[Third Person POV]
There was an undeniable mathematics to the human psyche.
Ever since John had been dragged into this reality of space fascists and cursed monsters, he had been subjected to a relentless barrage of trauma. It was one catastrophic event after another.
His existence had been a restless exercise in subtraction.
Imagine an eighteen-year-old pampered kid dying from a pathetic addiction in his previous life, only to be thrust into this grim world where false gods walk the earth.
You subtract his safety. You subtract his peace of mind. And you finally surprise his sense of self by forcing him into withdrawals for his addictions.
A human mind, having gone through so much physical and emotional devastation, was bound to break. Fortunately, John had his familiars. He had Naki's unwavering devotion. He had Sebas's stoic guidance.
But then, he watched Sebas sacrifice himself tragically to a beast of unimaginable power.
These kinds of trauma do not just disappear. They sit there, festering down in the dark, piled up in layers, compacting under its own weight, fraying rope holding a fragile sanity together. And when a mind has no more bandwidth for stress, that rope is destined to snap.
John's thread snapped after so much anguish. when Conquest smiled.
There was a montary blankness in John's mind. A deep, suffocating frustration he had been hiding since Sebas's death that finally reached its tipping point.
But before his brain could even process the command to move, Conquest blitzed.
It did not even look like movent. It looked like the universe deleted the space between them as the old Viltrumite's prosthetic gauntlet launched forward, aiming directly for John's chest.
Before the blow could land, Naki surprisingly appeared before John. She did not hesitate and placed her own body between her master and certain death.
The impact was catastrophic.
Conquest's fist punched clean through her torso with a wet, aty tear. Flesh separated from flesh as bone shattered into fragnts.
The force sent the lower half of the demoness's body hurling backwards, tumbling through the air in a spray of arterial red, and smashed into Mauler II with enough force to fold the clone in half. Mauler II's ribcage caved inward with a nasty CRUNCH. His body wrapped around Naki's legs like a broken action figure and the two of them cratered into the dirt twenty yards away
John barely caught Naki's upper half. The residual montum dragged him backwards, his boots carving deep trenches into the grass from the friction.
It all happened in less than a split second and when John ca to, his heart stopped completely.
He dropped to his knees, with hands soaked in her blood. He called out to her.
His voice increased in volu and panic with each desperate cry. "Naki... Naki, wake up... Naki WAKE UP!!"
"Master! I... I am fine... I just need blood," Naki whispered. Her single eye focused on his face, entirely unconcerned with her own horrific state.
Seeing Naki's legs already straining to regenerate, John's heart finally started to beat again. He whipped his head around to see Mauler I. The surviving clone had already ditched his crushed brother, dragged Allen's body and was running straight toward them with a frantic expression.
"Mauler, quick, get Naki the Immortal flesh!" John barked in a cracking voice, "Naki, open a gate!"
But as he was speaking and saw Naki struggling to lift her broken biwa, he rembered they weren't alone.
He looked up and saw Conquest floating above them, eyeing the group as if looking at zoo animals, taking in all their angles with an amused grin.
"No, no… don't stop on my account," Conquest goaded, his voice dripping with manic arrogance. "Let see your little parlor tricks. Show the sorcery that had the great Nolan tuck his tail between his legs."
TWANG
As the tatami gate opened, Naki's bare legs fully reford. But before she could even stand up, Mauler I scooped her and Allen's body into his massive arm and bolted for the door.
"Master… John! Hurry and get inside the castle!" she scread, reaching her blood-slick hand out toward him
John stayed silent at first. Still on his knees, still full of so many complicated emotions. He looked at the floating Conquest and then looked back at Naki.
"Go!" John ordered, his voice cracking. "He is here for . He wants entertainnt. If I tried to escape with you... He'll just turn us all into minceat before we can take a single step in the Castle."
Naki scread in denial, "No! I'd rather die than let you be in danger! Please John, you are more important—"
But Mauler I, trusting his survival instincts, carried her and Allen into the Infinity Castle, strung her biwa with a thick finger, and closed the door behind them.
Conquest smiled, taking masochistic pleasure in cornering his prey.
"You are smart for a monkey, aren't you, little sorcerer?" Conquest chuckled, his dead right eye staring sightlessly while his left tracked John's every microexpression.
John's heart was hamring so hard it felt like it was trying to crack his sternum from the inside.
THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.
Trauma. Stress. Grief. Rage.
All the overwhelming emotions held together by a single thread of logic finally snapped.
"GAAAAAAH!"
John let out a feral scream and threw a desperate punch, aiming directly for Conquest's head.
The Viltrumite did not even blink and swatted John away like a gnat.
The backhand sent John's body dragging across the ground, carving a violent trench across the field.
"Is that all?" Conquest sighed, sounding bored. "I was told there would be resistance. Was Nolan mistaken?"
John, after coughing up a thick mouthful of blood, spilling onto the grass, forced himself back up.
"That hurt, you bitch!"
John finally realized how weak he still was, even after the Zenkai Boost from nearly dying to Battle Beast and all those radiation doses.
Frustrated, he activated Wind flight and flew straight at Conquest, only to be effortlessly kicked in the temple.
