274 Thrilling New Experience
[POV: The Devil]
I rembered the feeling of becoming less than a body and more than a presence, as if gravity itself had loosened its claim on and drifted away in quiet surrender. There had been no ground, no sky, no direction, only the slow, endless pull toward the Source, a vast and patient hunger that welcod like an old companion. Each soul I consud dissolved into sothing finer, sothing purer, threading into my being until the boundary between “I” and “everything else” blurred into irrelevance. I had been expanding, stretching across unseen layers of existence, every mont sharpening into sothing closer to completion. Closer to omnipotence. Closer to inevitability.
I had felt it then, that near-perfect edge, that final threshold waiting just ahead. Just a few more worlds. Just a few more civilizations ground into silence and folded into my will. The distance between and that final state had been asurable, tangible, almost graspable. And in that narrowing gap, there had been a thought that refused to dissolve with the rest.
Amy.
Her na had lingered like a fracture in an otherwise seamless ascent, a mory that refused assimilation. I had carried it with as I devoured stars and shattered tilines, as though it were the only fragnt of my forr self that still held weight. Just a bit closer, I had told myself. Just a little more, and I would see her again. Not as a man, perhaps, but as sothing greater, sothing that could reach back across everything and reclaim what had been taken.
Then sothing tore.
It was abrupt, violent in a way I had not felt in ages, as if an unseen hand had plunged into my being and ripped away a vital thread. The flow of souls ceased instantly, cut off mid-current, leaving behind a hollow silence where there had once been an endless stream. The absence was louder than any scream. My ascent halted, my expansion recoiled, and for the first ti in what felt like eternity, I felt… diminished.
I rose from the abyss in response, drawn back into form, into sothing resembling shape and presence. The familiar anchor of identity returned as I erged, and the first thing I noticed was the absence.
The Devil’s Triangle was gone.
In its place, suspended unnaturally against the horizon, hung a triangular rift in space and ti, its edges flickering with unstable distortions. It pulsed like a wound in reality, barely contained, barely understood. I recognized the texture of this place imdiately, the subtle resistance in the air, the faint echo of past collisions.
Mars.
The red planet stretched beneath , barren and scarred, its surface carrying the quiet mory of ancient violence. I had fought here before, in other monts, in other iterations. The dust, the silence, the faint hum of a world long past its pri? It was unmistakable.
And then I saw him.
He stood before , solid and real, yet undeniably wrong in the most precise way. It was , but not . Younger, sharper in so places, duller in others. His posture carried a different history, his eyes a different set of experiences. We shared a face, a structure, a core identity, yet everything else diverged like two tilines forced into the sa space.
Despite being the sa person, we were clearly two different people.
The realization settled quickly. This had Dr. Ti written all over it. He had always been fond of exploiting fractures, of taking the smallest ripple and stretching it into sothing catastrophic. The butterfly effects I had left behind and the distortions I had caused across tilines? He had gathered them, shaped them, weaponized them.
This version of was not an accident.
He was a product.
“A fitting stage,” I said, my voice steady as I glanced across the red expanse. “Mars. The red planet. Nad for the Roman god of war, an equivalent of Ares in Greek mythology.”
The other blinked, his expression flattening slightly as he stared back at .
“None of that passed through my head,” he replied, almost dismissively.
I studied him for a mont longer, noting the gaps, the absences where knowledge should have been. Education, refinent, perspective? They were stripped away or never given. It was obvious. Simpler minds were easier to guide, easier to shape into sothing useful. Dr. Ti had not just created a weapon; he had ensured it would be pliable.
I wondered, briefly, how deeply he had interfered in this version’s life. What strings had been pulled, what tragedies had been engineered, what pieces had been removed or replaced. The sa careful, invasive touch he had used on my wife lingered in the back of my thoughts, unwelco yet unavoidable.
I adjusted my tie, smoothing the fabric with a habitual precision that had survived even my transformation.
Then I moved.
In less than a blink, I stood before him, the distance erased without effort. My leg swung upward in a heavy arc, phasing into motion at the last possible instant. The kick connected with a force that bent space around it, launching him backward across the red terrain.
He reacted just in ti, arms rising to block, but the impact carried through regardless. I heard it faintly, the brittle crack of bones giving way under pressure. It was subtle, almost insignificant, but it was there.
He would recover. Rated-30s always did.
The ground beneath my feet shifted suddenly, the solid surface liquefying into thick, clinging mud that pulled at my stance. The change was imdiate, unnatural, either geokinesis or sothing adjacent. Before I could fully assess it, a portal tore open in front of , its edges jagged and unstable.
