William rose like a demon from the depths of the Flaxan planet, his once-golden aura now a deep, seething crimson with golden undertones, flickering violently like a wildfire on the verge of consuming everything in its path.
"RUMBLE!"
As he emerged into the sky, his burning gaze locked onto Nolan and Lucan, both of whom instinctively tensed, taking defensive stances against the crushing pressure exuding from him.
"FLK!" William threw a punch into the air, and a devastating ki-infused shockwave tore through the atmosphere. Nolan braced himself, crossing his arms to block, but—
"FLK, FLK, FLK, FLK!"
A relentless barrage of shockwaves followed in rapid succession, each blast hammering Nolan backward despite his best efforts. The air around him distorted from the sheer force, sending him skidding through the sky as he struggled to maintain control.
Lucan, seizing the opportunity, shot toward William's flank, spinning mid-air before executing a devastating axe kick aimed at William's right shoulder.
"BOOM!"
The impact sent a shockwave rippling across the battlefield. But William didn't budge. Not an inch. Lucan's heart pounded as terror gripped him. He turned to flee, but before he could escape, a powerful hand clamped around his shin like an iron vice.
"POW!"
Lucan's vision blurred as a crushing punch drove the air from his lungs, a mouthful of blood and spit bursting from his lips. Another attack loomed, but before William could follow through, Nolan reappeared in a blur of motion, his hand crashing down onto William's wrist with a force that sent jolts of pain up his arm, like swinging a bat into solid concrete.
William recoiled, briefly clutching his hand in surprise, just as Nolan retaliated with a vicious kick to his gut. The force sent William skidding across the planet's surface, his boots carving deep trenches into the ground.
Coming to a stop, William straightened and smirked, his fingers casually brushing away dust from the impact point. "Brush, brush." The sheer nonchalance made veins bulge on Nolan's forehead in frustration.
Suddenly—
A deafening roar of incoming forces tore through the air. William's eyes flicked skyward as dozens of Viltrumites descended upon him like a relentless storm, some wielding weapons, others carrying large, ominous containers forged from an unfamiliar alloy.
A thunderous impact shook the battlefield as a massive, burly Viltrumite slammed onto the ground before him. A cruel grin stretched across his scarred face as he whistled, his eyes drinking in William's form with a sickening hunger for battle.
"You really are a big bastard," Conquest sneered, flexing his fingers. "And here I thought Nolan was exaggerating in his report! HAHAHA!"
His laughter was cut short as, without warning, Conquest and nine other Viltrumites lunged at William, their killing intent like a suffocating tidal wave.
"BOOM, BOOM, BOOM!"
William dodged and countered, his body a blur of red and gold. But the sheer number of foes overwhelmed even his lightning-fast reactions. Blows found their mark, striking weak points with ruthless precision. A hammer fist from Conquest slammed into William's back, sending him crashing into the planet's surface, the impact birthing a multi-ringed crater.
High above, Thragg observed with an air of cool calculation. With a mere nod, the Viltrumites carrying the massive containers acknowledged the silent command and released them.
"BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM!"
Explosions erupted across the battlefield as the containers shattered, releasing monstrous roars that sent shivers down William's spine.
[Ding - System Quest issued - Defeat the horde of Rognarrs]
[Ding - System Message - Due to the time displacement between the Flaxan world and Earth, the time to complete the previous quest has passed. No rewards will be given!]
"TCH!" William clicked his tongue in irritation. Failing a quest was annoying, but right now, he had bigger concerns.
"RUMBLE!"
The sound of approaching predators sent his instincts into overdrive. Emerging from the smoke and destruction, they came—
The Rognarrs.
Towering, reptilian beasts, their thick, muscular bodies bristled with raw power. Their orange and red scales gleamed under the alien sun, marked with dark brown stripes that snaked along their limbs, torsos, and thrashing tails. Blank, glowing yellow eyes fixed on William with singular, predatory intent. Their long tongues flickered hungrily, and their serrated claws flexed in anticipation.
A primal instinct surged through William's veins in response. His aura flared.
"BOOM!"
With a thunderous burst of speed, he launched himself forward, hands crackling with dense red and gold ki that sharpened into twin energy blades.
"SHING, SLASH, CRK, SLASH!"
He tore through the Rognarrs like a living hurricane, carving a path of carnage. One of the monstrous beasts lunged at him, jaws wide, but William abandoned his blades, seizing the creature by its forearms.
"RAAAAH!"
Super Saiyan 2 lightning danced through his blood-red aura as he wrenched the beast's arms apart, muscle and sinew snapping like overstretched cords.
