The moment they clashed, the air exploded as they were all blasted back.
Max regained his bearings first.
With his superior speed, he vanished like a blur and appeared beside the closest Doomsday, his fist already buried deep in its abdomen.
The ground buckled beneath them before exploading.
The Doomsday was sent flying toward the sky.
Two more came in from the sides, both throwing punches.
Max leaned back slightly, grabbed each of their arms, and pulled them toward each other.
Their heads slammed together with bone-shaking force.
He pulled them apart,then executed a split kick, sending them flying in opposite directions, their necks nearly snapping from the impact.
The last one charged.
Max jumped and delivered a powerful axe kick, forcing its head into the ground.
He used it as a springboard and launched himself after the Doomsday he had sent flying earlier.
All of this happened in less than a second.
Max reached it mid-air, where it was still disoriented. He clapped his hands together, pulled them back, then brought them down hard onto its chest.
Bang.
It was sent crashing toward the ground, slamming into its brethren below.
Max was about to start spamming ki blasts but the two Doomsdays he had kicked away came rushing out of the dust.
He abandoned the idea.Instead, he went with something he had been thinking about for the past month.
He let gravity pull him down,clenching his fists and muttered.
"Sekizō."
Before punching downwards at the two approaching Doomsdays.
A cylindrical column of compressed air formed from the force of his strike and barraled towards the two Doomsdays.
They resisted for a moment untill the pressure became too much and overwhelmed them.
It carried then towards the ground where they slammed against the others,the impact shaking the ground for miles.
The ground caved in where the four Doomsday had been driven, sinking tens of meters deep into the earth. But Max wasn't finished.
"First step… second step… third step… fourth step… fight step," he muttered, raining punch after punch. Each strike compressed the air into violent blasts, hammering the ground and stacking over one another in rapid succession, drilling further into the pit bit by bit.
Finally, he stopped. Dust hung thick in the air. With a swing of his arm, a powerful gust blew it away, revealing a pit so deep that light couldn't reach the bottom. Max hovered above, eyes closed, activating his Haki to confirm whether they were truly gone.
When he opened them, the glow from the bottom told him the truth,they were still alive.
Allowing gravity to claim him, Max began falling into the pit. On the way down, he clasped his hands together, compressing the air as hard as he could. Sparks leapt from between his palms, and by the time he reached the bottom, a small sun crackling with lightning had formed between his hands. There, he saw the three surviving Doomsday, beginning to adapt once more.
Not for long.
Max pulled his arm back.
"Hirudora!" he shouted.
Instead of his usual air blast, a massive construct of compressed plasma,a tiger-shaped colossus,surged forward, lighting up the pit. When it detonated, the explosion ripped upward with incomprehensible force.
On the surface, there was a brief, stunned silence… and then the ground erupted in a devastating explosion.
Rocks and soil blasted into the sky, then rained back down. The shockwave that traveled through the ground caused a localized earthquake that shook Starling City, even though it was tens of kilometers away.
When the dust finally settled, Max stood at the center of a massive crater nearly a hundred meters in diameter. Pools of red lava dotted the ground, and ash drifted down from above.
There was no Doomsday in sight they had been vaporized to dust.
Max's shirt was gone, torn to pieces, and his pants had been reduced to ragged shorts,the seventh gate still open. He stood there, breathing steadily as the heat from the crater rose around him.
Now he understood.
Why Might Guy never used Hirudora with the Eighth Gate.
It was too powerful and not in a good way.
Unlike Night Guy, which was a single, focused attack, Hirudora was an area-of-effect technique. At that level, it didn't just damage the target,it damaged everything equally, including the user.
It was slower too.
Against a fast opponent like Juubidara it would be easy to escape its range.
And most of its energy was wasted on the surroundings as heat and shockwaves,the draw-backs are too apparent.
But that wasn't the main focus right now.
What mattered,was the silver ring now resting on his finger.
It was none other than the Time Ring, which he had received just seconds ago after reaching 25% on his Goku Black template.
---
Name:Max Schiller
Current Template: Goku Black [25.64%]
Completed Templates:Madara Uchiha,Wolverine,Monkey D.Garp
Obtained Items: Madara's Sengoku Armor, Gunbai Uchiwa+Scythe,Garp's Marine Haori,Time ring.
He had expected to get the ring at least at 40%. After all, he needed to reach 55% on Monkey D. Garp's template just to get the haori.
So getting it this early?
That was fine too.
Shaking off the thought, Max reached into his system space and pulled out a fresh turtleneck, along with black pants and dark boots. He quickly removed his torn clothes and changed.
He couldn't afford to show up in public half-naked.
His reputation was already bad enough.
He was a notorious criminal,he didn't need a public indecency charge added on top of that.
Because he still had to check on Superman.
Make sure he didn't die today who was fighting Doomsday in the city.
They might have their differences, but Max didn't hate the man.
And he would need him for what was coming next.
Max exhaled, then deactivated the Seventh Gate.
The aura around him faded.Without another word, he blasted into the sky,shattering the sound barrier as he took off.
--------
Meanwhile, on the outskirts of Metropolis.
The small town was in ruins.
If it hadn't been for Cyborg evacuating the civilians before the fight escalated, the casualties would have been in the thousands by now.
Even now, what had started as a one-sided fight had dragged on far too long.
At the center of it all stood a single Doomsday.
The ground beneath it had long since turned to molten slag from the constant barrage,green energy blasts from Green Lantern, heat vision from Martian Manhunter, and the white noise cannon from Cyborg.
All of it hit Doomsday in a continuous wave, pinning it down.
Around it,the Flash darted in and out, striking its back at high speed. Hawkman swooped down occasionally, smashing into it with his mace, while Batman added explosive Batarangs into the mix.
The attacks came from from every angle in an overwhelming wave.
"Keep him pinned!" Batman shouted.
Doomsday stopped trying to advance.
Instead, it raised its arms and covered its head, bracing against the storm of attacks.
Then,Its body began to glow.
Lightning arced across its frame.
"Shit… it's about to evolve again!" Hal Jordan cursed. "Don't let it!"
They all pushed harder to interrupt the process but it only made things worse.
The glow around his body intensified as Doomsday roared as he was on the verge of detonating.
When sonic boom tore through the battlefield.
Before anyone could react,a blur slammed into Doomsday.
Boom!
Doomsday driven straight into the ground, the impact sending a shockwave outward that blasted the heroes off their feet and leveled what little remained of the town.
The blur dragged Doomsday across the ground,Then shot toward the mountains beyond the forest.
Taking it away from the battlefield.
End of Chapter.
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