Verlin's senses snapped to full alert, his ears straining for the faintest sound amidst the crackling magma, his eyes catching every subtle movement in the swirling dust, scanning the devastated landscape for any sign of Radae. But apart from the shifting rocks, flowing magma, sizzling air, and the distant traveling shockwave, he couldn't find any trace of the god
Abruptly, Radae's voice boomed across the sky, seeming to come from everywhere at once. "Ra Kaelis Vor'thun dae."
The words reverberated through the air with an unnatural resonance. As they echoed, Verlin noticed a dramatic shift in the atmosphere. The sky, already gloomy from the debris of their battle, began to darken further. Clouds gathered at an unnatural speed, swirling and coalescing into an ominous mass. They blotted out what little sunlight remained, plunging the landscape into near darkness.
Lightning crackled within the rapidly forming storm clouds, illuminating their depths with flashes of purple and blue. Thunder rolled across the landscape, each boom seeming to shake the very foundations of the earth.
Verlin watched in astonishment as the clouds spread with impossible speed, reaching past the coast of the continent they had arrived from and even towards the mothership that was in the opposite direction.
As Verlin hovered in the air, his eyes scanning the roiling storm clouds, a flicker of movement caught his attention. Dozens of orbs of light, similar to the ones Radae had used earlier but smaller and more numerous, were now converging on his position with alarming speed.
Verlin immediately moved out the way of the attack, but quickly found the orbs seemed to be tracking his movement. He accelerated, zigzagging across the darkened sky, but the orbs adjusted their course each time, unwavering in their pursuit.
Realizing he couldn't simply outrun them, Verlin changed his approach. He darted toward the ground, using the jagged terrain for cover. The orbs followed, crashing into the rocky surface and causing small explosions that sent fragments of stone flying in every direction. Verlin weaved through the rocky landscape, using the chaos to his advantage, but it was clear that these attacks were meant to keep him on the defensive.
With each passing moment, the storm above grew more intense. Bolts of lightning rained down, striking the ground with deafening force. Verlin knew he couldn't keep dodging forever.
While still flying away from the orbs, he turned around. Verlin's eyes glowed briefly as he activated his heat vision, firing twin beams of searing energy at the pursuing orbs. The red beams cut through the air, vaporizing several of the orbs instantly. However, more continued to approach, undeterred.
Suddenly changing direction, Verlin shot upward into the darkened sky, accelerating with explosive force. The remaining orbs followed, trailing behind him like a swarm of malevolent fireflies. Higher and higher he climbed, the storm clouds looming ever closer above.
Just as the orbs were about to overtake him, Verlin spun in mid-air. His eyes blazed with an intensity that lit up the storm-darkened sky like a second sun. The heat vision that erupted from his eyes wasn't the usual focused beam, but rather a massive cone of devastating energy that expanded outward, engulfing the entire swarm of orbs in its path.
The air itself seemed to ignite as the orbs were caught in the blast. They exploded in rapid succession, creating a chain reaction of brilliant flashes that briefly illuminated the darkened sky.The blast bored into the earth like a gigantic drill, creating a perfectly cylindrical hole. The walls of this vertical tunnel glowed orange-red, lined with molten rock that flowed like liquid metal. Steam and smoke billowed up from the depths, creating a chimney effect that sent a column of heated air rushing skyward.
But in that brief moment of victory, before the last orb disintegrated, a blinding flash lit up the sky above. A massive bolt of lightning, far larger than any that had come before, fell from the sky at a fraction of the speed of light.
Instinctively raising his arms to block the attack. The bolt struck Verlin squarely, the impact unleashing a thunderclap so powerful it would be heard clearly through the whole continent. Electricity coursed through Verlin's body, every muscle seizing at once as the force of the strike drove him downward. He plummeted straight into the cylindrical well his heat vision had carved moments before.
Yet the lightning remained constant as it pushed Verlin deeper and deeper, far past the bottom of his heat vision-carved tunnel and into the planet's crust. Layer after layer of rock gave way as Verlin was driven farther down by the impossibly sustained lightning.
By the time lightning strike dissipated, Verlin found himself buried 40 miles beneath the Earth's surface, in the upper layer of the mantle. Any attempt to move his muscles was met with a stinging pain. Looking down at his forearms that had been charred by the attack, Verlin gritted his teeth as his thoughts flickered to Radae. Everytime the god spoke, the upcoming attacks were exceptionally painful. He made another note in his mind to be more cautious about them.
