The seamless black stone corridor of the Labyrinth swallowed the lingering stench of blood and ozone from Chamber Six. Raimei walked with measured steps, the violet lightning around his spiky hair subdued, almost contemplative. The effortless dismantling of Shirou, Kagaya, and Miryoku hadn't brought satisfaction, only a cold confirmation of the vast gulf between them and Raimei, The UnboundDown Monarch. He approached the immense, featureless door leading to Saganbo's sanctum – a portal radiating palpable dread.
It slid open silently, revealing not a room, but a pocket of compressed cosmic horror. Saganbo sat upon the Throne of Weeping Neutrons, bathed in its baleful purple-black radiance. Before him, suspended in shimmering stasis fields, lay Shinji Kazuhiko, his form inert, bathed in the eerie light of Saganbo's scrutiny. The air hummed with the God of Destruction's focused intent, a pressure that made even Raimei's spiritual energy feel sluggish.
Raimei knelt, head bowed, the image of perfect deference. "Lord Saganbo. Chamber Six is clear. The intruders have been neutralized."
Saganbo didn't turn his gaze from the suspended form. His voice, when it came, was a low rumble like continents grinding. "Efficiency, Raimei. As expected. Their defiance was... statistically insignificant noise."
A flicker of something akin to approval touched Raimei's mind. "Sir, the remaining intruders in Chambers One, Two, and Three... Should I expedite their removal?" He kept his tone neutral, but the feeling of Sasaki's energy dissolving into grey motes flashed unbidden – a wasted tool, a slight miscalculation in the Royale's aftermath.
Saganbo finally turned his galactic eyes towards Raimei. They held no warmth, only the cold assessment of a master evaluating a useful instrument. "Unnecessary. Allow the others to fulfill their designated functions. Interference breeds... inefficiency. Observe. Ensure the Labyrinth's integrity holds."
Raimei's jaw tightened imperceptibly. Observe. While Daganu brutalized, while Kokuto likely waited with lethal patience, while the God of Creation potentially rallied. And while his own carefully curated mortals faced oblivion. "Very well... Sir!" He forced the words out, the deference flawless, the worry a tightly coiled spring in his gut. He rose, bowed again, and retreated. The sanctum door sealed behind him with a sound like a tomb closing.
Alone in the corridor, Raimei let out a slow, controlled breath he hadn't realized he was holding. The violet lightning crackled faintly. He turned, not towards the unfolding battles, but towards the Monarch Joint Training sector – a pocket dimension woven into the Labyrinth's structure. He would wait. He would observe the Labyrinth's sensory feeds. And he would hope, with a cold, pragmatic fury, that his remaining Special Force mortals wouldn't join Sasaki in the void. Losing tools was acceptable. Losing valuable tools was... irritating.
Chamber Two:
The air in Chamber Two reeked of ozone, scorched flesh, and desperation. Merus staggered, cerulean blood welling from a deep gash across his temple, staining his pearlescent suit. His breathing was ragged. Opposite him, Raigan leaned heavily against a jagged obsidian spire, his silver hair matted with sweat and dust, intricate tattoos flickering weakly. His breath came in labored gasps, his staff clutched like a lifeline. Ubiginu, however, danced amidst the debris field left by their clash. His patchwork jacket was torn, revealing bandaged skin beneath, but his luminous green eyes burned with manic energy. He moved with preternatural agility, dodging residual energy discharges.
"Taking... a breather... old man?" Ubiginu taunted, voice high-pitched and strained. "Divinity not all it's cracked up to be?" He gestured, and a drone, one of three still operational, zipped from their shoulder, firing a concussive pulse that Merus barely sidestepped, the blast cratering the stone where he'd stood.
Raigan pushed off the spire, raising his staff. "Ubiginu! Focus! We need—" He coughed, a spray of silver-tinged blood dotting the obsidian floor.
Seeing Raigan's vulnerability, Merus lunged. Creation energy coalesced around his fist – a desperate, powerful blow aimed to finish the silver-haired temporalist. But Ubiginu was faster. He interposed himself in a blur, his own hands blazing with crackling, unstable energy. FWOOM! A beam of raw power erupted, meeting Merus's strike head-on.
KRA-BOOM!
The shockwave hurled Raigan back against the spire, knocking the wind from him. Merus skidded back, his arm numb, the cerulean energy around his fist sputtering and dying. The subtle, bestial yellow ring that had encircled his torso flickered violently and vanished.
