The mont the golden beams struck Black Mask's armpit, his flesh began to unravel.
Cell by cell. Atom by atom.
The unseen threads that bound his existence together - the frequencies that sustained his corrupted form - were being severed, counteracted by a perfect resonance. It was as though reality itself had found his flaw and was erasing him from its design.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
A scream of pure, unfiltered agony tore from his distorted throat. His left shoulder and everything around it disintegrated instantly, vanishing into golden dust. Yet even in that pain, his tentacles lashed out wildly, and one struck true.
The impact hurled the Crimson Exarch across the chamber. He slamd into the crystal wall with bone-rattling force, cracks spiderwebbing across the surface. For a mont, even his radiant aura flickered. But before the dust settled, he was already standing again - blood at the corner of his mouth, eyes blazing with gold.
ylin watched in speechless awe. The way those beams tore through Black Mask's form was unlike anything she had ever witnessed. They didn't burn, cut, or crush - they undid. It was as if the Crimson Exarch's weapons fired energy tuned precisely to dismantle Black Mask's existence, unraveling The Flow at a single point until all structure collapsed.
Yet as she looked closer, she noticed sothing else the glow of the Crimson Exarch's twin guns was fading. The once-blinding golden veins that ran along their fras now pulsed weakly, their brilliance cut by half.
The Crimson Exarch wiped the blood from his lips with his thumb, took a slow breath, and walked forward. His steps were calm,
deliberate, each one echoing through the vast crystalline chamber. Black Mask trembled as he faced a power he did not understand, but soon his hatred allowed him to endure. His faceless head turned toward the Crimson Exarch, his aura rippling with equal parts hatred and panic. When his gaze fell upon the dimd weapons, sothing inside him ignited - cold, furious madness.
With a guttural roar, the eldritch being lunged forward. His claws and tendrils erupted like a storm of shadows, filling the chamber with movent and noise. The entire battlefield beca a blur of motion and darkness.
The Crimson Exarch did not retreat. He advanced.
His body twisted, bent, and moved in impossible ways - each motion precise. He ducked beneath claws, weaved through the storm of tentacles, his golden aura burning like a cot through a tempest. Every near miss cut open his skin, tracing lines of crimson across his coat, but he pressed on without hesitation.
The closer he got, the faster the strikes ca. The air around him scread.
Then - at last - he reached striking distance.
Sliding toward Black Mask's left flank, where the monster's arm had been eliminated, the Exarch raised one of his fading weapons. The barrel flared.
He fired.
The beam shot straight toward the Black Mask's head - a streak of divine light, swift and rciless.
Terror pierced through the remnants of Black Mask's soul. He knew what would happen if that light touched his skull, if it reached the frequencies of his mind and spirit.
With desperate strength, he threw up his right arm to shield himself. Agony followed instantly.
The entire limb disintegrated in a shower of golden dust, from elbow to fingertip. The pain was beyond anything mortal or divine - the feeling of being erased.
He scread again, his voice shaking the chamber to its core.
But the Crimson Exarch was already raising his second gun.
Another beam.
Another streak of golden death.
And this ti, Black Mask had nothing left to block it.
Driven by sheer, feral will to survive, he did the impossible. His chest burst outward, tendons and bone reshaping in a grotesque bloom. A shield of warped flesh and bone erged from his own body, forming a barrier over his head at the last instant.
The beam struck it dead-on.
"BOOOOOM!"
The explosion was deafening. Black Mask's chest cavity was blasted open, the energy carving through his form like a god's judgnt. His body convulsed as chunks of his corrupted matter rained to the floor like golden dust.
He howled, his scream splitting into multiple tones - agony, despair, fury all at once.
Yet within that tornt, a glimr of satisfaction sparked in his mind. He saw the weapons in the Crimson Exarch's hands flicker and dim completely. The golden plasma that had flowed through their fras was gone.
"Out of power..." he hissed, voice wet with pain and triumph. "Now... you're done."
Dozens of tentacles lashed out from every direction, surging toward the Crimson Exarch. The chamber trembled under their assault. The Crimson Exarch stood still for a heartbeat, then drew a deep
breath. The golden light in his eyes ignited once more. That sa radiance flooded back into his weapons, tracing their patterns, restoring their glow.
He raised the guns and fired again.
This ti, the beams were smaller, denser - compact bursts of concentrated energy. They no longer unraveled matter, but they struck with devastating kinetic force. Each shot punched through the oncoming tentacles like a teor through paper, blasting them aside.
The storm broke.
The path to Black Mask's heart was open.
The Crimson Exarch brought both guns together. Their tallic
fras began to shift, folding and rging with a hiss of molten light. The twin barrels fused into a single, long, angular weapon. Glowing conduits pulsed along its spine, and waves of golden energy coursed through its fra.
ylin shielded her eyes as the chamber filled with blinding light.
The Flow surged into the weapon like a flood.
The Crimson Exarch leveled it at the gaping wound in Black Mask's
chest. His voice was calm - almost gentle.
"You lose."
He pulled the trigger.
A single, thunderous beam erupted from the cannon, a column of divine radiance that tore through the air and struck the creature square in the chest.
The impact carved a hole the size of a mountain through Black Mask's body, vaporizing everything in its path. The blast didn't just throw him backward - it hurled him into the ceiling, where his body crashed
with the force of an imploding star.
For a mont, silence reigned.
Then, slowly, his broken form fell back to the ground, landing with a
sound like shattering glass.
Black Mask tried to move, but his limbs refused him. Even the whisper
of strength he had left was fading.
The Crimson Exarch approached, his expression unreadable. He placed one hand over the creature's head, and golden light began to flow from his palm into the abomination's broken form, paralyzing body and soul.
Black Mask's voice rasped out, cracked and trembling. "Do it. Burn my
body. Shatter my soul. But you don't have the strength to break my True Na. When I return, the world will know what you've done." As he heard those words, the Crimson Exarch's smile returned, radiant as ever. His eyes, however, were devoid of emotion.
Black Mask trembled as he looked into them. It was like staring into two infinite voids - endless, rciless, and absolute.
The Crimson Exarch rose into the air, lifting the ruined body effortlessly with one hand, staring directly into the mask, his gaze reaching all the way into Black Mask's soul.
"You are so small."
Those words made Black Mask tremble in pure terror, but the horror
was far from over as the Crimson Exarch raised his left hand the next
second and uttered two words. "Crimson Throne."
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