The first thing William perceived was the silence, not merely an absence of sound, but a profound, all-consuming void that seemed to devour reality itself.
It was a silence so vast it felt cosmic, as though the universe had exhaled and forgotten to draw breath again.
There was no pain.
No confusion.
Not a single trace of hesitation clung to the edges of his mind.
Only clarity, razor-sharp, unyielding, predatory clarity, slicing through his thoughts like a divine blade forged beyond mortal comprehension.
In that frozen instant, he could track every erratic arc of Thor's lightning, following the raw celestial force as it spiderwebbed through the air with crystalline precision.
He felt the subtle disturbances radiating from Thanatos' void aura, the cold pressure bending space around the god of death like the pull of a relentless gravitational tide.
He sensed the steady, rhythmic pulses emanating from the drifting Infinity Stones, each one a beacon of unfathomable intent, thundering in the darkness like the hearts of fallen stars.
The battlefield stretched before him in perfect clarity, every movement, every ripple of energy, every heartbeat etched into the vast map of his mind in the span of a single breath. Yet rather than feeling overwhelmed, he was electrified.
From the deepest, most ancient recesses of his being, a primal hunger awoke, one not for sustenance, nor vengeance, nor even triumph, but for blood, for violence, for the raw, intoxicating ecstasy of obliteration that pulsed within every cell of his foes.
A relentless, all-consuming bloodlust roared through his veins, smothering thought and emotion beneath an endless crimson haze, a tidal wave of molten instinct that drowned all he had been and all he had hoped to become.
Through that haze, the battlefield's figures crystallized into threats, even Thor, the thunder god he had once laughed with, fought beside, and trusted without question.
Now, William's instincts had reduced him to a mere flicker on the edge of being snuffed out.
His eyes, once human, then divine, now something far more feral, blazed with a searing, predatory red.
They flashed like twin lightning bolts through the chaos, locking onto heat, motion, and the very scent of killing intent.
Every microsecond expanded into eternity as his mind surged beyond mortal limits, parsing the maelstrom in layered strata of awareness no human brain could endure.
They fixed on a single target, Thanatos' unguarded flank.
A tiny flaw, a perfect imperfection, the promise of a kill.
The sight turned hunger into something sharper than purpose, a command etched deep into his core.
The world shrank to that one point, everything else fading to shadows.
A brief flicker of who he once was, William the friend, the son, the hero, flared for an instant, then was consumed by bloodlust.
Muscles coiled like iron cables, nerves buzzing with electric anticipation, lightning begging to be unleashed.
His heartbeat slowed, not from weakness, but from calculated predatory control.
The air grew heavy, the ground tensed, and reality itself seemed to pull back as his body aligned with his will.
And in a single breath, before thought or mercy could return, William moved, launched like a god-slaying projectile driven by pure, ravenous intent.
William's clawed fingers radiated with an intense wine-red ki, merging into a singular, razor-sharp blade as he advanced toward Thanatos.
BOOM!
The very fabric of space shuddered in his wake. Thanatos, sensing the impending danger, spun sharply, wielding his deadly double-bladed scythe in a lethal arc.
The weapon throbbed with the purest essence of death, releasing a shrieking wave of energy that surged toward William, a sinister grin etched across his face.
"Take this, you filthy animal!"
The arc splintered into countless scythe-like blades of absolute darkness, each one tearing through the void toward its mark.
Anticipating the threat before it fully materialized, William swung his ki-forged hand at the first blade, cleaving it cleanly in two. Harnessing the momentum from the severed upper half, he shifted swiftly to evade the next assault, leaping aside at the last possible moment.
Yet, despite his remarkable agility, the scythe seemed to lock onto his very essence, twisting mid-flight to continue the pursuit.
William blurred through space as he evaded the relentless onslaught, each blade striking from a different direction, carving through the positions he had just vacated, slicing only through the fading remnants of his silhouette.
Thanatos roared out, his hands extended as pure darkness flowed from them, the Mad Titan controlling each scythe like they were still in the palms of his hands.
"Stand still, you bastard!"
Thanatos snarled, shadows roiling off his form as he swept his arms wide, and the void itself screamed in answer.
From the darkness erupted dozens, then hundreds, of scythe-blades, each a shard of death given shape, each shrieking with void-born malice as they hurtled toward William.
The first wave came in a vast, spiraling arc; the second, a constricting cage; the third, a straight, merciless storm designed to shred anything within its path.
William moved like molten plasma, like instinct made flesh, like rage forged into motion. He slipped past the first ten with effortless, predatory precision.
The next five twisted mid-flight, snapping toward his spine, their edges whispering with fatal promise, but he flowed around them, a tilt of the head, a twist of the torso, a blur of limbs.
Another dozen tore through the space he had occupied moments before, missing by fractions of an inch, rending violent scars into the void.
Yet even he could not drift forever through an unending ocean of death.
One blade found its mark, grazing his lower back, and the void erupted.
