Chapter 188: VS Thanoseid
Author: Great Demon Spirit
VS Thanoseid
Du Wa didn't always like to solve problems with violence. But reality was often disappointing; when he wanted something, the owner would never give it up, and since Du Wa was determined to have it, things usually ended in a fight.
Just like now. He was already in an all-out war with the heroes of Universe 9602, but they probably had no idea what he wanted.
In fact, the native superheroes were on the verge of going insane.
They could only watch as Du Wa, the enemy leader, had yet to make a move. He merely floated casually in the air, watching their strenuous performance as if it were a monkey show.
What truly drove them mad was Du Wa's low opinion of them.
"It's confirmed. The opponent is a Cosmic God. He's the most powerful enemy we've ever faced."
Dark Claw couldn't fly. He frantically commanded the superheroes, each with different abilities, trying to find a weakness in Du Wa and his subordinates while remotely controlling his own tech to join the battle.
Superheroes continuously soared high into the sky, but before long, they would fall like kites with their strings cut.
Few who joined the battle were outright defeated. Most were thrown into chaos by the successive bursts of shockwaves, losing most of their combat capability in a single exchange or even being knocked unconscious on the spot.
Dark Claw cursed wildly, yet he had no choice but to dispatch people to quickly rescue them, lest they fall to their deaths.
"Why didn't you send a drone to save me?" an energetic young man with brown hair and a Spider-Man suit complained as he climbed, limping, from the crater he'd just made.
"Shut up, speedster! I know a fall can't kill you, you son of a bitch! And don't talk to me when I'm thinking. I'm worried my temper will destroy what little sanity I have left!"
Following that, Dark Claw let out another string of ugly curses.
There was nothing he could do. Absolutely nothing.
The enemy he was facing now didn't match any of the emergency plans he had prepared for various types of enemies in the past.
Insufficient intelligence, overwhelming strength, decisive actions. Their leader seemed casual, but in reality, he wasn't reckless at all.
Dark Claw wasn't sure what method he could use to quickly deal with such a Deity.
He knew nothing about this Deity's abilities, influence, or connections. A plan to provoke the Deity's rivals into action, even at the cost of greater disaster and destruction, seemed unfeasible.
"That piece of trash, Stark, is helpless too. He couldn't block a single move and is probably being choked to death as we speak."
Dark Claw's face darkened. He couldn't even tell which of the two fighting monsters was stronger, but it hardly mattered. Neither Super-Soldier, Steel Lantern, nor any of the others could defeat either one.
Even though Dark Claw had unsheathed his Vibranium claws, if he were to force his way into a battle of this level with his current body, his Vibranium skeleton would probably be smashed to pieces in seconds.
"Actually, there's one more option, though it's not a good one. We could contact Apokolips!" Dark Claw said, his expression hesitant.
Doctor Strangefate created a magical clone that appeared before Dark Claw and warned, "Don't do it. That will only lead us to a dead end! Surely you can see it. Our situation is difficult, but not a single person has died. The enemy is just toying with us."
"Playing with us like a cat plays with a mouse. I hate pinning my hopes of survival on the enemy's mercy. But you're right."
Dark Claw knew that Doctor Strangefate possessed the means to observe fate, which was even more special than observing time.
*Perhaps this guy saw some terrible scene in the threads of fate and suspects I'm the one who will cause it,* Dark Claw thought.
He glanced at the battle in outer space with his high-tech equipment. The real Doctor Strangefate was being beaten soundly by the Mephisto Xenomorph. He then stared at the immaculate clone before him. "But I have bad news. My spatio-temporal sensors are warning me that more trouble is on its way."
"That is indeed bad news. This could cause mass casualties... To think Apokolips would intervene now."
Doctor Strangefate fell silent as he watched Thanoseid walk out of a space-time tunnel.
All the heroes who were still conscious felt immense pressure at this moment, silently watching the overlord of Apokolips.
Earth and Apokolips would inevitably go to war. They were all well aware of this and had been continuously gathering intelligence on Apokolips, hoping to make more preparations before the great battle erupted.