John pinwheeled through the air and fell in the opposite direction, crashing straight through a line of thick oak trees along the way.
"Maybe I was mistaken," Conquest mused aloud, floating higher to survey the damage. "That ans Thula and Vidor will get to the real sorcerer first!"
He looked toward where John was getting up again. The boy was flying at Conquest at full speed, blood flooding from the deep cut on his temple.
"You worm!" Conquest's voice finally cracked as genuine anger bled through. "You disguised yourself as the sorcerer and let my actual prey be hunted by soone else!"
Conquest cocked back a haymaker to finally deal with this inferior nuisance.
But suddenly, sothing changed.
Electricity crackled all over John's body. He activated Impulse and suddenly accelerated, lowering his height to barely slip under the incoming fist, and tackled Conquest at the knees.
Conquest, already planning to leave and hunt down the real sorcerer, had taken his prey lightly. He did not see the change in John's eyes, and before he could even flex his muscles to resist...
A sharp TWANG rang out in the air.
Conquest felt himself being pushed backwards as he found himself passing through a wooden fra of sorts, and then suddenly, he realized sothing was very, very wrong.
Their position had changed entirely. He quickly used both hands to hamr down on John's back, forcing the boy off of him. Conquest looked around to finally realize he had been teleported.
He could feel the blistering temperature in the massive, cavernous hall; he could even feel the wrongness of the air, and most importantly, he felt the sa sensation he got whenever he flew too close to a star.
That was the dread invoked by a fully critical, ready-to-explode nuclear reactor.
The walls were lined with thick lead and concrete. The massive cooling pools glowed with the haunting and utterly lethal blue-green light of Cherenkov radiation. It was a cathedral of toxic energy.
"Ha... haha... hahahah!"
Conquest heard a manic laugh from down below. He saw John coming out from the very core of the reactor pool. The boy's skin was boiling red from the blistering heat, his clothes already burnt off, but he was grinning like an absolute lunatic, reminding Conquest of himself.
"I can't fucking believe this!" John scread, his voice psychotic and reedy. "I co to this world ready to go 'all in!' But I end up face to face against Nolan, the entire Flaxan armada, then fucking Battle Beast, and now Conquest of all people! And it has been what? A month since I got dropped into this shitshow?!"
John floated up, his eyes locking onto Conquest. It wasn't the look of cornered prey anymore. It was the look of a gambler who had just pushed all his chips to the center of the table. To Conquest, it was the look of a warrior.
Maybe I was not mistaken after all!" Conquest grinned, his bloodlust flaring.
As the Viltrumite tensed to dive straight down to crush him, John put two fingers to his mouth.
Phewit!
"Co here, boy!" John called out.
Conquest watched in eager anticipation, letting his prey show the sa power that forced the great Nolan of all to seek help.
He saw, almost in slow motion, as a black sludge covered in green circuity encased the boy whole, its fra expanding and hardening.
Green energy raced across his body as matte-black armor ford around him piece by piece. Heavy gauntlets locked over his arms, reinforced boots slamd into place, and glowing green lines lit up across the suit's surface like flowing circuitry. With the final snap of the helt sealing shut, he stood transford into a six-foot-tall ch suit, an advanced bio-chanical armour, cloaked in black with glowing neon-green circuitry.
Reminding Conquest of the Geldarian battlesuits!
"You know," a heavily distorted voice ca from the suit's green faceplate, "when I first found out Nolan fled Earth, I knew that sohow, soway, he'd co running back to finish what we started. So, I had my people prepare sothing special."
John, in his armoured form, spread his chanical arms wide. "A proper battleground."
Thrusters ignited around the armor's back, accelerating John straight up toward the descending Viltrumite.
"Welco to rica' arsehole!" John roared.
The nanite-covered tal fist connected with Conquest's Jaw, sending the old Viltrumite flying backwards, crashing into the boiling radioactive water of the reactor core with a massive SPLASH.
Inside the suit's HUD, John heard Naki's ntal voice.
'Master! Neel has put everything in place; all rectors across the eastern seaboard are in a critical state, with evacuation already in progress. But are you sure you want to face this monster and not co back to the safety of the castle… to ?'
'I can't, Naki,' John replied, his thoughts moving a mile a minute. 'I'm terrif… I'm shit scared. But I am also so unbelievably fucking angry at the world, throwing its worst at again and again relentlessly while I am just trying to get by. at this point, I need to take a stand right here, right now.'
'Master, please, now is not the ti to be stubborn!'
'Do as I say Naki! Get in touch with Cecil! There are at least two more Viltrumites out there, three if you count Nolan. We need to save as many citizens as we can to—'
Naki cut him off.
'No! John, you need to think of your own safety! Why would you even think about saving those humans when you are in mortal danger?!'
'Naki…sweetheart, don't let panic cloud your mind.' John soothed her. 'Do you not rember my True Hero trait? I need you to save as many people as you can to give the biggest stat boost possible!'
After a mont of pause, a voice of conviction echoed in his mind. 'Your wish is my command, Master.'
[A/N]: Thus began the High-octane and super-emotional Climax to this Arc.
So Drop Them Stones!! And push our Rankings to get motivated!
If you want to read up to 10 Chapters in advance, check out my P@treon - Max_Striker.
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