The mountain groaned as Solaris slammed Mark into the jagged rocks. Each punch from the dark-matter construct didn't just hurt; it echoed. The armor was vibrating at a frequency that disrupted Mark's invulnerability.
"Mark, stop fighting it!" Eve screamed from below, held back by a containment field generated by GDA drones. "Cecil will kill you!"
Mark didn't answer. He couldn't. His lungs were burning, and his vision was blurring into a hazy violet. The Solaris grabbed Mark's skull, its gauntlet glowing with the stolen energy of the Khaos dimension. Mark felt his very soul being drained.
"Target neutralized," the Solaris's cold voice boomed. "Final execution initiated."
Deep in the GDA bunker, Cecil leaned closer to the monitor. "Do it. End the threat."
But inside the crater, something shifted. Mark's heartbeat, which had been slowing down, suddenly stopped. For one heartbeat. Two. Then—
THUMP.
It sounded like a tectonic plate snapping. Mark's hands, bruised and broken, gripped the Solaris's wrists. The violet energy began to turn a violent, boiling crimson.
"I am tired..." Mark whispered, his voice sounding like two stones grinding together. "...of holding back."
Mark looked up. The blue in his eyes was gone, replaced by a deep, arterial red. A primal, Viltrumite rage—the kind his father used to conquer worlds—erupted from his cells.
CRACK.
With one surge of strength, Mark snapped the Solaris's arms like dry twigs. The armor shrieked, a sound of tearing metal and dying magic. Mark didn't stop. He buried his fist into the armor's chest, reaching through the dark matter and grabbing the glowing core of the Solaris.
"You wanted my energy?" Mark hissed. "Take it."
Mark didn't absorb the energy—he overloaded it. The resulting explosion vaporized the remaining snow on the mountain. The heat should have incinerated Eve, but her pink personal shield flickered, barely holding against the shockwave. When the smoke cleared, Mark stood over a pile of scrap metal. He had torn the Solaris apart with his bare hands.
The GDA drones hovered, their sensors confused. The soldiers retreated, their faces pale behind their helmets. They weren't looking at a hero anymore. They were looking at a monster.
Eve's containment field flickered out. She ran toward the crater, but stopped ten feet away. The air around Mark was distorted by heat. He was covered in his own golden-red blood, his eyes still glowing with that terrifying, vengeful red light.
"Mark?" Eve whispered, her voice trembling. "Is... is it over?"
Mark turned his head slowly. The look in his eyes made Eve take a step back. There was no warmth left. No "Mark Grayson." Only the cold, calculating power of a conqueror.
A faint smile touched Mark's lips—a cold, jagged expression. "Mark is dead, Eve. He died when they betrayed him."
He looked up at the sky, where the distant heat signatures of the approaching Viltrumite ships were getting closer. He didn't look worried. He looked hungry.
"I am what they always feared," Mark said, his voice echoing across the ruins. "I am the First."
Without another word, Mark ignited the air and shot into the sky, leaving a trail of red lightning behind. Eve stood alone in the wreckage, watching him vanish into the clouds.
In the GDA bunker, the screens went black one by one. Cecil sat in the darkness, his hands finally shaking.
"Call off the retrieval teams," Cecil whispered into his comms. "We didn't kill the Viltrumite. We just created a second Omni-Man."