Akasha

The temple of Akasha was as beautiful as always, the floating pyramidal complex hanging amidst the clouds in the dying light of the twilight sky, stars twinkling faintly up above in the distance.

Guess even Akasha knows it's his time to die, huh?

As before, in the middle of the room stood the thought elevator, leading up into a hole in the sky.

Beyond the hole, a thousand thousand screaming faces could be seen, souls and minds collapsing into one another, like a bubbling sludge of bloody liquid shit.

I led Snow up the steps to the summit of the temple as we came upon the gruesome sight.

"Do you what that is up there Snow?" I asked.

"Yes. Akasha. Is that the one?" She asked.

"Yup." I replied, pulling out a gun from a portal, with a small missile launcher at the barrel before handing Snow two pills.

"Painkillers? And two of them? Wow, this must really hurt!" She exclaimed, popping one into her mouth when I caught her.

"The other one's for me." I said.

She nodded, but still made a confused expression.

"Why? That the usual or...." She swallowed as her eyes diluted and she stepped away from me, ready to be killed again, almost too used to it.

Like she had been over and over for the past month and a half.

It was just then that I realised how truly horrible my treatment of her was this past few months.

I mean I really put her through the meat grinder, and no, that's not just a euphemism.

Sure, I did it to test if I would survive such a thing or not, and if whether breaking the mind of the immortal had any effect on immortality among other theories but still.

It was too cruel and barbaric.

All because I was influenced by Akasha. Because it tore a hole through my consciousness without my knowledge. Pushed me to utter depravity.

It's the reason I'm here today. To kill it once and for all.

But before that, before she dies with Akasha, I have to make it up to her.

Give her a chance at least.

"This." I pointed at the gun, "Contains the H'ronmeer's Curse, the psychic virus you retrieved for me. I plan to use it to kill Akasha. And you know as well as I, that once Akasha dies, you might just die with him too. That is a finality. So I'm offering you a choice.

You can die here if you want with Akasha. Or you can become mortal and I will send you back to the world you came from. Consider it an apology. For you know, all that stuff..."

She looked at me like I had just ripped her skin off her face.

"This ... is so sudden. Why now? Why not just do what you've already done before? Just let me die already." She asked.

"Because....that wasn't me. Not really. The meat grinder and the several hundred disintegrations and the needless torture. I...Akasha kinda influenced that. He tore a hole in my consciousness, between my Id and my Ego and that bleed out, it made me angry, emotional, sadistic and just ... unstable. And so... I'm giving you the option. Choose your path for yourself.

Die here? Or Die later, as a mortal woman?"

She thought for a moment and rubbed her eyes.

"Why would you make me choose? I..I don't know! I don't know what I want anymore." She said pacing around the platform.

"Didn't you want to die?" I asked.

"Well yes but...now that it's here..." She began to take gulping breaths.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

Is she afraid of dying?

Now, after all this?

What a joke!

"Yeah. Yeah. I'm fine. Um.....I can't decide. Yes. I can't decide. You do it for me." She said turning to me, clutching her hands nervously.

"It's your life Sno-"

"Please!" She insisted.

"Fine. I'll decide for you." I said, aiming the gun at the hole in the sky, and the thought elevator leading up into it.

With a deep breath, I put my finger around the trigger and activated my geass, finding the exact location to target that would lead to the death of Akasha, and peering through the timelines I spotted one. The branching tinelines in my vision coalesced into one as a hazy path appeared before me, like divine instruction.

Just above the hole, a halfway twisted link cutting across the border between the two worlds, thin as a strand of hair.

Adjusting my aim, I locked on to it and fired the missile.

It shot out from the launcher and whizzed up in a cloud of ionic flame as I portaled Snow into the vat of nutrients that I had used, isolating her from the impact of the H'ronmeer's Curse.

She squeaked in surprise as a she splashed into it, just as the missile landed.

I popped the painkiller just in case the pain spread to me and watched the explosion from the platform.

The explosion rippled out in a flash of white and red, as the whole world shook.

Glass cracked, space bent.

A flame of green and white bloomed at the intersection of the two worlds and began to spread like a wildfire across the thought elevator leading all the way up to the giant mass of souls and minds hanging above.

Soon the flame spread over them, washing across the mass like a tidal wave as unearthly screams echoed out in the pocket dimension.

The thought elevator snapped into two and it's strands, each made of a twisted human form began to unravel, the dark muddied grey strings spreading out like confetti as they cracked and further dissipated into nothingness.

Soon the destruction began to spread and the boundary between the worlds began to shake and shimmer, the rim of the hole in space above cracking and crumbling as did the platform and the temple below me.

I smiled and watched on though, rather than escaping.

Up in the sky, beyond the hole, the mass of souls the size of a planet slowly turning to ash as little flakes of black rained down from the sky and the screams only grew louder and more pained.

I could taste the panic in them.

It knew it was dying. And it could do nothing but watch, a silent spectator to it's own demise.

The faces above cried tears of ectoplasm and drool in the colour of blood dripped from them, evaporating still before it ever reached the hole in the sky, much less the temple.

They squirmed and crawled like worms and maggots up above to no avail as the flames consumed them one by one, layer by layer, as it offered pleas, bargains, flat out unrealistic promises. Anything in the hopes of saving itself.

And I stood and watched, not a reply lobbed in it's path, while the temple collapsed beneath my feet.

With my psychic force I took over one of the slabs I was standing on, preserving it in place as the rest of the structure fell into the bottomless abyss below.

Wish I had some popcorn right about now.

On second thought....

I pulled out a bag of popcorn from a portal and threw one into my mouth.

"Mhmmm! Cheese and butter. My favourite!" I chirped happily watching the chaos above.

It felt like hours had passed then, as the last of it burned down, the sky above me broke, like a mirror shattered and fell like all else into the abyss.

All that was left of the temple was my perch, a single slab of stone, cracking across it's edges in an endless, pitch black void, as I stood and witnessed the end of Akasha. The last of the ash rained down, staining my forcefield before I swatted it away as it slipped off into the abyss and walked off the platform into a portal, back home.

Akasha was no more.

I was free. And Snow was free. Finally, I could relax and begin to wrap up my tasks in the MCU.

Soon now.

Soon, I will be able to go ahead. On to the world of magicians and attain my own godhood.

And then, happily ever after.

_____________________

MC kills Akasha. This arc begins to wrap up.

Next time, maybe an interlude, Wanda's test of graduation and then, the finale to the MCU arc.

This is the extra chapter for 600 powerstones as promised. Well actually that was yesterday's chapter. But I forgot to write that in that one so here.

Thanks for reading.

See you tonight with the regular chapter.

Extra chapter at 200 powerstones next!

Bye~

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