gem, something Thanos measured as absurd as Aragorn's capability to erase.

As if in signal, Irina burst into blue flames that slowly began to be tinted with bluish-white and shot at Thanos like a pinball ball, bouncing randomly in space steps Kitty created to alter her trajectory.

Thanos warped Reality, Kitty, with her focus divided between the bullet she calls Irina and counterwarping Thanos, was unable to fully stop him, and Thanos managed to reappear away from the path of the suicidal flaming rabbit ball, his fist coated in black-dotted blue energy.

He punched forward, and it was as if Reality moved with the momentum of the punch.

Two of Kitty's tails lit up with Script; she was too late to avoid the attack. At the same time as she was enveloped in the attack, Irina bounced one last time and landed near Thanos before exploding in blueish-white flames.

Thanos guarded against the explosion with a shroud of red power.

The lightshow died down, and Thanos, sinched slightly, appeared otherwise unscathed.

Kitty and Irirna didn't reappear.

Thanos narrowed his eyes and carefully surveilled his surroundings. Not their ashes were left, yet he still didn't feel like Jean was within reach.

"Well, you didn't take the chance. Bad luck for us." Kitty's voice rang clearly before, with two subtle ripples in Reality. Kitty and Irina reappeared, fully healed. Seven tails swaying playfully behind Kitty.

Thanos' eyes immediately spotted the difference and claimed, "Useless tricks," dismissively.

"Of course, a cat has nine extra lives," Kitty grinned maliciously.

Kitty, by bending the laws, actualized the saying. One life was used for her, the other for Irina.

↓Part 5━━━━━━━ ● ━━━━━━━Part 5↓

With a mighty flap of his ice-armored wings, Plutusdrakon shot away from Ebony Maw, Proxima Midnight, and Corvus Glaive.

Riding behind his skull, Yelena's left hand began to glow subtly with the bluish-white light of erasure.

Proxima Midnight and Corvus Glaive, like sprinting on solid ground, shot after the dragon and fox pair. Their steps rippled with red light as they run on space.

Ebony Maw gestured at the inert body of Supergiant and the barely conscious Black Dwarf. His telekinesis lifted and pulled them as he bolted behind his 'siblings.'

⌈GoddessOfLust: They are gaining on us.

Plutus: It's not like I'm slowing down for them, Aunt.

GoddessOfLust: Can you load void energy into your nails?

Plutus: No, I've only practiced overloading my skin/scales. But...

GoddessOfLust: Out with it, or we'll be done for before Irina and Kitty.

Plutus: I've been working on using my divinity of Economy to create conceptual deals.

GoddessOfLust: What the fuck, Plutus?!

Plutus: It's something Grandpa suggested a long time ago. He said it was about a certain project of his and to upgrade The System.

GoddessOfLust: Yeah, but what the hell? Since when can you reach that level?

Plutus: Aren't we all supposed to reach a similar level with our divinities?

GoddessOfLust: Well, yes, but you had not mentioned it, and making conceptual deals is one of those game-breaking skills, you know?

Plutus: I imagined that if Grandpa never submitted this to the Grand Repository of Knowledge, he had his reasons, so I never mentioned it.

GoddessOfLust: Probably to keep you safe from the manic cat. Anything, shock aside, what's the idea?

Plutus: Let's make a deal.

By this binding instrument of apportionment, the parties hereby effectuate a mutual and permanent transfer of physical sovereignty. Plutusdrakon Draconisphilius does hereby relinquish and cede the entirety of his legal title, ownership, and absolute control over his twenty constituent nails—be they calcified, taloned, or vestigial—to the sole authority of Yelena Draconisfilia. In reciprocal accordance, Yelena Draconisfilia shall convey and deliver to Plutusdrakon Draconisphilius the exclusive ownership and unfettered control of one singular tail from her caudal array. Upon execution, this allocation is deemed final and irreversible, establishing a hegemony of each party over their newly acquired biomatter in perpetuity.

GoddessOfLust: Why one of my tails?

Plutus: Do you have Favors left? I thought you spent those hiring Kitty to help you create that room you gifted Johnny Storm.

GoddessOfLust: ... I just have my Favors invested at the moment.

Plutus: Yeah... Right. Anyway, I can only make deals for something I find valuable, and of equivalent value to my offer.

GoddessOfLust: Huh? I didn't peg you for a fluff enthusiast like Aragorn.

Plutus: I'm not, but I plan to later sell my right for your tail to Grandpa. I project a net return of 397% my investment after I purchase my nails/claws back from you, aunt.

GoddessOfLust: You're not normal.

Plutus: Is anyone in our family normal?

GoddessOfLust: Maybe Sarah, Peggy, and Steve.

Plutus: I wouldn't count on it, but do you agree?

GoddessOfLust: Throw in enough of your reserves of void energy to overload your claws, and you have a deal.

Plutus:Acknowledged.

GoddessOfLust:Acknowledged!⌋

Plutusdrakon's chest glowed with the light of extinction, heralding the prelude to his breath. He flapped his wings powerfully and broke his mad dash; his tail arrested his momentum with a counterbalanced movement, turning back to face their pursuers.