But they never expected to have a direct confrontation under these circumstances.
"How interesting. I was originally planning to take what I wanted and leave, but you actually came knocking on my door."
Du Wa looked down, watching with great interest this behemoth who more closely resembled Darkseid but also had characteristics of Thanos.
Ever since entering Universe 9602, his mood had improved greatly, and he had the patience to observe these peculiar natives a little more.
Thanoseid, an amalgam of Thanos and Darkseid, was the Lord of Apokolips and one of the most formidable gods in the entire universe.
Ever since Du Wa arrived in this universe, many cosmic gods had noticed his presence and were silently observing his every move.
This was because even these cosmic gods, powerful as they were, knew little about parallel universes and thus maintained a cautiously observant attitude.
"When I discovered a visitor from a parallel universe, my mood became cheerful. It means I can finally find some new amusement, instead of repeating more or less the same things for the past several million or tens of millions of years."
Thanoseid stomped on the ground. The moment he stood firm, countless natural disasters erupted across the planet.
Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, typhoons, tsunamis...
When Du Wa arrived, he had mainly destroyed Earth's magic formations, using his own immense mass to suppress the outbreak of various disasters.
But Thanoseid couldn't care less about that. His mission was destruction and slaughter.
If he didn't kill people, what kind of Lord of Apokolips would he be?
"I even deliberately slowed down the frequency of my attacks on Earth, afraid that this planet, which brings me one of my few pleasures, would be finished too soon. Until you all arrived."
Thanoseid stood with his hands behind his back, a bloodthirsty, excited expression appearing on his rock-like face. "What truly surprises me is that you outsiders have proven that this universe is not completely isolated. There is a way to travel between universes."
"What should make you even happier is that I'm no scientist who relies on technology. I cross universes not with machines, but with absolute strength."
Du Wa smiled and nodded. Thanoseid's eyes burned with excitement as he watched Du Wa, whose own gaze was just as joyful.
The two of them looked at each other, and the more they looked, the more harmonious the atmosphere became.
"Ahhhhhh!!! Earth! Beautiful Earth is actually..."
The Super-Soldier frantically swung his fists, trading blows with the Hyperion Xenomorph. It was a brutal slugfest, a punch for a punch.
As for why he wasn't using his shield to attack, it was because the Hyperion Xenomorph's tail had already pierced it.
At this moment, Super-Soldier, as Earth's strongest hero, watched as his comrades were completely dominated by another, clearly more powerful monster. He roared repeatedly, constantly squeezing out the power within his body, trying to swiftly defeat the creature before him that resembled him in so many ways.
When he landed a powerful blow on the Hyperion Xenomorph's head, causing its body to stagger, he was, as expected, slapped backhanded by the Hyperion Xenomorph.
The heavy slap sent the Super-Soldier's head ringing. For a moment, his consciousness blurred, and he suspected he had been fighting a mirror image all along. Besides being taller and having a tail that was harder and more flexible than his shield, his opponent's abilities in every aspect were like an enhanced version of himself.
Super-Soldier was unable to secure a victory. Now, seeing Thanoseid's arrival cause widespread death on Earth, he became even more frantic.
For some time now, Thanoseid had been his greatest hypothetical enemy, but he had never imagined their meeting would be under such circumstances.
"Get out of my way! Are you outsiders having fun?! If you're not here to kill or destroy, then why are you holding me back while that demon from Apokolips destroys the Earth piece by piece?!"
The Super-Soldier madly absorbed solar radiation. He had never pushed his body's potential to this level before, achieving greater power and a faster rate of enhancement than ever before.
But that was his limit. In the end, his ability to absorb solar radiation came from a super-serum developed from an alien's corpse.
Unless he obtained another power system or fundamentally altered his genes, the serum's upper limit was his upper limit.
"I admire people with strong willpower. The weak who lack power can always use their tenacious will to raise their own lower limits and create miracles—although most of the time, these so-called miracles are nothing in my eyes."