As the pain in his body started to fade away, his attention was drawn to his surroundings. Without even trying, he could feel the tremors from the attack destabilizing the mantle, and making the shifting of tectonic plates more erratic.
Letting out a shallow sigh, Verlin hoisted himself up and launched back toward the surface. The cavity left by the lightning strike had already begun to collapse, sealing under the immense pressure within the mantle. Even as massive chunks of rock and magma broke free from the walls, some as large as buildings, it did nothing to impede him as they broke and fragmented upon contact as he ascended. By the time he reached the surface, his arms that had been injured were completely healed.
As Verlin emerged from the collapsing chasm, he saw that the entire landscape was transformed beyond recognition. The immense energy outburst from the Lightning strike had literally shaken the whole continent, triggering powerful earthquakes that rippled outward in all directions.
In the distance, dormant volcanoes, silent for centuries, suddenly roared to life. Their peaks exploded with terrifying force, unleashing torrents of ash and lava skyward. Rivers of molten rock poured down mountainsides while dark plumes merged with the already blackened sky.
Verlin watched in stunned silence as one volcano after another erupted in a catastrophic chain reaction, each explosion triggering the next in a spreading circle of devastation.
At the coastlines, the seafloor had been thrust upward, causing a massive displacement of water. Verlin watched as the ocean receded dramatically from the shoreline—a clear sign of an impending tsunami. The sea pulled back farther than ever before, exposing vast stretches of the ocean floor that hadn't seen daylight in millennia.
Given the rate the waves were moving and the distance from the nearest shore, Verlin estimated he would have 4 hours and 36 minutes to end the fight before it reached the nearest shore. That should be plenty of time.
After taking account of the damage done, Verlin redirected his focus to Radae, who now stood openly amid the chaos. No longer cloaked or hiding, his voice was transmitted directly to Verlin's mind, " I have to say, kryptonian, I'm impressed by your resilience, but you must know your efforts are meaningless. I won't stop until I've obtained what I came here for."
"You talk like your requests are reasonable," Verlin responded as he nonchalantly dusted debris off his body, his eyes trailing behind Radae where the mothership was. Something had just left the ship and flew upwards through the atmosphere. He continued, " If you leave now, I can promise not to pursue you."
Radae smirked as the arrongance once again laced his voice, " Pursue me? You don't seem to understand, kryptonian. I am a Radae with thousands of years worth of accumulated divine energy. What you have seen so far is only a glimpse of what I could really do."
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As Radae spoke, a chunk of dense material tore through the murky sky and slammed into Verlin. It wrapped around him, piece by piece, encasing his entire body in armor until only his eyes, now glowing with fierce energy, remained visible. Verlin replied in a low voice, " What a coincidence, I was about to say the exact same thing."
As he finished speaking, a surge of heat vision erupted from his eyes—not the usual red, but a fiery orange. Moving at light speed, the beam struck Radae before he could react. Though his barrier absorbed most of the impact, the sheer kinetic force launched him skyward, hurtling him through the stormy clouds.
Verlin immediately pressed the attack. He had noticed that, despite Radae's immense power, the god was sluggish, lacking in reaction time. Verlin knew he had to use this to his advantage and force the fight off Earth before any more damage could be inflicted on the planet. This was especially true if he wanted to fight at full power. Up until now, he had yet to throw a punch that hadn't been measured.
Accelerating, Verlin closed the distance in an instant. He delivered a powerful punch that cracked the barrier around Radae, sending the god rocketing past the upper atmosphere and into space. The sheer force of the blow parted the storm clouds, allowing beams of sunlight to pierce through and illuminate the chaotic landscape below.
As Radae steadied himself in the void, his expression darkened. With a flick of his wrist, he summoned a storm of radiant orbs that hurtled toward Verlin. But Verlin didn't falter. Without any intention of dodging, he barreled forward, dead set to confront Radae head-on, even as the oncoming storm of light bore down on him.
Ignoring the radiant orbs that exploded upon contact with his armor, Verlin pushed on, sending another wave of heat vision. The orange beam of heat vision cut through space like a flashlight in the dark, dispersing the remaining orbs in its path and pushing the god farther into space.
As he closed the distance, Verlin could see the god speaking with his mouth once again. Regardless he planned on moving the battle away from Earth, this time now that they were no longer on Earth, he planned on letting loose a little. Radae's voice once again echoed, resonating through the vacuum with a clarity that defied the absence of sound.