Instead of fanning out, his breath balled right outside his maw into a large fireball of viscous magma-like fire.

The giant ball of flames hid him and Yelena from their enemies' sight.

Proxima Midnight pulled back, her muscles overextending with power and then contracting in an instant with enough strength to break her bones had they not been enhanced by the Reality Stone power flowing through her veins.

The moment the spear left her hand, space warped around it like it normally does around a black hole. The spear penetrated the flaming ball, dragging its volume with its gravitational well.

The expected scene of a dragon pierced by a spear weighing enough to warp space didn't happen. Instead, a violent explosion of bluish-white erasure swallowed the cursed spear.

Each Therion specialized in a way of handling void energy. Yelena could load it to her limbs, Irina could mix it with her flames, and Plutusdrakon could guide it to his scales.

Some of the basic applications could be used by all, and a few of the most 'natural' ways of wielding this power were shared among themselves.

In this case, since Yelena was his dragon rider, Plutusdrakon could not shed his skin without targeting Yelena. But, if his claws were not his, but Yelena's, and she conceptually recognized them as hers, she was able to use her method on them.

Yelena had overloaded three of hi—her claws with void energy, and Plutusdrakon ripped them off before flinging them at the fireball. Then, keeping to the shadow of the fireball, he bolted away.

"Without the cursed spear and the unfair glaive, this is just a common brawl," Yelena hummed happily.

Right when Yelena said this, Proxima Midnight opened her palm and another spear, just as the first one, materialized.

"..."

"... With the Reality Stone, if they knew how to make one, they could have made enough spares for her," Plutusdrakon commented while dejectidly reminding himself that the world outside was dangerous. "At least we also have an infinite supply of your claws." He observed as his body regenerated the claws that now conceptually belonged to Yelena.

Abruptly, Plutusdrakon veered right just as a cursed spear almost impaled him, Dracula style.

The fight between Irina and Thanos was even more despair-inducing.

Kitty, tailless now, glanced at Jean and observed that at least the shine was covering just above her knees.

But, having died nine times—she was now realizing this meant she had ten lives and not nine, which irked her OCD—Kitty realized that Thanos was pulling his punches back, possibly because he feared that the other of her siblings were hiding, waiting in ambush.

Through updates from The System's chat, she knew Plutusdrakon and Yelena were not faring that much better than they were. And, what she considered was worst of all, Thanos had undone her lightsaber after the first clash.

The only good news was that the Duskari controlling the metallic slime were dismantling Thanos' infinite army with ease. No, well, to be honest, the metallic slime was burning fuel like a black hole sucks matter in, but that was not important now.

She observed Irina use her divinity to channel void energy into her flames and to become a servant of the void flame's will. Which, simplified, meant that Irina was acting as a conduit of Aragorn's will ingrained in his void energy.

Normally, this would be akin to a sorcerer submitting to the will of the Dimensional Lords powering their dimensional magic, which was beyond madness. However, Aragorn had made sure to ingrain his love for his Therions on the part of his self that shared void energy with them.

In other words, the maxim of the void energy that he shared with the Therions was their well-being, and the fact that even while this was the case, they could barely wield his energy exemplified how unwieldy void energy was.

So, while Irina was bathed in the void flames, Kitty was warping the laws of Reality to shoot the flaming ball at Thanos. After all, Aragorn's care for the well-being of his Therions manifested in his energy aggressively trying to erase anything around Irina.

In her mind, Kitty imagined herself wielding a morning star (Irina) chained to an impossibly long chain, where the chain was the laws of Reality.

The only problem was that Thanos only had to burst into a shockwave of Reality, which was a term Kitty herself coined to describe the strange power Thanos manifested, to keep her morning start away.

From start to finish, what had been the longest hour of her life, Kitty noticed that Thanos had not used the Mind Stone offensively. She knew that he knew that he could not peer into their minds; Supergiant was the perfect example of the consequences of such foolishness, but he should still be able to wield offensively the other powers psychokinesis granted.

This observation had her sweating bullets.

⌈DarthKitty: I think... I fear that he is fighting us while simultaneously using both stones for something else.

BunnyMaidOfFire: What could he possibly be using the stones for other than slaughtering us?

DarthKitty: I was just wondering, if I were him, and I was a super simp with unending motivation, what would I do with those stones, and I did not like the conclusion I reached.

BunnyMaidOfFire: Out with it.

DarthKitty: If I were him, and I knew of the Drachantheon Therion and Aragorn, the first step would be a training arc to power up.

BunnyMaidOfFire: I'm pretty sure he already went through that. Otherwise, we would not have been this curbstomped.

DarthKitty: Certainly, when I saw him all those years ago, he was barely above omega level.

BunnyMaidOfFire: So?

DarthKitty: So, what if he is still going through his training arc?

BunnyMaidOfFire: What, are you implying this is a clone and the real one is out there training? I'm pretty sure those are the real Reality Gems; he would not entrust those to a clone.

