"Blut Arterie·Ikkotsu!"
As though blessed by divine inspiration, the man's finger bones crackled loudly as they clenched together. He spread both arms into a stance and met the incoming fist head-on with one punch of his own.
Boom——!!!
The instant the two fists collided, the sonic boom produced was actually slower than the expanding airwaves.
First came the collision between blazing white and ink-black in the heavens and earth, as a tangible ring-shaped shockwave violently expanded outward, sweeping away the blizzard within several hundred meters. Only afterward did the deafening sonic boom echo out.
Unexpectedly, the sonic boom was simply too enormous.
The dense forest several thousand meters away, covered in thick snow, had countless layers of snow shaken loose from the swaying thick branches, before terrifying aftershock waves uprooted hundreds upon hundreds of trees.
The enormous tremor lasted for dozens of seconds, and the entire mountain seemed to shake alongside it.
From the high altitude where the two stood, one could overlook the mountain itself, now covered with densely packed cracks resembling a gigantic interwoven spiderweb.
Yet the result this time was that the man lost to the Original Body, his entire body blasted back several hundred zhang. His figure violently rubbed against the air, forcibly igniting a scorching trail of fire.
One step landed in midair, shaking up turbulent air currents.
Taking dozens of such steps in succession, chaotic airwaves rippled through the sky. Only after barely dispersing that force did the man feel blood and qi surging within his chest. As he forcibly swallowed back the metallic taste rising into his throat, reflected within those molten red-gold eyes was a violent figure charging toward him.
There was not the slightest chance to breathe. A dazzling barrage of enormous fist shadows swallowed him like raging tides.
"Sanctuary Praise!!!"
Spiritual power surged violently around the man, forming an azure divine punishment domain.
An azure ring stretched out into a forbidden territory. The holy cross carrying the duty of protection shattered the instant it sensed an external invader, transforming into a sky full of azure light arrows like torrential rain, resembling a galaxy waterfall descending from the nine heavens.
The fist was only inches from him, yet could never truly reach him.
The endless sea of light arrows, an unceasing and terrifying assault like furious tides, directly drowned the violent Original Body.
Boom boom boom boom boom...
Rolling smoke and dust rose into the sky, while dense explosions resounded like drumbeats, performing an impassioned and violent symphony.
The sheer number was impossible to distinguish with the naked eye. The arrows connected into mountains and oceans, transforming into a gigantic shadow of death. It was practically as though the entire heavens had collapsed, the falling arrows descending alongside fierce winds like a shattered sky, bringing death to those who trespassed into the domain of gods.
Even while enduring the bombardment of endless arrows, the Original Body still struggled forward toward him.
He forcibly endured the arrows while resisting pressure akin to the collapse of the heavens themselves. Across that pitch-black power armor, a black glow resembling rippling water suddenly appeared, supporting an energy defensive barrier.
"It's that armor..."
The man's eyes darkened as he finally discovered the clue.
He had truly believed the monster's body was invincible, but it turned out that what blocked the attacks earlier was that power armor. That ink-like rippling glow, although seemingly thin, was abnormally tough, comparable to an unbreakable turtle shell.
Although he had already held suspicions before, after personally verifying it, he finally understood where HYDRA's black technology originated from.
If his guess was correct, the reason HYDRA could develop power armor was entirely because of this 'corpse' before him. The power armor worn by this being should be the true original version.
Only... where exactly did this thing come from?
Even from the standpoint of the Xandarian Empire, it would be absolutely impossible to develop power armor with such terrifying performance.
Not to mention this 'corpse,' which resembled a human. No matter how one looked at it, it was neither a normal human nor an alien. Its origins were simply an enormous mystery.
"Hah——!"
A furious shout interrupted the man's thoughts.
The light arrows struck the pitch-black power armor, yet all were blocked by that ink-black glow.
And the Original Body resembled a tireless machine. Not only did he endure the bombardment of endless arrows without retreating, he actually forced himself several steps closer. The golden greatsword wrapped in blazing flames while terrifying energy fluctuations spread from his entire body.
The next moment, the entire night sky transformed into daylight.
A warning suddenly exploded within the man's heart. A terror unlike anything he had ever experienced enveloped him, and his pupils shrank to needlepoints.
The intuition and instincts forged through countless life-and-death battlefields all screamed at him to flee immediately. Every cell in his body wailed, urging him to escape this creature's vicinity.
Just as he moved his feet and prepared to flee, he suddenly froze for a second.
No... impossible!
He could not flee. He had to remain here.
Yvette... Yvette was still inside the base. If he chose to flee, that girl would die!
He had promised old John that he would definitely protect Yvette.
After one-thousandth of a second, the man made his decision. With absolute determination, he burst forward and rushed toward the Original Body raising the flaming greatsword high.
He absolutely had to... protect Yvette!
Azure light emerged within the man's eyes as fragmented buried memories surfaced:
"Space... Freeze!"
An invisible wave instantly covered the entire space.
Souls trapped within frozen spacetime would be forcibly transferred into another dimension. This way, Yvette would not be harmed.
Looking at the energy accumulated to its limit, bitterness surfaced upon the man's face. The time was simply too short, so short that he only had enough time to accomplish this single task. There was no longer any opportunity to interrupt the Original Body.
A tangible sense of mortal danger stabbed into his cerebral cortex like millions of silver needles.
At the instant between life and death, the man violently inhaled a breath. Both arms crossed before him in an X-shape as black patterns spread throughout his body. Reishi roared through his blood vessels, releasing a hemispherical barrier domain.
"Schrift: Miracle!!!"
A tyrannical spiritual storm rendered his body indestructible.
Turning an absolutely disadvantageous situation into one advantageous to oneself could be called... Miracle!
"Psy...chic... Storm..."
Amid the fierce winds, broken and fragmented words clearly overwhelmed every other sound.
A gigantic radiance like the blazing sun erupted from the Original Body's body together with terrifying energy.
As the utterly explosive energy surged wildly, it astonishingly formed a pitch-black destructive storm. The drifting and howling blizzard disappeared at this moment, while the void as far as the eye could see transformed completely into a chaotic domain of destruction.
High above the heavens, the psychic storm raged violently, spreading for thousands upon thousands of li.
As the pitch-black domain of destruction expanded, large sections of space itself and all things within vanished soundlessly.
Even the Reishi drifting through the atmosphere was completely erased and annihilated. There was neither the howling of fierce winds nor the roar of exploding thunder, only deathlike silence.
Crack——
Even the barrier created by Space Freeze could not withstand the terrifying storm that erased all things. Amid ear-piercing cracking sounds, the barrier was ultimately torn apart completely by the storm, though it also exhausted the final trace of the storm's power.
High in the sky floated particles invisible to the naked eye.
All of those were the remains of things erased by annihilation. After the storm subsided, two figures—one tall and one short—were revealed.
The man's hair hung wildly loose, his clothes shattered and tattered, his entire body bathed in blood.