[Commence safety protocol (-1-)].
Gareth's construct opened one of it's arms and began gathering what seemed to be a bright light which was super condensed into a sphere and then shot up into the farthest reaches of space before detonating with such blinding force it felt uncomfortable even to them.
Then the next instant the twins and Gareth found themselves in a familiar space of endless white of which told them that they were no longer in the universe right now, they looked almost nostalgic at the sight of having such a thing like this after so long, try as they might this was one of the few things they had found themselves unable to quite replicate and nothing they ever succeeded with ever came close.
Even now they still remained unable to grasp it's nature though closest to it now than they had ever been in so many years, truly a marvel of a creation this was.
"Ah, a universal battlefield" Ronan smiled and raised a hand up at the emptiness as if trying to grasp at something "It really has been a while huh".
"Although, yours seems much bigger than even ours from back then as our senses can't seem to grasp it's boundaries".
"That parasite must really like you".
Soul looked to be in thought for a second looking at Gareth "you know, for as much as we prepared for those guys sending someone after us".
"We never imagined that it'd be someone like....you".
"So much clashes with the image we had in our heads and prepared for".
"An invasion, a ruthless host or even an overly righteous and so on".
"But it was none of these, a seemingly carefree high-noble turned space mercenary also known to have a penchant for debauchery was the tactic".
"It was perfect, so perfect how you played that image to escape our radar for so long while silently building your strength for the mission of which you were sent".
"And now it's come to this, a monster we nurtured with our very own hands now come to kill us".
"How ironic".
Gareth remained silent, his mind occupied with a multitude of thoughts and memories both of which he settled for the last time within his heart "yeah, I really did try to give you two chances even though I could have ended everything sooner".
"But I wanted it to be wrong, hoped for it in fact. And in doing so I turned a blind eye to everything you continued to do and have done so for thousands of years before I arrived".
"My endless mercies to the wicked has caused so much injustice to the innocent, their blood is on my hands too I know this".
The construct's fist clenched as Gareth's resolve was steeled like never before, now no hesitation remained in his heart as he felt the relief of having aired out his cloudy thoughts and now feeling a clarity like never before- "Yeah, this is my atonement for as much as it is your damnation".
The twins could sense it clearly that Gareth had made his final resolve, anymore words from here hence forth would prove to be useless. And so their battle began–
With a simple snap of her fingers an enormous amount of energy with power comparable to a big bang was thrown towards Gareth's construct which stood unfazed by the greeting and instead opted to absorb it's incredible power entirely in a matter of seconds.
Ronan smiled, though he had no idea the limits to which Gareth could continue to absorb energy he imagined it had to be unimaginably high thanks to that parasite no doubt. And they themselves couldn't keep throwing so much energy at him trying to test those limits as they also did not have an infinite amount to spare even though capable of endlessly generating it thanks to their special cores, but the amount they would need to expend for such a battle like this one was way higher than what they could recover all at once.
Which meant that they had to go about this in a different manner, "how's your flexibility I wonder".
Gareth felt a bit confused by the odd question at first but soon came to understand what he meant when Ronan vertically clapped his hands down and summoned a thin transparent film almost like liquid glass that spread outwards in a flash as he uttered.
[Spatial compression]
Almost immediately a crack appeared on him splintering his form as his entire being began folding into itself and crumbling like a piece of paper that stretched out into a thin sheet of glass with a texture like paper and trapped in there as if drawn onto it like a comic book character.
In this state anything they wanted to do could be done to him, rip it to shreds or burn him to ashes with nothing but a simple light. Well, normally at least that's how it would have went. But now things were in a very delicate state with such an existence like Gareth being the target this time, to try anything further when the dimensional prison was barely holding him in place would be akin to touching the tail end of a Rupert's drop.
Still they had miscalculated, the structure began vibrating something terrible and in moments his hands burst through soon followed by his head and the rest of his body as he climbed and tore his way through that dimensional prison emanating such chilling amounts of energy that it was causing slight overloads in the twin senses.
