Chương 235: Chapter 230: Worsened Conditions.
-Inside Ryan's mind-
"Ah fuck. I really… fucked up."
Ryan cursed as he kept falling deeper into a space of infinite darkness within his subconscious with frozen chains restraining his body – preventing him from resisting his fall. His ashen face and shivering body spinned around inside the empty space, and he lost sense of up, down, left, right, front and back as he floated there.
"I can't believe…that I… had strangled…the love of my life…with my own two hands…" His eyes were teary as he remembered what he had done.
After a while, Ryan lost track of time and his own consciousness before his eyelid fluttered in his last act of resistance from losing himself.
BAAM!
He suddenly fell head first into a clean white room, snapping him out from his eternal sleep.
"Owww." Ryan rubbed the back of his head as he stood up on the white tiles inside the room. "Wait. Am I in the system space? Is there actually plot armor for me?" He said in self-depreciation.
As the smoke from his fall cleared, he suddenly found out that his chains shattered – although the cuffs were still on his wrists. Now he could move, but he was still restricted to his own subconscious mind and couldn't get out.
"Where am I?"
Suddenly, he felt a sense of familiarity as he looked around the hospital room. His heart started to beat quicker and his knees felt weak as the sudden influx of repressed memories flowed back into his mind.
"No…No…NO…NO…NOOO!!!"
His eyesight landed on the fragile husk of a once healthy woman lying down on the bed as she held hands with a young boy next to her. Her dark Iris still showed some resistance even though she knew her chance of surviving was close to zero.
The young boy spoke innocently, "Mom…after you get better, we should go and watch the Spiderman movie."
"You really love spiderman huh." The woman smiled weakly as she patted the young boy's head with her thin hand that barely had any flesh on it. The young boy grabbed his mother's hand while she was patting him and smiled innocently, "I love spiderman…but I looooveeee you the most!"
The observer – Ryan watched the scene with a look of longing. He tried to take a step forward, but then the scene changed into a few months in the future where a lone son was trying hard to get toward his mother that flatlined on the bed.
While being held by several nurses, the 8 years old kid wailed in agony as he had lost the love of his life, and the last living members of his family.
Tears fell from Ryan's eyes as he mumbled, "...Mom…"
While Ryan was finally exposed to his own internal hell, a translucent figure of a woman was standing beside him, banging at the illusionary walls dividing them.
Her voice was discombobulated, and almost as tiny as a whisper. "Ryan…Ryan…!"
Gwen called out to Ryan repeatedly, however, her efforts were proven worthless as he couldn't respond to her.
-Real world-
"Urk-" Hela's android body fell on one knee as she had overloaded herself during the energy transfer to Kai.
"Valkyries. From this moment on, make sure, no one interferes with the matter here." Hela muttered normally despite her fatigue and energy depletion, but her voice was heard by all of the warriors scattered around the world during their fight against the ice demons.
On the battlefield, the Ikhtalon avatar suddenly stopped moving.
"Did we do it? Did we defeat him?" Tony asked anxiously as he saw the ice encasing the avatar's body started to melt, and sanity had returned to Ryan's eyes.
"Yeah. He is back." Thor said with a smile as he sensed the soul familiarity in Ryan's body.
"No. This matter isn't over. Don't let your guard down." Adam Warlock said quickly.
"What's wrong with you…You beautiful golden man? That's Ryan. We've won. It's over." Tony said again, his heart wished that his words would be true.
"Yeah. it's over." Ryan suddenly spoke. He slicked his hair back, but his hair magically turned longer until it reached his lower back. His outfit changed into a black suit as he waved his hands on top of it, and his injuries had all disappeared as if it never existed in the first place.
He walked toward where the broken Avengers were standing, but Strange suddenly opened a spell to the mirror dimension and threw it towards Ryan to lock him in. He instinctively felt deep fear at the being in front of him, and he was afraid of the possibility that it might not be the true owner of the body.
"Come on. It hasn't been a minute yet since I got out. Lemme enjoy the fresh air first before I destroy you guys." Ryan said with a maniacal glint in his eyes.