DarthKitty: First of all, I think not even we could see through an illusion of the Reality Stone, so we should keep that in mind. Second of all, that's not what I meant. What is the relatively safest way to power up, known to many?

BunnyMaidOfFire: Obvious—Wait! Are you saying he is still vying for the other stones?

DarthKitty: Yes. I don't think this is a clone, but I think he might have cloned his mind inside his body. With both stones, that is possible.

BunnyMaidOfFire: One mind is trashing us while the other is occupied with another task? But if that's the case, why even respond to our provocation? He could have stayed hidden and then revealed himself after having finished his collection.

DarthKitty: That's where this gets tricky. I have a few thousand possible scenarios running in parallel. 30% of them point out to him fearing Jean would blow up before completion of his plan. 10% to this being a clone keeping us distracted while his body hunts for the other stones. 15% to him coming out to make sure to stop Jean in case his goal is not reached before the reset of the Universe. And... 45% to him currently merging one of his minds with Reality to immediately locate the other stones hidden in the Imperium, while keeping us in check in case Jean blows up sooner than he expected.

BunnyMaidOfFire: ...

DarthKitty: At least, that's what I would do in his shoes.⌋

With a power push of her rabbit legs, Irina shot back to land next to Kitty. The void energy pulled back from her blue flames.

Cat and bunny stared at Thanos, and Thanos, content with stalling, stared back.

The silence stretched with the staredown contest, and then Kitty blurted out her question, "Are you merging with Reality?"

"... Ah, so one of you has a brain, that must be rare among Therions," Thanos commended.

"FUCK!" Kitty roared.

She grabbed Irina by the bunny ears and launched her towards Jean. Immediately after, she was compressed by Reality into a ball of meat.

The ball of meat hummed, and divinity, colored a deep purple, shrouded it, pushing against the might of Reality.

"PLUTUS!" Irina shouted. "YELENA, ALL OUT!" She commanded.

Even at distances far enough to keep each battle from interfering with the other, Yelena and Plutusdrakon reacted immediately.

Magic circles covered Plutusdrakon before he reached supraluminal speed for an instant, appearing right next to Jean.

Yelena's transition was so abrupt that it was only registered as a pulse of absolute zero reaching her pursuers.

It was ritualistic magic she had inscribed all around her body. In exchange for a slow death and a large chunk of her divinity, she created a domain of no energy, no entropy, absolute zero.

Frozen solid, Ebony Maw, Corvus Glaive, and Proxima Midnight were slowly trying to free themselves with the red energy of the Reality Stone. The problem was that Yelena's attack also froze the space-time mesh locally, so they could not move from their statue location even if freed. They could only wait for the end of the frozen world.

Slowly, Yelena's body was falling apart like a dandelion losing its pappi to the wind. She was unmoving, but her face was frozen in agony. That was how ritualistic magic worked, the greater the sacrifice, the better the result, and in this case, her slow death was accompanied by scruciating pain, making this ritual highly effective.

Jean, without having to comprehend Kitty's reaction or requiring Irina's explanation, placed a hand on Irina's hip and the other on Plutusdrakon's squamous hide. Instantly, Irina and Plutusdrakom became just their cores, and their respective energies connected to fire began to flow like a tsunami into Jean.

The rate at which her body was turning luminous increased exponentially. This was not a move they were willing to use carelessly, because Jean was pulling energy directly from their souls, and the only reason the protections Aragorn left in their cores were not ending Jean was that they recognized her, but even then, possibly worse than Yelena, they were suffering.

"It's too late for that," Thanos voice rang clear from all around them. He had merged completely with this section of Reality, and he had spotted his target, the Barrens.

The seal on the Barrens erected by the Watchers after the annihilation and contamination brought by the Ultimate Nullifier was lifted, and all the corruption that the Imperium had not dealt with—more than 97% of the total—erupted out like a tidal wave moving at the speed of expansion of space, the absolute natural speed in the Universe.

But it wasn't as simple. The Therions were not sitting ducks.

In the Ark, Yao grabbed the Time Stone, James the Power Stone, Spark the Soul Stone, and Seraph the Space Stone. Behind them, connected by holding hands and metaphysical bonds that Sarah, Goddess of Bonds and Dragons, was enhancing, the Theirons, all of them who had achieved divinity, shared their divinity with the four wielders.

If Odin, powered by the Destroyer Armor, powered by the divinity of three Godheads, felt like he could face the Celestial eons ago, Seraph, Spark, James, and Yao, wielding the Reality Stones and having a truly gargantuan load of divinity shove into them, must have felt something akin to omnipotence.

All this power, just to keep the Reality Stones from falling into Thanos' grasp, who, at that point, was becoming something like the incarnation of Reality, and was usurping the dominion of Infinity/Eternity over Reality-5H1N3.

Seeing this, they realized how much Thanos was pulling back punches before.

Still, the efforts of teh Therions were enough to buy Kitty enough time.

