[A/N]: A double length release for this epic chapter. Hope you guys like it!
[Third Person POV]
There is a fundamental limit to the human vessel.
When a mind is pushed past the brink of sanity, it snaps. But when a physical body is commanded to bypass the very laws of biology, it does not snap.
It burns.
"IT'S TIME TO GO ALL FUCKING IN!"
John's feral scream was lost in the sonic boom of his own acceleration.
Reality seemed to snap around him as Limit Break completely removed any restrictions of Ability slots from his soul.
His muscles screamed in agonizing protest, instantly tearing and knitting back together as an ocean of raw power flooded his veins as a mental timer started.
4 Minutes 11 seconds remain.
He triggered Zero Gravity and Wind Flight simultaneously, reducing his mass to nothing while turning himself into a frictionless projectile.
A shockwave shattered the remaining concrete of the reactor floor as John launched forward. By now, all that was left of the building was ruins.
White-hot Steam Emission hissed from his pores only to be instantly vaporized by the crackling blue Arc lightning racing across his skin. Cat Form and Impulse warped his half-feline neural pathways, granting him the predatory agility and hair-trigger reflexes required to fight a god.
Blade Master operating at its absolute peak as two shimmering, ultra-dense blades of pure energy erupted from his forearms.
Conquest swung a lazy backhand, expecting to swat the boy down again, but John twisted mid-air with impossible grace, his energy blade carving a glowing, cauterized trench across the old Viltrumite's chest.
Before Conquest could even register the hit, John was already behind him, delivering a lightning-infused heel kick to the back of his neck, sending visible arcs of electricity crackling across the Viltrumite's spine, then spinning to slash at his knees.
John had become a blur of steam, lightning, and razor-sharp light.
It was a beautiful dance of violence and blood.
But it wasn't enough. It was never going to be enough.
Conquest did not falter, fueled by the sheer enjoyment of the massacre; he more than welcomed the sudden rise in intensity.
John, however, was bleeding assets.
Greedy Healing kept him in the fight, draining his vast, billion-dollar fortune at a terrifying rate.
Every time Conquest's knuckles grazed him, fracturing his collarbone or tearing away chunks of flesh, a golden light washed over John, knitting him back together at the cost of the heap of gold stored back in the castle.
The healing was instantaneous, but the pain remained. It was a mind-numbing agony of constantly being ripped apart and put back together.
The Lucky Strike he had activated was the only thing preventing decapitation, subtly nudging Conquest's killing blows millimeters off course, but luck, like money, eventually runs dry.
After a brutal exchange, the two separated.
Conquest was smiling. The old warrior touched the glowing slash on his chest, smearing his own blood across his lips.
"Is this it?!" Conquest laughed, a deep, booming sound that rattled John's teeth. "Is this the limit of your little parlor tricks?!"
John swung again, but Conquest's hand shot out, catching the energy blade bare-handed. The Viltrumite's flesh sizzled, but his grip didn't loosen. He simply pulled John in close, driving a knee into the boy's stomach with enough force to liquefy organs.
John choked on his own blood as his funds plummeted by another eight million just to keep his spine intact and prevent his liver from becoming soup.
Conquest leaned in close, his one good eye staring straight through John. The manic battle-lust in his expression suddenly fractured, revealing a gaping emptiness. When he spoke, it wasn't a roar, but a desperate hiss meant only for the dying boy.
"Pay Attention little sorcerer! You said my name earlier. Conquest. But I do not remember telling you. Did you read my mind with your meager abilities? Then maybe you can see! Peek into my mind again and you will see that I…am so lonely. All the other Viltrumites are scared of me. No one talks to me. No one wants to be my friend--They think I am unstable.
Conquest. I don't even get a real name, only a purpose. I am capable of so much more, and no one sees it. Some days I feel so alone I could cry, but I don't. I never do. What would be the point? Not a single person in the entire universe would care. Take it to your grave. Boy."
For a moment, there was nothing but the sound the of the wind whistling, as John remained silent..
And then, a tiny, digital chime echoed in his ear.
