271 Paleman Unleashed [Paleman/Candyqueen]
[POV: Paleman]
The city had already fallen silent by the ti I arrived.
Not the silence of peace, but the kind that followed screams. Buildings were reduced to jagged skeletons, streets split open, and the air thick with ash and heat. Gray matter shifted around in slow, deliberate motion, rising and falling like a tide of living flesh.
They ca anyway.
Heroes and villains alike.
Desperate, stubborn, predictable.
A man in battered armor rushed first, his kinetic aura flaring as he tried to close the distance.
“I held the line once,” he growled. “I can do it again—”
“aningless prattle,” I scoffed as a tendril pierced through his chest before he finished speaking. “You should focus on the enemy before you.”
Another cape followed imdiately after, her body flickering with light as she attempted to blind .
“This world won’t fall to monsters like you!”
The gray matter surged upward and swallowed her whole. Her scream cut short as she disappeared into the mass.
More voices overlapped as they charged together.
“Fall back! He’s not human!”
“Keep attacking! Don’t give him space!”
“For the Accord!”
They died all the sa.
My body moved without resistance, tendrils lashing out in every direction. Limbs were severed, torsos crushed, minds erased in an instant. No amount of coordination or strategy altered the outco.
They were simply too slow and too limited.
I had lived through thousands of iterations of conflict across countless worlds. Every movent they made had already been seen, refined, and surpassed. Their powers, while impressive within the scope of this world, lacked the depth needed to threaten .
I had been many things.
A father comforting a child.
A mother mourning loss.
A son chasing approval.
A teacher shaping minds.
A neighbor sharing quiet monts.
A student learning the structure of reality itself.
Each life added to the whole and each mory layered into my being. Identity, in the end, beca fluid. The battle before was nothing new. Only the faces changed.
This world, however, was… interesting.
The SRC’s ability to stabilize tilines across parallel worlds had made existence repetitive for . Patterns erged, cycles repeated, outcos converged. Yet this world, offset by a century in its developnt, offered a different flavor.
A different texture.
Playing the role of a mber of the Ten had been particularly enjoyable.
Light had been… entertaining.
I allowed myself to act the fool around him, to play a role that fit his expectations. In ti, sothing resembling genuine companionship ford. It was an odd sensation. After all, I was the last of my kind and the last of my friends.
In a sense, I had beco my own friend.
A group of capes descended from above, interrupting the thought.
Veterans.
I recognized the way they moved. They were disciplined, asured, and experienced. Probably survivors of the previous Great War who had co out of seclusion for this one final conflict. They were not a stranger to , since they were a subject of interest for the previous Light who had beco obsessed raising his ratings.
A woman cloaked in compressed gravity fields struck first, attempting to pin in place.
A man wielding twin blades coated in spatial distortion followed, slicing through the air with precision.
A third, an older man with layered shielding constructs, advanced carefully while issuing commands.
“Focus on containnt,” he ordered. “Don’t engage directly!”
They worked well together, better than most.
However, it didn’t matter.
The gray matter surged outward in a wave.
The gravity user was crushed instantly as her own field collapsed inward under the pressure. The swordsman managed a single clean strike, carving a shallow line through my form before a tendril wrapped around his neck and tore him apart.
The leader raised multiple shields in rapid succession.
For a mont, he held.
Then the mass overwheld him.
Layer by layer, his defenses shattered until he was consud completely.
The city was in utter ruins. The more deaths I caused, the more souls that would be devoured by my lord. I did not truly understand the concept of souls, as I could not perceive them in any aningful way. My master had shaped without one for the sake of the great work, and for the most part, it did not bother .
Still, there were monts where I found myself wondering what it would feel like to possess sothing like that.
Perhaps, that absence was the reason I developed such sadistic tendencies. Pain, fear, and desperation? These were reactions I could observe even if I could not fully comprehend their origin. So I inflicted them freely, not out of necessity, but out of curiosity, chasing sothing I could never quite grasp.
“Monster! Look at !”
An elderly woman stood at the center of the ruined street, flas dancing around her frail form. I almost overlooked her, because I thought she had been dead monts ago. However, it seed she just had a secondary pull and gained a healing factor. Her eyes burned with a fierce intensity that refused to fade despite the devastation around her.