They had no time to even begin asking questions of how he could have done such a thing, death was coming and it was approaching fast. With joined hands they initiated the effects of –Synchronization–
In mere moments their energies rose by unprecedented levels, surpassing trillions in it's multiplied value and still shooting like a rocket as this very realm trembled and they began undergoing changes,. First growing by multitudes until a single tow of their feet became large enough to crush an entire universe under it as if it were an ant and their forms shedding all things of flesh, metal or other substance to become pure living beings of energy bearing the form of a tiger and a dragon.
And now with this much energy they could finally do it, this space might be endless but it also had a limit to the level of what type of existence it could contain which they could feel clearly creaking under their pressure, just a little tap and it was over.
But Gareth would not be allowing such a thing to occur, the price of losing the realm now was a 3 hour long recovery cooldown he could not afford at the moment, so the only option was to initiate the final step.
[Commence safety protocol (-0-)].
In mere moments the space turned a pitch black and it's very fabric wrapped around each like a cloth attempting to suffocate them but that only lasted a second before it released them as It was then pulled into a spiralling vortex so large it dwarfed them by four times over. Now the twins found themselves back in their own realm but that comfort lasted only a fraction of a second before the vortex moved to swallow them whole without the slightest bit of effort before shrinking down to the shape of a palm sized cube.
In there in the pitch black emptiness they remained floating and perturbed by the recent occurrences which was something they had never experienced before in the past, but soon the bulk of their attention was drawn to a huge vertical crack that appeared within the space and from it burst forth a giant megalodon shark made of pure energy and bearing a size a little over half a ways greater than theirs.
And then the next instant the instant creations began appearing within the realm as the very fabric itself shifted to mimic that of reality and space but much different in design and incomparably stronger than their original realm, one major change being the uncountable number of black holes many times their size from an unimaginably far distance and stars of the same size scattered around the realm and dancing around in weird patterns or lighting up like a disco ball alongside planets ranging from a quarter of their size to a little below and then an uncountable number of other things scattered about in this realm each making a crazy little performance of their own.
This was the personal fusion space of Gareth referred to as the madhouse, a place where he practiced his gift of manipulation freely for something he referred to as the salvation project in preparation for both a time when he would be qualified to become a supreme ruler with the authority to initiate and craft his own reality and also a time when he would be responsible for restoring devastated realms. All that remained was one final missing piece..
But now, that project would have to suffer a great many setbacks as he had nothing else that would be able to contain their mammoth energies. Still, with his heart set and convictions unshaken, Gareth would proceed without fail in taking the final steps needed to correct the great error that was these two.
In the blink of an eye Gareth turned and used his tail to whip Ronan far away, the tiger crashed hard into one of the many planets and bounced off it's suspiciously hard surface capable of interacting with his being but before he could think as to why it was so, a second impact arrived the next moment as the giant shark bit into him with such force it split the planet in half as trillions of universes came bursting forth in all directions.
Ronan roared in agony as he felt Gareth's power trying to twist, tear and corrode his own source, he clawed and tried to teleport away to no avail as Gareth was interrupting the process. Luckily and just in the nick of time a powerful blast from Soul sent the shark flying away but not without ripping out a huge chunk of his sides earning a final roar of blinding agony from his opponent.
Normally any form of conventional and even most other unconventional attacks would prove useless in their current state, but with the added factor of targeting the source which is the closest thing they could describe to a soul, damage could be done because it was like mauling the specific signature code of one's existence which was incredibly more difficult to figure out or pinpoint the higher or stronger said existence proved to be as such a factor acted in the same as a firewall protection.
But knowing the source wasn't the final answer, one still has to be strong enough to get through it at the end for which luckily Gareth had both. And they too had the answer to his, a weakness he had to allow them grasp during the time he was feigning to be such a low existence, hence the reason why that blast could be felt rather than simply passing through him as would be normal or if he so pleased to just taking it head on, but in terms of damage it was the equivalent to some slight burns.
'Hm, she held back quite a bit'.
'Thanks to Ronan and I being so close it seems'.
Soon enough that too was healed which was where another factor came into play, damaging the source also wasn't the final answer in the end, if said existence was strong enough to mitigate or flat out overwhelm the power corroding it then those injuries could be fixed also.
With the help of his sister Ronan was able to heal his injuries just the same but still he remained greatly annoyed with her, a first since many centuries.
"Why did you not get him off me earlier, I–I thought.." he angrily inquired while groaning as he remembered that blinding pain, something he hadn't felt for many thousands of years and yet never once to such a level until now.