A massive figure surged through.
He was easily twice my height, his build exaggerated to the point of absurdity, muscle layered over muscle in a way that defied natural proportion. His uniform marked him clearly enough, even without insignia that I cared to recognize. A relic of a failed ideology, dragged forward into a fight far beyond its original context.
He did have a notable mullet, though.
His fist ca at with enough force to shatter reinforced structures, but it passed through as if I were nothing more than a projection. There was no resistance, no impact, only the faint sensation of displacent.
And then I felt it.
A soul within snapped.
It died instantly, severed without resistance, consud not by but erased outright. My gaze sharpened as I reassessed him. His null was potent, far beyond the average manifestation. It extended beyond his body, forming an external barrier that actively rejected the fundantal rules governing motion and interaction. He wasn’t just resisting forces; he was negating them.
Rare.
Dangerous.
He had potential, enough to climb higher, perhaps even to Rated-30, though sothing held him back. An internal limiter, likely artificial or inherent, restricting his growth. That limiter was the only reason he wasn’t already more of a problem.
Still, under stress, limits had a tendency to crack.
I stepped forward and phased through him, my form slipping past his barrier with calculated intent. My hand moved to tear through his flesh from within, to bypass his defenses entirely.
Instead, I rebounded.
The resistance was imdiate, elastic in nature, as if another layer had been wrapped around him at the last second. I pulled back, narrowing my focus as I observed the distortion more carefully.
It wasn’t his power.
It was sothing else.
A secondary influence, subtle but precise, bending reality just enough to reinforce him, to elevate his null beyond its natural threshold. The pattern beca clear as I traced its origin, the faint signature of manipulation threading through the air.
Reality warping.
Not his, but applied to him.
It intrigued more than it should have, that subtle distortion woven into the brute’s defenses. Empowering a null was not simply rare; it bordered on contradiction. Nulls erased, rejected, denied. To strengthen one required precision that flirted with paradox. Whoever wielded that power was not careless.
I followed the thread.
The signature lingered faintly, like heat trailing behind a vanished fla, but it was enough. I reached, bent space with casual authority, and stepped across the distance in less than a thought. The battlefield vanished, replaced by a quieter fragnt of Mars where the air itself seed to hesitate.
There were two of them.
One stood slightly behind, composed, deliberate, his presence wrapped in the careful stillness of soone who understood exactly what he was doing. The other?
Recognition ca instantly, cutting through everything else.
“Oh, little Tony.”
He looked at , and I saw it then, not just resemblance, but origin. A living consequence. A remnant of experints I had not sanctioned, carried out in secrecy, buried beneath layers of manipulation.
My son.
A byproduct of Dr. Ti’s interference, stitched together through events that had led, inevitably, to my wife’s death. The realization did not strike like a revelation; it settled like sothing long suspected finally stepping into clarity.
“You always astound , doctor,” I said, my gaze shifting briefly as if the man might reveal himself through absence alone. “I thought I’ve already killed this scum.”
My attention returned to the boy.
“Kid, do you rember ?”
Tony trembled.
It wasn’t subtle. His entire fra shook, his breath uneven, his eyes wide with sothing between recognition and fear. mory lingered in him, fragnted but present.
“Let’s go, kid,” the other reality warper said, his tone sharp and imdiate. He seized Tony’s arm, and with a simple snap of his fingers, space folded.
They vanished.
I moved to follow, reaching for their displacent, locking onto the distortion they left behind. The transition had barely begun when sothing intervened.
A shape ford in front of , coalescing from nothing into sothing solid and deliberate.
A golem.
No, more refined than that.
It bore a feminine silhouette, armored in a knightly design that rged elegance with density. In its hand rested a sword that humd faintly, not with energy, but with sothing deeper. Sothing older.
It struck.
I allowed the blade to pass through , my body phasing instinctively, but the mont it intersected my form, I felt it again and that internal fracture. Not my body, but the souls within . Several flickered, destabilized, wounded by contact alone.
My gaze sharpened.
Animakinesis.
Not crude manipulation, but sothing closer to magic than structured ability. It interacted with the soul directly, bypassing conventional defenses. The construct itself… it wasn’t empty. It possessed a soul, bound and sustained, granting it motion, purpose, presence.
A living doll.
I studied it as it pressed forward, its movents precise, relentless. Its body was composed of sothing beyond simple stone. Compressed matter, layered and hardened to an extre density. At its core, I could sense a minute stellar reaction, a tiny star forged under impossible pressure, feeding its structure with silent, contained violence.
