Firehair and the Dark Phoenix had left the atmosphere in seconds.
The battle had outgrown the island before it properly started. The collision of two Phoenix forces was too much for any single location to contain. They went up through the clouds, then through what was above the clouds, and then through what was above that. The sky thinned around them as they ascended. The blue bled into black, the familiar azure of Earth's atmosphere draining away.
They traded blows as they rose.
Firehair struck with a lance of golden fire that could have melted a mountain range. The Dark Phoenix deflected it with a shield of violet-black flame. The Dark Phoenix countered with a wave of dark fire that bent light around it. Firehair dove through it, her body wreathed in protective flames, and emerged on the other side to deliver a devastating punch that sent the masked woman tumbling backward through the thinning air.
The Dark Phoenix recovered instantly, her body twisting in midair with inhuman grace. She hurled a barrage of fire in the shape of ravens, each one screaming with the voices of the damned. Firehair vaporized them with concentrated beams from her eyes, then closed the distance to strike again.
Careful, the Phoenix whispered in her mind. This one is not like the others you have faced. She knows our power. She wields it as we do.
Firehair reached for the Dark Phoenix's mind, deploying her considerable telepathic abilities. She expected resistance. She expected it would take some time to break through. But instead she found nothing.
Not resistance. Not shields. Nothing.
It was like reaching into a void.
She heard the Dark Phoenix laugh, the sound carrying across the vacuum through their shared connection to the Phoenix Force.
The golden mask, Firehair realized.
The Dark Phoenix struck before she could finish the thought, a telekinetic hammer blow that would have shattered a continent.
End this quickly, or it will end you. The Phoenix warned.
They continued their battle, the two Phoenix hosts clashing in the silence of space.
Matter came apart between them. Firehair seized the molecular structure of the space around the Dark Phoenix and compressed it, a cage built from nothing, the atoms of the void itself bent into walls, hydrogen and helium forced into impossible configurations by sheer will.
The Dark Phoenix unraveled it without breaking stride, pulling the same matter apart and hurling it back as a concentrated projectile moving at a significant fraction of light speed.
Firehair vaporized it with a gesture and closed the distance.
They traded blows now, hitting each other with such force that the shockwaves traveled outward in every direction.
Each impact released energy that rippled across the solar system. On Earth's surface, the oceans moved, every ocean shifting slightly in its bed as the force passed through the planet like a bell being struck. Tsunamis formed spontaneously along coastlines that had been calm moments before. On Mars, the dust storms reversed direction, the red sands suddenly swirling backward as if time itself had hiccupped.
The asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter churned, rocks that had held their orbits for millions of years suddenly jostling against each other, colliding in slow motion, fragmenting into smaller pieces.
Jupiter's Great Red Spot, the eternal storm that brewed in the planet's atmosphere, wavered. The shockwaves from the battle reached the gas giant and disrupted atmospheric patterns that had remained stable for eons. Several of its smaller moons trembled in their orbits. One, a captured asteroid, was nudged just enough by the gravitational disturbance. It began a slow, inexorable spiral inward.
Saturn suffered worse. The rings shuddered, ice particles and rock fragments shifting en masse. Two of its outer moons, already in precarious orbits, were pushed beyond their tipping points. They fell, drawn by Saturn's immense gravity, tumbling through the rings in catastrophic descents. One disintegrated as it fell, torn apart by tidal forces. The other plunged into the upper atmosphere, burning like a brief, brilliant star before vanishing into the depths of the gas giant.
The battle was slowly becoming catastrophic for the entire system.
They tore through each other, separated, and came back together. Phoenix fire trading with Phoenix fire. Each exchange released energy that would have ended star systems if it had been directed rather than simply unleashed.
Firehair fought with everything she had. She was the Phoenix, the force of creation and destruction, life and death incarnate. Her power was absolute. Her will was unbreakable.
But the Dark Phoenix matched her.
For every strike Firehair delivered, the masked woman countered. For every manipulation of matter and energy, she responded in kind. They were equals in power, and that terrified Firehair more than she wanted to admit.
She is dangerous, the Phoenix's voice spoke in her mind, layered beneath her own thoughts. More than you know. She wears the dark aspect—twisted, corrupted. She seeks weakness. Do not give it to her. Stay focused. Let emotion serve you, not rule you.
"The girl is ours to take," the Dark Phoenix taunted.
SHE SEEKS TO BREAK YOUR FOCUS. YOUR DAUGHTER IS SAFE. DO NOT—the Phoenix roared in her mind.
