Destroy Everything
His Foundation Establishment had ceased. Through victory came confidence.
So, in the sky of codes, a hole was created. The very same hole that Dasha Pang fell through—that the one with Odin's eye was supposed to fall through.
"Scylla…destroy everything—"
A voice echoed. The blood lake trembled. This world between worlds, it was not meant to be. It was a temporary sanctuary to kill the encroaching black speck that dared to corrupt all else.
Now that the speck was engulfed by light, it was time to end it. The sanctuary should live no more.
"Blazing Fury Combo."
In a blinding flash of red light, Dasha surged from the lake. Neither Scylla's tentacles nor her monster heads could react before Dasha's fist connected with a dog head. Yellow and blue shockewaves rippling through Scylla's form, causing her to stagger backwards. She struggled to stay afloat and Dasha pressed his advantage, unleashing a relentless barrage of attacks against her.
They were all skills. Blazing Fury Combo, Thunder Clap, Fury Kick, everything. A beat-down that lasted for minutes.
Tentacles tried to lash out and stop him. They failed. In his head, he had calculated everything. Every possible movement. He dodged.
Dasha was untouchable.
Bam! Bam!
He flipped onto a tentacle, both hands pressed to the flesh and burning it as he activated Thunderclap. He bounced off with a second and more stronger Thunderclap that stunned the monster. The shock and consequent gap led into a brutal combo to her main face.
"Blazing Fury Combo."
Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! BAM!
The flames left behind black burnt holes. Scylla grew slower and slower. Damage was accumulating.
So was power. So was magic. If his instincts were correct, Scylla had a second evolution or a trick. A trump card that would turn the tides.
Dasha refused to let that happen.
'It's time to end this...!'
Dasha summoned all the Qi he had left and decided to channel it into one last attack. Everything he could muster.
The black gauntlets of Thor were no longer Thor's. They were Dasha's. He hit a wall with his Qi build-up, struggled, and then broke through the wall. This was no time to be weak. This was no time to succumb to the restrictions set by his own weapon.
Everything.
Everything.
Time came to a stop.
This was everything he could muster. His flesh burned while his gauntlets hummed with satisfaction. Scylla was screaming and ready to counter.
So was Dasha. This first wall, he had broken it. He had finally taken the first step into godhood. Qi swelled in his gauntlets and did not stop. This was not absorption, this was amplification. This was Dasha's soul, mind, and Qi becoming one.
Destroy everything.
"Thunderclap!"
Yellow and blue lightning exploded.
The Eitr-forged gauntlets were from a time of Old Norse. Its strength derived from it, shaped from it. Járngreipr was not Mjölnir. It did not create, it amplified. This yellow and blue, however...this was not Dasha. This was the System and the lingering imprint of Thor.
That was not right.
Glimpses of the black leaked, but just as quickly as it appeared, it would disappear.
Not today. Not anymore.
He knew Old Norse. Langauge was a mediator for the soul and mind. A magic that brought connection between people, object, or anything within reality. It was why incantations were used with such effectiveness. Speaking Old Norse would connect with the gauntlets deeply. Not because it was the same langauge as Thor's but because it was its origins; because it was being spoken to.
Dasha was not Thor and the gauntlets knew that now.
His hands pressed deeper into the flesh of Scylla, fighting and burning. The yellow-blue lightning turned pitch black.
"Eyða," Dasha echoed.
Lay waste.
Destroy everything.
A burst of total black enveloped the world.
...
...
...
When Dasha opened his eyes, he stood on one knee and stared up at the monster.
Scylla could not shriek. There was no head to shriek with. No hydras to fight with. She was gone, dead. The monster's corpse writhed and twisted until it collapsed. Slowly, blood-lake swallowed her weight whole.
[ Error! You defeated Boss: Scylla! ]
[ Receive:
14,426,113 XP ]
[ Level up! ]
[ Level up! ]
[ Level up! ]
[ Level up! ]
[ Level up! ]
[ Level up! ]
A potential second wind? An evolution? An ultimate attack? Dasha denied the creature of that. A creature that no player should have been capable of slaying. A creature that was to be avoided as said by the great Odysseus. Dasha Pang did not care for such things. The impossible would always be made possible by him.
Dasha Pang remained on a victorious knee, his lungs choking. 'Rocky Chin grants increased defence for the upper body. I used my mask to take the brunt of both blasts.'
He felt a sharp pain coursing through his head. Instinctively, he reached up to touch his mask. Instead, his fingers came into contact with burned flesh. His mask broke from the top-left in a jagged half-circle, exposing his eye.
"I appreciate your creation, Thales of Miletus. I will take this understanding and pain with me."
Drip!
'What was that?'His Qi Sense was failing to work. The same could be said for his eyes and ears. Black crackled along his gauntlets. He overexerted himself. He couldn't even stand up.
Drip!
Something else dripped into the lake. He squinted as the dark substance broke apart in the blood lake. 'Soil?' he thought. Dasha looked up and saw the hole in the sky closing. That must have been the hole that he came from.
It was closing inch by inch. Slow and gradual but inevitable. He inhaled sharply. By levelling up, he managed to regain some control of his muscles and Qi. He forced himself up, wincing as the black electricity crawled up him arm.
He ignored the sensation, walking back and eyeing the hole, and then dashed forward. He ended his run with an Electro-step jump and blasted toward the sky. Black electricity crawled all over him. Twenty feet, thirty feet, forty feet, fifty feet—
He made it.
Upon entering the hole, the world went black. In the midst of that blackness, he heard a voice.
"God…is so lonely."
In that voice, he saw a vision. In the light of the vision, Dasha could make out the form of a man lying on the bed. Despite the shadows that obscured his features, the man's stature was impressive. His broad shoulders and muscular frame took up the bed he lay on. Long, flowing black hair covered his face and reached his elbows.
He was…impossible. No human could be so large.
Like a mantra, the giant repeated: "God is lonely. God is lonely."
His mutterings grew more frenzied, his voice rising to a fever pitch as he repeated the words "God is lonely" over and over again. His hands clenched and unclenched, grasping desperately at the air as if trying to hold onto something intangible.
Dasha's gaze fell upon a massive stone tablet on the table beside the giant. The tablet was stacked upon five other tablets and absolutely full of writing. Paragraphs that stretched on forever. It didn't make sense. Just how massive was the stone tablet? Ten feet long, maybe? That was the only logical explanation. This dream, this reality, it was as though it belonged to giants.
The top stone tablet was written in a style identical to Hebrew and Ge'ez. Dasha couldn't read it. But as light began to spread from the corners of his vision, he burned the stone tablet into his mind. He had to remember.
"God is lonely," the giant man continued to mutter, "and I…I am the solution."