As William held the unconscious duo, a chime echoed in his mind, signaling the system's recognition of his achievement, deemed more significant than a mere quest.
Antimatter Aura: The wearer generates a subtle antimatter field that disrupts hostile energy constructs and weakens force fields in proximity.
Matter/Antimatter Equilibrium: This crown harmonizes destructive and stabilizing energies, mitigating incoming energy-based attacks.
Solar Reservoir: By absorbing ambient stellar radiation, the crown enhances the wearer's physical strength and stamina over time.
Atomic Gaze: The wearer's eyes emit a soft glow of stored solar energy, providing resistance to illusions and the ability to pierce through most veils or cloaking fields.
Duality Embodied: The crown's balance of antimatter and solar energy enables passive regeneration; wounds heal faster under sunlight, and antimatter converts mass and energy into a more efficient form.
As the text faded like cosmic dust, the particles began to coalesce around William, forming a radiant halo before settling into place. The crown took shape upon his head, its design reminiscent of Tight Fillet, the legendary crown of the mythical Monkey King.
Unlike the Tight Fillet, this crown featured a gem-like protrusion at its center, its color a mesmerizing blend of electric blue and blazing orange. Upon closer inspection and an expansion of his senses, William could discern delicate tendrils of solar energy flowing into the gem, as though it had found its rightful sanctuary.
William's eyes radiated intense ki as he focused even more intently, pushing his senses to their limits. The sound of the universe seemed to dissolve into static as he concentrated, until his eyes widened in astonishment.
Hidden deep within the tendrils of solar energy was an electric blue spark, so subtle that it could easily go unnoticed by an untrained observer. Yet, as William watched it enter the gem, he witnessed with clarity how the tiny mote of light settled into the blue portion of the gem embedded in his crown.
BOOOOM!
The space around him trembled violently, a colossal and oppressive energy spreading like an atmospheric wave as it surged through the solar system, originating from a single point on the moon.
Void Sentry had begun to delve deeper into his abilities, exploring the very essence of the universe's darkness, unknowingly awakening a far more powerful and insatiable god.
In Void Sentry's right hand, a primordial, living darkness coalesced into a black longsword that seemed to consume the surrounding light. Its ominous surface shimmered with a sinister malice, whispering seductive promises of power and glory into Void Sentry's fragmented mindscape.
Hulk, cloaked in green gamma energy and blue ki, descended like a meteor toward Void Sentry, unaware of the profound shift in the darkness surrounding his opponent.
It was only when Void Sentry swung upward that the blade's tip carved a massive canyon into the moon's surface, as though the sword extended infinitely before rising to intercept the incoming Hulk.
There was no evading, no blocking, Hulk could only meet the attack head-on. With a deafening roar, he tapped into the deepest reserves of rage he had ever known: his father's abuse, his mother's death, the betrayal of those he trusted when they exiled him from Earth, and the torment of being enslaved on Sakaar.
Hulk's muscle mass and overall size expanded immensely in proportion to his escalating fury, and by the time the two forces collided, he had already ascended to his World Breaker state.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM.....
For a brief moment, as fist met blade, the universe itself seemed to hesitate, as though struggling to process the magnitude of what was occurring. This pause ended abruptly with an explosion of force so cataclysmic that even William, in his Legendary State augmented by Kao-ken, was hurled into the shattered remnants of the bronze barrier he had constructed around Earth.
The impact of his body caused the barrier to begin collapsing entirely, but when the shockwave struck the remaining fragments, they disintegrated at a fundamental level.
Reality rippled like molten glass as the aftershock surged toward Earth, a tidal wave of destructive force infused with the abyssal malice of Void Sentry's ascended state. Space quaked, and even photons faltered mid-flight, light bending unnaturally around the shockfront as though defying existence near it.
William stood firm amidst the fractured lunar dust, jaw clenched, his cloak of ki flickering erratically under the residual force of the collision. At his mental command, the Crown of the Absolute Horizon pulsed, antimatter motes shimmering along its spectral frame like dying stars reigniting.
He couldn't allow the shockwave to reach Earth.
