[Third Person POV]
"ROAAAAAR!"
The sound that ripped out of the Beast's throat shook the base of Mount Rushmore itself as the concussive force of the soundwave blew the heavy cloud cover away. Now free to shine its light across the battlefield, the moon provided a nice glimmer to everything. John could watch his summons be torn apart under beautiful scenery.
Behind Shadow Beast, John actually had to use greedy healing to heal his ears.
"Geez... that was loud," John muttered to himself, shaking his head to clear the ringing.
Down below, the newly awakened Shadow Battle Beast was having a bit of a moment. For literal centuries, Thokk had wandered around space with a simple goal. He wanted to find someone strong enough to kill him so he could finally get free of his curse. He'd finally gotten his wish today. He died a warrior's death, leaving his cursed body so his spirit could move on to whatever great arena waited in the afterlife for him.
And then John violently yanked him backward, stuffed his soul into a body made of shadow and forced him to wake up.
To say he was pissed off would be a gross understatement.
Thokk didn't even bother talking and just launched himself at Grand Regent Thragg, being the only thing that could withstand his heartbroken blows. With his claws out, he blasted across the moonlit sky like a purple comet, aiming straight for the Viltrumite Emperor's chest to rip his heart out.
Thragg, being the perfect Viltrumite, kept his cool composure. He casually sidestepped, pivoted on his heel and brought his elbow down on the back of Thokk's neck with enough force to split a continent.
BAM!
Shadow Battle Beast slammed face-first into the bedrock. The ground exploded into a massive crater, kicking up a cloud of dust that covered half the mountain. But before Thragg could stomp on his head and end it, Thokk swept his mace around in a wide arc. It caught Thragg right by the ankle, yanking the Emperor off his feet and dragging him down into the dirt.
The two powerhouses tumbled through the rocks in a blur of red and violet.
CRACK! SMASH!
They were moving so fast the air was catching fire around them. John watched from below now genuinely impressed.
"Man, Viltrumite scaling is so broken…. I hope Meru had his fill," John commented, crossing his arms.
Down in the crater, Thragg shoved a knife-hand straight through Thokk's chest, ripping out a huge chunk of purple shadow-flesh. But the dark energy hissed and instantly glued itself back together now perfectly healed.
Thokk roared again and threw a heavy right hook. It caught Thragg right on the jaw, sending a spray of red blood across the rocks.
And then, right in the middle of this epic clash of titans, the realization of his situation kicked in. It became crystal clear within Thokk's battle-crazed brain, and something completely ridiculous was the conclusion he had decided on.
The purple fire in Thokk's eyes flickered wildly as he froze mid-punch, his fist hovering an inch from Thragg's nose, and threw his head back.
"HAHAHAHA!"
Thokk started laughing in a wild, booming laugh that echoed across the valley.
Thragg blinked, keeping his guard up, looking at the giant shadow of a lion like he had lost his damn mind.
"I see it now!" Thokk yelled at the sky, literal tears of blue energy streaming down his furry face. "My greatest pupil! The young king who bested me! He couldn't bear to part with his master! He loved my teachings so much he conquered death itself just to keep learning from me! What more could a teacher ask for?!"
Floating safely up in the air, John cringed so hard as he felt a shudder run down his spine.
"What the actual fuck is wrong with his soul?" John muttered, rubbing the goosebumps on his arms. "I summoned you because you hit hard and killed Sebas, not because I want to take you as my master." He sighed at the delusion, "I guess a maxed-out loyalty stat is a maxed-out loyalty stat... but this is just weird."
Down below, a few of the Invincible shadows saw Thragg looking distracted and decided it was the perfect time to steal the kill. They dove out into the sky, fists raised, screaming profanities at the top of their lungs like a toxic Xbox Live lobby.
"Get out of the way, you furry old bastard!" one of the shadow Marks yelled. "The mustache is mine!"
Before the variants could even touch Thragg, Shadow Battle Beast spun around.
WHACK! SMACK!
With two casual but blindingly fast backhands, Thokk crushed the skulls of two shadow Marks. Then he swept his mace and snapped the neck of a third. The three variants exploded into clouds of dark mist instantly.
