Every collision between the four-colored divine dragon of Axis and the Dark Giant was like two universes grinding against each other.
The clash between God Ki and despair tore apart the boundary between reality and the empyrean.
The two combatants squandered the roiling energies of the Warp as if it were mere fuel for their battle.
A great portion of the surrounding reality shattered, causing legions of Warp entities to materialize only to be instantly annihilated by the aftershocks of the battle between the Dark King and Axis.
The four-colored divine dragon tore off a great chunk of dark matter with a single claw.
The substance screamed and dissolved within the aura of God Ki, but the Dark Giant retaliated with a punch that carried the very concept of End.
Each blow caused the four-colored divine light around the dragon to flicker violently, cracking its scales.
Yet, at its core, the green light representing a Saiyan's primordial life force always shone with stubborn tenacity.
Aided by the power of the Seed of Holy Light within him, Axis's wounds healed and regenerated at an astonishing rate.
The divine dragon that Axis had become opened its colossal mouth and unleashed a massive energy wave that stretched for tens of millions of kilometers, obliterating more than half of the Dark Giant's body.
The God Ki Axis now wielded could inflict substantial damage upon the Dark King. However, even with half of its body destroyed, the entity rapidly began to absorb power from the Warp.
"Your struggle is futile, Axis! Your power has its limits, but my despair is eternal!" the Dark Giant roared.
Its form seemed to grow even more solid as the chaotic energy and the negative emotions of countless billions of lives poured from the Warp rift, nourishing it and repairing its form. "You should not have fought me, Axis. I am the primal darkness of the universe, the very personification of despair. By shattering the barrier between realspace and the Warp, you have allowed me to draw upon its power without restraint."
The Dark Giant even began to mutate.
All manner of tentacles sprouted from its body, making it resemble a monstrous octopus, a sight both bizarre and nauseating.
"Vile creature. Look at the state of you now, it is truly disgusting," Axis sneered, and continued his assault.
Now a dark, tentacled monstrosity, the Dark King began to counterattack. Its immense dark tendrils coiled toward the divine dragon like cosmic serpents, the concept of negation of existence clinging to them in an attempt to erode the dragon's divine essence.
"Surrender before the might of my despair, Axis! You cannot defeat me. As long as the Warp exists, I can be reborn infinitely."
"Despair? What a joke! Let me show you what true despair looks like," the four-colored divine dragon let out a world-shaking roar.
The brilliant divine light surrounding it suddenly collapsed inward, condensing at its head. "If you can revive a million times, then I will simply kill you a million and one times!"
Axis poured his entire will and divine power into a single point.
The four energies were harmonized by his divinity and forged within the furious crucible of his Legendary bloodline, undergoing a profound qualitative change.
An indescribable power, one that transcended any single form of energy, gathered in the dragon's mouth.
This light contained the power to destroy all things, the most powerful attack Axis could currently unleash.
A torrent of ki, a beam of energy that could not be described by any color, shot forth. It carried with it the might to forge a universe and rewrite its laws, and it instantly pierced through the dark, tentacled giant.
There was no earth-shattering explosion, no violent clash of energies.
The beam moved like the beam of a supreme erasure, and where it passed, the Dark Giant's body, which was formed of pure despair and the concept of finality, simply vanished.
Like a stain wiped away by an eraser, it silently dissipated and disintegrated.
The Dark King let out a shriek so piercing it could freeze a soul. It attempted to resist, but the instant it made contact with Axis's terrifying energy, its limbs and tentacles, which were made of solidified darkness, melted away like ice in the sun.
"No!" came the Dark King's final, agonized howl, filled with disbelief and terror.
Its massive body crumbled like a sandcastle, dissolving into a sky full of uncontrolled streams of dark energy that were swept up and diluted by the furious Warp storms.
While it was true that it could absorb Warp energy to regenerate, there was a limit to the damage it could sustain. If that threshold was surpassed, it would be helpless. Axis's attack had clearly exceeded that limit.