"Aurora, was it?" the Dark Phoenix added.
Something in Firehair shattered.
"KEEP HER NAME OUT OF YOUR MOUTH!" Firehair screamed.
She attacked with everything, abandoning strategy for raw, overwhelming force. Golden fire poured from her hands in torrents. She seized matter from the void itself and hurled it as weapons.
The Dark Phoenix saw it coming. She had been waiting for exactly this moment, the instant when rage would overcome discipline, when emotion would create the opening she needed.
The Dark Phoenix struck with a telekinetic attack of staggering precision. The invisible force punched through Firehair's defenses and caught her directly in the chest.
She got a hand around Firehair's throat, violet-black flames erupting where they touched. Then she began her assault, striking with brutal efficiency. A knee to the ribs that cracked bone. An elbow to the face that split skin.
Firehair tried to counter, tried to break free, but the Dark Phoenix was relentless. Each strike came faster than the last. The masked woman pushed Firehair back through space, driving her away from Earth.
Then she struck with everything.
A massive blast of dark Phoenix fire, concentrated into a single devastating beam. It caught Firehair full in the chest and sent her hurtling backward, tumbling end over end, unable to arrest her momentum, unable to defend herself.
She crashed into the Moon.
The impact shook the lunar surface, creating a massive crater on its dark side. The crater spread outward from the point of impact, a perfect circle of destruction carved into ancient stone.
Firehair lay in the center of the crater, her body smoking, her golden flames flickering weakly. She tried to rise, tried to gather her strength.
The Dark Phoenix descended slowly from above, wreathed in violet-black fire, the golden mask gleaming in the Earthlight.
"Finally," she said, her voice carrying across the airless void through their connection to the Phoenix Force. "Finally, a worthy opponent." She tilted her head, studying Firehair like a collector examining a rare specimen. "The hosts I have encountered across the multiverse were weak. Pathetic. They could never utilize the Phoenix's full power. They cowered from it, feared it, tried to restrain it." She laughed, the sound edged with something like madness. "But you... you embrace it. You burn with it. You are what a Phoenix host should be."
Firehair stood.
Her body still smoked from the impact, her wounds slowly closing as the Phoenix Force regenerated her flesh. She did not bother to speak, did not waste words on this creature.
She simply glared at the masked woman.
And then she exploded in power.
Golden fire erupted from her body in a sphere of pure radiance that vaporized everything within a hundred feet. The crater beneath her feet deepened, rock turning to plasma, then to nothing. Her eyes blazed white-gold, her hair flowing upward, wreathed in cosmic flame. The Phoenix Force poured through her, embraced, allowed to burn in its full, terrible glory.
She rose from the crater like a sun being born, ascending on wings of living fire that stretched hundreds of feet across the lunar surface.
"You wish for a worthy fight?" Firehair's voice came out dual-toned, both her own and the Phoenix speaking as one. "Then we shall give you one worthy of the flame we carry."
She came out of the crater too fast for the Dark Phoenix to follow. Firehair's hands were on the Dark Phoenix's face as she drove the masked one across the lunar surface with strike after strike. A punch sent the masked woman tumbling across a hundred miles of gray stone. A kick launched her into the side of a crater wall.
The Dark Phoenix tried to defend herself, tried to counter, but Firehair was everywhere. She teleported behind her opponent and struck before the masked woman could turn. She appeared above and drove her down into the lunar surface. She materialized to the side and caught her with a beam of concentrated Phoenix fire that carved a trench across the Moon's face.
Firehair allowed no respite, no moment to recover. She pressed the advantage with ruthless efficiency.
One final strike came with all the force Firehair could muster.
She seized the Dark Phoenix with telekinesis, lifted her high above the lunar surface, and brought her down. The impact was cataclysmic. The Dark Phoenix hit the Moon with such force that the entire satellite shuddered. Seismic waves rippled across its surface. Massive cracks spread outward from the impact site, jagged lines racing across the gray stone for thousands of miles.
For a moment it seemed the Moon itself might come apart, might fragment into pieces that would rain down upon the Earth below.
But it held.
Barely.
Firehair stood above her opponent, gold burning off her in waves that distorted the space around her. She was radiant and terrible, a goddess of fire and fury.
The Dark Phoenix's mask was cracked.
A single line ran from the top edge down across where the left eye would be, the golden surface marred for the first time. Behind it, Firehair could see something, a glimpse of skin, a flash of color from her eyes, and most of all she saw fear in them.
