章 41: Back to square One
As Homelander was about to deliver the final, crushing blow, his fingers tensed to grind Charys into nothingness, her response was not one of fear or desperation.
Instead, she began to giggle—a cold, eerie sound that echoed in the devastated surroundings.
Her laughter grew louder, more unhinged, as her lips curled into a maniacal smile.
Suddenly, with a speed that caught him off guard, Charys threw her arms around him, pulling him into a tight embrace.
Homelander's first instinct was to tear her apart, but something stopped him.
It wasn't the physical strength behind her grip—it was the sensation of her heart, or whatever passed for it in her twisted form, pulsing ominously against him.
"You're too late," she whispered, her voice dripping with twisted glee. "You think you've won, but you've only ensured your own end. I'll just incinerate the timeline instead."
A horrid realization began to sink in.
He could feel the energy within her building—growing hotter, more unstable.
The fabric of time around her seemed to warp, as if being dragged into a vortex.
Her maniacal smile widened, and her grip tightened, pressing him closer as if she were trying to merge with him.
The ominous beeping from her chest grew louder, faster, and Homelander's senses screamed at him.
This wasn't just a self-destruct mechanism—it was something far worse.
A threat to everything, not just him.
"Say goodbye to your world, Homelander," she hissed. "To your timeline, to everything you've ever known."
In that instant, Homelander realized her plan.
She wasn't aiming to defeat him in this fight—she was planning to annihilate the entire timeline, to erase everything from existence, including herself, if it meant taking him down with her.
The surge of energy around her reached its peak, distorting space-time itself.
He could feel it pulling at him, a gravitational force threatening to unravel everything.
But in the face of this overwhelming power, he summoned every ounce of his willpower, every shred of his reality-warping abilities.
He had to stop this—he had to stop her—no matter the cost.
With a final, titanic effort, Homelander pushed against the world, trying to contain the impending explosion, trying to bend this last, desperate move of hers to his will.
Homelander, for all his strength and reality-bending power, felt it—felt everything unraveling.
The immense heat and pressure grew unbearable, even for him, as the very essence of his being began to burn away.
His world, his body, everything he knew was incinerating around him.
Yet, his soul's immortality that he had granted himself cursed him to stay conscious, to experience every agonizing moment as he was torn apart, atom by atom, molecule by molecule.
He was powerless, his efforts futile against the overwhelming force that Charys had unleashed.
His vision blurred, and the familiar sensation of his reality crumbled.
Then, just as the last remnants of his consciousness began to fade, there was a sudden, jarring stop.
It was as if someone had cut the film of a movie, abruptly halting the destruction.
Everything went dark for a moment, a void where time and space seemed meaningless.
When his awareness returned, it was as though no time had passed.
He found himself back in that dingy room, his hands trembling, still covered in ashes.
The lifeless body of his uncle lay before him, neck reduced to a stump from where his heat vision had burned through it.
The air was thick with the smell of burnt flesh, just as it had been when he first arrived in this world.
He blinked, disoriented, unable to process what had just happened.
Had it all been a dream? A nightmare? Or had he truly been shot through the multiverse, only to return to this exact moment?
His mind raced, trying to make sense of it all, but there were no answers, only the unsettling realization that somehow, someway, he was back where it all began.
Niklaus' mind spiraled into chaos, the boundaries of reality slipping through his grasp like sand.
What was real? What wasn't? The images of that being, the burning pain, the destruction of his body—all of it clashed with the bloodied scene before him.
He couldn't tell anymore if he had truly been through it or if it was just some twisted vision, a glimpse into a possible future, or a fracture in the timeline.
The room spun around him, walls bending and distorting as if the very fabric of reality was unravelling under the weight of his madness.
His breaths came in ragged gasps, his chest heaving as if he couldn't draw enough air.
He staggered, trying to stand, but his legs gave out beneath him, sending him crashing to the floor.
He lay there on his back, staring up at the ceiling that seemed to stretch infinitely away from him, like the vast, uncaring universe had opened up above him.
His thoughts were a whirlwind of fear, confusion, and desperation.
He questioned everything. Had he really fought those battles? Had he died? Had he been thrown across the multiverse, only to end up back here? Or was this all just a twisted trick of his mind, a cruel hallucination brought on by the trauma of death ?
The world around him warped and fragmented, reality splintering like a shattered mirror.
The walls, the ceiling, even the very air seemed to crack and splinter, jagged pieces of the world falling away into a void that threatened to swallow him whole.
He was losing control, his powers spiraling out of hand, distorting the very fabric of existence around him.
He hyperventilated, his breath coming in rapid, shallow bursts.
The edges of his vision darkened, closing in on him, but he couldn't calm down, couldn't stop the rising panic.
The room fractured further, the distorted shards of reality reflecting back at him the chaos in his mind.
He tried to reach out, to grasp onto something solid, something real, but there was nothing.
Only the cold, hard floor beneath him and the swirling madness in his head.
He was trapped in this nightmare, teetering on the edge of sanity, unable to pull himself back from the abyss.
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Stones and Reviews please
👆 Important Please Read
Okay don't Panic I'm not resetting the story or something okay ! This is part of the Plot.
Everything you've read till now wasn't useless.
He is going to develop into The better version from this pathetic self.
So just bear with me for the last two chapters of the Volume okay !
Also Donate Power stones or Share the story lol
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