The core consciousness of the Dark King, that single point of origin from the most ancient darkness, suffered an unprecedented blow. It clearly felt the terrifying power within Axis's attack, a power that threatened the very root of its existence.
Fear, true fear, seized the self-proclaimed end of the universe for the first time.
The thought that it could be defeated, that it could lose to an outsider, a mortal, was a colossal sense of loss that it could not accept.
It had to concede that it could not defeat this mad beast, at least not in its current state.
It dared not linger.
It seized the momentary instability in Axis's energies, the brief ebb in his divine power after unleashing such a monumental attack.
The wounded core of the Dark King transformed into a streak of darkness more profound than the deepest night, and it desperately tried to flee into the largest of the Warp rifts torn open by their battle. It needed to escape back to the depths of the Warp in the prime universe to heal, using the endless chaos and humanity's negative emotions.
"You son of a bitch?! Are you trying to run right now?!!" Axis's psychic voice thundered through the void.
The massive body of the four-colored divine dragon dissolved in an instant.
Axis's face was slightly pale from the immense expenditure of energy, but the fighting spirit and killing intent in his eyes burned hotter than ever. The blood of a Legendary Super Saiyan coursed through him, causing a continuous stream of ki to well up from within.
He absolutely could not allow the Dark King to escape. If it did, it would surely seek mad revenge.
Just as he could bring it to this parallel universe, it could also return. Axis now understood perfectly who had sent Khârn to his universe ten thousand years later; it had been this vile coward.
Without a shred of hesitation, the blue-gold divine flames of Super Saiyan Blue ignited around him once more.
He became a streak of light that tore through the void, pursuing that dark essence, ready to charge headlong into the great Warp rift that looked like a wound on the very cosmos. He intended to hunt the Dark King down within the Warp itself.
This scene left the three observers at the edge of the system utterly stunned.
"Father!" Kratos cried out in alarm from a distance, his heart pounding with anxiety as he saw his father give chase.
"Axis! Stop!" Kasha yelled, her voice filled with worry.
"We must follow!" Sanguinius decided instantly. With a beat of his golden wings, he wrapped Kasha and Kratos in a protective shield of holy light, preparing to plunge into the rift after him.
But at that very moment, something extraordinary occurred.
The wounded core consciousness of the Dark King, fleeing like a beaten dog, rushed toward the massive Warp rift which represented its only hope of survival.
However, just as it was about to touch the roiling chaotic energies of the maw, five distinct yet equally immense and profound powers descended upon it. They manifested as an invisible wall, a heavenly trench barring its path.
One was a crimson storm of pure, violent energy, thirsting for blood and endless war, the power of Khorne.
Another was a spectral violet web of energy, full of schemes and shifting threads of fate, the power of Tzeentch.
The third was a sickly green and viscous miasma, exuding the paradox of endless life and death, the power of Nurgle.
The fourth was a pink-violet vortex of ecstatic sensation, twisting pleasure and supreme agony, the power of Slaanesh.
The final power was a cold, desolate, yet unyielding pale gold energy barrier, emanating an unquestionable will to protect and tinged with a faint aura of the sacred.
It was the power of the Corpse Emperor of this parallel universe.
These five powers were not working in concert; in fact, they clashed and corroded one another.
But in this singular moment, their goal was surprisingly unified: to seal the rift and prevent the Dark King from escaping back into the prime universe's Warp.
Although they were not aware of the specifics, they knew someone was giving the Dark King a beating, and that was a good thing. The Dark King was an enemy to all life, which made it an enemy of the four Chaos Gods as well.
Thus, the Ruinous Powers, and even the Corpse Emperor of this universe, acted in a rare moment of silent accord, using their power to block the nearby Warp passage.
"No! Damn you! How dare you?! How dare you do this to me?!" The Dark King's shriek was filled with incredulous rage and a tremor of despair. "When I am truly born, I will crush and devour you all! Your realms, your followers, everything will be reduced to nothing!"
Of all the things it had calculated, it had never expected these five to take the opportunity to move against it. This was a disastrous turn of events. It might be forced into a long slumber.