"Back off noisy mutts!" Thokk growled at the purple mist as the Marks instantly started regenerating from the ground up. "Do not interrupt a master demonstrating perfect combat to his beloved student!"
"Fuck! Fuck off, you team-killing asshole!" The newly reformed shadow Mark screamed, flipping the giant lion off with both hands. "No friendly fire, alright? Let's jump him!"
"No! I cannot teach my student with you mutts in the way!" Thokk roared back.
John just sighed, rubbing his temples while watching his own summons fight each other. "Fucking hell… I knew it."
Thragg wiped the blood off his lip. His aristocratic face twisted into absolute disgust.
He had killed the beast. He had killed these annoying teenage variants at least a dozen times each by now. And yet they just kept respawning, arguing with each other, and completely ignoring the sacred art of combat. This wasn't a battle anymore. He was wasting his breath dealing with these imbeciles.
"Enough," Thragg whispered.
He looked at the arguing shadows, then looked up at John floating in the sky. Thragg wasn't stupid. He realized fighting an immortal army with infinite respawns by himself was a monumental waste of time. He was a king and he needed to use that fact to his advantage.
"You have taught a perfect being a valuable lesson today, sorcerer," Thragg called out, floating up into the air to get some distance from the bickering shadows. "A ruler does not need to toil alone."
"Now what?" John muttered.
Thragg took a massive breath, puffing his chest out, and yelled loud enough to rupture eardrums for miles.
"WARRIORS OF VILTRUM! TO ME!"
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
The sky opened up.
Thirty sonic booms hit back-to-back as thirty white-and-grey-clad Viltrumite warriors tore through the clouds. They shot down toward Mount Rushmore like missiles, decelerating at the last second to hover perfectly behind their Emperor.
At the front of the pack was General Kregg. His cybernetic eye whirred as he locked onto the purple Mark's below.
"My Regent," Kregg said, bowing his head respectfully. "We await your command."
"Exterminate these abominations," Thragg pointed at Thokk and the seventeen variants. "Tear them apart until the sorcerer runs out of energy to sustain them."
"By your command!" Kregg yelled. "Leave nothing but ash!"
And just like that, the war of ultimate life vs undead began.
Thirty elite supermen slammed into seventeen shadow teenagers and one giant shadow lion. As expected, it was an absolute gore-fest.
Stat-wise, a single Shadow Mark was slightly weaker than an average, fully-grown Viltrumite. If it was a one-on-one fight to the death, the Viltrumite would win eventually. But here was the catch... the Viltrumites had self-preservation. The shadows did not. They were immortal, they couldn't feel pain, and they were all completely psychotic.
A Viltrumite flew in and punched a shadow Mark's head clean off with a Pop.
Instead of falling over, the headless shadow Mark just laughed through his neck hole, grabbed the Viltrumite in a bear hug, and yelled, "All yours!"
Another shadow Mark flew in from behind and literally ripped the Viltrumite's arm out of its socket. Real blood sprayed everywhere, mixing with the purple mist.
"I'm gonna eat your throat, AHAHAHAHA," another Invincible variant cackled. He deliberately let a Viltrumite grab his legs and snap them backwards. Why? So he could pull himself closer and jam both of his thumbs deep into the alien's eyeballs.
It was horrifying, honestly. The Viltrumites were trained soldiers who fought with military discipline while The Evil Marks fought like honey badgers on crack.
Over on the right side of the crater, Thokk was having the time of his…death?
Shadow Battle Beast was treating the elite warriors of the empire like training dummies. He grabbed two Viltrumites by their faces, completely ignored them punching him in the ribs, and smashed their heads together like coconuts.
"Observe, my king!" Thokk yelled cheerfully, waving a severed Viltrumite arm at John in the sky. "Notice the pivot of the hips! Perfect form!"
"Yeah, yeah, great form, keep it up!" John yelled back, giving a half-hearted thumbs up.
But internally, John was stressing out.
He rubbed his forehead as a sharp migraine stabbed behind his eyes and the purple aura flickered for a second.
Immortality wasn't free. That was the hidden cost of the shadow army. Every time a shadow got ripped in half, decapitated, or turned into mist, it pulled mana directly from John's reserves to regenerate. It wasn't a lot for one respawn, but right now? Thirty Viltrumites were turning his shadows into confetti at a highly alarming rate.