The Dark Phoenix rose slowly, unsteadily, violet-black flames flickering weakly around her body.
Then both of them charged once more.
They moved at the same instant, as if sharing a single thought. Firehair exploded forward in a burst of golden fire. The Dark Phoenix launched herself with wings of dark flame. They crossed the distance between them in a fraction of a second, faster than thought itself..
They collided.
The clash was apocalyptic.
Reality screamed at the point of impact. Space-time itself buckled, warping inward like fabric stretched over a sharp point. Gravitational waves rippled outward from the Moon, invisible distortions in the fabric of space-time that raced across the solar system at the speed of light. The Sun itself registered the disturbance, its corona flaring in response to the gravitational waves passing through it.
Both hosts of the Phoenix separated and came together again, striking with fists and fire, each exchange releasing more energy, each impact sending new waves rippling across space.
Then they began to move.
Their fight carried them away from the Moon, away from Earth, racing through the void as they traded blows. They flew through space, striking at each other continuously, neither willing to yield, neither able to gain a decisive advantage.
They were moving toward the Sun now, growing smaller and brighter against the black until they were just two points of light, one gold, one dark, falling toward the star together.
.
.
.
Max was overwhelmed.
He was being attacked from all sides.
There were five Thors, six Iron Men, three Storms, four Hulks, a Silver Surfer, a Scarlet Witch, and fucking Sentry.
All of them glowing with sickly orange light. All of them constructs pulled from Doom's conquests across the multiverse, heroes defeated and absorbed into the Starheart, now serving as his eternal army.
The five Thors moved in perfect synchronization. Thunder crashed across the sky, dark clouds gathering with supernatural speed. The three Storms joined them, their eyes glowing, their hands raised to command the heavens.
Lightning fell.
A barrage of lightning. Dozens of strikes converging on Max's position simultaneously, each one carrying enough power to level a large modern city. Max screamed as the lightning hammered into him. His shield shattered. His armor absorbed what it could, but the sheer volume was staggering. His body convulsed as electricity coursed through him.
Before he could recover, the six Iron Men attacked.
Repulsor beams lanced out from twelve armored hands, concentrated streams of pure energy converging from different angles. The attacks hit Max from above, below, left, and right, perfectly coordinated, giving him no avenue of escape. The repulsor fire drove him backward, his feet carving trenches through the earth as he tried to maintain his footing.
Max fell and hit the ground hard.
The four Hulks were on him instantly.
Orange fists the size of boulders slammed into him from every direction. One Hulk grabbed his left arm, another his right. A third seized his legs. The fourth just started punching, each blow creating shockwaves that flattened the terrain around them. They threw him between themselves like a ragdoll, each catch followed by another devastating strike before hurling him to the next.
Max tried to create constructs to defend himself, tried to fight back, but the Hulks gave him no time. He was yanked left, then right, then up, then slammed down so hard the impact cratered the earth beneath him.
One Hulk grabbed him by the ankle and spun, building momentum before releasing. Max flew through the air, tumbling end over end.
Three Doctor Stranges floated in his path.
Orange energy erupted from their combined spellcasting. The blast caught Max mid-flight, three concentrated beams converging into one massive strike.
The impact sent him careening off course.
"Max, RETREAT!" Jade's voice was urgent in his mind. "There are too many! You cannot fight them all simultaneously!"
"I KNOW!" Max shouted back, creating shields as another barrage came at him.
The Silver Surfer appeared in a flash of orange-tinted cosmic power, moving faster than Max could track. The construct grabbed him with impossible strength and hurled him toward the Doctor Stranges.
Max tried to arrest his momentum, tried to create distance, but the Stranges were ready. The Crimson Bands of Cyttorak materialized around him, wrapping his body in mystical restraints that bound his arms to his sides.
He hung there, suspended in the air by magical bindings, struggling against them.
The Scarlet Witch floated before him, her hands glowing with chaos magic corrupted by Doom's avarice. She gestured, and reality itself bent around Max. The attack struck him like a physical blow, warping the space he occupied, trying to unmake him at the fundamental level.
The Crimson Bands released him, and Max only got a second to recover before he was hit with the full force of the Sentry.
The construct, glowing with sickly orange energy like all the others, slammed into Max. The impact was cataclysmic. Max was driven into the ground, cratering the earth, dust and debris erupting around him in a mushroom cloud of destruction.
The crater was massive, miles wide, and Max lay at the center of it, his construct armor flickering, struggling to maintain integrity as his concentration fell.