He snapped his fingers, and everything went dark for the Avengers. They were enclosed in a space where they were deprived of their senses, and were lost in the foggy area as they tried to understand what had happened to them.
"Now that the distraction is gone. Theodore. I know you're here. Come on big guy. Don't be afraid. I won't bite~" Ryan said playfully as he held his hand in the direction of New York. "If you don't come out. I will destroy the entire city. I will count to 8."
"Why 8? I think it hasn't been picked up much in this situation." Ryan monologues to himself like a true villain.
"8." He said, breaking his promises without even counting from number 1.
Suddenly, a swamp monster appeared in front of him, and tried to touch him with his hand. However, the Man-thing was in disbelief as his touch that could burn demons couldn't do anything toward the entity in front of him. Ryan suddenly jabbed his hand inside of Ted's torso, and pulled out the serpent crown.
"I believe this is mine." He said before a shockwave attacked Ted's entire body, disintegrating him into atoms.
"Hmmm….He got away. Nevermind~" Ryan muttered before he held the crown up high on his head.
"Now, crowing, the emperor of the universe, the curtain puller of all things, The END."
Outside of the earth's dimension, the Elder god set was waiting in anticipation as he saw that someone would wear his crown again. And that someone was his eternal enemy who had taken down his avatar before this. The snake's eyes glittered with excitement as the crown moved closer and closer to the man's head. As long as it touched the head, then he could take over the man's body, and all of his powers.
The edge of Ryan's lips was curled up as he noticed the Elder God's gaze.
"Sike. Ya think." END said playfully as he brought the crown to his right arm, and wore it as an oversized bracelet instead.
"You Elder Gods were just parasites that couldn't even escape your dimensions. Let me end your misery, as I ended Ikthalon's misery of eternal life."
Set suddenly felt a presence infiltrating his dimension, however, it was too late for him to do anything. A slave collar appeared on his neck, and he was soon domesticated by the invader. His existence was then turned into pure energy that was soon sucked by the invader's second mana circuit- A mana circuit that was created by the invader by himself as he couldn't touch the original owner of the body's mana circuit.
"4th…5th…6th…7th…" END muttered as his mana circuit was continuously upgraded by devouring the Elder God. "Hmmm…Only barely got me to 7th tier. Pathetic." He muttered in dissatisfaction while pursing his lips. The crown turned into an Ouroboros bracelet– a snake eating its own tail, and he turned his gaze towards the little witch that was standing guard nearby Gwen's unconscious body.
"Scarlet Witch. My next energy source. I wonder if Cthon energy can push me to the next realm? She is worth more than that parasite though." END muttered with a smirk before he walked towards the witch's position without hurrying.
However, the witch's future husband, the terminator that arrived from another universe, attacked the END by flying towards him at his highest speed.
"I wonder where you went. Turns out, you were robbing my treasure." END laughed as he was brought to his original spot by the android- Vision. With this universe mind stone in his forehead, Vision shoots an energy beam from his forehead at a point blank range, directly toward END's face.
Although his face was melting, END was laughing at Vision's attempt. He stopped pretending to be overpowered by the android and stepped on the ground, causing Vision's flight to stop abruptly. Despite all of his strength, Vision couldn't push END even a millimeter away after he stopped it.
"You naughty boy. But it's fine. It's useless anyway. Good ambush tho." END said casually before he lightly smacked Vision in the face, causing half of his head to be destroyed. The light in Vision's eyes went out, and he laid down motionlessly on the hardened ground.
"I have something else to do, and not a lot of time to do it. Who knows planning on ending the universe will be so difficult?" End muttered before beginning his stroll to get to Wanda once more.
It took only 3 minutes for the impostor to reach where Wanda was guarding. The witch widened her eyes, her face flushed, and her heart beat quicker as she saw her idol smiling widely while waving his arms at her, but her instinct told her something was wrong.
"The battle…is it over?" Wanda asked.
"Yeah. Everything is over." End said as he closed his distance with Wanda. To her surprise, he kneeled on one knee in front of her and held her hand at the same time.