She cast an apologetic look towards her brother "I had no idea he had already figured out our source and thought it to be a harmless tussle at first".
Those razor sharp teeth curved upwards in a toothy grin "you're wimpier than I imagined".
"Pain must have been such a distant companion to you for the longest while huh, no worries then".
"It shall follow you into death, this I promise you both".
Ronan looked over with burning rage in his eyes, his sister's much colder in contrast but one thing remained the same, they had made their final resolve to end him just the same.
If Gareth's gift lied greatly in manipulation and absorption, Ronan's lied in the ability to imprison and sever all things. And the peak of that gift was what Gareth came to experience the very next moment..
[Dimensional separation].
He almost couldn't stop it, that was how quickly it had appeared from his perspective. A very thin line opened in the fabric of this realm going diagonally across his face and into his very being, but from each point of contact the line was terribly warped and pushed outwards from him.
The attack had no original path of travel, just a target point of summon, something that didn't exist until it hit you and he had caught it just moments after it had appeared on his being. Yet, even with how quick he had been in the act to neutralizate it, a light gash still remained engraved into him.
"You can have this back".
But just before he could release his repackaged little gift back to it's sender, the line suddenly was no more leading Gareth to growl in slight annoyance as the grin washed off his face.
"Soul".
She smiled at him but Gareth was in no mood to reciprocate it nor be playful with her in how he was with Ronan, because amongst the twins the most dangerous and most powerful one was her by miles which in hindsight was unsurprising when considering the fact she was the original host before him and only later on initiating the share function with her brother. But more than these two qualities was how annoying she was even with how many preparations he had made, these light exchanges didn't come close to how much he would really need to expend in order to deal with her.
But one of the main reasons why he hadn't gone ahead and just killed Ronan yet was because incurring that endless wrath so early would be the worst idea ever conceived as the preparations weren't complete yet which he was sure she had already figured out or at least gotten a strong hunch for why, though knowing what exactly he was stalling for was an impossible task.
And sure enough from the look on Ronan's face now he could surmise she had relayed the hunch to him also, it was time to get incredibly aggressive, not like he had much choice from his range of available options anyway.
The shark opened his mouth which instantly set the twins high on alert as Ronan rushed forward this time to put pressure on Gareth and sent a few more slashes of the same nature alongside an extraordinarily powerful beam, but alas they proved ineffective once again as it was neutralized the next moment after they materialized and Ronan had done nothing but make himself a better target coming so close.
And just then Gareth bit down, everything before him was gone including the attacks, eviscerated by the invisible jaws of this reality itself as the closest thing he had to erasure. But Ronan was safe, thanks to the efforts of his twin who had been the one to suffer the damage in his stead in the form of a clawed arm. An outcome Gareth was banking on earlier, those protective instincts would serve well in creating opportunities unless she chooses to get rid of the dead weight by herself which was never happening.
In addition to this, the nature of said attack plus his own power guaranteed it would take her at least a few seconds to recover. And for beings such as them, even a second of delay was an eternity too long as it guaranteed certain death to any lethal move. But there was a way to speed up the process, it would require her directing way too much power to healing which would certainly leave her way too disadvantaged against an opponent of his caliber, so right now the arm was a small price to pay and not crippling enough to be a weakness yet.
Gareth remained relentless yet and rushed forward at blinding speeds into Ronan only to be pushed away by a powerful tail whip from her, but he recovered quickly enough to evade an incredibly lethal blast from her and swim around it in circles fast enough until he reached her but soon widened his beady eyes upon feeling the alarm bells go off in his head and vanished far away leaving a multitude of marks all terribly warped in his place as a thorny lock of giant spikes revealed themselves just a moment later.
These had been his reason for leaving after neutralizing those cuts just as before, those spikes meant for imprisonment would have restricted him for more than long enough to secure his death at the hands of Soul who was there to ensure he also couldn't manipulate those attacks to turn against them as proved by the fact of them disappearing a moment after also.
To cause a distraction, he teleported one of the black holes imprinted with a lock on their sources close to them which elicited the surprised and panicked reaction he wanted and appeared a moment after just as they were battling it's immensely powerful pull nearly crushing them to death.
