Chapter 27: Screams of the Hand Before Doom

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"Learn to treasure your life because unfortunately, it can be taken away from you anytime."

- L Lawliet, (Death Note)

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<(Omniscient POV)> 

'Interesting, so the supposed 'god' has noticed me. I guess I underestimated him too much. But that ultimately doesn't matter. Nobody can stand against Doom, not even the GODS.' Victor Von Doom thought as he stood on top of a skyscraper far away from the to-be battleground in his full classic armor and watched the battle that was going to begin soon. 

He knew that the possibility of the meta-god Atem actually losing to the ordinary human Hand ninjas was almost next to nil but this little farce of a battle would allow him to get a good understanding of the god's powers and fighting style as well as his personality which would enable him to recognize his strengths and weaknesses as well as prepare better for next time. 

Of course, the fact that he received quite a heavy reward from Hand in return for the current location of the New god also played an important role in why he even bothered to collaborate with the insignificant weaklings. After all, the extremely rare dragon bone dust he received from them would be quite useful in his mystical rituals.

'I only wanted the hyperdrive designs from Reed for my Latveria's new Mutual Destruction Doomsday plan where I intended to use it in my satellite system in a bid to destroy the entire world if any country ever dared to attack Latveria but it seems I found something much more interesting there. I wonder if he can be useful for my plans to one day free my mother's soul from 'his' clutches.' He pondered deeply. 

"Ah, seems it's starting." He muttered in a deep mechanical voice as he watched the dozens of ninjas finally decide to take action against the seemingly bored god who didn't bother to hide anything or even make the first move to end it quickly since the area they were currently in was at a desolate part of the city with no soul around them. 

At that moment about twenty of them took out spiky golden metal chains and used them to instantly bind and shackle him which he didn't resist at all for some reason and just stood there with an impassive face and a score of golden chains wrapped around his body.

"Those chains,... are those... adamantite? Where did they even get it? I thought the Greeks no longer traded those with anyone anymore. Even those runes ingrained in them seem to be of a magical nature, aimed to drain life force and all sorts of mystical energies from the target." Doom couldn't help but speak out as he was quite impressed with the resources the Hand was ready to splurge to take their vengeance. 

It seemed that even though they were stupid enough to take on a potentially country-level being using just their brainwashed ordinary human ninjas, they still in no way were unprepared. Doom realized that those chains alone must have cost a fortune and by the look of things as well as the expression in the false god's eyes, it seemed that they were working quite well too.

'They seemed to be able to rapidly drain his energy and disperse it to the surroundings, making him weaker by the second. Maybe, I underestimated the Hand, they seem to be quite capable even though they are nothing more than just a bunch of cultists and blind brainwashed followers of a demon god, I guess then, I wouldn't need to take action against him myself after all.' He concluded.

"The chains, where did you get them? They are quite... amazing. They are not vibranium or adamantium or even Uru, yet they are as good as any of them. They would be quite useful for research purposes. However, I wonder what is the limit of divine energy they can safely absorb and disperse without breaking apart... Should we find out?" Atem finally spoke, breaking his silence, an amused and curious expression on his face. 

Immediately, a red aura appeared around him and blood-red sparks of lightning-like energy began to light up at times around his muscles and hair. The runes on the chains also lighted up in conjunction with this as the chains themselves went superhot and tried to burn into his flesh, making it apparent that they were actively doing their best to suppress his power.

"5% of my current divine energy I see. That's a pretty big number and an incredible achievement for a couple of chains forged by humans using some magic metal. I wonder..., could it do 10?" He curiously murmured to himself but unfortunately, neither Dr. Doom nor any of the ninjas heard him, otherwise they would have already started to try to run away.

Soon his aura slowly increased as it began to double in intensity. He was careful not to increase his power output level too much all at once and only did it slowly since he wanted to know just how much of his raw divine energy could the chains absorb and neutralize. Now, this was just purely his energy trying to affect the chains with its bare pressure alone, he was not even directly attacking the chains by shaping his energy into various weapons or tools or explosive blasts.

With the rise of the intensity of his divine energy, the golden chains too began to 'rot' as small red spots appeared on them looking like rust. 

"AAAAAAAAH" One of the red-clad ninjas screamed in pain as energy from the chains escaped and affected his body forcing it to steam while his skin developed blisters on them and his entire figure began to erode like clay. His muscles disappeared and even his bones blackened as his entire self was decreased to a bare husk of what he was before.

"What in the name of Morgna?..." Victor Von Doom could not help but mumble in surprise which was a very rare instance in his life but unfortunately, before he could complete his sentence and figure out exactly what was happening, multiple more shouts began to echo from all around the area.

"AAAA NOOOooo", "SOMEOOONE SAVEEEE", "HEEEEELP" The fate of every ninja holding the chains was the same as all of them soon experienced some of the most horrific deaths known to mankind while screaming for their lives, not even knowing how they perished.

Not just the ones holding the chains, even the Hand members who had not directly attacked him and were just waiting for the right time to attack were also forced to kneel on their knees by the natural force of his existence alone as he had stopped holding back and displayed about ten percent of his full power.

*Crack* All the golden now presently turned-red magical chains cracked together all at once with just a single flex of Atem's muscles and fell down which scared the remaining ninjas even more, so much so that a few couldn't even stop themselves from shaking in fear.

'Huh, they broke so easily? Such a waste, I thought I could take them home for research. I wouldn't have moved at all if I knew that just a slight movement of my body would force them to crack into pieces after being completely corrupted by my divine energy. I guess, my divinity of domination doesn't quite like it when I am the target of someone else's domination." Atem pondered to himself. He himself was really surprised. He had no idea that the people holding the chains would suffer such harsh consequences. He only expected the chains to break; not everyone to turn into the skeleton version of themselves.

"Perhaps, I should have controlled the output more. Well, I guess next time." Atem nervously laughed. He was not at all nervous about killing so many humans. To him, they were dead the moment they attacked him but he was worried about not being able to control his power especially since this incident could have easily happened to his friends, lovers, and subordinates as well. "Well, I guess I still have you guys to train with, so... Yoroshiku onegai shimasu (Please take care of me)." He playfully said with a large innocent grin. 

"... Did he just tell the rest of the surviving Hand members to... take care of him... in Japanese?" Doom asked no one not believing what he just heard with his own ears. He was truly for the first time in his life, confused.

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(A/N: Sorry for the slightly shorter chapter but I needed to end it there to maintain the story immersion since ending it anywhere after this point would have ruined the next chapter for you.)

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