I shifted aside as it kept engaged, its blade tracing arcs ant to disrupt rather than destroy.
Then the sky answered.
Lightning descended in a violent cascade, tearing through the thin Martian atmosphere and crashing into the ground with overwhelming force. The impact swallowed everything in white and gold, heat and pressure folding over themselves in a sustained assault.
I endured.
When the storm ceased, the world had changed. The land around lay scorched, blackened into glass and ash. The air shimred with residual heat.
I looked down.
The doll stood before , its sword embedded deep into my abdon. Blood spilled freely, darker than it should have been, carrying fragnts of sothing far less human within it.
I did not react imdiately.
Instead, I lifted my gaze.
Above, coiling through the sky with effortless dominance, an oriental dragon traced wide arcs through the atmosphere. Its body shimred with power, its presence ancient yet evolving.
Sea Serpent.
I had crossed paths with versions of him before. Each iteration refined, each encounter pushing him further beyond his previous limits. He had surpassed Rated-20 not through sudden growth, but through persistence. Eternal youth, or sothing close to it, had granted him ti to improve, to adapt, to ascend.
Young Nick suddenly reappeared.
He moved differently than before, phasing not just for defense, but for motion. Intangibility layered with speed, allowing him to bypass resistance entirely. He erged mid-strike, his leg extended, aid directly at my skull.
I responded without hesitation.
Space obeyed.
I switched our positions instantly, rewriting proximity with absolute authority. The wound in my abdon vanished as our states adjusted, replaced by his vulnerability. My leg mirrored his motion, now directed at his skull with lethal precision.
It would have connected.
He would have died.
Reality bent.
I felt it before I saw it, that sa subtle interference reshaping outcos. The world flickered, and in that instant, positions shifted again.
The lady knight stood where he had been.
My foot collided with her.
The impact reverberated through her form like striking a mountain, unyielding and absolute. The force dispersed, redirected into the ground beneath us.
Young Nick escaped, phasing downward into the planet itself, vanishing into its depths.
The construct before faltered.
Its movents stuttered, then ceased entirely. The soul within it dimd, flickered, and went out. The body followed, collapsing into itself, lifeless once more.
A portal tore open nearby.
The massive null-user returned, charging through with renewed aggression. The faint hum of technology accompanied him this ti, subtle devices integrated into his gear. Portal tech. External assistance compensating for limitations.
His fist ca again.
I flattened.
My form thinned into two dinsions, slipping along the plane of existence itself as his attack passed harmlessly above. In that state, I reached, seized the device responsible for his mobility, and crushed it effortlessly.
It shattered in my grasp.
“Good luck running.”
The words had barely left when sothing seized my leg.
A hand.
Below.
Young Nick erged from beneath, his body partially phased into the ground itself. His grip tightened, and then he pulled.
The surface vanished.
We plunged beneath Mars, into darkness where sight lost aning. The world above beca distant, irrelevant. Down here, there was no light, no horizon, no clear form, only shifting density and muted sensation.
We fought anyway.
Intangibility blurred everything, our bodies phasing in and out of solidity in rapid succession. We could not see each other properly, only sense disturbances, faint impressions of presence. Each strike was tid between states, landing in the brief monts where contact beca possible.
Punches collided, slipped, reford.
Montum carried through phases, turning every exchange into a fragnted sequence of impact and absence.
Around us, Mars trembled.
The planet itself responded to the violence, its crust shuddering as we tore through it without direction, without restraint.
I burst from beneath the Martian crust and skidded into a halt, montum dragging a shallow trench behind as I rose upright. The surface greeted with stillness for half a second too long, and then I noticed the wetness beneath my shoes, dark and reflective against the red dust.
A puddle of blood.
I glanced down at it, unimpressed, the realization settling without resistance. Of course. The SRC had access to Mr. Known. Logistics, preparation, battlefield conditioning. This was his domain. He would orchestrate sothing like this, laying groundwork in advance, shaping the terrain into a weapon before I even arrived. Though, knowing the other , I doubted he would have approved of such ticulous interference. He lacked the patience for it.
The blood moved.
It didn’t ripple or flow naturally. It sharpened.
Spears erupted upward without warning, their formation instantaneous, their trajectory precise. They struck before I fully shifted, piercing through in multiple points. I felt the intrusion, the disruption.
Null.
Not ordinary null, but sothing refined to its highest rating, infused directly into the dium. It bypassed the usual thresholds, embedding itself into the attack with surgical intent.