Soul's eyes widened momentarily and turned focused the next as she imprinted the black hole with the information of his source which dragged a surprised Gareth into it's crushing pull just the same but he quickly compressed and transformed the attack into two giant arrows which he launched straight at the twins but Soul erected a dimensional wall around them which took the hit in their stead and the arrows exploded into a powerful vortex twisting and tearing at the dimensional wall until it was no more, then it vanished.
But as expected the twins were gone, Gareth already sensing what was about to occur flew so high into the endless space that he disappeared for a few seconds before coming back down in the form of a giant humanoid avatar and above him was a storming cloud of energy descending upon every inch of this realm with godly wrath as his fists met with Soul's, the clash releasing mammoth energies so great it spread out like a raging ocean and near instantly wiped out a great number of his creations.
The short delay had allowed for a sped up and completed recovery of the missing limb but it was fine now, Gareth was fully ready to face the full wrath of this monster.
Eighteen metallic cubes almost the size of his hands began appearing around him, each bearing a red marking except one which bore a golden insignia upon it. And for Soul it was the same, sixteen metallic stars the size of her fists floating behind her in a spiral, each bearing a blue orb in it's center except for two in particular bearing black.
Just then Ronan appeared with a large crystalline shard nearly half the size of his body floating behind him and with a finger pointed at Gareth's head as he displayed a knowing smirk, but to his great surprise he simply countered with a toothy grin of his own still bearing those razor sharp teeth which sent shivers through Ronan's being as he felt something to be clearly off here.
Alarms set off in both the twins heads louder than ever before, Soul rushed forward extending her power to send Ronan out of there but something was wrong, why was she feeling so sluggish now, like she was trudging through water and why did her power suddenly get cut off for a second, just a second but one that felt like it was an eternity.
And it was then she saw the look in his eyes, so clear and so full of fear, pain, agony and anger just to finally settle into one of love and acceptance as he smiled at her. Soul watched as the light left her brother's eyes and as he fell apart into four clean halves floating peacefully over to her, she watched, eyes wide in silence and feeling so impossibly out of breath, so lost and mystified, questioning over and over again if this was real and not just some illusion.
But looking down again to see his remains as they bumped into her brought the feeling of reality rushing back into her in waves, it was real, it was all too real, Ronan was dead....
A deep sorrowful cry was soon heard traversing the finest depths of this realm, carrying with it a great palpable pain that seemed never ending. But seconds later it suddenly stopped as the realm fell under an eerie silence, Soul looked intently at the remains of her brother and then did something that still shook Gareth to his very core despite how thoroughly he had prepared himself.
She ate him, taking a huge chunk out of his arm first as the rest of him slowly began getting absorbed into her being.
'Yeah, it's coming'.
Soul's nature began undergoing a change, shifting from the form of a being born of the purest energy to an almost ethereal silvery form with a ghostly presence and flares of energy rising off her at intervals, her hair now of a different nature flowed like the billowing flames and her eyes seemed like a dance of colors. The sixteen metallic stars behind her with floating orbs in their centers gained a vertical crystalline shard engraved into it's cores and from the back of her hands spawned an eye in each, gold and overbearing in the power they presented.
With her power having grown by multiple folds, it could be said that right now and without a doubt she was the most powerful entity in this reality, even stronger than Gareth himself at current. But he also was no fool either, allowing such a process to be completed wasn't something that could have occurred if had no cards left to play.
In fact this exactly was the real thing he had been preparing for since the beginning and the reason he had allowed this to occur wasn't for something so noble as giving respect to his opponent but for reasons far selfish than that, it would be the greatest risk he'd ever taken since he made the choice on that blessed day where it all began, but the rewards were guaranteed if everything went according to plan.
[Commence final assimilation].
[Activate Emperor class armor].
Parts of the realm liquified and began flowing towards Gareth to engulf the entirety of his form, the stars, worlds and other creations he had made were absorbed into a vortex in his chest as a blood red faceless armour mech-suit with dainty wings at it's feet and six limbs protruding from it's back made of pure energy and like that of spider's appeared on his being.
Of the eighteen metallic cubes he possessed, ten had merged together into his chest to form a giant eye across it and of the rest, five of each were engrained into his arms and the results of it's completion was an increase in his power rising by multiple folds but still noticeably weaker than Soul's.