The Rognarr let out a gurgling screech, its instincts screaming at it to flee. But before it could move, William's hands shot to the sides of its skull, fingers digging deep.
"RIP!"
The sound of flesh and bone tearing filled the air as William split the creature's head in half. He tossed the mangled remains aside, only to see the other Rognarrs swarm the corpse, devouring their fallen kin in a frenzied feeding frenzy.
William's eyes narrowed. "Tch. Cannibals."
A beast lunged, claws arcing toward his face.
"SLASH!"
A barrier of sheer will materialized, intercepting the attack. The energy construct morphed into a massive pair of scissors.
"SNIP!"
The Rognarr's head tumbled to the ground.
Another group closed in. William opened his palm, his aura surging outward.
"BOOM!"
A massive shockwave blasted outward, sending the creatures stumbling back. In his hands, dozens of brilliant red ki spheres flared into existence.
He smirked.
"Continuous Energy Bullet!"
"BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM!"
The battlefield erupted into chaos as the relentless barrage rained down. Some Rognarrs were vaporized instantly, others reduced to limbless torsos that were immediately swarmed and consumed by their own kind.
Above, Thragg watched with keen interest. Conquest practically salivated at the spectacle.
"This one is quite powerful," Thragg murmured. He turned to Nolan. "You were right to call us. Had we ignored your warning, our plan might have been ruined."
Nolan said nothing, but his thoughts drifted, not to William, but to Mark. And to Debbie. A strange, unfamiliar pang struck his chest.
"What is this feeling?"
Below, the battlefield burned as William annihilated most of the Rognarrs. Blood dripped from his fingers. His red-gold aura flared. And above, the Viltrumites prepared to descend once more.
The battle was far from over.
Krieg, positioned to Thragg's left, had been using his mechanical eyes to analyze the energy signature of the alien below. A sharp CRACK! rang out as the lens in his cybernetic eye fractured under the strain, forcing him to look away. He cursed under his breath, losing another eye out here would be a death sentence, and there weren't any decent replacements within light-years.
Meanwhile, on the battlefield, the very ground trembled beneath the force of William's onslaught.
RUMBLE!
A sickening THUD echoed across the desolate landscape as he drove the last surviving Rognarr into the surface of the Flaxan planet with bone-crushing force. His fingers burrowed into its chest, grasping the still-beating heart within. A slow, wicked grin stretched across his blood-smeared face as he yanked his arm free in a gory spray, holding the pulsing organ aloft. The Rognarr beneath him spasmed violently before going still, its lifeless body joining the countless others littering the battlefield.
But the fight wasn't over yet.
A sharp SCHLICK! followed by a searing pain erupted from his shoulder. One of the last remaining Rognarr had managed to creep up behind him, its claws carving a chunk of flesh from his back. William's pupils shrank into pinpricks, his entire body tensing as white-hot pain surged through him.
CRACK!
His retaliation was swift and brutal. He pivoted sharply, his leg whipping out in a devastating roundhouse kick that connected with the Rognarr's side. The creature let out a strangled cry as its spine snapped like brittle wood, its body folding unnaturally before tumbling across the battlefield, landing in front of the final two Rognarr. They hesitated now, their predatory instincts warring with the reality before them, one man had annihilated their entire pack.
Without a moment's hesitation, the last two Rognarr bolted in opposite directions. One darted across the landscape with inhuman speed, while the other clawed its way beneath the surface, burrowing deep into the planet's mantle in a desperate bid for safety.
William, however, was faster.
In the blink of an eye, he disappeared, leaving only a fading trail of blood in his wake. The fleeing Rognarr barely had time to register his absence before he reappeared in its path. Desperation drove the beast to lunge, its powerful jaws snapping toward him.
William didn't flinch.
His hands shot out, gripping either side of the Rognarr's head. Its dagger-like teeth sank into his flesh, but he didn't care. With a guttural roar, he pulled.
RIPPP!
The creature's head was torn in two, its body splitting apart as blood, viscera, and bone fragments exploded in every direction. The lifeless halves fell to the ground with a sickening splat.
Discarding the useless remains, William turned his attention to the one that had fled underground. He closed his eyes for a brief moment, sharpening his senses to their absolute limit. Through the layers of rock and molten earth, he could just barely detect the faint tremors of movement, the last Rognarr was still alive, retreating deeper into the planet's mantle.
His lips curled into a smirk.
A mass of crimson Ki surged to life in his palm, crackling with raw destructive energy. His eyes snapped open, locking onto the faint signature below.
WENG!
The blast erupted downward, carving through rock and dirt like a molten spear, tearing an incendiary path straight toward its target.