⌈DarthKitty: I'll go to our Aragorn first. Make sure you don't screw up.⌋

With that last text through The System, Kitty's meatball-like body exploded into something... something hard to describe.

For over 300,000 years, Kitty had been playing at the capitalist cat. She had been hoarding favors like a dragon hoards riches. A few years ago, when Aragorn first informed her that they were returning to Earth-5H1N3 because someone was attacking their Reality, she cashed more than half of her favors.

The next level of the Therion had been a mystery to the Drachantheon Therion ever since they reached their nine tails of power. Aragorn had claimed to have no idea of what the next step would be, but Kitty had not believed him.

Part of the favors she cashed were used to get the very first condition needed. He had told her that the very first condition was an absurd amount of divine energy, but he had not revealed what to do with it.

Still, Kitty wanted to be the first to reach the next level. She wanted to rub it in the faces of her sisters and brothers; she wanted to annoy the hell out of them, so she spent the rest of her favors buying divine energy from Aragorn.

Naturally, this divine energy was stored in divine batteries that, obviously, were crystals, because that's how Aragorn rolled.

These crystals were stored in Kitty's storage, which, even while compressed into a meatball, she had access to.

How do you stop a reality warper?

Target the mind, remove the source of their power, banish them to The Void Between Realities, kill them faster than they can process, or seal them; these were the main known methods.

There was, however, an obscure method that almost no one knew because the last time it was used, 90% of the Universe had to be sealed away.

Yes, exactly that method.

Why, with all the regret they carried, did the Watchers never fix the corruption caused by the Ultimate Nullifier? If it were as simple as using the Reality Stone, why, with their unending lifespans, did they never search it to fix the Barren Lands?

Because the damage wrought by the Ultimate Nullifier corrupted the building blocks of Reality.

So, if a Goddess of Laws could interfere with Reality's Laws, why couldn't she fuck them up?

The Therions were never that mindful of taboos anyway.

Kitty's sacrifice was instant, and so was the sacrifice of her divinity crystals.

A permanent field of corruption manifested far faster than any of the present could compute; they were not Abstracts, and Thanos encroaching if Reality was sequestered by the immediate manifestation of a high-dimensional field surrounding all of Thanos-corrupted Reality.

Then it hit them, a wrongness so abhorrent that it was a miracle only those above a certain level could sense it, because otherwise the mortals would have fallen mad or dead. A wrongness that went against everything they were, regardless of morality, type of existence, karma, principles, or anything conceivable within Creation.

All but Jean froze.

In those eternal seconds, Jean evaluated the situation.

Thanos could not continue merging with Reality; Kitty had made sure of that, but still, she had fucked up Reality so much that Thanos could not be unfused from it, effectively making him immortal, the unkillable type.

And that was what she was able to evaluate within reach; she feared everything that he had set in motion since Aragorn's disappearance, because without him, there was no one who could monitor the keystones of Reality, no one who could ensure no one was messing with that which they shouldn't under any circumstances.

In conclusion, even if Thanos's threat level had been lowered considerably, she judged Earth-5H1N3 needed a reset.

Not exactly a factory reset, but certainly its RAM needed to be cleansed.

The last vestiges of her being a biological lifeform were gone. Her body was cosmic shine, akin to a star; her hair was Cosmic Flames, her slitted eyes were green nebulae.

The feeling of wrongness disappeared, and at that moment so did the being resulting from Aragorn's and The Chaos King's merging. Jean took that as her signal.

SCKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECH

With the cry of the Phoenix Force Host unleashing its judgment, Irina and Plutusdrakon finally died, the Cosmic Fire consumed Yelena, the Black Order, and then it swallowed Reality-5H1N3. All of it, including Earth and the Barren Lands.

The Therions accepted the consuming fire, the momentary end, with proud smiles and willing hearts; they had won, and death was but a rest stop for them—or their Madame.

Reality-5H1N3 was reset.

It was burned away entirely, every planet, plane, pocket dimension, inner dimension, star, galaxy, cluster, and concept.

It was all washed away by the Cosmic Fire. Every life was extinguished, but their souls didn't migrate to the Death Realm or any repository of souls.

Its source material was not dispersed into The Void Between Realities.

Its connection to the multiverse was not fully severed.

It was a reset, not its end.

If Reality were made of Legos, then it was completely disassembled, and its Legos were classified and separated by type, color, and function. Then, following the instructions stored in the shard of The Phoenix Force that granted Jean her power and status, Reality was reassembled.

Time was not turned back, but what made it Earth-5H1N3 was restored to how it was before Aragorn's departure.

It was an expression of one of the nigh-omnipotent aspects of The Phoenix Force, and Jean was not ready to wield that power safely, so with the completion of the task, Jean perished.

Every life was returned to the exact instant the Cosmic Flames had consumed them. To them, it was as if, for a moment, a bright white light blinded them, a moment so fleeting that most just blinked it away.

Yelena and everyone else who was dead or in the process of dying didn't return.

Irina and Plutusdrakon, their cores the source of Jean's needed boost, and still in contact with Jean the moment she ceased to be, they did not return.