"Shiiip!"
On his cracked HUD, the Speaker Symbol lit up in a brilliant neon green.
John coughed up a clot of blood, with a bloody grin spreading across his face, not acknowledging what Conquest had said. "Huh... did you finally narrow the frequency down? Good job, boy!"
From the shoulder pads of his heavily damaged Mechamorph suit, an array of black-and-green speakers popped out.
The sound that erupted wasn't something John could hear, but the effect on the Viltrumite was instantaneous.
It was a hyper-specific frequency perfectly tuned to the equilibrium of a Viltrumite's inner ear.
Conquest froze.
The smug, blood-soaked grin slid off his face, replaced by a look of unadulterated agony.
He dropped John, both hands slamming over his ears as he let out a bloodcurdling scream. The seemingly invincible warrior suddenly lost all motor function as his equilibrium shattered.
He plummeted from the sky like a meteor, crashing down into the remnants of Chicago.
CRASH.
The impact cratered the ground, swallowing an entire city block in a tidal wave of shattered asphalt and dust.
John didn't let up and dove after the crazed Viltrumite, rerouting the suit's remaining power to spawn even more speakers, bathing the crater in the debilitating sonic assault, aiming to liquefy Conquest's brain outright.
But Conquest was not the oldest enforcer of the Viltrum Empire for nothing.
Through the settling dust, John saw a gruesome sight fitting for a nightmare.
Conquest was on his knees, screaming. Blood poured from his nose and eyes, coating his teeth, but his blood-coated teeth were borne in a horrific smile
Slowly and deliberately, Conquest raised his hands, folding his fingers into rigid claws and without a moment of hesitation, drove them straight into his own ear canals.
With a sickening, wet tearing sound that echoed even over the sonic blast, Conquest ripped his own eardrums out, mangling his inner ears completely. Thick globs of blood and shredded tissue sprayed from the wounds as he tore through cartilage and membrane.
He pulled his bloody fingers out, flicking the ruined tissue away, as blood poured down his neck.
The sonic attack was now useless.
"Finally... some excitement!" Conquest roared, though he couldn't hear his own voice, his eyes locked onto John with feral intensity. "Though I commend you for showing me a weakness in this perfect Viltrumite body... as a gratitude, I'll kill you with all my strength!"
Conquest's unhinged, crippled mind had narrowed down to a single goal:
'Kill the kid… no threat to the Empire! And enjoy every second of the slaughter.'
He moved faster than John's Cat Form could track, faster than even Impulse could compensate for.
A fist shattered the suit's plate, punching clean through John's heart and John felt his blood pressure drop to nothing in an instant.
A sweeping kick crushed his skull next, the impact so violent it turned his brain to pulp, grey matter leaking from his ears and nose.
John's assets were hemorrhaging money at an obscene rate, burning away tens of millions per second to keep his flesh stitched together while Conquest methodically tore him apart.
John was screaming, drowning in a sea of pain.
But Ship, sensing the certainty of his master's death, made a choice.
"Shiiip!"
The black and green sludge peeled off John's chest, leaving the boy exposed. The Mechamorph shot forward, latching onto Conquest's prosthetic gauntlet.
In a desperate bid, Ship hijacked the Viltrumite's own arm, completely encasing it in green and black nanites, forcing the massive metal fist to smash repeatedly into Conquest's own face, buying John a precious, bloody moment to crawl away.
John turned to one of previous rolls, desperate to do anything substantial.
With Limit Break still burning his cells, John forced another Mind Blast.
But what he saw next stopped his heart again.
Conquest didn't even blink at the mental intrusion. Annoyed by his own rebellious arm, the Viltrumite raised his good hand to brutally tear his own prosthetic apart. Then, with a manic laugh, he brought the mangled pieces of the gauntlet to his mouth and bit down.
He used his teeth to tear the struggling Mechamorph apart.
"SHIIIIIIIIPPPP!!" the poor creature shrieked, its digital voice distorting into a pitch of agony as Conquest bit down, tearing the brave little pet apart.
