Chapter 162: Defeat
The living mountain tore through the world like an almighty god, towering over the sea of vessels and Erebus Field.
A stone giant with three mighty arms capable of smiting down its enemies...
The stone titan was not a god, but it was the fragment of an unholy god, defeated by a sinister whisper eons ago.
Hugo felt his consciousness shift and transform, becoming something inhuman and abominable.
The imprint of Goliath was not like any regular creature, instead it was a minor shard of the stone titan forced into the path of ascension by the Omnitrix.
That however did not stop his flaw from twisting his mind and making it like that of the original Goliath, though far less insane.
While Goliath had been a fallen Titan who sought to consume the people of Antarctica, Hugo was an Ascended Titan who sought to eradicate all corruption in Antarctica.
Looking down at Malware, he saw the corrupted terror using his arm canon, gathering crimson soul essence at its top and then....
BOOM!
a wave of malevolent energy tore through the night sky, heading for Hugo, who was now a towering mountain.
He could not dodge it, so he did the next best thing.
His one white eye slid open to reveal a scorching ocean of magma. The magma quickly condensed and shot towards the red blast, clashing with it and creating a terrifying explosion that sent shock waves through the sky.
The clouds parted away revealing the night's sky, and as it did, the land beneath the clash of blasts melted and tore from the pressure and heat until the blast suddenly stopped.
They had not stopped because the two creatures unleashing them were out of essence but instead, because the amalgamation of their blasts had created an explosion that canceled their attacks.
Hugo's stone like body recoiled from the impact of the blast and closed his eye, having consumed too much of its magma.
His stone body generated magma by converting soul essence into magma through a unique mechanism present in the chest and head area, so he could not expand it recklessly.
Malware seemed slightly damaged by the blast, however he did not retreat nor did he unleash another blast.
Instead, he suddenly began growing.
Malware's body was malleable and was not limited to one shape, such was the nature of all galvanic mechamorphs.
And so, he expanded his body, until he reached the size of Hugo.
He could have likely made himself bigger but he chose to make it equal for some sort of warped pleasure in his corrupted mind.
Perhaps he wanted to prove himself worthy of the Omnitrix, and equal to it, or perhaps he just wanted to torment Hugo.
No matter, Malware took a step, then another, making the land shake at his wake.
Hugo did the same and engaged the terror in a brutal, calamitous battle.
The people Within Erebus Field, in the midst of evacuating, looked up in horror to see two gigantic gods fighting outside of the city.
Neither Hugo or Malware were a deity, however to the mundane and Awakened people, they might've as well been gods.
Hugo had the upper hand, literally, as his current form possessed three mighty stone hands, unlike Malware who only possessed two.
Two of his arms clashed with Malware's liquid like arms, locking them in place while the third smashed the terror's head in repeatedly, breaking his flesh and forcing the abomination to reconstruct it.
While Malware was capable of regeneration, he could not maintain it for long. After all, even though he was a corrupted terror, he did not possess an endless well of soul essence.
From Malware's shoulders, seven tentacles of darkness and crimson emerged and latched into Hugo's stone like body.
The tentacles tried to cut his skin but were unable to thanks to his immense durability...however, Malware had the ability to assimilate lifeforms, and the dark liquid still spread throughout his mighty body.
In response to this, Hugo simply used the magma inside of him internally, overheating his body and burning off the tentacles, causing them to writhe in pain and retract.
The stone titan transformation was not as versatile as the rest of his forms. It neither possessed a tyrant, or terror ability and neither could it be used in any other class besides the titan one.
It had three simple abilities. Overwhelming strength, nearly invulnerable defense and the magma heat mechanism inside of it.
Malware broke off the lock, shapeshifted his arm into a sharp blade, and used it to stab Hugo's head.
The abomination aimed for the single white eye, recognizing the fact that it was not as indestructible as the rest of his body was.
'This wretch... Does it think it could Pierce my skin, which is the skin of the stone titan?'
The dark and long blade was caught by Hugo's third arm and then, a devastating uppercut found its way to Malware's jaw, sending the terror into a daze.