Her fire was strong.
It was stronger than most I had seen in this world. She raised her hand and unleashed a torrent of flas that engulfed my entire body. The heat intensified rapidly, climbing to levels that would have reduced most matter to ash.
I stepped forward through it.
The flas parted around as the gray matter absorbed and dispersed the energy.
“Foolish woman, you should’ve resorted to ambush or escape.”
I extended a tendril and wrapped it around her arm, lifting her slightly off the ground. She struggled, fire erupting wildly in every direction as she tried to burn through the restraint. I tightened my grip.
Her flas flared brighter in response.
I watched her closely, asured the output and analyzed the structure.
“It’s too lukewarm,” I said calmly.
I had endured far worse.
A Rated-25 pyrokinetic once burned with the intensity of a small sun. Compared to that, this was… lacking. I adjusted the pressure slightly, not enough to kill her imdiately. She scread as the tendrils constricted, her flas flickering erratically.
Pain produced reactions.
Reactions were… interesting.
A humanoid drone approached from behind, its movents precise and efficient. One of Master Sequence’s constructs.
It stopped a short distance away.
“Report,” I said without turning.
The drone’s voice carried Master Sequence’s tone.
“Conquest has been contained,” it reported. “War is currently encountering resistance.”
I paused briefly.
That was very disappointing.
…
..
.
[POV: Candyqueen Whimsy]
I always found it amusing how people insisted on reducing to sothing simple.
Candyqueen Whimsy.
A childish na for sothing they once called a monster.
Before all of that, I had been sothing else entirely. A biokinetic who pushed her power to its limit and beyond, reaching what few ever achieved: evolution. Unlike the unstable chaos of a Power Mutate or the forced fusion of hybrid classes, evolution was sothing cleaner, sothing inevitable. A transformation of the self, where the power shed its old skin and beca sothing new.
My biokinesis beca amaikinesis.
By the ti the SRC locked away in Lockworld, I had already reached Amaikinesis-17. In other words, candy or sugar manipulation. After everything I endured there, after the endless cycle of fights and survival, I ca out stronger.
Amaikinesis-20.
The battlefield before was proof enough.
Every mber of Team Delta had already perished. Their bodies were scattered across the ruined landscape, broken and still, leaving only standing against War.
He knelt before , barely holding his shape together.
Sugar pulsed through his system, sothing I had carefully injected into him earlier. It spread like a disease, devouring him from the inside with a grotesque mimicry of diabetes. Thick, sticky gum bound his limbs, anchoring him in place as he struggled to regenerate properly.
I laughed, even as my body protested.
Clumps of my cotton candy hair had burned away, leaving uneven strands drifting around my face. My skin was marked with deep lacerations, and I could taste iron as I coughed up blood.
“Is that all you can do?” I mocked, tilting my head slightly. “For soone called War, you’re incredibly underwhelming.”
I had fought Power Mutates before.
Not many, but enough.
Both in Lockworld and beyond, I had encountered those broken beings who defied reason with their strength. They were overwhelming, unpredictable, and often unstoppable in direct confrontation.
But they all shared the sa flaw.
Instability.
War, a regenerator, was the perfect opponent for .
“You bitch!” he snarled, forcing his body back into a more stable form. “I will kill you!”
He swung his arm violently.
Blood erupted from his limb, superheated and pressurized into a stream of deadly projectiles. The droplets stretched into thin, razor-sharp strings, capable of slicing through most defenses with ease.
It would have been impressive, if it worked.
The mont the blood left his body, it changed.
Sugar crystallized within it.
I seized control instantly.
The projectiles froze mid-flight before reversing direction and launching back toward him with even greater force.
“Ha ha ha ha ha~! What a loser!” I laughed, clapping my hands together in delight.
The attack tore into him, shredding his already unstable form.
I was only here because of a debt I owed Eclipse.
That was the only reason I agreed to join this operation. I refused to drag my people into sothing this dangerous when I already knew how it would end for most of us.
Still, I couldn’t deny it.