BOOOOM.
Pure death-ki erupted in a cataclysmic wave, a shockwave tearing through the space behind him as if it were nothing more than fragile glass.
A blade drove deep into his shoulder. Another ripped mercilessly through his flank.
A third slammed into his thigh with bone-crushing force.
And then, as if summoned by fate itself, the entire swarm of void-forged scythes descended upon him in unison.
The universe was consumed in a flood of black fire.
Explosions bloomed across the void in a relentless chain reaction, each one a miniature supernova of death-energy, their shockwaves warping space, twisting gravity, and drowning all in annihilating magenta-black radiance.
Thanatos threw back his head and laughed, the sound reverberating through the very fabric of the cosmos. "DO YOU SEE NOW?" he roared, arms spread wide as the void itself throbbed in worship of his being. "I AM THE ABSOLUTE POWER OF THIS UNIVERSE! NOT YOU. NOT THOR. ME!"
The storm of destruction raged on, a deafening, all-consuming tempest, until at last the darkness began to thin.
Smoke curled lazily through the void.
Ashes of dead void-light drifted into nothingness.
Reality, trembling, began to steady.
And then Thanatos went still.
Because William stood before him.
Untouched.
Unburned.
Unbroken.
Completely unharmed.
And smiling, no, smirking, a slow, razor-edged, predatory curve of the lips that etched an icy seam of dread down the Mad Titan's spine.
Thanatos blinked, and William was simply… gone.
No flash of light.
No blur of motion.
No warning.
Just… nothing.
Only the faintest whisper of space twisting in on itself betrayed the movement before a cataclysmic force exploded into Thanatos' abdomen.
KRAK.
To him, it was a single punch.
Then, impossibly, it was two.
Then three.
Then four.
Four devastating hooks compressed into the span of a heartbeat, each one detonating against his core with such titanic might that the space behind him rippled like disturbed water before collapsing inward as though crushed by an invisible singularity.
The agony struck a moment later, lagging behind the incomprehensible speed of the blows.
"GHH!"
Thanatos' body rocketed backward like a meteor flung from a dying star, his scythe rending fractures through the void as he spun uncontrollably, tumbling end over end through the endless dark.
The cosmos itself seemed to shudder beneath the echo of the strike.
Space quaked in a literal sense, the fabric of reality shivering under an unseen force. William drew in a single breath before unleashing a roar unlike any sound meant for mortal or divine ears, or anything that possessed a heartbeat.
It was the primal cry of an ascending beast-god, torn from the ancient marrow of creation itself and hurled defiantly into the void as a challenge to the cosmos.
RRAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!
The roar erupted outward in a colossal shockwave, sending concentric ripples of distortion racing through the expanse.
Stars dimmed and flickered, distant nebulae quivered, and gravity faltered across a thousand-mile span.
Thanatos felt the tremor deep within his bones, reverberating through his skull and clawing at the essence of his soul. "What… is this…?!" he hissed in disbelief.
In that moment, William's aura exploded, Super Saiyan God's blazing magenta surging skyward in a violent column, seamlessly intertwining with the untamed golden energy of Super Saiyan 4.
The two forces did not simply merge; they clashed, coiled, constricted, and consumed one another until their union burst forth in a blinding, hybrid brilliance.
Golden, fur-like strands of energy hissed as they lanced through the roaring magenta flames, while blood-red sparks snapped and flared like tiny thunderbolts.
The void behind him twisted and buckled, bending as though molten under invisible heat.
William advanced, his aura swirling like a tempest of sentient fire, whipping violently around him.
Raising both clawed hands toward the infinite darkness, his fingers curled, and his ki surged in answer.
FOOM.
FOOM.
FOOM.
Above each palm, blazing crimson spheres flared into existence, small at first, mere sparks, before swelling, and swelling again, until dozens of molten orbs, each as vast as a planet's core, hovered over his hands, trembling with restrained cataclysm.
The void itself groaned beneath their searing presence, and slowly, with deliberate menace, the orbs began to turn.
The cluster above William's left hand spun clockwise, while the one above his right whirled counterclockwise.
Their rotation quickened, growing hotter, brighter, until blazing streaks of crimson energy burst outward, jagged strands of god-ki lashing between each orb.
In mere seconds, they transformed into incandescent wheels of annihilation, and then they evolved.
The spinning masses honed themselves, edges forming with lethal precision, curvature sharpening until each became a colossal, whirring saw blade wrought entirely from divine, murderous ki.
Waves of searing red heat rippled outward, shimmering in the void, as the aura raging around William snapped and crackled like a volcanic cyclone.
This was no attack being charged, it was an execution being forged.
Sensing the peril, Thanatos snarled, slamming his palms together with a deafening CRACK that thundered across the emptiness.
He tore his hands apart, then laced his fingers into a deadly cage of bone-white gauntlets and shadow-wreathed knuckles.