"W-W-What?"
"Wanda. Will you marry me?"
"WHAT!? WHY?!"
Wanda's brain short circuited as she heard Ryan's proposal, however, his charming smile then turned into an evil smirk. "I couldn't let my battery provide for me without giving anything in return can't I?"
Wanda finally snapped out of her smitten condition and tried to pull her hand away, but Ryan stood up and pulled her to become closer to him. With his face inches away from her, he said, "It's not a bad deal for you. You can be with the love of your life, and I can get what I want. So, Win-win."
Before Wanda could say anything, End pulled her chin towards him and gave her a kiss on the lips. His tongue invaded her mouth, and he wrapped his arm around her waist as he tried to convince her.
After a few minutes, he finally released her. A bridge of saliva connecting their lips was stretched before they fell apart and fell to the ground. Wanda lost the strength in her knees, and was panting heavily as she stared at Ryan's eyes.
"What's your answer?" End asked with a confident smile.
Before she could answer, she noticed the engagement ring worn on his finger, and finally remembered that he was someone else's fiance.
She turned to Gwen that was laying down motionlessly inside the seance circle, and she couldn't understand what was going on right now.
End noticed her state and said, "Right. I forgot about her. It's an easy fix."
He pointed his index finger at her, and a disastrous level of energy started to gather at the tip.
"If she's gone, there wouldn't be any more apprehension to accept my proposal, right?"
-Inside Ryan's mind-
Ryan had to live the moment where his mother left him over and over, until he couldn't stand it anymore. But, his torture wasn't over. The memory changed into when he was a bit older, where he became an orphan that was always bullied in the orphanage.
He remembered the memory even in his current life, but not fully.
"Why are you so down?" A black haired boy with a burn scar on the right side of his face said. The little Ryan was crouching at an alley, his left eye was bruised, and small cuts could be seen on his hands– thanks to the bully that wanted to play with his new knife.
"Can't you hear me?" The little black haired boy asked again with a permanent smile plastered on his face despite his harsh life.
"What do you want, freak?!" The little Ryan snapped toward the smiling boy.
"You can talk. I was worried you had lost your voice." The smiling boy said while laughing, unbothered by the names people were calling him.
The little Ryan was captured by his laugh, and without waiting for him to open up, the smiling boy said, "I'm Kai. One day, I'm going to be the world's greatest doctor."
Little Ryan was confused by the sudden proclamation, and asked him, "Why are you telling me that? I never asked you about it."
"I don't know. My late father said people were born to be best friends. I thought he was lying, but I guess he wasn't."
"Hmm?"
"You. Be my best friend." Kai said while pointing at Little Ryan.
-Real world-
At the moment END was charging the killshot for Gwen, a winged swordsman suddenly dove from the sky and stood between him and the unconscious woman.
The killshot was released, and the swordsman cut the shot in half, making it fly into two directions. It caused an intense explosion that could've decimated half of the city, but it only killed a few roaming ice giants instead as there weren't any humans left in the city except for the battling group.
Despite half of his face being destroyed, Vision wasn't dead yet. He floated slowly toward the black energy cube where END was sealing the Avenger inside, and shot his mind stone blast to free the group.
Back to the two avatars, Kai and End were facing each other.
"I told you not to do that." Kai said, his face was stoic.
"I never said I'll follow your words." END said.
Wanda looked at both of them, fearing a fight would occur so close to where Gwen was. However, Kai sheathed his sword, and END disarmed himself.
"What- Kai…what is happening?" Wanda asked with her eyes shivering.
After getting released from the seal, the Avengers flew quickly to lend their help on Wanda, only to find the scene where END and Kai were chummy with each other.
"Kai…Did you…Plan this… DID YOU BETRAY HIM!" Tony asked, veins were popping out of his neck as he screamed.
Kai looked at Tony with a blank gaze and opened his mouth. His words were like thunder booming inside the minds of everyone who heard it.
"Yes."
END laughed maniacally in satisfaction as he heard Kai's answer, and the whole group fell into a silent.
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