"No!" John roared.
Pushing all his abilities to the absolute brink, he launched himself at Conquest, hitting the distracted Viltrumite with enough kinetic force to send him tumbling backward through three crumbling skyscrapers.
"Ship!" John cried out, sliding to his knees as he scooped the bubbling, sparking sludge into his arms. The green circuitry grew dangerously dull, flickering faintly.
The poor boy was alive, but barely.
'Master!' Nakime's voice suddenly rang in his mind, still panicked but resolute. He felt a sudden weight materialize in his Item Storage. 'Please use this to end the threat!'
John pulled the object out. It was a massive Japanese broadsword.
The blade was a menacing, mottled grey and deeply scarred as if forged from tempered sacrifice, contrasting sharply with the distinct tuft of pure white fur wrapping the base of the hilt.
[Split Soul Katana]
|Epic Item|
JJK - A powerful cursed tool in the form of a large Japanese Broadsword. This sword is capable of cutting through all physical matter by ignoring durability to strike at the soul directly, inflicting wounds that cannot be healed by normal means.
"How?" John whispered, his voice trembling as he gripped the hilt.
'It was your gift from our very first date…' Nakime's voice echoed softly. 'Go, John. Give him hell.'
John stood up. The boom of crumbling buildings echoed through the ruined city as a massive trail of dust signaled Conquest's return.
11 seconds remain.
"Why... why?" John muttered, tears of frustration mixing with the blood caking on his face.
He looked at the mangled corpses. Blood and body parts littered the ruined streets of Chicago. "Why do you have to be so cruel?"
Ship's remnants merged with him one last time, despite John's hesitation. The weak, torn-apart sludge could only manage to form a compress bodysuit and a pair of heavily armoured, green-and-black gloves over John's hands, securing his grip on the katana.
10 seconds remain.
"You are so powerful... You have so much! So why bully the weak?!"
Conquest burst from the rubble, covered in his own blood, significantly weaker and deaf, but flying straight toward John like a missile of pure carnage.
John shifted his feet, raising the heavy broadsword high above his head, slipping into a flawless Jōdan-no-Kamae. The stance of someone ready to bring judgment down from above.
9 seconds remain.
He screamed, projecting his voice as loud as his torn throat would allow, pouring every ounce of his grief into the words. "Is your ego so weak?! Is your mind so distorted that you find enjoyment only in violence?!"
Conquest closed the distance, seeing John's lips moving.
"I CAN'T HEAR YOU, KID!" Conquest roared back, his eyes wide with manic glee. "I TORE MY EARS OUT, REMEMBER?!"
8 seconds remain.
John swung the katana in a beautiful downward arc.
Conquest, whose instincts were honed by thousands of years of life-and-death battles across the galaxy, sensed an unnatural, terrifying danger from the blade. He twisted his body at the last microsecond.
The blade missed his torso, but passed cleanly through the remaining stump of his severed arm.
There was no resistance, as if the Viltrumite's invulnerable flesh wasn't even there.
But an instant later, Conquest's eyes widened in horror. The phantom pain of the limb being severed flared up in his mind, a deep, spiritual agony that Viltrumite smart atoms couldn't heal, let alone begin to comprehend.
"How?" Conquest muttered, stumbling as he landed harshly.
7 seconds remain.
Refusing to let his frustration go unheard, John used Project Image, flashing his words into the air in massive, glowing text directly in front of Conquest's face.
Conquest scoffed, spitting blood at the words. "It's the birthright of the strong to trample on the weak!"
He lunged, looking to deliver a brutal hook. John dodged, but he wasn't fast enough. Conquest's fist grazed him, effortlessly carving a massive chunk of flesh and bone right out of John's waist.
"You spout this noble bullshit, tell me?!" Conquest yelled, a mad smile on his face as John staggered. "Show me a strong man putting himself on the line for someone weaker, and I'll show you a Viltrumite child smiling!"
6 seconds remain.
Instead of screaming from the fatal wound, John raised his katana, simultaneously triggered his saved Emperor Card and a maximum-output Mind Blast.
