Chapter 186: Primal Chaos vs. Blood Authority
The distance between them vanished in a blink. It wasn't a run; it was a mutual annihilation of space.
BOOM!
The impact was not a clean sound. It was a wet, visceral SPLASH of conflicting energies. The possessed Kai's fist, wreathed in solidified crimson power, met the transformed Moon's clawed palm, which crackled with bestial, purple-black force. The shockwave flattened the immediate landscape, pulverizing rock into fine, shimmering dust.
For a fraction of a second, they were locked in that terrible equilibrium. Then, a line of searing pain etched itself across the entity's perception.
It wasn't a deep gash, but a precise, surgical cut across its neck—a wound that should have been impossible. A fountain of blood, not the controlled energy it was used to, but real, vital fluid, began to stream down its stolen chest.
The entity's eyes widened in genuine, unprecedented shock. What?! Am I losing control of the Blood Authority? The thought was a lightning bolt of panic. The fusion with Kuro had granted Moon's attacks a bestial, disruptive quality that was interfering with its precise control over Kai's bodily functions. No! No! This is very problematic. I have to deal with this 'black shirt' immediately!
All this flashed through its mind in the space between heartbeats. With a monumental effort of will, it reasserted its dominion, the bleeding from its neck slowing to a trickle as the crimson energy staunched the flow. But the distraction had cost it.
In that millisecond of diverted focus, Moon struck. He didn't punch or kick. He grabbed the entity's outstretched arm, his claws sinking deep into the flesh, and using its own forward momentum, he executed a brutal, spinning throw. The possessed Kai was hurled through the air, but it was not a helpless flight. It twisted its body, landing in a skid that tore a mile-long trench in the planet's crust.
It looked up, its face a mask of fury, just in time to see Moon diving from the sky, a purple-black meteor of fangs and claws. The entity didn't try to dodge. It stood its ground, and as Moon descended, it met him not with a block, but with a grapple. It caught Moon mid-air, absorbing the colossal impact by sinking knee-deep into the ground, and with a guttural roar, it channeled all its power into its arms.
"ENOUGH!" the entity bellowed.
Instead of throwing Moon away, it focused its energy inward and downward. A vortex of crimson light erupted beneath them. The ground didn't crack; it parted, turning into a molten, liquid maw. With a final, heaving thrust, the entity drove Moon downward, not just into the soil, but through it, using its power to bore a tunnel, forcing Moon deep into the planetary crust. It was a tactic of overwhelming force, aiming to crush him with the very weight of the planet itself or suffocate him in the intense heat and pressure of the mantle and core of this planet.
But its triumph was short-lived.
From the opposite side of the planet Thal'Ryn, over ten thousand miles away, a geyser of rock and magma exploded into the sky. And from that eruption, a figure was launched—the possessed Kai himself.
He tumbled through the air before crashing back to the surface, his body a mess of blood and scorch marks, his clothes smoldering. He pushed himself up onto his elbows, his stolen mind struggling to comprehend what had just happened. He had been on one side of the planet, and in the blink of an eye, he had been punched through its entire diameter and out the other side.
Before the dawning horror could fully register, the ground in front of him erupted again. The transformed Moon, covered in the molten rock and dirt of the planet's interior, surged forth like a demon from the abyss. His golden eyes held no thought, only a singular, predatory intent. There was no pause, no taunt, no wasted motion.
The beast had learned its enemy could regenerate. So, it would not stop.
Moon's clawed fist, moving with the unstoppable force of a tectonic shift, slammed directly into the entity's gut. The impact was so profound it didn't just knock the wind out of Kai; it compressed the air around the point of impact into a miniature vacuum that then exploded outward. The possessed Kai's body folded around the fist, his eyes bulging, a spray of spit and blood misting the air as he was launched backward for the second time in as many seconds, his trajectory carving a new valley across the alien landscape.
The beast's punch was not just powerful; it was a fundamental rejection of the entity's presence on the planet. The force didn't just send the possessed Kai flying; it launched him on a terminal trajectory, breaking Thal'Ryn's gravitational pull and hurling him into the cold, airless void.
His body became a crimson-streaked comet, tumbling through the solar system. Thal'Ryn's system was a busy one, home to twenty planets. Kai's unconscious form hurtled directly towards one, a Venus-sized world of swirling, acidic clouds and crushing pressure.
The impact was silent in the vacuum, but the effect was cataclysmic. The planet did not simply crack; it disintegrated. The colossal kinetic energy transferred from Kai's body acted like a detonation charge at its core. The world shattered, exploding outwards in a slow-motion bloom of molten rock and shattered continental plates, adding a new, temporary asteroid belt to the system.
The collision jolted the entity back to consciousness. Inside the crumbling planetary debris, the stolen body of Kai gasped, the Crown's power flaring wildly to protect its host from the vacuum and the explosive force. What... what is this power? it thought, a sliver of something akin to fear finally piercing its arrogance. This form... it's not just strong, it's it's....
---
Aboard the spaceship orbiting Thal'Ryn, the crew watched the sensor data in stupefied horror.