This was fun.
There was a certain thrill in crushing the weak, but that was fleeting. The real joy ca from stripping the strong of their advantages and watching them crumble.
That was where the true entertainnt lay.
I raised my hand and dragged my nail across my wrist.
The cut opened cleanly.
Instead of normal blood, a thick red jam flowed out, glossy and vibrant as it dripped from my arm. The liquid twisted and reshaped itself midair, forming small, colorful figures of about two feet in height.
Gummy bears.
“Eat him,” I ordered sweetly.
“You insane bitch!” War shouted as he forced his body to move, abandoning stability in favor of raw speed.
He ran, destroying the gum binding him.
It only lasted for a mont as his legs abruptly turned blue. The sugar inside him crystallized further, locking his regeneration in place. His limbs twisted unnaturally before tearing off completely, leaving him to collapse forward in a broken heap.
“You were powerless the mont I got my blood into your system,” I said with a grin.
More gummy bears ford from the flowing jam, dozens of them dropping to the ground before sprinting toward him with eager energy.
They climbed over his body.
Then they began to eat.
War scread as pieces of him were torn away faster than he could regenerate, his unstable biology failing to keep up with the internal sabotage.
I laughed.
And laughed.
“I win!” I declared brightly, watching the last of him disappear beneath a writhing mass of candy creatures. “This is what you get for fighting ! Ha ha ha ha ha~!”
War’s voice broke apart into sothing pitiful behind .
“You—fuck—please—stop—!” he cried, his voice cracking as wet, pathetic sounds followed, his body failing him piece by piece.
I didn’t even look back.
My instincts suddenly scread, my sugar-fed brain warning of an impending danger to my life. I leaped to the side just as a massive gray tendril smashed into the ground where I had been standing. The impact shattered debris and sent a shockwave through the ruined street.
Steam burst from my skin as I pushed my power harder, burning through sugar reserves to temporarily boost my output. The high hit imdiately, my thoughts speeding up, and my senses sharpening to an almost uncomfortable degree.
Then I saw him.
Paleman.
He stood amidst the destruction, his gray matter writhing around him as my gummy bears were crushed and dissolved without resistance. The little things didn’t even slow him down.
I clicked my tongue.
My earpiece was long broken from my team’s earlier confrontation of War.
It was just , right now.
“How are you even here?” I muttered under my breath. “Weren’t you supposed to be sowhere else?”
Paleman tilted his head slightly, his grotesque smile stretching just a little wider.
“You are quite fascinating,” he said calmly. “But unfortunately, you will have to die now.”
I didn’t wait.
I moved.
Debris beca my cover as I darted between shattered structures and collapsed walls. His tendrils followed instantly, lashing out with terrifying speed and precision. They weren’t just fast. They were controlled, refined, almost elegant in their brutality.
Speedster-level, easily.
So much for an easy cleanup. A shadow flickered beside . Paleman phased through the wall at my flank, his form erging seamlessly as his tendrils struck toward .
I reacted instantly.
The jam-like blood still dripping from my wrist splattered across his body. At my command, it heated rapidly, caralizing in an instant and hardening into a sticky, binding mass that attempted to trap him in place.
It worked for a mont and that was enough.
I wasn’t stupid enough to think I could win a two-on-one fight, especially not against sothing like him. War was already done. Even if he sohow survived, the damage I’d inflicted would keep him out of the fight.
Super-powered diabetes.
I almost laughed at the thought.
Given his regenerative ability, it was probably twice as painful for him. Every attempt to heal only made the condition worse. I launched myself upward, expending more sugar as my body surged with enhanced strength. My amaikinesis fueled every movent, pushing my physical limits far beyond normal.
It wouldn’t last long.
I had to make it count.
For a brief mont, I thought I had created distance.
Then he was there.
Paleman appeared directly in front of midair.
Gray wings unfurled behind him, pale and unnatural, fluttering gently despite the chaos around us. His smile twisted into sothing far more grotesque as his eyes locked onto mine.
“DoN’T bE imPatient!” he said, his voice shifting unnaturally as if layered over itself. “Let’s pLAy MoRe.”
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