Conquest suddenly shrieked, clutching his head as an unbearable, crushing psychic pressure slammed into his already unstable mind like a sledgehammer.
"AHHHHH!!!"
5 seconds remain.
John used Project Image one last time, projecting a video on a massive, floating screen right in front of the screaming Viltrumite.
It was a clip of the noblest of all heroes, the ultimate antithesis to Viltrumite Philosophy.
The man who wasn't defined by his strength, but by his gentleness.
It was Superman.
The clip showed the Man of Steel using his god-like strength not to conquer, but to catch a falling meteor, saving the terrified people beneath it.
It showed him smiling warmly as he saved humans of all shapes and sizes, even carefully rescuing the tiniest of creatures, like a squirrel.
"THIS IS WHAT IT MEANS TO BE STRONG!" John roared, his voice breaking. "To not just lift planets, but to be strong enough to help others!"
4 seconds remain.
The image shifted, zooming out to reveal the core of the greatest hero's motivation. It showed the Man of Steel from behind, his iconic red cape fluttering in the vacuum of space. He floated high above a beautifully vibrant, blue and green Earth, looking down at the entire world as its guardian, with a single, simple speech bubble hovering beside him:
"I LOVE YOU."
[Image Here]
For the first time in his millennia-long life spanning countless conquests and slaughters, Conquest paused.
The contradiction of everything he had been taught, everything his Empire stood for, was staring right at him. He was distracted by the psychic pain tearing through his mind, by his missing stump, by the baffling concept that strength could be used for something other than… conquest.
And that was the only opening John needed.
John swung the Split Soul Katana with everything he had left, slicing straight through the holographic projection of Superman and carving the blade directly across Conquest's face, perfectly tracing the jagged, hideous scar that already marked the Viltrumite's head.
"FUCK OFF, YOU GERIATRIC CREEP!"
3 seconds remain.
Conquest let out a horrific, gurgling scream of unimaginable pain. He desperately slapped his remaining hand to his face, physically holding his own head together to prevent half of his skull from sliding off.
He flew backwards, eyes wide with a brand-new emotion he'd never felt in thousands of years.
Fear.
The pain wasn't physical. No, He was trained for physical pain. He welcomed it, craved it, lived for it.
This was new and entirely wrong. The sword hadn't cut only his flesh… it had severed something inside him that was never meant to be touched.
It had severed a chunk of his soul.
2 seconds remain.
John stood his ground, the katana falling from his grip as Ship's remnants on his hands shifted, merging into a single, heavy cannon barrel.
John channeled every single drop of his remaining energy, his remaining cash, his very life force, into the gauntlet.
"GET THE FUCK OFF MY PLANET!"
The cannon fired, and a blinding pillar of pure energy struck the terrified Conquest point-blank, blasting the old Viltrumite backwards, launching his broken body straight up into the stratosphere.
1 second remains.
The energy faded as every last one of John's assets disappeared in motes of light.
The adrenaline evaporated, leaving only the cold, crushing reality of his destroyed body. He was missing half his waist, internal organs spilling from the gaping wound onto the ground.
The pain, held at bay by adrenaline and sheer will, finally caught up to his brain.
"Not a bad deal... actually..." John muttered, a faint, bloody smile crossing his lips.
His eyes rolling back as he fell face-first onto the shattered concrete, a sickening splat echoed in the silent ruins.
0 seconds remain.
The armored gauntlets dissolved as Ship transformed back into a tiny, tattered puddle of green sludge. The little Mechamorph crawled painfully toward John's face, leaving a trail of leaking nanites. It nudged his cold cheek with what remained of its form.
"Ship... ship..." it whined, trying desperately to wake him up.
A glowing blue screen materialized above the boy's head.
[Feat Achieved! Die in the line of battle]
[Reward: +1x Legendary Random Gacha Ticket]
[A/N]:To celebrate finishing ARC-1, I'm also putting a 50% DISCOUNT ACROSS ALL TIERS until June 1st.
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