Black Mask's body began to twitch and convulse, his form rippling as if trying to tear itself apart from the inside. The sound was grotesque - bones cracking, flesh stretching, tendons snapping like cords under impossible strain.
In less than three seconds, his old body was gone.
What replaced it was sothing horrible. It could only be described as a mistake.
The figure that erged from the ruins of his shell was imnse - a towering, dark abomination that seed carved from nightmare and void. Its humanoid fra was warped beyond recognition: limbs elongated and sinewy, ending in fingers that glowed faintly blue. Its torso pulsed with crimson veins that crawled like living serpents beneath its translucent skin, converging toward a head without a face - only shadow, frad by twisting veins of red light.
Behind him, enormous tattered wings unfurled with a violent crack, stretching wide enough to blot out the ceiling's light. The feathers were half-skeletal, half-flesh, oscillating between solid form and vaporous shadow.
A sound tore through the chamber - a psychic scream that rattled both body and soul.
"AAARRRGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
The shriek wasn't rely sound; it was agony made manifest. ylin cried out as her knees buckled, blood seeping from her eyes and ears. The pressure tore at her mind like claws.
Even the Crimson Exarch, whose ntal defenses were extraordinary by any asure, felt the searing sting behind his eyes. His smile finally faded, replaced by focus and cold precision.
"So..." he murmured. "You're one of the Prototypes."
ylin blinked through the blood clouding her vision. "Prototypes?" she managed to whisper, confusion etched across her face.
The Exarch gave a small nod, his gaze never leaving the creature. "The Ancient One conducted countless experints before perfecting the Neo-Angels. Most perished - but a few survived. Those early experints were called Prototypes. They scattered across the Crimson World. According to my knowledge, you faced one who called himself the master of angels."
Recognition dawned in ylin's eyes. "The Sun Lord."
"Yes." The Exarch's tone was calm, but edged with grim understanding. "So Prototypes were stable - able to live normal lives. Others... were less fortunate. Their true forms are unstable, corrosive even to their life force. But that instability grants them trendous bursts of power."
His explanation ended there. The ti for words had passed.
Above them, the monstrous Black Mask roared, his wings twitching violently before he vanished - moving so fast that ylin could barely perceive the motion.
The air exploded around the Crimson Exarch.
Black Mask's right hand elongated, his fingers stretching into lances of black-blue energy that speared toward his opponent.
"BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM."
Six detonations echoed through the crystalline chamber as the fingers slamd into the ground one after another. Shards of crystal erupted upward like volcanic spray, but the Crimson Exarch had already moved - slipping away at the last instant, his figure flickering like a mirage.
The tendrils twisted beneath the floor and reerged behind him, shooting upward like serpents.
The Crimson Exarch twisted his body, his movents impossibly
fluid. His hands flashed out in blurs of golden light, touching each lance at just the right frequency, diverting their trajectories by fractions of an inch. The redirected strikes tore through the walls instead, erupting into clouds of molten crystal.
He'd barely handled a threat when the creature's left hand transford into a gargantuan fist, swinging down like a teor.
The Crimson Exarch's palm glowed with radiant gold as he t the strike head-on.
"BOOOOOOOO0000000000000MMMMMMMMMM!"
The kinetic explosion swallowed the chamber. A wave of destructive force hurled both combatants in opposite directions. Black Mask was tossed a few thousand ters into the air, but the Crimson Exarch fared much worse.
He was blasted across the chamber, but by twisting his body in the air, the Crimson Exarch was able to diminish the inertia and regain control over his body as soon as he touched the crystal wall, allowing him to react to the next attack.
"ARRRHHHHHHH!"
Tentacles burst from the abomination's lower half, lashing in every direction. The Exarch spun aside, narrowly avoiding one that would have crushed him into the wall. His eyes glowed brighter - molten gold burning with precision and cold rage.
The creature howled louder as he saw that the Crimson Exarch continued to dodge his attacks, his distorted voice scraping through
the air.
Black Mask lunged, his movents a chaotic storm of speed and power. Each blow distorted space, his tendrils blurring like black lightning. The Crimson Exarch countered with grace that bordered on divine, every motion guided by the perfect harmony of The Flow. He could sense the rhythm within the chaos, the pulse of each attack before it struck.
Even so, he was forced to retreat, step by step, until the chamber quaked from the sheer scale of their battle.
Then his expression shifted.
He stopped running and pressed forward.
ylin gasped as she watched him advance through the storm - a figure of golden calm amid roaring destruction. The air itself bent around him as his will synchronized with the universal current. He was no longer fighting against the storm. He was moving with it.
Black Mask's attacks intensified, his corrupted energy howling like a hurricane of blood and shadow. But every strike that should have shattered the Crimson Exarch instead passed through empty space, diverted by milliters. The Exarch glided closer, step by step, like a butterfly drifting through a tornado - hypnotic, inevitable, terrifying. "DIE!" Black Mask scread, his body convulsing as a third claw - massive and serrated - burst from his back, slashing forward with the speed of thought.
The Exarch dropped low, sliding beneath it. The claw tore through his
coat, slicing fabric and leaving a shallow line of blood across his chest - but he didn't stop. He was already in motion, his eyes burning with cold fire as he slipped beneath the monster's left arm.
He raised his hands. Two weapons materialized in bursts of molten light-sleek, tallic constructs traced with golden energy veins. They shimred like living extensions of his will.
Golden light coursed through the chambers of the weapons, spiraling
along their barrels in intricate patterns.
The Crimson Exarch's eyes glowed brighter, syncing perfectly with the weapons' energy frequency as he fired them. Twin cannons of condensed plasma erupted from the handguns, their roar shaking the entire chamber. The beams twisted midair, fusing into a single strike before converging on Black Mask's left armpit.
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