His mana bar was dropping fast. It was like watching his bank account drain in real-time during a steam summer sale.
"Damn it," John muttered, checking his internal stats. "This is getting expensive. I can't keep this up forever against these tryhards. They hit too fast."
If this kept up, he would be completely tapped out in ten minutes. And fighting Thragg without any mana sounded like a really, really bad time.
Thragg, hovering above the chaos, noticed the flicker. He was old, he had fought countless wars, and he knew how to spot a weakness. He saw John wince up in the air and had an idea.
"Kregg!" Thragg shouted over the noise of the slaughter. "The shadows are a distraction! The boy is the source! Pin them down! Form a wall! I will end him myself!"
"Understood!" Kregg spat out a tooth and yelled to his men. "Rally! Pin them to the ground!"
Kregg and a dozen Viltrumites dove straight down. They stopped throwing punches and just tackled the shadows. They used their bodies as literal meat shields to hold the unkillable army in the dirt, completely isolating John. They didn't care if the shadows gouged their eyes or bit them, they just held on tight.
With the path clear, Thragg locked eyes with John.
Swoosh.
Thragg broke the sound barrier fifty times over, being so fast he had basically teleported. The air turned to plasma around him as he aimed a rigid, knife-hand straight for John's neck.
"Die, sorcerer!" Thragg roared, less than a foot away.
John didn't move and welcomed him smiling instead
"Took you long enough," John said calmly as Rule of Cool activated. And once again, the world instantly responded.
It was like reality itself decided to become a movie director. The roaring wind from Thragg's supersonic flight dissipated, a vacuum of dramatic silence fell over the sky and the dust in the air froze in place. The moonlight literally shifted angles, casting a perfect, cinematic spotlight right onto John.
A low, bass-heavy hype track started playing out of nowhere, vibrating in the air like the beat drop of an anime intro. John didn't even know where the music was coming from, but he loved it.
Right in front of Thragg's face, a neon-green portal ripped open.
A massive, green, scaly hand covered in thick chitin shot out of the portal. It grabbed Thragg's plasma-coated hand right out of the air.
CLANG.
The shockwave from the block shattered the remaining rocks below, but the green hand didn't move a single inch. Thragg's eyes widened. For the second time, the Grand Regent looked genuinely shocked. He was pushing with everything he had, all of his Viltrumite supremacy, and this random green hand was just holding him here with such ease.
John floated up a few feet, throwing his arms out wide like a circus ringmaster. This was it. The big reveal.
"Feast your eyes, Grand Regent!" John shouted, his voice echoing with magical reverb. "Bow before the pinnacle of biological evolution! The unstoppable force! The King of the Chimera Ants! The Harbinger of Extinction himself... MERUEM!"
The green portal expanded, glowing like a holy relic. The hype music swelled to its absolute peak.
John grinned, waiting for his ultimate summon to step out and completely crush Thragg's morale. He had spent so much time acquiring this shadow, and now it was time to let the king loose.
And then, Meruem stepped out.
SCREEECH.
The ethereal hype music literally made a record-scratch sound and cut off completely.
The cinematic moonlight spotlight flickered, buzzed like a broken street lamp, and died.
The entire battlefield went dead silent. The shadow Marks stopped biting people. The Viltrumites stopped struggling. Thokk dropped the guy he was choking. Everyone just stared up at the sky.
Meruem did not look like an apex predator.
[Image Here]
He was fat.
Not just a little chubby, but comically spherical.
His green and purple chitin plates were stretched so far they looked like they were going to pop off and take someone's eye out. His stomach hung down over his tail like a giant, striped bowling ball. He had a massive double chin that completely hid his usually sharp jawline. His tiny little ant legs and arms stuck out of his round torso like toothpicks stuck into an apple.
He was wheezing heavily just from walking out of the portal.
"Burp..." Meruem hiccuped, patting his massive belly with a chubby green claw.
John's arms slowly dropped to his sides. His jaw fell open. His Rule of Cool trait completely shattered and deactivated itself in pure embarrassment. It literally couldn't handle the situation. The aura loss was so severe it felt like actual, physical damage to John's HP.
"What... Meruem is that you?" John whispered, his voice cracking. "What in the chonky hell?!"
[A/N]:
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