"Are... are they really at the level of Planetary Tier?" a technician stammered, his voice trembling. "I mean, before, they were throwing each other across continents, that I could understand... but this... he just destroyed a planet with his body!"
Dr. Voss, his face pale, shook his head, his scientific mind trying to categorize the uncategorizable. "No... no, this is different. This level of raw, destructive power... this isn't a standard King-Level of the Planetary Tier. This is the domain of Saints within the Planetary Tier, or perhaps even a low-level Fighter or Rookie within the Stellar Tier! The energy readings are off the charts! This is not a power any ordinary Planetary King should possess!"
---
Back in the void, the possessed Kai had just managed to stabilize himself, hovering amidst the debris of the world he had accidentally destroyed. His mind was reeling, recalculating the threat the beast posed.
He never got the chance.
From the cloud of shattered planet, a chunk of rock the size of Mount Everest hurtled towards him, not as random debris, but as a targeted projectile. The transformed Moon had followed him into space, using the planetary remains as his ammunition.
Kai reacted on instinct, a whip of crimson energy lashing out and vaporizing the mountain-sized rock into dust. As the dust cleared, the two combatants faced each other in the silent theater of space, the distant light of the system's star glinting off the Red Diamond Crown and Moon's feral, golden eyes.
A strange phenomenon began to occur around them. The tattered remnants of their clothing, burned and shredded in the battle, began to shimmer. Threads of light wove together, repairing the fabric, restoring their shirts and pants to a pristine state. It was their personal holster-tech, advanced nanotech weaved into the clothing, reacting to their immense essence energy and automatically initiating repairs. They now stood in the void, their clothes perfectly intact, a surreal contrast to the cosmic devastation surrounding them and the primal fury that still burned in their eyes.
The brief pause was over. The silent, ultimate battle for Kai's soul was poised to resume in the grandest arena of all: the star-dusted void itself.
The silent vacuum offered no respite, only a new, weightless arena for their violence. The possessed Kai, learning from the beast's unpredictable ferocity, decided to control the engagement. As Moon lunged at him, a bestial silhouette against the backdrop of a shattered world, Kai did not meet him with a punch. Instead, he moved with fluid precision, catching Moon's outstretched clawed hand. Using the beast's own momentum, he spun, becoming the axis of a terrible, centrifugal force.
He released his grip.
Moon became a human projectile, hurled not randomly, but with calculated, devastating aim. He shot across the void like a cannonball, his trajectory set for a celestial body in the distance—a massive, Uranus-sized ice giant, its atmosphere a swirling maelstrom of pale blues and greens. Moon impacted not the gas giant itself, but one of its many frozen moons, a world of solid methane and rock. The impact was colossal, yet the beast landed in a low crouch, his claws digging into the icy surface, creating a single, deep crater but leaving the moon largely intact. The force was focused, controlled by his own immense power.
He had barely looked up when space rippled in front of him. The possessed Kai had traversed the distance instantly, his fist already in motion. The punch connected with Moon's jaw with a force that would have vaporized a mountain, snapping his head to the side.
But the beast did not falter. Its response was instantaneous and visceral. Ignoring the shattering pain in its jaw, its other hand shot forward like a piston, fingers rigid and claws extended. With a sickening, wet tear that was silent in the vacuum, the beast's hand plunged deep into Kai's abdomen, piercing through his back in a spray of frozen, glittering blood crystals.
They stood locked in that gruesome embrace for a microsecond—a portrait of mutual destruction.
Then, the entity, fueled by the Crown's rage and Kai's stolen vitality, retaliated. It drove a hardened knee up into Moon's ribs. A sickening crunch was felt, not heard, and a globule of the beast's dark blood erupted from its mouth, floating away into the void.
Seizing the advantage, the entity grabbed Moon by the shoulder and, with a final, mighty heave, hurled him directly into the churning atmosphere of the gas giant below.
This was not a stable environment. The atmospheric pressure was immense, the winds supersonic, and the chemical composition a toxic, corrosive cocktail that could break down a normal planet to its core in minutes. But the beast, in its primal state, did not disintegrate. It endured, its transformed body weathering the storm, using its raw power to create a stable pocket of existence within the chaos. It then looked up, its golden eyes pinpointing its next move.
With a guttural roar that resonated through essence itself, it focused its power. It didn't swim; it pushed. It slammed its will against the very air particles around it, compressing them into an almost solid platform of force, and launched itself out of the gas giant's grip. Its new trajectory sent it rocketing towards another planet in the system—a colossal, Saturn-like world, but five times its size, surrounded by vast, magnificent rings composed not of ice, but of jagged, dark rock.
The beast landed on one of the titanic rings, its claws finding purchase on an asteroid-sized chunk of stone, its chest heaving with silent, ragged breaths.
It had barely found its footing when a ripple of crimson energy announced the entity's arrival. The possessed Kai stood on the same rocky ring, a few hundred meters away, his abdominal wound already sealing shut, his eyes burning with a mixture of fury and exhilaration. The battlefield was now the rings of a giant, a stage of cosmic scale for the final act of their brutal ballet.
To be continued…