Hugo grabbed Malware by the neck and wrestled with it, ferociously attempting to trip it off.
If he had been himself, he would have said something along the lines of 'the bigger they are the harder they fall'.
Malware's body fell into the ground and caused a massive impact on it, making a mountain size crater.
Before the terror could do anything, Hugo's white eye slid open once again and as if the gates of hell themselves were unleashed, fire consumed Malware's vision, melting his flesh away like clay.
Hugo did not stop there, instead he lowered his third arm to its chest and drove it deep, trying to find its soul cores. He tore it open viciously and found something...
It was not the six cores of revolting corruption but instead... A human.
A human child, no older than seven, engulfed in tendrils...
The little girl was serving as the main vessel of Malware, and so the corrupted terror was manifesting itself through her, making the child Malware's core.
If he kills her right now, Malware would lose its main vessel and he would be able to annihilate the rest which would stop him from manifesting once again.
All he needed to do was squash the little creature...
'No...'
Even though his mind and spirit had been deluded by his current form, Hugo's original self was not gone, and he would never do something like harm a little kid.
That was his first mistake.
His second mistake was taking too long to act.
Malware's chest knit itself closed and at the same time, more tentacles formed from him and pierced the insides of Hugo's eye, withstanding the heat.
Hugo felt pain unlike any other seep into his body as the tentacles were suddenly inside of him, rearranging his insides and wounding them.
Malware tried to reach the source of his being, his seven radiant soul cores, and take over him.
The Omnitrix did not detect Malware as a malicious entity, likely due to the nature of a galvanic mechamorph, so if Hugo's soul was breached, it would be the end.
Barely moving from the pain, he barely managed to slam his Omnitrix and change forms last moment.
His stone flesh retracted and became scales, at the same time torso size shrunk a little and sprouted wings.
A magnificent green dragon emerged from where the stone titan was and rose to the grounds, escaping Malware's grasp.
Hugo snorted and then, his eyes were consumed by white fire as he activated the elemental power of this imprint, specifically choosing the divine flames he had received from Nephis months ago.
His scales became white and his body was engulfed in white fire, and his terrible wings became miniature suns in of themselves.
From his maw, white fire exploded downward burning Malware alive and forcing the creature to retreat.
Hugo flew upward and looked at the scene downward with wary eyes.
'This is bad...'
From here, he could see that the city was not yet evacuated.
In fact, they were having a lot of trouble evacuating all of those people, and more importantly their catastrophic battle was making everyone, including the soldiers, fall into a mad frenzy. There was no order anymore, just instinctual fear that made everyone run for their lives.
They needed more time, and Hugo was struggling to hold off the abomination.
He already spent an entire core worth of soul essence when he fused XLR8 and Fasttrack and he spent even more as the stone titan and the dragon....
But that wasn't his real concern right now.
Hugo could still fight even if his omni-cores lose all of their essence and all of their light. Even if they were destroyed, Hugo would still fight until his dying breath.
What concerned him more was the innocents that Malware was using as vessels...
He could not bring himself to end someone but at the grand schemes of things, was the life of one person more important than an entire city?
The answer made him uncomfortable, so he did not think about it.
All he needed to do now was hold back Malware.
Malware looked up at the white dragon, still burning from its divine flames. The scene was oddly biblical, as if a mighty angel was facing a horrifying devil from the depths of hell.
The devil was never honest, and he never revealed his full hand until the very end.
Malware was one such devil.
Far away, in the army of infected humans, six people stepped forward.
They were people of various genders, size and age. Some were Awakened, some were mundane, but there was nothing extraordinary about them.
That was the case, until vicious dark liquid appeared from the deepest parts of their beings, pouring out like water.
Their size grew as well, growing to resemble Malware, and after that, it grew even further.
Hugo's draconic eyes widened in shock and fear as he recognized what Malware had done...
Beneath him, instead of one gargantuan Titan, there was now seven of them, each and every one of them sharing the exact same appearance.
And why wouldn't they? After they were all an incarnation of the same entity... of Malware.
'No...'
Hugo was not religious, he has never been. But for the first time in his life, he suddenly felt the urge to pray.