Space began to distort violently under the pressure exerted by that being. Neura rose, clad in futuristic armor with hints of an ancient knight, wearing a helmet with pointed slits that formed a sort of crown from his face to the top of his head. It was a presence capable of the greatest feats of its own cosmos, an entity that defied all prior logic.
— Why does it feel like he's getting stronger? I would have sworn Hiroshi was his equal just a moment ago — Arthur stammered, feeling the air turn dense and difficult to breathe.
That being, who previously seemed to have been overcome, now displayed a superior power in a null span of time. He was a new being, capable of things unimaginable to those present. Amidst the thousands of altercations and energy blasts crossing the wasteland, Neura made a simple movement of his arm, exerting a suffocating gravity over Arthur. However, Hiroshi and Noah did not back down; they were right on his heels. Both gripped their weapons with all their might against Neura.
A sonic boom that fractured the atmosphere echoed as the weapons impacted. A flash emerged, one that would stifle anyone just by seeing it, but for Neura, it was only a small sting. Though he was pierced, the weapons' effect was nullified by immediate regeneration. Instantly, a series of a thousand metallic spider legs sprouted from his back with a sharp screech of molecular friction, racing toward the heroes and striking vital nerves. The blow left both men trapped at the edge of death.
— You thought that because you revived once, you could do it forever — Neura said with a glacial voice as he concentrated on exiting the fourth dimension —. By anchoring your soul, you limit your natural regeneration to a ninth of the original. You will bleed out perfectly. You had a second chance and here you are... you truly are pathetic.
— Dammit... just die already — Hiroshi cursed through gritted teeth.
Both he and Noah looked helpless, bleeding internally as they watched Neura prepare to escape. In a final resort, they threw their weapons, but at that moment, the dry and visceral crack of a spear piercing armor and flesh was heard.
— You haven't killed me yet — Charlotte declared.
She wielded her spear with pride, though blood ran down her nose. She had sacrificed half of her memories to stand as an equal to the others; a price that for a normal person would mean a painless death of the self, but for someone who has never given their all in life, there was still something left to do.
— Girl, I don't have time for your revolts — Neura spat.
He attempted to pierce Charlotte's heart, but she dodged the attack by centimeters. The move cost her her own arm, which was ripped away with a wet sound of tearing muscle and breaking bone, causing an unceasing scream of pure pain. Despite the mutilation, the girl kept the spear steady with her remaining arm and launched several fierce thrusts.
— This will be the final round! — Arthur shouted, emerging to free Noah and Hiroshi —. Charlotte has little time left! It's now or nothing!
Only two minutes remained. The four immediately lunged at Neura in a whirlwind of plasma clashes, blood, cuts, and the metallic din of constant collisions. Everything happened simultaneously in a final moment filled with destruction. Neura summoned lightning across the continent; they were piercing and lethal discharges that fell with a thundering, high-frequency electric hum. The barrage was destined to extinguish everything in its path.
Noah emerged from the lightning with a dying body and slammed against the foundations beside Neura's body. Immediately, a colossal bolt fell on their location with a volcanic roar, severing one of Noah's arms and legs in a single impact. Neura was determined to kill him right there.
— Not yet! — Hiroshi screamed, delivering a cut that drew blood from a furious Neura.
The villain shattered half of Hiroshi's sword with a burst of fragmented steel and tried to summon more lightning, but golden chains entangled his arm with a rhythmic and heavy clinking. Arthur, bleeding profusely, lunged to stab him while severing the limb. Neura grabbed Arthur's arm and spun on his axis to strike Hiroshi, mortally wounding both, but Arthur, from the ground, managed a precise cut on Neura's legs.
— Only forty seconds — Arthur murmured.
Hearing this, Neura felt a chill down his spine and took a position to retreat. Hiroshi entered a flurry of cuts with what remained of his katana, ignoring the exhaustion that would repercussions in his final moments. Arthur impaled Neura with his sword, and Charlotte's spear pierced through the monster's head with a whistle of compressed air followed by a dull thud. Neura was invaded by a massive wave of memories from a life that was anything but easy, left disoriented for moments.