She gently raised a hand up and while releasing a distinct frequency, gave a gentle knock to the fabric of this realm causing ripples to travel all over it and passing over Gareth himself in the process, then she snapped her hands.
In that moment just as the realm had shattered to bits Gareth made his move as he moved quickly to grab her by the neck and into the portal he had prepared behind her before hastily closing it. He had long since known that as the price of his plans coming to fruition he would have to sacrifice to his own realm eventually, but the whole while that battle had been ongoing he had been searching the coordinates to another dimension, someplace far away enough from this reality that it would be safe from the effects of their battle.
But most surprisingly still was the fact she was making no attempts to free herself from his hold even though it would come easy to her, instead she just smiled dryly at him in a most chilling way.
In that instant he let go and began moving back feeling something big was coming, she placed a gentle hand outwards to rest her palm upon the fabric of this reality, drawing a ring of white upon it and then with a slight push it shattered to oblivion as a great power spread out to instantly eviscerate trillions more including that whichever they fell to next as the last one was destroyed and it continued like that for a few moments before Gareth suddenly activated a lockdown effect just as they entered a new one and grabbing hold of the ring between his hands to contain all that power and gently snuff it out lile a candlelight.
And with all that power now absorbed into him, he combined it with a portion of his own to form a small sphere above his index, the energy levels so great it warped and changed the fabric of this reality but yet still unable to destroy it as he shot it towards her.
Dodging was not an option because it would engulf every inch of this realm which she knew, but at the same time she also had no need to dodge, instead she weakened it's power to a point where it was completely harmless to her.
Now she retaliated with one of her own but Gareth was already ahead of her in that, unlike with Ronan's nature and the attacks he possessed while also taking into account his lesser strength, it was possible to survive by intercepting it after the spawn point or just leaving before it occurred.
But Soul was far too dangerous to be fought in such a way so he did something different, he changed the spawn point of the attack entirely. Hence the surprised look on her face now watching as her arm blew up from the inside and her devoured into a vortex in moments.
In the end he served as a great counter to some forms of instantaneous attacks or teleportation attacks which Soul was realizing now, that prediction and incredible reading of his alongside his ability made sure it would be a Herculean task to surprise him with one.
Still, perhaps that same awareness could be used against him somehow. One great advantage she had over him was the overwhelming power capable of eviscerating him but his absorption granted great survivability as did his manipulation which evened out the fields a bit.
Once the regeneration was complete she opened up her hands and created a burning sphere of blue flames above it which she imbued with the key to his source alongside the greatest bulk of her power, then she began increasing its power by levels until it reached a point where Gareth began feeling a deadly threat from the pulsing ball of flames but she wasn't done yet. The sphere was then encased in a crystal akin to that of Ronan's nature before finally being encase in a larger transparent cube with material resembling viscous molten glass.
She looked so full of openings but Gareth could tell well that this wasn't the case, he was being baited for something but as he no idea as to what it was yet, he could only prepare silently and watch with cautious eyes as she reached a hand out to push her new creation into the very fabric of this realm. Then she tapped her index onto the space, stretching it like an elastic and sending ripples throughout the entirety of it before letting go.
[Rain]
Molten cracks began appearing from the point and spreading outwards before overtaking the realm in an instant including Gareth whose eyes widened ever so slightly upon realizing now what she had done.
"Ah".
The realm went up in flames as everything was turned into a living bomb with unprecedented levels of power including Gareth himself who was constantly twisting and reshaping himself, shifting in and out of this reality trying to suppress, absorb and redirect the power ravaging him as he attempted to take back full control over his own source.
But Soul just smiled watching his struggle, knowing that as he got closer to fixing himself so too would he realize the real trap laden underneath it all and just then she saw the look in his eyes as it happened, pure unimaginable surprise as he saw himself now separated at the lower half, looking up to meet her eyes from behind his faceless mask before an uncountable number of minute slashes tore up at his being leaving nothing but his floating head behind which was gently grasped in the palm of her hands.
In the wake of Gareth's death, a deafening silence filled the realm as she stared at him, closing her eyes now to feel just how empty her heart remained even at the joy of her victory which felt simply meaningless in the face of the fact that she had lost everything. But still it was done, she had multiplied and repaid unto him the same which he had done unto her beloved twin.