They continued their barrage of attacks as Max tried to concentrate and come up with a counterattack.
Lightning from the Thors and Storms. Repulsor blasts from the Iron Men. The Hulks leaping down to pummel him in the crater. Energy beams from the Silver Surfer. Reality-warping hexes from the Scarlet Witch. Mystical assaults from the Doctor Stranges. And the Sentry, burning with corrupted golden-orange light, attacking with overwhelming force.
His armor was tanking all the attacks, the uru-vibranium–mimicked alloy holding strong, but at this rate it would break apart. Cracks were already forming as his concentration slipped. He had already created an army of Space Marine constructs that were fighting off an invasion of demons. His counterattack was being prepared as well. And finally, there was the one he was building in the atmosphere, which he knew he would be needing soon.
So yes, his mind was stretched thin at the moment.
A Thor caught him with Mjolnir, the hammer strike sending him flying toward a Hulk. The Hulk swatted him toward an Iron Man. The Iron Man blasted him toward Storm. Storm caught him in a concentrated tornado and hurled him toward the Thing. Yes, there was a Thing construct now too. The Thing punched him back toward the Thors.
Each transition took less than a second. They had turned him into a pinball, bouncing between attackers with ruthless efficiency. Max tried to defend, tried to counter, but there were too many of them, attacking from too many angles, working together with impossible coordination.
Doom floated above it all, arms crossed, watching with satisfaction.
"This is what the great Green Lantern amounts to?" Doom's voice carried across the battlefield, amplified by his power. "Doom expected a fight of equals. Doom expected worthiness." He gestured dismissively at Max's battered form as the constructs continued their assault. "What a disappointment."
Max was slammed into the ground again, this time by the Sentry, the Silver Surfer, and the Scarlet Witch working together. Their combined attack drove him so deep the crater had a crater within it.
"You possess mastery of the spectrum," Doom continued, descending slightly, his cape billowing. "You wield the spectrum more easily than any in the multiverse. Yet you squander it. You lack vision. You lack ambition." The orange light around him intensified, the Starheart in his chest pulsing with avarice. "I am the one who deserves your power. Doom is the one who deserves true mastery."
Almost done, Max thought through the pain, through the overwhelming assault. The constructs he was creating out of sight were taking shape.
It was almost done.
No.
It was done.
He grinned.
Max let out a blast of energy outward in all directions, a sphere of pure green willpower that exploded from his position with enough force to level mountains. The Sentry, Silver Surfer, Scarlet Witch, and the others who had surrounded him were blasted away, tumbling through the air.
He got up.
"You know what, Victor?" Max said, green light flooding his body, repairing damage, reforming his armor into something stronger, more refined. "I've been wanting to do this for a while."
His ring blazed.
Constructs appeared above them, descending from the sky.
They had the shape of Superman. Twenty of them, each one possessing the iconic cape and the S-shield on the chest. They glowed with emerald light, but their form was unmistakable, drawn from Max's memories of a hero from another omniverse entirely.
Doom was unphased.
Five of them went after the Sentry, converging on the golden-orange figure with coordinated precision. The rest took on Doom's army—Supermen against Thors, against Hulks, against Iron Men, against all of them.
The Superman constructs moved with great speed and strength. One caught a Thor's Mjolnir mid-swing and punched the construct so hard it shattered into orange fragments that dissipated into nothing. Another flew through three Iron Men in quick succession, each impact destroying them completely. A third grappled with a Hulk, matching strength for strength before delivering a devastating heat vision blast that burned through the construct's core.
The five attacking the Sentry worked in perfect unison, striking from different angles, using their combined strength to overwhelm even that immense power. The Sentry fought back, but against five opponents of equal or greater strength, it was being pushed back, driven down.
Some of Doom's constructs were destroyed easily—the weaker ones, the ones that had been less powerful heroes in life, couldn't stand against the Superman constructs. But the stronger ones—the Thors, the Hulks, the Storms, the Scarlet Witch, the Silver Surfer, and the Sentry—fought to a stalemate, neither side able to gain a decisive advantage.
Max watched with glee as one of his Supermen destroyed one of the Storm constructs.
"Impressive," Doom said, and for the first time there was genuine interest in his voice rather than dismissive arrogance. He studied the Superman constructs with analytical intensity. "What manner of creature have you fashioned, Lantern?"
Max grinned wider, green energy crackling around him. "Oh, you wouldn't know him."
He charged at Doom.