*Damn it!* Merus thought, panic a cold spike in his divine core. *The Gorogilian integration... the time limit! I pushed it too hard against the first woman!*
Ubiginu grinned, a feral thing. "Don't underestimate the strongest mortals just because you're a god, Got it?" He raised both hands, energy gathering in a swirling vortex of destructive power – far larger, far more focused than before. "This ends now, relic!"
Merus saw the annihilation building. He had seconds. He poured his remaining divine essence into his own palms, summoning a counter-shockwave of pure Creation light. It was weaker, unstable without the Gorogilian augmentation, but it was all he had. "FULL FORCE!" he roared.
Ubiginu unleashed his vortex.
The two beams collided in the chamber's center. KOOOOOM! Light, sound, and concussive force erupted, filling the space with blinding radiance and a thick, choking smoke of vaporized stone and energy.
In the blinding aftermath, Merus moved. Not with divine grace, but with the ragged speed of a cornered animal. He blurred through the smoke, appearing behind Ubiginu, who was momentarily blinded and disoriented by their own blast's backwash. Merus didn't hesitate. A fist wreathed in desperate cerulean light slammed into Ubiginu's lower back.
CRUNCH!
Ubiginu cried out, a sound of genuine pain and surprise, stumbling forward, dark blood blossoming on his jacket. He whirled, fury contorting his features, but Merus was already turning.
Raigan, dazed and struggling to rise near the spire, saw Merus's eyes lock onto him. Pure, divine annihilation gathered in the God's palm, aimed point-blank. "N—!" Raigan's plea was cut off.
FWOOOOSH!
A beam of pure Creation energy, fueled by desperation and dwindling power, engulfed Raigan. There was no scream, only a brief, blinding flash, and then... nothing. Silver tattoos winked out. The staff clattered to the floor. Raigan, the temporal echo walker, was simply erased.
"RAIGAN!" Ubiginu's scream was raw, primal grief transmuted instantly into incandescent rage. His luminous green eyes blazed like supernovas. "YOU KILLED HIM! YOU GODDAMN FOSSIL!" Abandoning tactics, Ubiginu unleashed pure, uncontrolled fury. Shockwaves of chaotic energy erupted from him in every direction, ripping up the obsidian floor, shattering spires, filling the chamber with a storm of lethal debris. "DIE! DIE! DIE!"
Merus danced a frantic, bleeding ballet. He phased through a searing energy blast, rolled under a hurtling chunk of rock the size of a shuttle, twisted away from a drone's point-blank laser. Each dodge was slower, closer. The Gorogilian power was gone. His divine reserves were plummeting. A glancing shockwave caught his shoulder, spinning him, drawing more cerulean blood. Another grazed his leg, burning through fabric and skin. *Too slow! Without the augmentation... I can't keep this up! Those mortals are too much!*
THOOM!
A full-force blast caught Merus square in the face. He felt bone crunch, tasted his own blood – thick and strangely metallic. Light exploded behind his eyes, and he was hurled backwards, crashing through a fragile obsidian column, skidding to a stop in a shower of black crystal shards. Consciousness flickered.
Ubiginu loomed over him, breathing heavily, face a mask of tear-streaked fury. "You won't... easily run away... from this!" Energy crackled around his fists, building for the final blow.
Merus saw death approaching. He saw Shinji sealed. He saw the multiverse crumbling under Saganbo's shadow. *No.* The thought was a spark in the darkness. *Not like this. Not yet.* He clawed at the dregs of his power, at the lingering echo of the Gorogilian essence still resonating deep within his cells. It wasn't enough for the full transformation... but perhaps... perhaps...
He focused every shred of will. Not on summoning the power out, but on forcing a resonance within. The spark flared. Agony ripped through him as his body violently rejected the forced integration, but for a fleeting instant – six seconds – the familiar, bestial yellow ring flared violently around his torso. Power, raw and savage, flooded his veins.
Ubiginu's eyes widened in shock. "It couldn't be...?!"
Merus moved. Not dodging the incoming blast, but through it. Gorogilian-enhanced durability allowed him to weather the searing energy, cerulean and yellow light flaring as he charged, a blur of divine and bestial fury. He closed the distance before Ubiginu could react, his fist, now a comet of combined power, driving deep into Ubiginu's stomach.
OOOMPH!