"Move," he muttered, not as an order to his body but as a directive to his very essence.
His hand thrust outward, fingers slicing through the vacuum with precision, like strokes of calligraphy etched onto the fabric of reality.
The shattered bronze shards of his first barrier, countless radiant fragments, heeded his call. The fragments swirled around him, drawn into the orbit of his will, each piece resonating with the memory of its purpose.
They converged, spiraled, and interlocked.
Not as a singular shell but as thousands.
Layer upon layer. Ring upon ring.
A latticework of glowing plates reformed, rising like a phoenix forged from shields and burning determination, constructing an immense, multi-tiered planetary barricade that stretched between Earth and annihilation.
The first wave struck.
CRA-AAAAAAAAAACK—
The outermost ring disintegrated in an instant.
William's jaw tightened.
The second ring resisted for a heartbeat before exploding into a shower of sparks.
The force of the shockwave was immense, void energy tearing through the fabric of existence, dismantling matter at its most fundamental level. The antimatter aura enveloping William flickered, struggling against the relentless tide of cosmic malice surging toward him like an inferno of black flames.
His chest constricted. His aura shimmered, growing faint.
He needed more.
Not precision.
Not grace.
Unbridled, primal power.
He drew a sharp breath.
"Kaio-Ken... times three."
SKREEEE!
His immense and fiery aura surged outward once more, radiating an intensity so fierce that it seemed to produce a high-pitched resonance, as if the very fabric of reality strained under the weight of his overwhelming energy. The bronze barriers, imbued with raw, unrelenting power, suddenly expanded to three times their original dimensions and density, successfully withstanding the relentless blast as it strove to strike the planet below.
William glared at the lunar surface, where even from this distance he could discern the unmistakable signs of collapse. The area around the origin of the blast had transformed into sharp, grey-black lunar glass, while the surrounding terrain was riddled with spiderwebbing cracks that extended for dozens of miles before finally halting. It felt as though the moon might shatter at any moment, an event that would not only annihilate the inhabitants known as the Inhumans but also irritate the watcher stationed there.
As the dust settled, William's eyes narrowed in disbelief at the sight before him. For a fleeting moment, he thought his senses were betraying him, some illusion, a distortion of reality, a trick of fractured moonlight and cosmic chaos. Yet, this was no illusion. Reality here did not bend, it shattered.
Before him stood the unthinkable: the Hulk, World Breaker Hulk, the embodiment of wrath, survival, and unyielding fury, cleaved cleanly in two. His massive form split from crown to pelvis, with the two halves drifting apart, flesh seared, and gamma-infused blood evaporating into the void like green stardust. There was no sound. No scream. Only a silence so profound it felt as though the universe itself was holding its breath alongside William.
A cold dread crept down his spine.
"…Hulk?" he whispered, his voice barely audible, fragile with disbelief.
The battlefield radiated with power, raw, boundless, apocalyptic power, but something about this was wrong. It defied reason, felt unnatural, improper, and impossible. Even for a god-killer such as Void. Hulk didn't die. Hulk couldn't die. The Hulk refused to perish. And yet, there he was, cleaved apart in a way no mortal, no gamma monster, should ever be.
William's voice broke through the stillness, a ragged whisper of incredulity, "That… shouldn't be possible."
Above the devastation, Void Sentry hovered like a malevolent star, the black sword still humming in his grip. It wasn't metal. It wasn't energy. It was hunger, given shape and edge.
William reached out subconsciously, calling for his deadly spear Zarielle, which appeared in his outstretched hand with a flash of lightning that caught the attention of Void Sentry, whose eyes bore into him like a drill filled with killing intent.
As he stared down at the blade in Void Sentry's hand he could not help but think with furrowed brows.
"If that could kill the Hulk…"
"What did it mean for everyone else?"
Void Sentry tilted his head, and the moon dust around him fell upward instead of down.
"Do you see it now?" his voice resonated across the void, layered, distorted, as though spoken by a thousand throats drowning in the dark. "The lie of strength. The illusion of resistance. All things end at the edge of Oblivion."
There was no warning.