Far below, the Rognarr had finally slowed, believing itself safe in the planet's depths. It panted heavily, exhausted from its frantic escape, its muscles trembling from exertion. For a brief moment, it allowed itself to rest.
That moment was its last mistake.
A blinding red glow illuminated the cavern it had burrowed into, growing brighter by the second. The air became stifling. The Rognarr's instincts screamed at it to move, but before it could so much as twitch—
BOOOOOOOM!
The Ki blast detonated with the force of a miniature sun, unleashing a cataclysmic shockwave that tore through the mantle. The explosion destabilized the planet's core, sending a violent surge of magma cascading into the newly formed cavern. The molten rock poured in like a tidal wave, consuming everything in its path.
On the surface, William stood with his arms crossed, watching impassively as the land beneath him swelled from the subterranean eruption. Then, with a deafening roar, a massive geyser of lava and energy burst skyward several feet behind him, painting the sky in a hellish glow. The force sent tremors racing through the ground, causing it to collapse inward, leaving behind a gaping hollow.
Slowly, William rose into the air, his tattered clothes and blood-streaked hair whipping in the violent updraft. His gaze lifted, locking onto the Viltrumites hovering above.
They were watching. Waiting.
The tension thickened.
And then—
CLAP!
A slow, deliberate clap rang out.
William's sharp gaze met Conquest's, and the older Viltrumite was grinning. His eyes burned with uncontained excitement, his muscles tensing like a coiled spring. He wasn't interested in orders, strategies, or politics. He wanted battle. He wanted pain.
And he wasn't going to wait for Thragg's command.
Without warning, Conquest shot forward, his mechanical fist raised high. The metal gleamed under the eerie red glow of the ruined battlefield, its surface engraved with unknown markings.
William's reaction was instantaneous. His Ki flared, flooding his body with raw power as he swung to meet the incoming strike.
BOOM!
The air exploded around them as their fists collided, sending shockwaves rippling through the atmosphere.
Conquest's metal fist shattered. Fragments of alien alloy scattered through the air, gleaming like shards of broken stars. But the price for matching his strength was steep, several of William's own bones snapped under the force of the impact. Agony lanced through his already battered body, but he gritted his teeth, his smirk widening.
"Good thing I used the already injured arm," he mused darkly, flexing his fingers despite the pain. "Otherwise, I'd be fighting with my teeth. Heh… hehehe!"
Blood dripped from his fingertips, but William didn't care. He rolled his shoulders, feeling the heat of battle surge through his veins. Conquest's eyes gleamed with unhinged delight.
Conquest's grin widened as he flexed his shattered mechanical hand, the broken metal falling away in useless shards. "You hit hard, boy," he growled, rolling his shoulder before lunging in again.
William barely had time to raise his arm before Conquest's knee slammed into his ribs, sending him hurtling backward. He caught himself midair, coughing up a bit of blood before vanishing in a blur of speed. He reappeared above Conquest, driving a brutal axe kick downward.
"CRACK!" The air trembled as Conquest blocked the attack with his forearm, but the force sent him plummeting toward the fractured battlefield below.
William pursued, fists glowing with ki. He rained down blows, but Conquest countered each one with brutal precision. A left hook to William's jaw snapped his head sideways, but he retaliated with a vicious elbow that cracked Conquest's cheekbone.
The two warriors separated, hovering midair, breathing heavy. Conquest wiped blood from his lips and laughed. "You'll make a fine corpse for the Empire."
William spat to the side. "Too bad you won't be around to see it."
Before either could lunge again, Thragg raised a hand. "Enough."
The air tensed as Thragg's cold voice rang out. "Enough games. Kill him and be done with it."
The twenty Viltrumites surrounding William moved as one, blurring into motion like a swarm of living missiles. Their speed was overwhelming, their combined strength crushing. Even with his incredible reflexes, William found himself on the defensive, blocking, dodging, countering, but it wasn't enough. A fist slammed into his stomach, another cracked against his ribs, and a third sent him spinning through the air.
"BOOM!" William crashed into the surface, a crater forming beneath him as he gasped for breath. He barely had time to move before another Viltrumite shot down, burying a knee into his back, followed by another and another, each strike hammering him deeper into the fractured ground.
His vision blurred. His body screamed in agony. The sheer number of enemies was too much. For the first time in a long time, doubt crept in. Was this it?
Then, a sound. A low, guttural growl. His body trembled. His fingers dug into the dirt as something boiled inside him, something deep and monstrous.
"RAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!"
A primal roar tore from his throat as he clutched his head, veins bulging, his very soul shaking under the weight of something awakening within.