Ubiginu doubled over, eyes bulging, all breath driven from their lungs. Dark blood sprayed from his mouth. Before he could collapse, Merus's other hand came up in a savage uppercut, snapping his head back. CRACK! Then, without pause, Merus planted his feet, channeled every ounce of the fleeting Gorogilian surge, and unleashed a point-blank torrent of pure, amplified Creation energy from his palms.
FWWWOOOOOOM!
The beam, wreathed in crackling yellow energy, engulfed Ubiginu completely. There was no scream this time, only a brief, violent silhouette against the blinding light, and then... vaporization. The patchwork jacket, the bandages, the drone fragments – all consumed in an instant. Only scorched stone remained where the furious mortal had stood.
The yellow ring vanished as abruptly as it appeared. The borrowed power fled, leaving Merus hollowed out, trembling violently. He dropped to his knees, retching, cerulean blood dripping from his nose, mouth, and the deep wound on his temple. Agony, exhaustion, and the backlash of the forced transformation wracked him. He looked at his hands, still trembling with residual energy and his own blood.
"I was... lucky..." he gasped, each word a knife in his chest. "Six seconds... If the cooldown... hadn't lapsed... if I couldn't force... that resonance..." He shuddered, the image of Ubiginu's final, furious face burned into his mind. He'd won. But the cost... Raigan erased, Ubiginu vaporized, and himself pushed to the absolute brink, his divine essence frayed. He forced himself to stand, swaying precariously. The door out shimmered into existence. Chambers One and Two were clear. He had to find the others. He stumbled towards the exit, every step an agony, heading not towards the sanctum, but back towards the branching paths. Towards Chamber Three. Towards Kuro and Netsudo. He prayed he wasn't already too late.
Universe 3404: Echoes of Erasure
Space itself wept. Scars of void, where entire stellar clusters had been unmade, marred the cosmic landscape. Dentetsu hovered, breathing heavily, spitting a glob of dark, viscous fluid – not quite blood – into the abyss. A long, deep gash marred his bare chest, oozing the same substance. His eyes, however, burned with fierce, exhilarated focus.
"Dang," he grinned, wiping his mouth. "Putting down Amado was no easy feat. Explains why you're giving me such a satisfying workout." He cracked his knuckles, the sound echoing unnaturally in the vacuum.
X floated opposite him, the grey cloak slightly torn, revealing glimpses of smooth, featureless darkness beneath. A thin line of silver fluid – his equivalent of blood – traced a path from a cut on his temple. "And you," X projected, his mental voice calm but carrying an edge of genuine assessment, "are one of the few folks capable of enduring my unmasked power. You're strong, really strong."
Dentetsu's grin widened. "Cut the enigmatic crap. You're no mortal. That much is screamingly obvious. But you're not shaking my boots like some jumped-up godling either. So, who are you really?" He lunged, not with energy, but with pure, space-distorting speed, fist aimed at X's core.
X didn't dodge. He raised a hand. The space directly around Dentetsu unraveled. Not an attack, but an erasure – a sphere of absolute non-existence expanding to consume him, the same power that had erased Amado.
But Dentetsu moved. Not fast, but wrong. He seemed to slip between the moments of erasure, a fraction before the nullification could solidify, blurring out of the targeted zone just as it dissolved into void. He reappeared meters away, panting slightly, his grin strained but intact. "Tricky!"
X's hidden focus sharpened. *Impossible. He shouldn't be able to perceive the erasure vectors, let alone evade them. Does he act out of pure instinct? Or does he move exactly when I start the erasure?* Before X could fully process this, Dentetsu retaliated. He clenched his fist, and raw, concussive force, visible only by its warping effect on space, rocketed towards X.
X gestured. The wave of force evaporated meters before reaching him, dissipating like smoke. Annoyance flickered within X. *Energy manipulation is simple. But his evasion...* X raised both hands. Dozens of spatial rifts snapped open around Dentetsu – gateways to chaotic, distant universes (845, 422, 901...), their event horizons yawning like hungry mouths.
Dentetsu didn't wait. He unleashed a barrage of concussive shockwaves, not aimed at X, but at the portals themselves. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! The spatial distortions destabilized, some collapsing in on themselves, others flickering wildly. X pushed, forcing Dentetsu towards the 422nd Universe rift. Dentetsu resisted, a visible strain on his form, but was slowly pulled in, vanishing with a spatial shhnk!
