บท 155: Chapter 153 - The End
Contrary to the belief of many, the battle between the Transcendent being is less flashy and more about decisive action.
Their power is so great that the cost of using them is equally great. So, both tried to end it as soon as possible with the least effort. However, while Phanes holds the upper hand in firepower, Adam's gimmick is countering Phanes despite being on the weaker side.
Adam offered everything he has except for The Almighty to his Hogyoku to awaken the Fragment of Nihility slumbering inside his soul.
Aside from devouring the power of his opponent to make it his own, he also slowly weakens his opponent as the battle drags on.
Thus, Phanes try to kill Adam as soon as possible. But Adam was built to be like a cockroach. Even as Phanes hurls imploding galaxies at him, he endures it with his soul, his Willpower as his shield. Surviving and devouring the celestial power to strengthen himself.
But, like a cockroach he is. He still has a limit, a breaking point which unfortunately arrives when his soul bloats up too much and threatens to explode on its own.
Not giving up just yet, Adam summoned the Void Archive that immediately transformed into a golden sniper rifle, the third Divine Key, Seven Thunder of Retribution in sniper form. Dark energy gathered and flowed into the barrel of the railgun sniper and charged up a powerful and concentrated attack.
Seven Thunder of Retribution, 0th Power, Divine Judgement of The Heavenly Thunderer.
*Bam!*
The Void was flooded by a pulse of light followed by a beam and followed by a void shattering thunderclap.
Phanes urgently arranged an array of planetoids of titanic size but the beam pierced through each of them, shattering those planetoids as it penetrated through all of them.
At the last moment, the serpentine dragon lunge forward in the beam's trajectory and unleash an attack to cancel out the beam, resulting with a secondary explosion that shatter the the void even more, speeding up the destruction of the universe as the scale of the battle already exceeding the limit it could withstood.
There is a sense of urgency at Phanes' expression. His eyes glanced at the crack on the void and saw the cosmic abominations lurking outside like a school of piranhas that smelt blood.
For the first time since their final battle had begun, Phanes voiced his words.
"Why don't we negotiate? If we continue this battle. Neither of us will benefit anything if we continue and we will be devoured by those cosmic abominations stalking us outside the void."
"Negotiate?" Adam mutters with his face obscured by the dark energy gathered around him. "Then will you offer me your soul?" He said with a doubtful tone, knowing no way Phanes would agree because that means he will die.
"I give an inch and you want a mile. Truly your arrogance knew no bound. Fine, if mutual destruction is what you wished then let us end it here. I shall give it my all."
Pushed against a wall, neither could he win against a cockroach-like opponent like Adam and with the threat of the cosmic abominations lurking outside. He has no other escape route. If he continues to fight, he will die. Even if he did win, it would be too costly of a victory and those scavengers would descend on his weakened self to feast on him.
So, he rather go for a mutual destruction than surrendering to Adam or to be feasted by those scavengers.
All the remaining stars glow up brightly, driven into supernova before their energy is gathered and concentrated into one powerful and destructive attack. The last and most powerful attack he could muster as the God of Creation, to wield his own creations as his strength. Exhausting all of his creations to fuel his one last attack.
As for Adam. The Seven Thunder of Retribution reverts into a golden cube then transforms into a suit of armor, the Key of Blankness. In his right palm, the Hogyoku appeared and sucked every last ounce of his existence, concentrated into a beautiful crystal formation which he slotted into the armor. All that is left in him is his own bare soul.
Both sides laid bare all their chips and betting on this last exchange to decide everything.
Phanes infused the power he gathered into the serpentine dragon and launched toward Adam, leaving him a dried husk of a specter devoid of his once glorious Divinity of the God King.
Once Adam and the Cosmic Leviathan clashed, a great tremor shook all of existence. The bubble of the universe already crumbled, the void shattered along with the destruction of the universe to reveal the true void where Cosmic creatures and deities lurk.
The Leviathan tried to bite him to death but with his void shattering punch, Adam broke one of its fangs and kicked its jaw to send it flying to the side despite Adam being a hundred times smaller than the Leviathan.
It snarled and roared before releasing a beam of energy from its mouth but Adam gather energy into his fist and punch away the beam, parrying it and took the opportunity when the Leviathan couldn't sees him to sneak up on its head and stab his arm into it's left eye, gouging it out with a loud roar of rage.
In retaliation, the Leviathan swatted him away with a powerful slap with its tail, throwing him a great distance away while leaving his armor looking battered like it would fall apart with a mild gust of wind. At least his body suffers minimal damage and neither is the Hogyoku or else it would be devastating.
Not giving him a chance to recover, the Leviathan descended on him once more with a frenzied rage.
Adam blocked another attack before the Key of Blankness shattered due to the immense stress and transformed back into Void Archive and leaving the Divine Key armor unusable for a long while.
Not at all feeling discouraged, Adam transformed the Void Archive into a cross, the Oath of Judah which split open, revealing the spears inside. Shooting those chain linked spears at the Leviathan, those spears emitting a powerful suppressing power that could only temporarily weaken it instantly by immobilizing the Divine Beast.
But the immobilization is sufficient as the Oath of Judah breaks into golden dust and then reforms into Might of An Utu. Then Adam descended on the Leviathan's head and stabbed the greatsword into its head but it's scale was too hard and the Leviathan already started to move again and even more furious than before.
In his last ditch effort to make this work, he lifts the greatsword up and musters all his Willpower against the Leviathan's soul, the Conqueror Haki works wonders, buying Adam a few more precious seconds while blood gushes out his orifice like a broken pipe. However, he disregarded it and pushed all last ounce of his power into the Might of An Utu, causing it to transform into an even impressive form while the blade itself became like the sword of Muspelheim's King, Surtr the herald of Ragnarok.