Du Wa looked at the Super-Soldier with admiration. What a dependable guy. The character of Captain America plus the strength of Superman—what a great combination. But then again, even without the Captain America part, Superman himself is also very dependable in most situations.
Ah, so that's it. Turns out Captain America was just there to make up the numbers, a clown clinging to Superman.
Du Wa didn't mind that Super-Soldier was only half a DC character.
"Be quiet. Your potential dictates that you can't possibly defeat me. Just watch how I'll handle all of you here."
Du Wa commanded the Hyperion Xenomorph to seize the Super-Soldier in a chokehold. The terrifying, planet-crushing force was now fully borne by the Super-Soldier, whose body emitted cracking sounds.
Its tail also wrapped twice around the Super-Soldier's head, muffling his mouth.
Finally, quiet.
Thanoseid kept his hands behind his back, a posture completely befitting Darkseid. "To waste time on this one... It seems you've discovered something. I suppose that's the purpose for which a deity from another world like you came all this way."
"One of my purposes."
"Oh? You want more? I can't agree to that. I will take the Super-Soldier, crush every one of his bones, and see what about him could possibly attract a being of your caliber."
Thanoseid finally brought his hands from behind his back. He clenched his fists, gathering the power to extinguish a star in an instant.
He first glanced at the Hyperion Xenomorph restraining Super-Soldier, showing little interest; the creature was clearly no match for him.
The Mephisto Xenomorph, on the other hand, greatly piqued Thanoseid's interest.
"Activate global emergency protocols immediately! Organize the evacuation of disaster victims."
"Open all safe zones and shelters! This event is different from any in the past. The slightest carelessness will result in a gruesome death!"
"As for what happens after the war... we'll just have to see whether the otherworldly god or the alien god is stronger."
Dark Claw immediately made arranstoneents. His voice was filled with despair, but in his heart, he actually hoped the otherworldly deity could defeat Thanoseid.
Although he also suspected Du Wa's motives, even imagining the possibility that Du Wa was a madman with a peculiar fetish for giving people hope before wiping them out in a grand extinction, a victory for Du Wa would still buy them a little time to prepare.
If Thanoseid won, Earth would be gone on the spot. There would be no room for maneuver, and the plans of Earth's heroes would never have a chance to come to fruition.
Many superheroes felt a chill in their hearts. The two deities had not even made a move, yet Earth was already trembling, making it impossible for most of them to even stand steady.
The gap was too vast.
The few heroes who had been unconscious and had just woken up looked even more horrified.
Dark Claw grew annoyed, walked over, and slapped a third-rate hero who was asking all sorts of questions without understanding the situation, knocking him out to get him out of the way.
An expectant look appeared on Thanoseid's face. He hoped for a great battle on an unprecedented scale.
The native god would slay the visiting god, adding a new set of bones to his throne. At the same time, he would seize the outsiders' cross-universe technology and the secret of how they entered this specific universe.
A perfect script. The name of Thanoseid would spread to more universes. In the end, countless worlds would be conquered by the great Lord of Apokolips, Thanoseid!
Thanoseid let out a cruel laugh. He soared into the air, instantly shattering the ground beneath his feet.
But Du Wa didn't move.
The Mephisto Xenomorph moved. It tossed aside Steel Lantern, who was on the verge of death, then blasted Doctor Strangefate and the others away with a powerful wave of energy, forcefully blocking Thanoseid's path.
Like an indestructible cosmic barrier, it blocked Thanoseid, leaving him unable to move.
"What are you doing?" Thanoseid's face was filled with disbelief. "This was supposed to be a battle between gods, a fight that will decide the future of the universe!"
"That's right. The victor will gain ownership of this universe—overt ownership, at least. I have no intention of giving up this world, either."
Du Wa said slowly, "As an ancient god, you are a suitable opponent for my subordinate... I've always been dissatisfied with its growth rate. Perhaps you will be the catalyst it needs to reach its peak."
(end of chapter)