"Go, warrior! Tear it to pieces! Give me a fight worthy of remembrance, the grandest of all!" came the bloodthirsty and excited roar of Khorne.
"Order from chaos? Interesting… an unknown variable. Your victory will reveal new possibilities. The Dark King is a common threat," whispered Tzeentch, his voice laced with calculation and observation.
"Life and death are one… but this pure finality is not what I desire. Go, warrior. Use your strength to end this unbalanced finality," rumbled Nurgle, a hint of repulsion for the Dark King's concept in his tone.
"Oh, what intoxicating despair! What sweet terror! Warrior, please continue your performance. Let me savor this feast of supreme emotion!" moaned Slaanesh, his voice a sound of twisted ecstasy.
"At least… you bear a human form… you carry hope… If possible… annihilate… it… completely," came the dry, fragmented, yet incomparably resolute will of the parallel universe's Corpse Emperor.
This assist from the most powerful beings in the multiverse completely cut off the Dark King's hope of escape. It was pinned by five mighty forces to the ruined battlefield that Axis and it had created together. The four Chaos Gods of this universe, along with its Emperor, had lent their aid to Axis in the most direct way possible.
"Today, you die, Dark King!" Axis's psychic pronouncement exploded like thunder, responding to the unexpected assistance.
Wrapped in his blue-gold divine flames, his figure teleported before the core of darkness, which was now like a caged beast, frantically ramming against the five-colored barrier.
Axis had no intention of letting the help from the four Chaos meddlers and this universe's Emperor go to waste.
He would end the Dark King now. While he couldn't truly kill the entity, he could at least erase its presence from the current timeline. This grievous wound would delay its true birth indefinitely.
The Dark King's core consciousness was no longer a colossal giant or a sickening mass of tentacles.
It had shrunk and condensed into a singularity of absolute darkness, a swirling point that seemed to devour all light.
This was the highly concentrated form of its origin, containing the purest concept of darkness and radiating a despair that could freeze the soul.
"Axis! You cannot kill me! I am an inevitability of the universe! A part of the balance! Kill me, and order will collapse! Chaos will consume everything!" The Dark King shrieked a final, desperate plea, trying to sway Axis's will.
"Inevitability? Balance?" A wild, battle-hungry grin spread across Axis's face, his eyes blazing with the gold-green light of his Legendary bloodline and the divine radiance of a Super Saiyan God. "Today, I am here to shatter this bullshit 'inevitability' of yours! And as for balance…On God! Today, I will beat the hell out of your ass!"
Before the words had even faded, Axis gave the Dark King no further chance. He threw his arms wide, and the blue-gold divine flames around him erupted, the green and red light within them burning with unprecedented intensity.
An energy sphere infused with four colors struck the Dark King. The monarch of darkness let out a piercing scream, which gradually faded as it was finally overwhelmed and extinguished.
Because the Dark King had not yet been truly born, it could not be destroyed in a final sense, but this blow was enough to force it into a very long slumber, utterly preventing it from causing any more trouble.
After eradicating the Dark King's presence, Axis finally let out a breath of relief.
If not for the sudden intervention of this universe's Chaos Gods and its Emperor, he would not have been able to stop the fleeing entity. On the matter of dealing with the Dark King, the Ruinous Powers were of one mind, and it seemed that after ten thousand years of absorbing humanity's emotions, this universe's Emperor had temporarily suppressed the Dark King's influence within himself.
"Well done, mighty god from another universe."
"That was a truly blood-stirring war. You are welcome at the Brass Throne to speak with me."
"Your methods of battle are a delight to behold. The Palace of Pleasure's doors are always open to you. Feel free to come and play, my powerful god."
"My garden welcomes you, stranger god."
"However, you now owe us a favor. We helped you, and you must repay this debt."
The four Chaos Gods all sent messages of congratulations to Axis. They had just aided him, and now, they considered him indebted to them.
Axis snorted coldly. "I never asked for your help. You acted on your own. I don't see how I owe you anything."
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