"You really surprised me".
A voice suddenly rang out, echoing as if it was coming from every inch of the realm promoting Soul to raise her head up to see Gareth walking out from a portal opened up before her. Yet in those eyes she bore no surprise even as such an unexpected event occurred, just a melancholic emptiness and a defeated smile.
"I'm glad you never reached this level in the past".
"It would have been more of a pain for it to succeed".
"The hidden trump card of the Emperor class suit and the sole reason I wore it".
"–Sacrifice–".
Once every hour and for as long as it has been activated, Gareth was allowed to use a perfect dummy replica of him down to his own source and powers to survive most damages which could still be regenerated on the dummy, but most especially death or anything lethal that couldn't be healed.
So in essence, from the very first moment he wore the suit he had been replaced with this replica whom he was piloting from an entirely different space which she would know of as a former user but couldn't have predicted in this instance.
And now was the moment to use the final card left in his arsenal, seeing the look on her face made him all too aware that this were the final moments of their battle.
The giant eye across his chest and the five cubes in each of his arms lit up with power like Soul had never felt before, but the smile on her face only grew wider as she opened her hands and gathered in it the greatest power she could possibly muster, then she let go.
And just then right before it happened, Gareth saw the light return in her eyes for just a fraction of a moment as she mouthed the words that shook him to his core, the words he never believed he would ever hear from her.
Time had been frozen, no it would be more accurate to say it had been slowed down. He had for just the slightest moment touched a level of power that would allow him to achieve the impossible, and that was both slowing down the time of an entire realm for just one second and upping his by the same amount.
Still it was enough, he had bought himself an eternity and yet even that seemed too short in the face of what he was experiencing in his heart at this very moment.
For the first time since this battle began Gareth felt his resolve shaken, not just shaken but in danger of actually shattering to bits in the hopes of what he saw and now felt, hope that was eroding at his will to carry onwards and put a final end to it, no greater damage had she ever done to him than this.
But out of nowhere came a will he never knew he possessed and a realization that even with the confirmation of those words which she had uttered, it was too late now. Gareth could never hope to be forgiven nor was there the slightest bit of hope that she could be be back to the way she was, that a future from here onwards was all too close to impossible.
They had both made their decisions on the outcome of this battle, now Gareth had no choice but to stick to his no matter how painful it would be to do. And with that he stepped around the blast of power approaching him at a snail's pace to walk over to her, the mask was retracted to show his face and so that his eyes could meet with hers in the end.
And with a gentle tap of his index onto her head, it was over. Her eyes closed with a peaceful smile on her face as the blast of power faded to nothing and her 'lifeless' form fell but he caught her, yet under the buckling weight of his pain Gareth fell to his knees with her just the same.
In the end he had been a coward all the same, even though he did not fully destroy her as planned, he might as well have now with what he had done.
He stayed in that position with her in silence for a few good minutes looking lost on where to go from here on out now, for as long as he had prepared and killed his heart alongside his most precious memories and all that was attached to them, he still never thought it could ever feel this empty and agonizing still.
And yet even then there was a small twisted joy budding on the inside of his heart at the fact he had turned cowardly and went about her elimination in a different way while still fulfilling the conditions. This act of his made him think back to the words Ronan had told him just a little while ago, perhaps he did not have a right to judge them after all...
[[Booting.....1%.....60%.....80%.....90%.....99%.....100%]]
[[System rebooted]]
[[Shop- has been upgraded]]
[[Final mission –Eliminate the traitors– completed]]
[[Calculating mission EXP and rewards.....]]
[[Calculating performance level grades.....]]
[[Done]]
[[Performance level]]: A
[[Awared EXP]]: 11, 000, 000, 000, 000.
[[Rewards and bonuses]]:-
–Overlord class armor suit (X1).
–World Origin (X1).
–Core of transcendence (X1).
–Mythic class ability cubes (X20).
–Emeperor class mech puppets (X2).
–Timestop orb (X1).
–Mothership {Bonus}.
–Phoenix grade canon {Bonus}.
[[Congratulations Host]].
Gareth smiled the best he could as he replied "thank you, System"...
EnD.