Dante's POV
Kal-Tar and the Black Horde were as impressive as they came. They'd put down five Demon Lords in 100 years, were personally responsible for the fall of several vassal kingdoms, and reportedly had enough strength to oppose the Mad Titan himself, even though he possessed an Infinity Stone.
Their ambush really was remarkable. I mean, it might've caught me before my fight with Thanos, or at the very least thrown me off long enough for them to do some actual damage. Now, I was just one portal away from ending an entire civilization of legendary mercenaries.
"Come on, then. What's your answer?" I asked Kal-Tar, tossing the Arcanite orb into the air and catching it again. Almost automatically, I ran my extensive senses over it, trying to record the complicated runic structure of the parasite stored inside. In response, I found a mind roaring back at me. It was intelligent, with a primitive cunning that almost impressed me. It hungered for minds and had been neutered, turned into a weapon to be used against me and, more interestingly, Jean.
That was almost enough to make me retract my offer and butcher them en masse, but I'd come here for a fight, to learn and see what the best hunters in the galaxy could do. And I was not disappointed.
Reality quivered as five domains hammered down, mixing and melding into some kind of unified domain. Their energy profiles contrasted, but their goals were identical. Total annihilation. Time-accelerated beams of light, darkness, flame, gravity, and space shot toward my body and armor, trying to crack me open in a single instant.
I laughed at their audacity, activating Cloak of the Demon Lord and spreading my Astral wings. Energy flooded my body, empowering me severalfold before flowing into Rebellion and triggering a secondary, almost exponential burst of power.
Purple fire threaded up the length of the blade, sinking into the fabric of the domains and spreading outward. It ate into the cracks between them, widening the fractures. Staggered Carnage and fire runes hummed, and power exploded. Ruination fractured their domains and scorched their souls.
There was a collective scream, and then space quivered. Massive gold-blue portals opened, revealing guns the size of skyscrapers pointed at me. They were attached to runic arrays that stretched for miles and hummed with enough power to make my teeth rattle. The ships lit up as well. I counted a hundred thousand cannons.
"So, that's a no, then?"
The cannons lit up in response, as did my armor and skin. Time folded in on itself again and again and again as I activated Time Compression. A second stretched into eternity, and in that stillness, I raised Rebellion and activated Mirror Weapons.
Fifteen thousand blades appeared, each covered in runes I willed into existence along the length of Rebellion. They each carried Time Warp to aid their acceleration, ten staggered Carnage Runes, twenty Precision Runes, and finally, a spell incorporating Dimensional Cut and Anathema Fire. They shot forward, slicing into the great tide of beams that had crossed half the distance between the ships and me.
A massive, confusing conflagration followed. Beams diffracted, bouncing off the energy of the blade clones and the dimensional energy before combusting violently and ceaselessly. It was like a thousand nuclear bombs going off.
Enough Arcanite poured out of me to fill an ocean. Its surface was inscribed with runes that converted the heat and demonic energy crashing into it into Anathema Fire, which it promptly stored. The result was roughly five hundred times the energy I'd spent on my little stunt.
But I wasn't nearly done. A wave of my hand sent the summoned blades twisting and scything through space, refueled by some of the energy they'd stolen. They split open ships with a mere thought, threaded through monsters, and rained down destruction.
While the army fell apart, I floated forward and transported myself into the command center of the mothership, bypassing the ship's external wards with a quick dimensional jump. Their internal wards tried to stop me, but a quick slice with my weapon parted them like butter.
They jumped me the moment I stepped onto the ship, attacking immediately and ferociously. Two Cambions clad in thick metal and symbiote suits came at me at the same time. One wielded a meteor hammer grown from biological matter, heavy with density energy. The other held a rapier covered in demonic runes, its pointed tip brimming with kinetic energy powerful enough to split a mountain in half.
Both were enhanced by time magic that traced back to a Cambion at the back of the room. Eight hands stuck out of his body, eldritch magic circles swirling around him.
"Now, that's something you don't see every day."
An invisible bolt leaped out of the duelist's rapier just as the flesh hammer came down on me. I caught both attacks with copies of Rebellion, reflecting their force and throwing it back at them. My blades flowed with the impact, following through against both demons. They struck out again and again, only to have their attacks turned back on them, each counter battering them with their own power.
I almost laughed at how casually I handled it all. I'd drilled endlessly with Manny to improve my blade work, especially after the rise in my stats.
I had over 5,000 points in every stat now. Even my base form was absolute overkill in most situations.
A third attacker joined us, a woman who thrust her hands forward. Suddenly, I started to vibrate, every atom of my body coming apart violently. It threw me off balance just long enough to miss a riposte, and everyone took full advantage.
The sorcerer went on the offensive. More portals opened, pointing additional cannons at me; my two attackers struck demonic auras flaring like bonfires, while Kal-Tar, who had been contentedly watching, drew his blade and swung. It was a Khopesh, and it burned with an intensity that made me want to look away. A line of purple aura arced out, racing ahead of hardened tissue accelerated by kinetic force, scorching beams of heat energy, and a few other magical flavors I couldn't quite make out.
Rebellion fell apart in my hand, transforming into Eryx. I punched out, striking reality itself and branding it with one of the many conceptual runes Odin had gifted me.
Deny.
It burned through over 30,000 AE and DE, but it did exactly what the name promised, denying all their attacks. They were there one second and gone the next, much to the surprise of my opponents.
I accelerated using one of my biological enhancements, Pietro's Superspeed, and practically teleported across the room, appearing behind the woman with the strange vibrational power. I struck her with my palm, branding several Anathema Fire runes onto her body and soul. She combusted from the inside out, barely managing a scream before collapsing completely.
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