Doom did the same, orange light exploding around him as the Starheart's power surged.
They met in the middle, the collision of willpower and avarice detonating with enough force to flatten everything within a mile.
.
.
.
Fan did not have to do much to defeat the Berserker, as he called himself.
She just needed to wait for an opening.
She dodged his attacks with expert precision, her body flowing like water as the Berserker's adamantium claws swept through empty air where she had been a fraction of a second before. Her training made reading his movements almost trivial.
"Stand still, bitch!" the Berserker snarled, spittle flying from his sharp teeth as he slashed wildly. "Fucking coward! Fight like a real warrior, you cunt!"
Another swipe. Fan leaned back, the claws passing inches from her face.
"What's wrong? Scared?" he taunted. "Fight properly, you cunt."
Fan's expression remained calm.
Some distance away, Vnn was fighting the one called Black Skull.
Fan glanced over, her peripheral vision tracking both fights simultaneously. Vnn was striking at the Black Skull with devastating force, the Starbrand blazing in his chest as each punch released shockwaves that carved trenches in the earth. The Black Skull looked like he was in trouble. His black symbiote writhed defensively around him, barely keeping up with Vnn's savage assault. He clearly had not expected Vnn to possess this much raw power.
Fan knew how to defeat the Black Skull, how to defeat the symbiote that he wore around him. Max had told her and the others its weakness. But first, she needed to kill the raging animal before her.
The Berserker's patience, what little he had, finally snapped completely. He roared, a sound more beast than man, and charged her with adamantium claws fully extended, both hands positioned to disembowel her.
Fan easily countered.
She sidestepped at the last possible moment, so close that the wind from his charge ruffled her hair. As he passed, she pivoted and struck with a chi-enhanced palm strike directly to his spine.
The Berserker was thrown forward, tumbling across the ground. He came up coughing blood, his back visibly damaged.
But even as Fan watched, the wounds healed together with sickening wet sounds. Flesh regenerated. Within seconds, he was whole again.
He grinned widely, blood still staining his teeth, and laughed, a sound of pure malicious joy. "That the best you got, sweetheart?"
Need to be faster then, Fan thought.
She did not hold back anymore.
The power of Shou-Lao blazed around both her hands, golden light so intense it cast harsh shadows across the battlefield. She became a blur of motion, attacking with everything she had learned over her long life.
They fought for ten minutes, neither giving ground, trading strikes that would have killed ordinary warriors a hundred times over.
Fan was impressed, despite herself, by the Berserker's knowledge of martial arts. He was not the mindless animal she had thought him to be. Beneath the rage and the healing factor, there was genuine skill, techniques from dozens of different fighting styles.
They exchanged blows in a deadly dance.
Fan struck with precise chi-enhanced strikes, targeting pressure points, joints, and vulnerable areas. The Berserker countered with vicious claw swipes and grappling techniques designed to bring her into range of his adamantium talons. She used the Celestial Dragon style, flowing around his attacks. He responded with aggressive close combat, accepting damage to deliver his own.
She hit him with the Iron Fist, once, twice, a dozen times. Each blow would have killed a normal man instantly. Each time, he healed and came back for more.
He was learning her patterns, adapting to her style. His attacks became more precise, more calculated. He feinted with one claw and struck with the other. He used his healing factor strategically, accepting injuries to create openings.
The Berserker managed to wound her.
His claws caught her on the side, three parallel gashes that ran from her ribs down to her hip. Blood flowed freely, staining her robes. Pain lanced through her, but Fan did not cry out. She had endured worse. She channeled chi to slow the bleeding, to keep fighting.
But finally, Fan saw an opening.
The Berserker overextended on a particularly vicious slash, his entire body committed to the strike. For just a fraction of a second, his head was undefended.
Fan moved.
She struck with the full power of the Iron Fist, her hand blazing with golden energy as it connected with the Berserker's skull.
His head exploded.
Flesh sprayed in every direction, a grotesque shower of gore and brain matter. The adamantium-laced skeleton of his skull cracked, a hairline fracture running through the supposedly indestructible metal from the sheer force of the strike.
The Berserker's body fell, headless, twitching.
But it was already healing.
Fan could see it happening, flesh beginning to regenerate at the neck stump, new tissue crawling upward like growing vines.
Not this time.
Fan performed a spell, her hands weaving in precise patterns as she channeled mystical energy she had learned from Agamotto. The entire body erupted in golden flames, not normal fire but pure chi made manifest. The flesh burned away, vaporizing instantly, leaving only the metal skeleton behind.