I spat blood, the taste thick and familiar, staining the inside of my mask.
Caught off guard.
And yet, the sensation only sharpened my focus. Surprise had beco rare in my existence, dulled by repetition and inevitability. This deviation carried a certain appeal. I thinned myself, phasing into a single dinsion, slipping free from the constraints of their positioning. The world flattened, simplified, and in that narrowed state, I traced the origin.
I found her.
Ms. Life.
She stood not far from , her presence stark against the barren landscape. Mars was an unexpected stage for her, far removed from the environnts she typically thrived in. And yet, here she was, composed and deliberate, her gaze locked onto mine.
I closed the distance instantly.
My hand wrapped around her face, fingers pressing into her skin with intent, reality bending slightly under the pressure I exerted. I did not hesitate. I aid to unmake her entirely, to tear her down to the smallest indivisible components.
Her response was imdiate.
Blood surged over her form, coating her in a dense, shifting armor that pulsed with contained vitality. It resisted , not passively, but actively, pushing back against my influence.
I understood her.
I always had.
Her power was not foreign to . I had dissected it, replicated fragnts of it, twisted it into sothing else entirely. War, one of my Four Horsen, existed because I had once used her own DNA as a template, reshaping its essence into sothing aligned with my will.
There were no surprises here.
So I adapted.
I separated my arm.
Intangibility allowed for precision beyond conventional limits. I phased the limb apart from my body cleanly, severing it without resistance. The mont it detached, her blood surged toward it, invading the exposed structure, corroding, consuming.
Exactly as expected.
I released her.
The blood slid off her form, abandoning the armored state as it drained back into her control. For a brief mont, she appeared diminished, her complexion paling as the expenditure took its toll.
She bared her fangs, her intent clear.
Consumption.
She lunged.
I moved faster.
With my remaining hand, I struck, the motion clean and absolute. Her head separated from her body in a single, precise action. It did not slow her.
Even severed, she lived.
“It’s your only chance now!” she shouted, her voice raw, urgent. “Get him!”
The warning reached its target.
I felt it before I saw it.
A sharp intrusion from behind, perfectly tid, perfectly placed. The sensation blood through my torso as sothing solid pierced through , disrupting layers that had remained untouched for far too long.
Young Nick.
He had positioned himself well.
He had waited.
And he had struck.
I looked down slightly, acknowledging the wound, then let out a quiet breath that turned into sothing else entirely. A grin spread beneath my mask, unseen but unmistakable in the tension of my expression.
Blood slipped from my lips.
In the long stretch of my existence, surprise had beco an endangered experience. Patterns repeated, outcos converged, inevitability dominated. But this? This disruption, this precise alignnt of interference and timing?
It delighted .
Reality closed in around . A layer of warping settled over my form, locking in place. It wasn’t force; it was denial. Movent itself was rejected, frozen within a confined state.
I was trapped in a stasis.
The ground answered next.
Beneath , the Martian surface reshaped, rising in crude, humanoid forms. Animakinesis again, but broader this ti, less refined than the knight, more nurous. They grasped onto , reinforcing the hold, layering physical restraint over conceptual imprisonnt.
And then he pulled.
Young Nick’s grip tightened, not on my body, but on sothing deeper. I felt it being grasped, identified, isolated.
The Source.
Not fully assimilated, not yet fully integrated into my being. A fragnt, a growing core, still distinct enough to be targeted.
He tore it out.
The sensation was unlike the earlier disruption. This was subtraction on a fundantal level. A piece of was forcibly removed, leaving behind an absence that imdiately weakened everything else.
He didn’t linger.
He teleported, his efficiency uncharacteristic but effective. He seized Lifeblood’s severed head as he moved, and then both of them were gone, removed from the battlefield in a single, decisive exit.
Above, the sky shifted.
Sea Serpent descended slightly, coiling through the atmosphere as energy gathered within him. Then he exhaled.
Lightning.
Not a single strike, but a continuous breath, a torrent of electrical force pouring down onto . It enveloped my form, the heat and voltage overwhelming even my current state. My lungs resisted the act of breathing under the assault, the air itself destabilized by the sheer intensity.
Pain followed.
And I laughed.
The sound broke through the storm, uneven at first, then fuller, deeper, echoing against the scorched landscape. It wasn’t controlled. It wasn’t asured. It rose naturally, pulled from a place that had remained dormant for far too long.
I laughed as the lightning consud .
I laughed as my strength faltered.
I laughed at the possibility forming at the edge of it all.
I might die like this.
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