And Jean herself didn't resurrect herself, not because she couldn't or wanted to, but because the moment the wrongness disappeared, when Aragorn and The Chaos King were gone, Phoenix, almost in a panic, pulled Jean to her, to The White Hot Room.

Blinking the drowsiness away, Jean was met with the familiar whiteness that she called one of her homes.

She looked at her hands. Irina's and Plutusdrakon's metaphysical cores were craddled safely in her hands. "What? What are you doing here?"

|Aragorn. I believe he severed his connection to you. Only Katherine Pryde's core reunited with him before he... departed.|

"Phoenix?!" Jean turned towards the impossible construct of Cosmic Flames before her. "What happened to Aragorn?!"

|Let me take care of them first.|

Phoenix gestured to the cores. With absolute trust, Jean extended her hand toward Phoenix, and she breathed a gentle fire laced with [Life], [Rebirth], and [Creation] onto the cores.

Their bodies were recreated, the expenditure of their souls reversed, and Irina and Plutusdrakon blinked awake.

Still alert, they evaluated their surroundings and immediately understood where they were.

"What are we doing here?" Plutusdrakon questioned.

"Madame," Irina greeted Phoenix respectfully.

"Phoenix said that something happened to Aragorn. So you didn't return to him," Jean caught them up to speed urgently.

"To Master?" Irina's heart skipped a beat in worry.

|I don't have many answers. We were blindsided by the new Abstract. All we saw was the last moments, Aragorn merged with The Chaos King, and then opened a Green Door before exiting to The Void. I saw Katherine Pryde's core join them before exiting, but yours were not pulled. Because I summoned Jean, yours came here.|

"What about Aunt Yelena's?" Plutusdrakon asked, worriedly.

From the fact that he could speak to Phoenix while she was manifested in her true Abstract form, it could be told that he was in great shock, or it was classic Therion madness. Hard to tell.

|Aragorn prepared a safeguard at the core of the Ark. It's a sealed pocket dimension. Not even we could access it. Her core should be there.|

"... So we wait," Irina dejectedly surmised.

|Yes. You wait for his return.|

Phoenix then turned to Jean, who had been silently processing the unsaid repercussions of what Phoenix revealed.

|Jean. It's better if you recover on your own. Practice your connection to The White Hot Room. I'll go to the urgent meeting of the Cosmological Compass that Aragorn caused.|

Turning to Irina and Plutusdrakon, she asked them to keep Jean company, though, inwardly, Phoenix was wondering who would keep whom company, since the three of them were devastated by what they surmised had happened to Aragorn.

━━━━━━━ ● ━━━━━━━

The Void.

Agony, it was agony.

So many memories. So many experiences, so much seen, so much understood.

Like cancer slowly but surely taking over your body, while painfully experiencing the metastasis of each fallen cell. Like becoming cancer.

Something that barely had a description. Something that could only be poorly summarized as having your existence eaten by inexistence, as having your past and future, every infinite instance, experience the same agony simultaneously.

Like being a self-aware code being rewritten by a flawed coder. Like watching every part of what you liked about you change. Like being forced into a union of souls. Like rape. Like soul rape. Like wondering if you'll be able to live with yourself after they are done raping you. Loathsome.

Time, so much time. The passage of time was unquantifiable because the concept is nonexistent in The Void. Memories carrying so much of that, and it was all forcibly processed at once. Impossible. This was impossible.

Disgusting. This was disgusting. An affront so profound... It turned all that agony into W̴̡̧̨̱̫̝̻͉͍̖̯͚͔̿̔̂̈́̐̀̍̃̿̉̓̓̃̎̃̏̄̌̓̊͘͝͠͝R̷̢͉̱̻̺̫͈̖̫͎̞͔̼͓̳̻̥̖̪̤̩̘̠͔̬̮͎̘͎̀͑̃́̎̂̚͝ͅA̶̧̧̖̜̳͈̪̞͓͕̹̙͖̳̟̤̥̮͙̥̞̦̪̺̦̞̜̝̟͂̂̒̒̐́̑̑̏̅̉͑̓͗͌͐͜ͅT̴̨̼̤̳̺̘̟̩̣̭̜̽̍̾̓̍̌͗͒̀̀̋̒̾͑͒̍̈́̿̄̇̄̇̀͛̂̓͐͊̂̕͘̕͘̕͜͜͝Ḥ̸̡̢̡̧̧̧̧̠̥̜̝̰̼̯̺̻͔̘͚̮̘͔̹̲͈̥̻̫͙̰̭̮̙̪͇̦̖͓̗̘̦͗̉͆̀̆͒̂͒̍͊̀̔̇̃̏͒̾̽̿̈́̿̓̂̋́͂͗͑͗̄̐̍̕̕.