The heat of the sword was so hot, it melted the scale of Leviathan. But just as deadly it is to its prey, the sword is also equally deadly to its wielder.
His Haki coated arms could barely handle the sword as his flesh boiled underneath but he endured and stabbed into the skull of the Leviathan before the sword unleashed its deadly fire as Adam retreated immediately before the fire consumed him too.
The Leviathan howled and roared in great pain as the fire burned it inside out. However, its unyielding spirit will not allow itself to die without fulfilling its master's wish and lunged at the vulnerable Adam now without even a weapon to defend himself.
Adam saw the death flashes before his eyes. A look of disbelief and unwillingness. He has already reached this far. He cannot fall yet! Not like this! But fate is a cruel one. He already did everything, sacrificed everything. Yet, again he is greeted by a familiar feeling of despair, helplessness and impotence.
"No! I refuse! I refuse to be defeated like this!" Adam screamed and mustered every last ounce of his strength in defiance against this shitty ending!
Then a vision of the past flashes through his mind.
'Here, this may aid you in the near future.' Archangel Michael hands him a card with the image of a burning sword.
He instinctively knew how to use it and called upon it in his hand and the sword wreathed in flame of justice and divine glory appeared in his unworthy hand as he swung it at the Leviathan with the last wisp of consciousness and driving his arm down to create a slash.
The torrential flame burst forward and burned the serpentine dragon on its last leg and thwarted its final charge before it stopped moving entirely and died.
Adam extended his arm and a powerful force pulled the corpse of the Leviathan towards him which soon broke into golden particles absorbed into his body. It was the Divinity of Phanes. A very concentrated mass of power which upon reveal, caused those creatures lurking in the true void to be agitated like piranhas that smelt blood and immediately rushed toward him.
Adam ignored them and produced the Hogyoku that had seen better days. Deep cracks filled the object and inside is The Almighty, stored and protected within its shell. The golden motes of energy flow into Hogyoku before intense light bathes the void one last time as Adam opens his eye slightly and peeks at it and smiles.
"Just wait a little bit longer… I will definitely save everyone." He whispers before his iris in his eyes splits into four and the Hogyoku work to full capacity one last time to activate The Almighty and then crack and shatter before exploding into a million fragments scattering into the void.
———
"...am"
"...da…"
"Ad…"
Adam heard something with his ears but along it was intense buzzing and white noise assaulting his ears. He tried opening his eyes but his vision is greatly blurred and red.
"Adam!"
He suddenly jolted awake and found himself in a foreign yet familiar white and sterile room. Around him his wives, family and companions all looked concerned about him and saying something but his mind felt strangely heavy and exhausted, incapable of even focusing enough to listen to what they said.
That is until Unohana used Kaido on him and his mind started to feel better although only by a small margin.
"Can you understand me?" Unohana professionally tries to treat Adam and see if he can hear or understand her words.
Adam moved his head to nod, albeit quite difficult like his body was wrapped in cast.
"Good." She said and turned to the crowd. "As you can see, he is fine. So get out and let me do my job properly." She chases everyone out after confirming to them he is fine.
After Unohana and Adam are alone, she sits next to him on a stool and looks at him with a faint smile.
"Looks like your gamble succeeded." She said but then her smile fades away. "Although, in your last ditch effort to use The Almighty shattered the Hogyoku that is fused with your soul and your soul is now broken beyond repair. It's a miracle you aren't left brain dead."
But then she saw the confusion and sensed the unasked question on Adam's face.
"Yes, I wasn't dead and went with you to this alternate timeline where the Great War didn't happen and you simply fought against the God King and defeated him although not without a price. You were injured by the fierce duel to secure your victory which left you in a critical state and a few days of coma before your current soul merged with the original one." Unohana explains the chain of events that happened before she stood up.
"Well, just take a rest. You will need it to speed up the healing of your shattered soul." Unohana said before performing a Kido to put Adam into sleep before he loses consciousness.
———
A week later, Adam woke up once more and felt much better. His soul had yet to fully recover and his power weakened significantly but that didn't bother him at all.
Instead, Adam was eager to leave the medbay and immediately went down to the cafeteria per Unohana's instructions she gave before he left.
Upon his arrival, he saw everyone. Gathered there waiting for him with a party prepared for him.
"Congratulations on your recovery!" Everyone cheered loudly when he appeared and quite a few of them, especially his wife and family, jumped at him and gave him a group hug.
Unable to withstand the force of their tackle, Adam fell to his butt while being hugged by Winter, Jalter, Angie, all five Alice, Tina, Enterprise and Nagato. All missed him dearly and Adam hugged them back before a fight started as everyone else wanted their share of hugs.
Seeing how rowdy the situation turned up to be, Adam simply smiled and watch as some tried to protect him, some is fighting for the hug, some are spectating on the side while laughing and a few a busy trying to dissolving the fight and try to resolve the matter in civilized manner by taking turns.
Adam took a deep breath and exhaled. "I'm back, everyone." He whispers before joining in the fun with Jeanne and a few mature ones of the group trying to set up a hugging booth which took half an hour to finish with the number of the crowd, especially the shipgirls.
After that, they had a party to celebrate his recovery. Everyone enjoyed themselves and by the end of it, Adam announced their next objective.
"We are going back home." He declared to the crowd like he was declaring a great adventure before Angie set the Orbital Fortresses fleet on course to return to the RWBY world.
The End.
—————
A bit rushed in the end. But, eh. It's pointless to drag it out more.
So, thank you everyone that has accompanied me with this fic. I am really grateful for your support and I hope you will continue to support my other works in the future!
Farewell, 🤗
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