He reappeared in the 3404th within three seconds, snarling. "Enough of the cosmic runaround!" He surged forward, destroying the remaining unstable portals with precise, space-rending punches. He closed the distance to X in an eyeblink, his fist hardening not with energy, but into gleaming, impossible steel. The punch wasn't fast; it was *inevitable**, carrying the weight of collapsed stars.
THUD!
It connected solidly with X's crossed arms. Silver fluid sprayed. X was hurled backwards, not through space, but across it, tumbling through light-years before stabilizing in the 3387th Universe, the impact point on his forearms radiating pain. *Raw kinetic force... amplified to universal displacement levels, Well that might even be an understatement. Not energy I can manipulate or negate easily. Purely physical... yet transcendent. A totally weird ability for someone of his caliber.*
Dentetsu was already there, materializing before him, fist drawn back. This time, his fist wasn't steel. It was Absolute Black – not darkness, but the negation of light, space, and potentially, existence itself. X's danger sense shrieked. He phased, not dodging the punch, but displacing himself fractionally sideways.
Dentetsu's fist slammed not into X, but into the fabric of Universe 3387 itself.
KRUNCH-SSSSSSHHHHH!
Space didn't crack; it shattered. A continent-sized swathe of reality simply... ceased to be. Stars, nebulae, the very vacuum – obliterated in an expanding wave of pure, annihilative negation, leaving only a gaping wound of hungry void behind.
X reformed nearby, the silver fluid flow from his arms increased. For the first time, genuine surprise radiated from him. "That... was not energy. That was pure, conceptual force. You destroyed untouchable fundament... with a punch." His tone held a sliver of something almost like... respect. "You are... an anomaly. Even that Amado does not compare huh?"
Dentetsu cracked his neck, the Absolute Black fading from his fist, replaced by the dark ooze leaking from his chest wound. He grinned, bloody and fierce. "Takes one to know one, Mask. Now stop analyzing and fight!" He surged forward again, the dance of annihilation resuming over the corpse of a broken universe.
Chamber Three:
The air in Chamber Three was thick with the coppery tang of blood and the acrid smell of ozone. Kuro slumped against a jagged spike of rapidly cooled magma, his tech-gauntlet spitting sparks, its energy reserves critically low. Blood, a shocking crimson against his pale skin, streamed from a deep gash on his forehead and soaked his dark tunic from multiple wounds. His breath came in ragged, wet gasps. The layered goggles were cracked, revealing exhausted, pain-filled obsidian eyes fixed on the nightmare before him.
Netsudo lay nearby, unconscious and terrifyingly still in a pool of his own luminous orange blood, his fungal cloak shredded. He'd poured everything into creating the treacherous magma landscape that now lay shattered, half the chamber a wasteland of broken obsidian shards.
Daganu stood amidst the devastation. His event-horizon armor was unblemished. He held out his hand, examining it with mild disinterest. His hair, previously its natural white color, was now a deep, unnatural green – the only visible mark from Kuro's desperate gambit. Three precise strikes with the amplified HeartDeath Rod, draining body, mind, and spirit. Yet, Daganu moved with the same terrifying, causal ease. He flexed his fingers. The air screamed around the motion.
"You are slow," Daganu stated, his voice the grinding of tectonic plates. He took a step, appearing instantly before Kuro without seeming to cross the distance. "Weak." He backhanded Kuro casually. CRACK! Kuro was hurled into another obsidian spire, shattering it, adding fresh agony to his battered body. "Dull." Daganu stood over him, looking down with utter disdain. "The only entity whose speed transcends mine in this entire multiverse... is Lord Saganbo himself. Your pathetic toys..." He nudged the cracked HeartDeath Rod lying near Kuro's hand with his boot, "...are less than insects to me."
Kuro pushed himself up on trembling arms, blood dripping from his lips. His mind, usually a fortress of analysis, was a battlefield of pain and cold, hard data. *Velocity unchanged. Power output undiminished. Neural scans show negligible degradation from Rod strikes. Physiological model... invalid. Threat level... catastrophic. Probability of survival...* The calculation wouldn't complete. It hung on a single, horrifying variable: Daganu's incomprehensible speed. He had no strategy left. Only the crushing certainty of defeat, and the fading spark of defiance that refused to extinguish while Netsudo might still draw breath. He met Daganu's pitiless gaze, his own filled with the grim understanding of a scientist facing an equation that could only end in something that is close to or equals zero.