Ȟ̶̭̤̂̑̓͆̀͗̕͜͠A̷̢̡̛͉̦̫̞͓̺̼͙͚̻̭̩͚̳̖̦̗͔͍͇͓̠͂̐̃́̏͋̓͋̉̆̆̉̓̽́̃̾̆̀͐͗̊̃͆̓͆̚͘͝͠͝͝͠ͅT̷̨̨̢̡͈͉̼͔̠͚̖͎͉̘̼̙̹̝̠͍̭̣̹̣̲̈̂̔̈̿͛̎́̇̈́̈́̀́͂̊̂̎̔̑̀͑̀̎̀̓́̋̌̀͒̑̐̔̾̀͐̔͒͒̾͒̎̚͘̚̚͠͝͝͠Ë̶̢̧̨̡̡̢̛̖̜͙͎͍͉̳̺͎͍̻̰̰̟̯̯͚̣̪͍͉͎̹̦͈̦̣̞͍̯̖͔͈̳͔̦́̽͗͗̑͒͐͗̈́̔̍̄̀̿̒̏͐̎͑̿̄̀̽͒̓̾̾̈́̓̿̽͜͜͝͝͝͝.̶̢̛̖̦̪̹̩̼̼̻̮̖͖̼̪͓͕͈̲͎̭͓̭̯̥̯̗͇̔̆̂͛̈̑̐̇̀̂͐͋̽̈́̋̋̀͒̿̔̐͊̌̊̆̍͋̋͂͗̑̒̔̄̿̇̽͒͑͌̅̒͑̕͘͝͝ ̷̗̦̪̘̫̙̅͗͌͆̋̂͘Ẅ̴̡̨̨̡̺̳͉̺̳͚̪̯͙̱̤̯̘͍̣̖̜͔͇͉̟͕͉͔̙͖͍̣̦͉̞̲͚͒́̓́͑̔̄͌̽̀͗̆̔́̾̊̒̿̐͌͒̄̅̋̽̓̒̂̑͊̎͂̚̚͘̕͠͠R̴̭̝̀̃͛͒͛̄̌͑̐̉͋̓̿̔͘͘͠A̶̦̯̪̟̍͆̄́͊̓͆̓̉̓̂̌̊̒͒̓̈́͘̕͘͝Ṯ̷̛̤̩̟̼͕̙̪̜̙̬͇̰͚͔̩͈̲͕͚̮̾̔͑̾́͂̈́͑͛̍̇͌̐͆̂̅͋̂̈́̾͊͂͗̈́͗̆̏̌͐̔́͂͌̉̂̚̕̚͘̕͠͝H̶̢̡̧̡̧̨̧̲̤̪̰̜̜͎̹͈̯̮̪̱͖̹͎̝͉̘̱͖̥͖̭͖̰̠̱̝̣͖͉̼̯͗̐̈́͑̐͂̆͐̾̅̈́̽̽̏̂̆͋̓́̄̎́̅͋̃͗̏̽́̿͊́̓̋̕͘͘͜͝͝ͅ.̴̢̧̨̨̛͔̗͍̠̣̼̖̲͉̫̤̥̮͙͈̣͉͔̯̬͍͕̖͓͔̘̩͕̮̭̬͊̌̈̀̐̀͂̄͆̓̉̈̐̎̌̋̿́̍̇̔͗̈́́̑̑̿̈͂̑̏͆̿̋̆̚̕͘̚͘͜͜ ̸̡̧̞̫̱̳̘͔͖͖͙̙͖̳̝̟̬̥̤͕̹̪͍̟͈̯̹̹̖̥͍̰̓̉̿͜F̵͂͜U̶̧̧̫̲̳̼̙͖̥̼̫̬̗͚̮̱͈̻͕̥̎ͅŖ̴̢̡̡̢̟͕̤̮̤̘̝͇̯̱͖̮͖͓̰̟͉̬̫̖͉̩̘͔̘̭̻̞̰͙͈͉̠̲̼̮͙̾͌̐͂̏͊́̓̀͐̋͘͘͜͜Y̶̡̨̼̺̩̪̯͇͍̫͓͙̙͐͑̈́̑̉̌̔̉̽͋̊̿̾͆̎̀̿̋̐͆́̌̆̏͗͛͗̌̾̚͘͜͠͠͝.̴͇̬̠͕͎́̈̐̂̅̏͗̇̄̄̍̅̐̀̀͑͛̔͛̔͒̃͂̐͐̐͊͆̚͘͝͝ ̴̢̨̬̱̖̙͇͕͔̬̮͓͕̲̪͙͓̦̻̭̙͙͓̻̩̬̫̬̮̙̲͕͚̮̈́̓̍̐̾͋̈́̾͗̓̋̋̓̂̃̀̈́͑̌̇̔̀͗̈̊͌̉͋̈͗̔́̇̍̂̐̈͊̕͘̚͜ͅͅḦ̸̛̛̛͍̭̦͉͚͈́̽̒̽͊͑̋̓̏̓̄̎̓̏̓̒͌̾͑̉͋̓̎͊́̌̎͘͘͠͝Ă̷̢̨̡͈̜̼̭͙̩̖͎͍̤͎̲̟͕̭̫̥͚̝̰̺̥̖̖͆͒̾̽̌̿̔̊̓̆̐̕ͅT̸̛̩̠͓̠͍̪̭̮͙͕̺̰̺͍͖̟̙̩̝͉̤̳̣̥̣̺͕̬̬̯̰̫̞̖̼̮̣̫͉̍̇͊̅͛́͛̏͂̃̍͒̄̈́̇̇̂̈́͗͐̍̀̈́̀̆́̍͐̈̎͛͌̽̑͘̚͝͝͝R̸̨̨̛̛̩̥͉̹̭͚͓͙̦͎̥̽̌͌̃͋͒̓̈̒̓̓̂͌̋̉̂͂Ȅ̶̡̧̢̨̡̛̠̮̬̼̠͓͙͎̞̖̬̪̤͎̟̦͉̗̯̫͇̠̻̳͙͇͗Ḑ̵̢̛̭̬̼̦͎̻̱̪͕͉̤̩͍̞͇̜͇̭͖̞̈́͐̀̀͌̾̽́͛́͐͗̓̈̽́̉̇̒̽̊̇̽̃̄̊̎͐̅̆̑́̊̈͌̕̚͝.