With a gesture, the skeleton rose up, levitating in the air before her.
Fan looked to where Vnn fought the Black Skull.
Vnn was not losing.
He was also not winning.
The Black Skull had the upper hand now. The symbiote had grown, expanded, becoming something monstrous. Tendrils lashed out from every direction, wrapping around Vnn's limbs, his torso, his throat. The Starbrand blazed, trying to burn them away, but more tendrils replaced the ones destroyed.
"A savage like you should not hold such power!" the Black Skull proclaimed, his voice dripping with contempt. "You are an animal, a beast, unworthy of the gifts you possess. But I will take it from you. The Starbrand will serve a superior being, a true inheritor of strength!"
The symbiote was entering inside Vnn.
Black tendrils forced their way into his mouth, his nose, even seeping through his pores. Vnn's eyes widened in panic as he felt the alien organism invading his body. He thrashed and struck at the Black Skull, his massive fists connecting with devastating force, but the attacks had no effect. The symbiote absorbed the impacts, distributed the force, and protected its host perfectly.
Fan, now with pieces of the adamantium skeleton floating around her through telekinetic manipulation, quickly jumped her way over. She moved in great leaps, each one covering dozens of feet.
She landed near the struggling pair and used a spell to arrange the pieces around a confused Black Skull. The adamantium fragments positioned themselves in a perfect circle, hovering in the air at precise intervals.
The Black Skull noticed too late. "What are you—"
With a blast of chi, the adamantium pieces all began chiming, vibrating at a specific frequency. The sound waves resonated, building on each other, creating a concentrated sonic assault that targeted the symbiote directly.
"NOOOOO!" the Black Skull screamed.
The symbiote recoiled as if burned, the black tendrils pulling back from Vnn's body and retreating toward its host. The alien organism writhed in agony, its form destabilizing as the sonic vibrations disrupted its molecular cohesion.
Vnn took the opportunity to strike.
"RRRAAAAAAHHHHHHRRRRRRGHHHHHH!" he roared, pure bestial fury given voice, and his fist blazed with the full power of the Starbrand. The punch connected with the Black Skull's chest, and the Nazi was driven out of the symbiote's protective covering, his body separating from the alien organism as the sonic assault continued to weaken it.
"Vnn! Burn it away!" Fan commanded.
"GRAAAAAAHHHHH!" Vnn roared in acknowledgment.
The Starbrand erupted with its full power, red cosmic fire pouring from Vnn's body in torrents. The flames engulfed the weakened symbiote, and the alien organism shrieked a scream of agony that made both Fan and Vnn wince.
The symbiote burned away. There was nothing left.
They had done it.
Vnn landed next to Fan, breathing hard, his chest heaving from exertion. The Starbrand's glow dimmed slightly as he recovered his strength. Blood ran from wounds where the symbiote had forced its way into his body.
They both looked at the now terrified Black Skull.
Johann Schmidt stood there, no longer protected by the alien being, just a super soldier with a disfigured face. His red eyes were wide with fear, darting between the savage Vnn and the calm Fan.
For the first time in decades, Johann Schmidt felt true terror.
"Wait," he said, backing away, his hands raised.
Vnn roared, the sound shaking the air itself, and jumped.
The Black Skull's scream of fear was high-pitched and pathetic as Vnn descended on him like the wrath of an angry god. "NEIN! NEIN! I CAN H—"
Vnn's fist came down.
The impact was devastating. The Black Skull's body crumpled, bones shattering under the force. Vnn did not stop. He struck again. And again. And again. Each blow pulverizing flesh and bone, each impact driving the Nazi deeper into the cratered earth.
Blood sprayed with each strike. The Black Skull's screams became gurgles as his throat collapsed. His ribs shattered, puncturing lungs. His skull fractured, brain matter leaking through the cracks.
Vnn grabbed what remained of the head and smashed it against the ground repeatedly, roaring his fury with each impact.
Finally, there was nothing left that could even remotely be called human. Just red paste and bone fragments scattered across the battlefield.
"Vnn," Fan said gently. "Stop. He is dead."
Vnn struck one more time, then stopped, his chest heaving, covered in blood and gore, which Fan quickly removed with a spell.
"We must go and help the others," Fan said, looking to the south where she could sense the other battles still raging.
Vnn nodded.
Fan held onto him, her hand gripping his massive neck. Vnn jumped and began flying away to the south, leaving behind the first two casualties of the clash.