One moment, they hovered silently above the scarred moon; the next—
BANG...
The universe shuddered.
William and Void Sentry vanished into a thunderclap of ruptured spacetime, only to reappear in the void between Earth and the Moon, their weapons colliding in an instant.
Zarielle met the All-Black.
Spear and necrosword clashed with the force of creation meeting annihilation.
KRASHHHHHH—!!!
A burst of bronze, crimson, and antimatter sparks erupted around them, scattering cosmic embers like dying stars across the void.
Gravity twisted.
Light bent.
Reality howled.
William gritted his teeth, veins igniting in molten gold and bronze as he drove the spear downward. The Crown of the Absolute Horizon burned fiercely, half blazing sun, half consuming blue singularity.
Void Sentry's hollow eyes widened in a frenzy of hunger and madness, black ichor streaming like tears as his writhing sword hissed in alien tongues.
Their faces were mere inches apart.
Rage against void.
Resolve against oblivion.
"Everything breaks," Void Sentry snarled, his voice a chorus of ancient hunger. "Hulk was only the beginning."
William spat starlight, defiance blazing in his gaze.
"Not everything."
BOOOOOM!!
They tore apart in a violent explosion, only to collide again, faster than the fleeing light.
The void roared around them as they collided again, dissolving into sheer velocity, two streaks of divine opposition tearing through space like shredded silk.
Zarielle fragmented into a thousand arcs of crimson and gold.
The All-Black morphed with each pulse of the universe's dying heartbeat.
William surged ahead first, a driving blitz forward, footwork carving through micro-space leaps, each step etching molten bronze glyphs into the void.
CLANG! SLASH! SHING-CRRRK!
Zarielle lunged—
Void deflected with a twisting backhand, molding the necrosword into a crescent scythe.
William rotated mid-air, spear reversing under his arm as he spun, the weapon's butt slamming against Void's wrist—
THOOM!
Void's hand tensed, bones splintering, but the sword stayed firm; it slithered around his arm like sentient oil, transforming into twin hooked talons.
They collided in a whirlwind of sparks and collapsing gravity wells.
Spear tip and void-talons clashed once more—
RING-RING-RING-BANG-KRSH!
Each strike reverberated in concentric gravitational ripples, like miniature neutron stars colliding.
Stars in nearby constellations dimmed.
Communication satellites extinguished in orbit like flames snuffed out by a cosmic storm.
William ducked low, spear sweeping in a radiant arc—
Searing Lunge, Solar Wing Splitter!
A surge of solar-bronze energy tore through the vacuum.
Void strode through it as if wading through water, the necroblade reforming into a jagged greatsword that absorbed half the wave, devouring it.
The rest seared his chest, burning through his celestial flesh.
Void glanced at the sizzling scar.
Smiled wider.
They charged once more—
Every collision birthed a fleeting cosmos, shimmering briefly before imploding into oblivion.
William twisted behind, his spear aiming for the vulnerable spine.
Void dissolved into inky black smoke, reforming behind William mid-strike, its blade descending like the verdict of a forsaken deity.
William parried.
Void countered the parry.
William deflected the counter mid-spin, the spear's butt slamming into Void's jaw.
CRACK!
Void's head twisted an unnatural 270 degrees, neck snapping with a sickening crunch—
Yet he grinned, undeterred.
The sword morphed into a writhing whip-serpent of black void, lashing forward with serpentine precision.
William ducked, raising his spear in a cross-guard.
Whip clashed against spear—
VREEEEEEN-BOOM!
Shockwaves erupted across the battlefield, tearing space into kaleidoscopic fragments.
Their movements tore through the very fabric of the cosmos, an unrelenting tide of raw destructive energy.
Meteor dust dissolved into vapor.
Cratered scars etched themselves across the shattered surface of the Moon, far below.
Earth's sky shimmered and warped, as if it were a glitching hologram.
KRA-CHOOM!
Both figures reappeared in an instant, blades colliding, their faces just inches apart, breaths radiating uncontained energy.
Void snarled, feral and fang-bared, as obsidian cracks spread like veins across his skin.