̶̢̧̢̨̢͈̝͎̙̞̗͇̜͍̭̟̪̞̺͕͇̗̺͈̟͔̫̞̯̠̗̪̦͖͚̥͉̙͙̰̗̮̽̌̌̈́̏́̑̉̂̽̈̇͆̑͋̍̈͘̚͘ͅ ̴̡̟̠̭̘̮͍̥̦͇̙̼͚͇̠͕̳͖̺͖̭͍̩͊͋̆̚͘̕Ä̵̡̨̧͈̳̮̰̹̗͎̦̭͇̘͔̙̩̮̱̖̩̭̤͕͎͖͆̓̀͆̆̓͂̂́́͐̑̇̀̚̚̚͠͝ͅͅG̴̨̧̹͙͍̻͎̗̲̼̪͙̹̰̼̩̤̩̜̞̱̳͎̞͓͈̖̬̟͓̩̘͎̪̮̳̟̟̙͖̥̪͈̝͍̮̖͂͜͝Ḩ̶̢̻̫̪̲̟̦̖̮͚̦̦͔̬̣̞̲̹̳̯̩̳̻̳̬̻̘̟͉̭͇̠̣̫̤̓́̄̊̈́̊̊͊̎̒̈́̂̐̆͑͂̾̌̂̀͒͊̍͂͑͐̿͐́̑̏͘̕̚͜͠͝͠͠͠ͅH̶̢̻͔̭̖̱̼̗͕̬̲͉͉̬̜̮̺͓̩̫̻͔̰̳̲͔̺͉̜̩̩̝͕̜̲͚̭̞̜̏̂̾̀̓̃̾̋̀̈́̐̇͑̀͊̏̆̊̀̾̈̚̚̚̚͜͜͝͝͠͠Ḧ̷̢͚͉̣̬̻̥̥͈̙̥͍̭͕̟̣͓̙͇̩̫̗͎͚̼̖́͗̈́̀̽̽̅̓̀̅̈́͗̍́̄͗̉̇̈̈́͊͠ͅḢ̶̡̧̡̢̡̨̲̻̪̭̳̮̰͙̬̘͖͇͕͕͎̜̩͎̤̤͖͔̖̼̘̼̩͎̯͈̫̞̹͕̤́̈́̀̈́̽̓̏̉͆̑̄̀̽̉͋̔̽̒̃͋͊̌̽͌̈́͗͊͘͘̕͜͜͠ͅḨ̴̧̡̨͚̦̞̙̲̰̟͎̪̤̦̝̫̭̦̜͕̫͕͙̱̙͍̞̻̪̖̙̹̘̟͛̌̿͋̐͂̃͆̒̕H̵̢̨̨͈̞̯̝̩̖̠̙̪̭̪̪̠̺̥̑́̆͊̚̕͜Ḩ̴̡̧̢̧̢̡̧͙̟̠͈̦̘̦̞̳̪̰̰͔̠̫͙͈̣͈͓̩̖̻̮͚͔̮̘̝̯͖̜̞͕͓̹̭̼̳̽͌̈́̈́͐̏́̆͘͜͜͝H̸̢̨̢̡̢̢̱͔͇̤̬̞̻̫̝̤̥̟͕̙͍͍̱͎͚̲̘͔̰̜̰͓̯͈̲̩͍̗̺̦͙̥͉̾͛̈́͗̐͂́͒̾͑̑̀̒̃̿̐̕̚̕͘͝͝ͅḨ̸̧̡̧̨͓̦̥̩̲͖̪̲̫̦̟̬̪̪̞̪̣͕͉̻̙̩͓͕̀̅̈́̏̎̐́͊͆͆͐̈́͒̂̎̾͐̄̿̒͌̎͒̋̃̑̌͗̍̾̅͑̂̊͠͝!̵̡̢̨̡̛͚͚̙̹̘͚̙̗̣̙̠̹̘͔̺͚̦̭̭͎̝͎͎͇̫̦͍̫̣͚͛͊̃͆́̌̀̈́́̕ͅ!̴̢̛̛͉͔̟͕̰̳̯͙̗̜̻̖̟̰̫̗̙̰̐͆̓̄̈́͑̇̐̓̅̓̈́̄̏̈́͗͂̇̅͋̊̋̄̇̽̄̌̈̈́̓̑̈̏̀͘̚͘͠ͅ!̴̡̡̡͉̙̬̼̱̞͓̺͍̜̼͙̜͕͔͙̹͖̯̝̟̟͙̭͔̫̟̞̆̈̓̑̈́̃̓͒̓̀̓̈͘͝!̴̧̨̡̨̛̛̛̠͍̜̼̬̣̖̱̠̬̠͕̫͕͉̦͎͍̜͚͈͍̳̞̦͉͖̰̺͉̺̜̜͍̬͈̣͇̝̓̈̿̈́́͑̓̂̎̇̑̊̊̋̉̏̔͆̏̽̇̌͗͒͌̎͑͒̇̓͌͌̄͛̾̃̅̚̕͜͠͠͝