Dark energy roared between his palms, a bead of black ki crackling into existence before swelling outward, twisting and churning into a swirling orb of death so dense it warped the very fabric of space around it.
Wisps of void-light spiraled inward, consumed by its insatiable gravitational pull, while a ghostly purple sheen shimmered across its surface like the fading glow of dying stars.
The sphere pulsed with malignant life, each throb unleashing a wave of raw, unrestrained entropy.
Thanatos bared his teeth, voice splitting with manic fervor and divine wrath. "COME THEN, BOY! LET US SEE WHICH GOD THE UNIVERSE CHOOSES TO SURVIVE!" The death sphere swelled once more, now vast as a collapsing dwarf star, encircled by rings of decaying energy that hissed and fractured the void.
William's rotating sawblades shrieked as they spun faster and faster, their edges blurring into spirals of molten crimson light.
His eyes blazed like twin supernova hearts, and when he spoke, his voice was low, steady, and utterly terrifying. "…Then die screaming." Power peaked, the cosmos itself convulsing under their wrath.
All creation seemed to pause, breathless. And then red and black fury tore through the void as they unleashed their final, cataclysmic strikes.
Space trembled.
William's twin sawblades of God Ki howled into existence, spiraling outward in torrents of magenta-gold annihilation.
Thanatos's death orb throbbed with void-black luminescence, its surface alive with the writhing phantoms of a thousand lost civilizations.
The two forces hurtled toward one another, toward obliteration, toward a collision that threatened to rewrite the very architecture of the cosmos, when the universe itself ruptured with a cataclysmic peal of thunder.
From the sundered heavens descended a lightning bolt the size of a mountain, cleaving the battlefield with the imperious will of an elder god.
It struck between William and Thanatos at the precise, blasphemous heartbeat before their attacks could converge.
THOOOOOOM.
The noise was beyond sound, it was the primal roar of creation recalling the moment of its own awakening.
Through the storm-born pillar of light emerged a figure clad in tempest-forged armor, eyes burning with the wrath of detonating suns.
In his grasp was Gungnir, Odin's Spear, wrought in ages before words had form, and as Thor leveled it, the weapon answered like a roused engine of worlds.
From its tip erupted a beam of cosmic gold, blazing with an ancient power. Not lightning. Not Ki. Not magic. Something far older, something primal and absolute.
It sliced cleanly through the space between the opposing attacks, striking the precise heart of their collision. In that instant, the universe shattered.
A delicate, terrifying fracture spiderwebbed across reality itself, widening with a violent shudder, splintering like divine glass buckling beneath the unimaginable force of three warring gods.
Brilliant light poured forth, blinding and pure, then came the crushing weight of darkness.
But beyond both lay something infinitely worse: a realm of unending torment, a dimension of pure suffering, seeping hungrily through the breach.
Hellfire erupted from the tear like a ruptured vein of damnation, spewing rivers of molten agony and clouds of burning souls into the air.
Wailing shapes of half-formed demons writhed in frantic panic, their spines snapping and reforming grotesquely as they were dragged screaming through the sudden rift.
They did not surge forward with hunger, but recoiled in pure, unrestrained terror.
William's radiant light, Thanatos's abyssal darkness, and Thor's golden storm converged in a cataclysmic crescendo.
It was too much.
Thousands of demons shrieked in unison, their bodies shattering into vapor beneath the overwhelming blast wave of colliding forces.
Entire legions vanished in the space of a single breath, their remnants scattering like ash cast into a roaring furnace.
For an instant, the rift yawned wider, threatening to devour the entire battlefield into a realm that neither forgave nor forgot, and then...
Reality snapped. The rift drew inward, collapsing in on itself like shards of glass being drawn together by the will of some unseen cosmic hand.
Fractured slivers of dimension twisted, folding seamlessly back into place.
The raging hellfire dimmed to embers.
The screams that had clawed at the fabric of existence fell silent.
All became still. With a soft, final chime, the tear sealed, precise and irrevocable, like a blade sliding home into its sheath.
Only the aftershock lingered, a silent, trembling distortion radiating outward from the cataclysmic convergence.
Space shivered, rippling like liquid, and distant stars trembled in their light.
The remnants of the three mighty attacks hung suspended in the void, their raw energy still burning holes into reality itself.
Thor stood firm between William and Thanatos, Gungnir leveled ahead, smoke curling from its blazing tip.
His voice, heavy with the authority of one who had witnessed the rise and fall of countless pantheons, cut through all: "ENOUGH."
The word did not echo.
The universe simply obeyed.
"A clash of gods, a tear in space, and the universe trembling in the aftermath… William, Thor, and Thanatos have unleashed power that even reality can barely contain!"
"With hell itself briefly exposed and sealed once more, what consequences now await our Saiyan hero? And how will Thanatos respond after witnessing William's terrifying new strength?"
"Find out next time… on Reborn as a Saiyan in Marvel!"