'Is there a way for me to destabilize the energies within Aria? If I manage to succeed it should be able to deal lasting damage to her. Considering the fact that she's a walking nuke right now.' Shiro thought to herself while dodging the incoming attacks.
She had already dismissed her nanobots due to the risk of the poison and she couldn't afford to have her attention split elsewhere right now.
Each attack she threw at Aria would be deflected with ease due to the poison weakening the structure of her nanobots.
Unless Shiro could deal with the poison, she'll have to focus on retreating.
'The barrier behind me can't be broken… The void behind her is risky too.' Furrowing her brows, Shiro scanned the entire battlefield for anything she could use to her advantage.
Thankfully, her traps were buying some time for her to analyse the situation since Aria's attacks were being fended off.
Thinking about it for a moment, a smile crept up on Shiro's lips as an idea appeared in her mind.
Jumping out, she was about to teleport when Aria's hand appeared in front of her face.
Quickly ducking down, Shiro launched a barrage of punches against Aria's chest only for her hands to start corroding away as her body contained the properties of poison as well.
Kicking against Aria's chin, Shiro dived down while etching runes into the sky. A myriad of shadows tore the space open and lashed out towards Aria in hopes of buying even an extra second of time for Shiro.
Creating a handful of daggers, Shiro twisted her body, throwing them out in all directions and creating clones of herself that switched locations.
Each clone activated a different magic array targeting Aria.
A single glance at the arrays was enough for Aria to understand that these arrays were slight variations of the earlier attack that created the no mana zone.
"You already know that attack doesn't work! Stop your resistance already!" Aria shouted out in annoyance as she sent out a pulse of poison that targeted the clones.
However, this was exactly what Shiro wanted as each clone started to radiate with mana. Their cores burning to the max and threatening to explode.
While the power of the orbital cannons when amplified by 9 tiers of amplification arrays was strong, strong enough to shred the fabric of reality, she had a stronger alternative. If she tried this alternative before she gained her new core, the power would only be slightly stronger.
But with the new balanced core, each of her clones had a miniature version within their bodies. If she overloads these cores, the collision between Creation and Chaos could very well remove a continent off the fabric of reality completely. That was the power of one clone overloading.
While making more clones would reduce the power of each explosion, Shiro had already made preparations hence why they were gathering as much mana as they could.
The speed of which the mana was disappearing caused both Shiro and Aria to begin free falling towards the dark below.
Each of the clones started to crack apart as a barrier appeared around them, sealing them momentarily while amplification arrays appeared and targeted Aria.
Despite her new form, Aria felt her sixth sense warning her of danger. Gritting her teeth, she wrapped herself in layers upon layers of bone and flesh while enhancing her body as she couldn't fully deploy a barrier right now.
"Bingo." Shiro grinned maniacally as this was exactly what she had hoped Aria would do.
Snapping her fingers, tens of teleport nodes appeared on Aria's body.
When she had punched Aria instead of retreating even at the expense of corruption in her arms, she was planting teleport nodes that awaited her command.
All of the clones were compressed down to the size of a fingernail as they appeared next to Aria.
Widening her eyes, she was unable to open her cocoon of defences in time as it had now become a prison maximising the efficiency of Shiro's attack.
Bracing herself for impact, Shiro watched as her vision was reduced to darkness as her body slammed against the barrier, shattering it from the force of the collision.
As though watching the dawn of the universe, within the darkness a pulse of blinding light exploded out, basking the entire realm in cosmic light. Pulses of purple and red flame erupted out, setting fire to everything within the realm.
Watching everything unfold within the Beyond with Juri, Nyx felt grateful for Shiro telling her to leave because she would've been caught up in that if she was late.
As the blinding light and scorching flames died down, the state of the realm came into view.
At the centre of the explosion, a singularity could be observed. A single orb where no light could be seen, where the realm twisted and converged towards the darkness. Even the void that was shredding the realm was not spared as it paled in comparison to the singularity.
Surrounding the singularity, an accretion disc formed from the realm itself could be observed.
Snapping her eyes open, Shiro quickly stabilized herself as the explosion had knocked her out momentarily. Quickly healing her wounds, she glanced towards the centre and narrowed her eyes.
While the effects of her attack surpassed what she had expected, something felt wrong. She could still sense Aria, or rather, Arias as it was as though she was multiplying.
"SH*T!" Shouting out in surprise, Shiro could see what was happening at the centre of the singularity.
The breakdown of the laws surrounding this world, a convergence and reflection of every realm and space across time. Aria was dragging every single 'Aria' into this moment to heal herself, to allow herself to survive this attack that obliterated the God Realm.
Her tenacity to survive, her will to do what she fervently believed to be right burned in defiance. From within the orb of darkness, tens of giant claws tore through the void, clawing at the edges in an attempt to drag her wounded body out from within.
"ARGGGGGG!!!" Crying out in anger and defiance, Aria reared what remained of her head out of the void. Large chunks of her body were missing as she conjured two trumpets and activated them simultaneously.
The fourth and fifth trumpet.
The singularity surrounding Aria started to merge with her body as Aria was now almost unrecognisable. The realm itself healed and took the place of her body that had been damaged by Shiro's attack.
Aria was now no different from a beast. 8 main extremities acted as her arms, clawing against the realm with bone and cosmic energy forming her body while her lower half was submerged within the singularity. A myriad of tendrils lashed around with blood flames lining the sides of the tendrils. Her face was now a fractured mask with only a singular eyeball intact that glared at Shiro unblinking.
Within her chest was a kaleidoscope reflection of all of the realms still existing. The fractured skies rained down blood and flames, engulfing the realms in chaos as the energy siphoned towards Aria, empowering her more with each passing moment. It was no exaggeration to say Shiro was now fighting an amalgamation that was feeding off every known universe.
"Aria! Do you not see what you are doing?! Even if you happen to seal me away, what then?! Look at what you are causing to the realms!" Shiro shouted out but there was no response from Aria. Her eyes continued to stare at Shiro as hundreds of tendrils launched towards her.
"She's lost her damn mind!" Shiro gnashed her teeth in anger. She wasn't even registering what she was doing to the realms, all that was on her mind right now was to seal Shiro away.
Even without the codes, Shiro could tell that Aria was burning through her own existence with each passing moment in a bid to stay alive. But her desire for power was counteracting her survival instincts, she was slowly progressing to the point of no return.
Just as Shiro dodged one of her attacks, a tiny singularity opened up beside her, causing Shiro to immediately jump to the side but it still shredded a portion of her torso. Sucking in a sharp breath of air, Shiro furrowed her brows as Aria was now able to use the power of the singularity to her advantage.
Mustering up some courage, Shiro forced herself to smile at the situation.
"I suppose I did ask for a challenge before." She humoured herself but she was at her wits end. That last attack was the strongest she could think of as she had made the clones with 95% of her power in an attempt to end the fight then and there. But now that Aria had survived, she had to delay things while recovering her lost power on top of figuring out how she could kill Aria.
'I could stall until she burns herself out, but if I do that how many realms will be intact?' She thought to herself. Her worries multiplying as she knew her own world was suffering from this as well. She had to end the fight sooner rather than later.
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