Cease this.

Ñ̷̨̡̛̞̻̦̹͍̬̳̖̹͓̥͇̳̙̻̭̘̝̣̙͙̠͖̪̳̦̤̝̲̠̪̫͎̖̼̺̤̠̞͖̯̯͊̀̓͛̽͒̄̈́͗̓̈́̈̌̈̂̓̓̄́͆́̍̽̾̀̓̀͐̊͑͂̉̅̊͘̕͝͝Ǒ̶̧̨̧̨̢̟̝̪̖͎̻̝̫͉̬͚̩̲̦̟̳̰̞̭̝̼̣͕̮͍̟͓̞̝͋͋̑̐̀͐̆̌̆ͅ!̸͍̬̟͇̈́́̊̄̿̒̒̈͂́̇̿͌͂͆́̋̀͊͗̉̍̍͛́̀̔́̑̉͌̈̇͆͋͊͒̽̚̕̕͝͝͝!̶̨̢̻̬͍͙̼͖̫̰͈̮̜̖̥̟̘̻͙̻̩̤͇̰͎̙̘̘͉̺͖̽͆͌͊͐̈̚͝!̷̢̧̢̧̰̜̼͙̲͙͚̪̲̗͔̜͉̲͖̱̬̖̗̯͓̞̳̞̦̰͚͈̺̫̭̒́̉͗̉̂̄͌͋̀̆͋̇̈̎̒̈́͜͜͝͠͝ͅͅ

Time didn't exist in The Void—it went beyond that. Not even a succession of events could be determined in The Void.

The moment when Aragorn became the Self of The Void, when he merged with it and his instances in time were obliterated by The Void, when he greedily tried to absorb it and invited it to his soul.

The moment when Aragorn exited the Shinobi World and carried Madelyne and Kaguya with him.

These two moments couldn't be chronologically arranged. It was impossible to determine which happened first, or even if they didn't happen at the same time. That was how impossible and paradoxically The Void was.

But, for those special observers, those who had their methods, or those who viewed what happened without even realizing, recognizing, or comprehending what they were observing, they could at least perceive moments in The Void as separate events.

For a realm of so much change—the chaos phase—yet none—the void phase—The Void was not marked by many events/moments that affected it as a whole.

One of those moments was certainly when IT accepted a Self. That event when The Void gained }{Lucivacui/Lux Vacui}{

At that moment, The Void erupted into a █████████ of ████████ that sent into a frenzy. The conditions for the birth of Multiversal Barriers were spawned by the numbers so large they had no denotations. So many Multiverses were born from this that it could be compared to the Big Bangs experienced by many Universes.

At the same time, ███ ██████ compressed so many Multiverses so violently and spawned so many Void Beasts that countless Multiverses were invaded and destroyed.

The moment The Void welcomed }{Lucivacui/Lux Vacui}{, The Void fulfilled two paradoxes: The Multiverses in The Void have a beginning and an end.

That was it. The creation of the first Multiverse, as well as the end of all of them.

The second moment was this one.

Aragorn's female form, empty of all that is, Void-chan, craddled something to her bosom lovingly.

Her tail curved around her and coiled over this something protectively.

For the second moment, The Void experienced something that could be differentiated.

Threads of light were born from the something in The Void's bosom. These threads spread across all of it, grazing the Multiversal Walls, harmlessly flowing through the Void Beast, and those powerhouses capable of traversing The Void.

The something of unidentifiable shape glowed with a bluish-white light tainted by an umbra black anti-light. Light and anti-light fought, clashed, and churned violently like a reaction of boiling oil and water.

The Void murmured something to it, and the fight between the light and the anti-light slowly simmered down.

The light and anti-light, though calm, refused to mix. Two identifiable phases.

The Void murmured again, yet there was no change. The two phases would not mix.

The Void was not disappointed by this; after all, Worthy change was not easy.

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