— Do you want to see death?! — Neura screamed, out of his mind.
— Yes, but for you, you bastard! — Arthur replied.
— Now! — Hiroshi bellowed.
— This shit ends here! — Noah roared.
Amidst the stabs, an aberration began to emerge from Neura's body with a nauseating gurgle of mutating flesh; a monster full of fangs and malformations, more lethal than ever. Neura condensed his entire soul into a volatility of massive energy. Gravity centered on a single point as his mouth extended point-blank against those present, who remained motionless, stabbing him with all their strength. Only a moment later, a light and a blast from the heavens provided enough time for a deafening detonation that seemed to fracture the void itself. It was the warning of a death in space-time. The chaos was extinguished, and the wounded remained victorious in the middle of a desolate wasteland.
A tall woman approached them, looking concerned.
— Progenitor — Hiroshi said with relief.
— Witch — Arthur murmured.
— Eve — Noah added.
— M...? — Charlotte asked.
— Why are you here? — Hiroshi asked —. If I had seen you sooner, we would have faced a fate worse than death.
— I suppose it was you who impaled him at the end — Noah remarked heavily.
— Who were you? — Charlotte asked, looking at the woman with strangeness.
At the question, the woman expressed total sadness and embraced Charlotte, who lay with almost no memories after the fight.
— In short, she is a human closer to divinity — Arthur explained —. Basically, through genetics and powers, she is the most important person in the world. Her existence can allow human life to develop on any planet, like our mother, like Eve.
— It's a pity those memories are gone — Hiroshi whispered —. You were the closest to her.
— It's alright; it is my fault for not coming sooner despite the warnings — the Progenitor replied.
— Well, since you're here, please save our lives — Arthur requested —. Heal Hiroshi and Noah especially, they don't recover as fast.
After some time, in a wasteland that now felt more alive, Noah broke the silence.
— He truly died... it feels so unreal.
— In the end, he was much stronger than at the start — Arthur added —. It was as if he could adapt, or perhaps he was playing with us. By the way, how did you do that thing of rejecting death? I never fully understood it.
— I suppose it was the same for both of us — Hiroshi explained —. An overwhelming, comfortably calm consolation flooded us at the edge of death, but our minds rejected it with all their strength. It was complicated.
As they spoke, a sharp and absolute crack, like that of a planetary crystal shattering, was heard from the distant heavens. The crack that tore through the skies was not thunder or an explosion, but the dry, agonizing sound of reality being ripped from top to bottom by invisible hands. The warriors, their bodies still trembling and their wounds closing under the woman's touch, looked up toward a firmament that began to bleed darkness. The sun, which seconds before bathed the wasteland with a tint of hope, was devoured by a silhouette whose scale defied all geometric logic. It was not a cloud or an eclipse; it was a mass of absolute vacuum projecting a shadow so dense that the ground beneath their feet ceased to emit heat. That macabre silhouette, which retained the pointed features of Neura's crown-helmet but elevated to a titanic and celestial proportion, loomed over the world like a premonition of total extinction.
— No... this cannot be happening — the Progenitor whispered, and for the first time in history, the warriors saw that the hands of the "Progenitor of humanity" were trembling violently —we erased him... the fourth dimension's firewall should have pruned him from existence.
The horror became physical as the silhouette in the sky began to descend, not with speed, but with an inevitability that made running feel like a futile act. That which was once Neura no longer possessed a defined physical form; it was an architecture of hatred and twisted divinity, an amalgam of futuristic metal, astral flesh, and eyes that opened by the thousands along its figure, observing every atom of the planet with a merciless judgment. The atmospheric pressure became so unbearable that Noah, despite his renewed strength, fell to his knees while his recently healed ears began to bleed again at the "noise" of that being's mere presence. It was not a sound; it was a frequency communicating the end of all things, a vibration that stated that time itself had been conquered.