"Ra Thunath vel dae"
Verlin clenched his fist and closed the remaining distance in a heartbeat, his senses fully alert for the effects of the words as he aimed a thunderous punch straight at Radae's chest, intent on completely dispersing the god's energy form. But the instant his fist connected, he felt a strange resistance—an odd reverberation, almost like his own attack was bouncing back. He barely had time to process it before the kinetic force of his punch redirected toward him with equal intensity.
The backlash was immense; immediately the armor that covered his knuckles shattered and cracks appeared on the rest of the armor around his body. Caught by surprise, Verlin was thrown backward with the same force he had just unleashed. It felt like a wall of unstoppable power crashing into him as he flew back uncontrollably. He clenched his jaw, fighting to regain control as he spun through the void, the stars in the distance blurring into streaks of light.
Knowing that the impact was inevitable, rather than fight the momentum entirely, Verlin angled his body as he re-entered the atmosphere, allowing the atmosphere's friction to bleed off some of the kinetic energy.
Even as he decelerated, the force of his re-entry carved a massive trench beneath him, the air igniting into a fiery halo around his form. The trench carved by his descent grew wider and deeper, cutting across fields and mountain ranges as he tore through the atmosphere. Finally, with an ear-splitting roar, he crashed to the earth, creating a monstrous explosion that sent tremors rippling across the continent.
While Verlin was still slightly stunned from the blow, he heard a familiar voice from his armor, " Are you alright?"
"I'll be fine, Desna, just need a second to recover a little," Verlin groaned. His arm was slightly numb from the deflected punch.
"You might not get that second." Desna warned
"Huh?" Verlin replied as he looked into the sky and noticed a charge in the air. A massive bolt of lightning ripped through the sky, illuminating the dark clouds with a jagged scar of light. And from the looks of it, it was just as powerful as the first one. Verlin's instincts took over, and he kicked off the ground with incredible speed, narrowly dodging the strike. But the power of the blast was overwhelming—though he avoided a direct hit, the shockwave blasted him off, sending him tumbling through the air.
Verlin reoriented himself, spinning mid-air to regain his balance. Before he could fully recover, another lightning strike, just as fierce, was already hurtling toward him. He twisted his body, narrowly dodging it by a few meters, as the heatwave blasted his face, enveloping him in the light of the explosion.
"Verlin, these thunderbolts…" Desna's voice echoed through his comm.
"I know. They're tearing the continent apart." Verlin replied warily as he continued dodging the relentless assault.
"No, it's not just the continent. The entire planet is feeling it." Desna replied.
Through his enhanced vision, Verlin could see the truth of Desna's words. Each lightning strike send seismic waves that traveled through the planet. Each strike made tectonic plates shift more violently and fractured the crust, spreading cracks that widened with each successive blow.
"My patience has run out, Kryptonian," Radae's telepathic words filled with unfiltered anger as they transmitted into Verlin's mind.
Verlin looked up to see Radae rushing towards his location, his eyes that were usually filled with rampant change of colours were now predominantly red.
"Ra Thalor Vel Dae," Radae's voice boomed with a sinister resonance as he extended his arm and swiped towards Verlin's position. An invisible and thin wave of force expanded horizontally, stretching far beyond the visible horizon. It didn't matter what stood in its path, from the tiniest of particles to the tallest of mountains — all were equally bisected by the thread-like slice.
Unwilling to test the limits of his durability, Verlin promptly dived beneath the attack as it whipped past him, leaving an eerie silence in its wake. The thin wave of force continued its path, carving a clean line across the landscape and continued moving upward as it wasn't bound by the curvature of the planet.
In less than a tenth of a second, it reached the mothership that was hundreds of kilometers away from his position. And like everything else in its path, the skull shaped mothership was split cleanly from the bottom of the nose to the back of the skull. The severing force continued on its path, eventually moving into space.
Verlin's eyes widened as he watched as the top half of the mothership start sliding off of the rest of the mothership. Sparks and debris trailed from the split edges, scattering into the sky like fireworks. For a second, he was angry that something he had worked so hard to preserve had been destroyed, but another emotion quickly overcame that anger.
"Desna," Verlin called out, his voice steady but carrying an undercurrent of concern, "Are you alright?"
Desna's voice came through his armor like usual. "I'm fine Verlin. My core systems are intact. My primary structure is safe within the Pyramid of solitude beneath the mothership."
"Good to hear," Verlin replied with relief in his voice, his gaze flickering back to the split mothership. "But what about the Xylorings? Last I checked, they were still in a lower compartment in the mothership."
Desna answered smoothly. "That section remained unscathed in the split. I've already dispatched the Verlin-bots to guard them and ensure their safety."
