CHAPTER 227

Odin stood, donned in a magnificent golden armor, with a sword strapped to his waist belt while his trusted spear he held in his left hand. The helmet he wore had two huge protrusions, bigger than the ones on the helmets of his army, pure gold with a golden eye patch over his right eye.

No single person could be found on sight except the Asgardian Allfather who stood in the vacuum of space with his eye closed. 

His sight covered all the battlefield that involved Knull's dark army and with Heimdall's help, they directed the Asgardian army towards favorable positions to ensure minimal loss on their side. 

His somber solitude was interrupted with the heaven shattering sound of thunder and the unmistakable presence of a Skyfather. 

At his side, a very muscular man with fiery red hair and black armor appeared as the lightning receded. 

Zeus Panhellenios, Skyfather and Godking of the Greek Gods of Mount Olympus. 

God of Lightning, Justice and Order. 

One of the handful of divine beings that rivaled Odin in prestige and strength. 

"Odin…" He gave the slightest nod of acknowledgement to his fellow Skyfather and crossed his huge arms across his chest. 

"Zeus.. And here I half-thought you'd prefer to sit back and watch this crisis wash over the base of your mountain." Odin's words gained a snort from Zeus who like Odin spectated the battle happening all around with a frown forming on his face. 

"This is more than we expected. Not only is he aiming for Gods but also sent his wretched army despite being in the middle of clash with the Celestials." Zeus idly commented, his eyes burning with righteous fury that put every frivolity he was known for to shame. Despite his nature, he was a major God of Justice and Order. Chaos was not in him. 

"Except if an unknown variable makes its way towards that battlefield, Knull will fall in a short time. What does Amun-Ra say?" Odin made his acute observations known before inquiring of a subject matter from Zeus. 

Zeus' face formed a scowl at the mention of the Egyptian Skyfather who thought now was a good time to continue sunbathing. "Amun-Ra won't be joining the battle if nothing changes. I don't see the reason why we need the presence of that self-important bird head." As the Skyfather of one of the strongest pantheons, they had expected Amun-Ra to participate without being asked but instead he had sent a messenger to deliver the message that his pantheon wouldn't be participating in the coming battle. 

"Well, at least I tried. With Amun-Ra's people, the number of casualties on either of our side will be reduced, even more so if other Gods were to follow in his footsteps." The scheme of Gods ran deep at every moment. Opportunities presented itself in abundance during times of chaos and Odin wanted to capitalize a little on it. 

Zeus hummed in understanding of Odin's thought and continued surveying until his eyes caught a glimpse of something. "Is that her?"

Seeing where Zeus was focused on, Odin nodded. "She's Gaea's favored, and also a betrothed to him so I'll advise you to cease any ill thoughts or designs you have on her." For the first time since their meeting, Odin's magic seeped out at the veiled threat he gave Zeus. 

"Humph!" Not taking Odin's threat seriously, he countered with his as lightning raced around his body. "You side with him? Against me?"

This was a question Odin had done his best to avoid for a while now but faced with Zeus' confrontations, he could do nothing but sigh. "Yes, Zeus. Asgard only stands to benefit if we remain in cordiality with each other. By Bors beard, I should pick an heir after this." Odin felt as if he aged a few millennia as he finally admitted it. 

Zeus said nothing else and both of them remained silent until they felt a disturbance that washed over them and before any could question it, the veil protecting the universe was ripped apart like soaked paper. 

The war had entered its second stage. 

… 

[Draul St. Cross POV] 

The veil wasn't torn or ripped apart but was erased and the feedback I got from it caused an involuntary shiver to travel down my spine. 

Another battle had erupted the moment the newcomers showed themselves and their lineup was impressive to say the least. 

They weren't working together from what I could tell but their goals aligned. 

Chthon – The Elder God of Chaos. 

Seth – The Primordial Serpent. 

Satannish – Satan of Hell. 

Along with something I dreaded to my core… 

Amatsu-Mikaboshi – The Chaos King… 

An embodiment of Nothingness' totality. 

That itself was the true end, one that not even Death could compare to. You could cheat Death and garner her affection but the only thing you'll get from The True End was a true end. Not death. You would simply cease to exist. 

The worst part was that the Chaos King that was entering this universe was but a fraction of his Outerversal self, the Personification of the Void, Oblivion. 

Shit just went from 10 to 120 real fast. 

Knull's psychotic laugh rang in my ears as alarms went off but before I could fully move away, his blade had already taken a good chunk of my flesh and drew open a deep fountain of blood. 

All it took was a split instant where I reacted to the dread that flowed through me and it was enough for Knull to take his advantage. 

Nothing was absolute. 

Even all the baseless emotions I had all but erased were roused in the split second I identified the new additions. I wasn't the only one that shook in fear, Arishem shuddered in trepidation and surprise while Exitar and Hargen outright trembled in the face of the Chaos King, and he was the only one who hadn't stepped into the universe. Surprisingly, it was Tiamut who reacted less. 