Satisfied with Desna's response, Verlin turned his gaze back to Radae, who was still moving towards him. This time, the god had summoned even more orbs of light, but these ones were brighter and larger than the previous ones. While Radae's previous orbs had been the size of baseballs or smaller, these new ones were as large as basketballs.
Making a plan in his head, Verlin murmured to Desna, "Desna, the being I'm currently fighting with is here for the enhanced humans. I need you to use the Verlin bots and gather up the enhanced humans around the world and get them out of the solar system if possible."
" I'm quite sure the enhanced humans won't be so willing to leave. Especially since they're still recovering from the Coratian Invasion." Desna replied
"Thats fine, cause we won't be asking." Verlin responded as he backhanded a massive radiant orb, sending it spiraling into space. He followed up, "Besides, they'll be alive to complain. Also, make sure you take the Xylorings with you."
Desna hummed back in acknowledgement, " Understood, but what would be doing about your opponent. I strongly advise against keeping the battle on Earth; the damage done already is almost irreversible."
Verlin's gaze lingered on the fading sunlight as the sky closed over the spot where he had fallen. His focus fixed back on Radae, " Don't worry, he won't be on the planet for long." he muttered.
As Verlin came to a halt in the air and prepared himself, he felt a subtle shift in his armor. The cracks along the surface began to seal and a faint hum vibrated through him as Desna initiated rapid repairs, smoothing over the damaged sections and seamlessly reconstructing the shattered piece over his knuckles. He could feel the armor thinnig out in other areas to compensate for the damage.
"Repairs complete," Desna informed him.
Verlin smiled slightly and replied, " Thanks, Desna."
Radae, on the other hand, seeing that Verlin had finally stopped moving, launched a volley of large radiant orbs at him, as the sky above Verlin darkened even further and a familiar electric charge filled the air.
As Verlin watched the orbs close distance, his mind raced through the battle thus far. He had been deliberately limiting his speed, carefully measuring each movement to minimize collateral damage to the environment. But looking at the devastation around him – the fractured continent, the awakened volcanoes, the approaching tsunami – he realized such restraint was now pointless. The damage was done.
In an instant, Verlin's perception shifted to a level where each nanosecond stretched into what felt like seconds to him. The world around him seemed to freeze – the basketball-sized orbs that could cross several kilometers in a hundreth of a second, couldn't even move a millimeter, while the massive lightning bolt coming down from the sky couldnt move more than three centimeters. Verlin concluded that the lightning was definitely extraordinary. Normal lighning would be moving much slower than the orbs.
Moving at these speeds, even Desna couldn't communicate with him. Here, he was truly in a world by himself. Verlin pushed off the air and accelerated towards Radae, he could feel himself colliding with the molecules in the air that were completely stationary, as the area in front of him quickly turned into superheated plasma.
It was upon reaching Radae that it registered to Verlin realized how large the god was, standing at three meters tall. He was about the same height as an average coratian. Wasting no more time, Verlin grabbed Radae by the chin and took him up, up, and away from the Earth below.
Within a millisecond, they were already 300 kilometers above the surface of the earth, that was when Verlin noticed the swirling pool in Radae's eyes showed signs of movement. But Verlin didn't give him a chance to retaliate. Tightening his grip, he pivoted and flung Radae even farther out into space, sending him hurtling toward the moon's orbit with incredible force.
Following close behind, Verlin barely let Radae regain his bearings before he closed the distance again. The moon loomed massive in the background, its shadow partially covering the sun in a dramatic eclipse.
Verlin, clenching his fist so tightly that the armor around his knuckles fractured, put everything into the punch, holding nothing back. His arm moved so fast it became a blur even to his eyes.
As his fist made contact with the barrier around Radae, there was a moment —a microsecond of stillness—before everything shattered. The barrier broke first, divine energy scattering like stardust, followed immediately by Radae's form itself. The god's body erupted into countless particles of light, the majority of his essence streaking toward the sun like a brilliant comet.
The impact released an explosion of energy that, from Earth, appeared as a second star – one that briefly outshone the sun itself. Though they floated 600 miles above the lunar surface, the raw force behind the punch was so immense that it carved deep fissures across the moon's face, spreading across its surface like a spider's web.
The armor covering Verlin's right arm and the right side of his torso didn't survive the impact. It simply evaporated, leaving that portion of his body exposed to the vacuum of space. He remained floating there, partially armored, watching as the last traces of Radae's scattered essence disappeared toward the distant sun.