One thing I knew for sure was that this universe was gone. It would be erased and reduced to space dust once everyone stopped pulling the stops on their attacks. 

I could already feel the corruption from All-black trying to wrestle away the ownership of my soul but I kept it at bay, guiding my own Null to destroy every form of sentience it had. 

Knull had killed five Celestials since he was released, two when he got his sword and three during the split moment all of our focus got shifted by taking control of the corpse of the two fallen Celestials and turning them into Celestial Symbiotes. 

"Are you okay, Draul?" Tiamut warped to my side and covered me in a ball of cosmic energy, likely in a bid to slow down the infection but I was already doing all what I could.

"I'll manage, T. How about you? The other side doesn't seem that optimistic." I said referring to the other battlefield that would turn into a carnage setting any moment now. 

"This is my battlefield. The sooner we put Knull down, the more optimistic the overall situation would become. Hang on, Draul. I vividly remember you still have a family to bring up." I laughed in amusement at the huge Celestial robot giving his own version of a rousing speech and steadied myself. It wouldn't do for the baby Celestial to hype me up. 

"Oh, and T…" He tilted his head in a show of having his attention. "The rousing speech is supposed to be when everyone is on their last breath. It's supposed to be this limit breaking thing heroes do, so too bad it's not gonna work for us." 

The Celestials had already commenced another attack on Knull during our small pep talk while the ones overhead continued doing what they were doing despite losing some of their comrades. 

"We move." We both disappeared with those words and joined the fray with Tiamut moving while I hitched a ride on his shoulders. 

We arrive in time to witness Knull punting Arishem with a left hook before webbing Hargen and drawing him closer before sinking his fangs through his armor like the sickly bloodsucking vampire he very much looked like. 

Due to the close nature and time I've spent fighting alongside a group of Celestials, I was slowly getting how they manipulated their cosmic energy but even I couldn't fully emulate it yet, it was enough for me to do this…

I brandished my axe and with an upward flick of two of my fingers, I forcefully swapped places with Hargen, saving him from having Knull rip more nasty wounds into him. 

Acting on Knull's surprise at having his prey disappear from his fangs, I drove an uppercut into his chin whose shock shattered any rubble near us to dust which shot him upwards only for my axe construct to stretch higher than his upward flight and comfortably fix its bladed edge into in his face, crunching whatever blood and bone he had together as our surroundings exploded in a bright light as a sun appeared in the path I was bringing my axe down on. 

FWOOS-BOOOM!! 

The sun imploded on itself as I rewrote the laws of physics acting on it, making it explode towards its center instead of outwards if anything, Knull, were to act on it. 

"Arishem, get Hargen out of here before Knull goes for the snack. Let-" 

I warped out of there immediately with the other Celestials as those around us dropped the multigalaxy-wide beam of pure cosmic energy. 

Acting quickly, I severed the space around the sun and the incoming beam and enclosed them while also rewriting the reality of how it should act. 

Progressive constant and concurrent buildup in an enclosed spatial pocket instead of fission. 

We watched as the young star gradually changed from its bright yellow to a light shade of orange before simmering into a red dwarf, a constant chain of implosions still ongoing. 

"Get the other Celestials out of here. There's no way Knull can come out of that in one piece. It'll be progressively worse for us if he snacks on one of you and heals himself while getting stronger and gaining a Celestial puppet out of it." My voice remained calm as I gave Arishem my opinion. We might be temporary allies but we are all trying to win with less casualties. 

Arishem looked at the burning sun, no idea what was going through his mind before he nodded. "He's stronger than what I estimated will be his battle prowess after his emergence." He said and then turned to the Celestials galaxies around us and said in a low voice that reached all of them. "Retreat. Your help is no longer needed going forward. Search and scour for any traces of his symbiotes and eliminate them before joining the other battlefield."

He then turned to Exitar who had been blessed with numerous chinks on his armor. "Lead them. Myself, Tiamut and Draul will put Knull to his final rest at our quickest."

Exitar's gaze rested on the dark red sun that grew dimmer by the second for a brief moment and then looked at me before nodding at Arishem and warping away and leaving only the three of us least wounded to face the injured Knull. 

I could see the sun gaining a taint of black and that was all the signal we needed before we launched another salvo of attacks. 

I waved the sun away before Knull could completely engulf it in his darkness and met the inebriated Void God with both hands to his face and a knee to his nose.

Twisting him in a 180°, I flung his bloody body that oozed living black blood toward the two Celestials who punched him downwards into a portal that spit him out in front from me only for my hand to go through his chest as it shone red making Knull grunt in pain before everything turned red and destroyed his body. 

"STOP!" A shockwave of darkness hit me at point blank range that threw me backwards and caused me to grunt in pain and it further exacerbated the injury I received. 

Fortunately for me, Knull was let off worst as a good portion of his body had dissolved into a viscous form. 

His lost blade flew from somewhere and landed in his hands and started wriggling and then did something that surprised me. 

It devoured the part of Knull that was destroyed which caused symbiotic veins to start crawling over it, making it shine an eerie red and black.