MIGHT AS WELL BE OP Chapter 982: Personification

Following the clash against the Demon King’s clone, ??? chose not to award Lucian Darkheart and Aaaninja Chronisynth Eternos with any particular skill or ability, and he avoided presenting them with anything clearly organized or easy to grasp at once. Rather, he merely granted them one of the skills they'd covertly longed for, a hidden yearning rooted deep in their hearts and drives.

??? himself remained unaware of what that skill truly entailed, having intentionally blocked any knowledge of it from his mind. In the end, nothing holds real thrill if you already foresee its start, its progression, its buildup, and its unavoidable conclusion, since enigma forms the core of true enjoyment.

Lucian Darkheart and Aaaninja Chronisynth Eternos locked eyes in total quiet, Aaaninja maintaining a serene and completely blank stare that revealed no trace of worry or thrill, while Lucian flashed a broad, nearly savage smile across his features. Aaaninja hadn't anticipated Lucian driving him to this extent, trapping him in such a dire spot.

Indeed, he recognized Lucian's strength and how much he'd advanced since their last real showdown three years prior. Yet he couldn't have foreseen that a power he'd held in reserve, one meant solely for Anthony, would now emerge in this critical showdown.

With that silent realization, both triggered their abilities, Aaaninja's pace appearing to surpass its previous boundaries as he uttered words with steady poise;

His form lifted gradually and firmly skyward, as if gravity had surrendered its grip on him entirely, the time particles encircling him quivering with absurd intensity and boundless strength unlike anything before; where once they swirled around Aaaninja like he was their protector and guide, now they hesitated to frolic in his vicinity, as if he'd risen past guardianship to claim the role of their supreme maker and ultimate source.

Space shuddered fiercely, then fractured inward in rippling breaks, crumbling away entirely beneath the immense and intolerable pressure from the time particles' shaking and smashing. The ground quaked with devastating power, quivers ripping across soil and sky with doomsday might.

The whole isolated realm, which Klaus had earlier fortified using his might that ought to outmatch the havoc anyone here could currently unleash, was in fact getting obliterated right then, its sturdy framework crumbling like brittle crystal against a surging wave.

Aaaninja’s physique started shifting in a way that challenged human senses, his solid shape appearing to dissolve into the time particles as his frame morphed into a streaming, glowing, compact embodiment of the ever-flowing River Of Time. In this elevated condition, Aaaninja linked directly to every Universe and alternate Universe that existed; he peered into all timelines, scanned all potential paths, absorbed insights from every twist of cause and effect.

Having embodied the River Of Time, he gained total power and total knowledge within the realm of time's rule, a condition nearing all-seeing wisdom and all-mighty control via the flow of time alone.

Aaaninja showed no delay or doubt; with one commanding notion, he set out to reshape the whole Galaxy's reality, the adjustment he enforced seeming straightforward yet endlessly deep: all would stay exactly the same, past preserved, framework preserved, being preserved, but in this fight, regardless of Lucian Darkheart's actions, regardless of the reality-bending powers he called upon or how much he meddled with cause and effect, this conflict would conclude with Lucian Darkheart's defeat, a result etched into the very backbone of reality.

Aaaninja had declared this a Canon Event, one that anomalies, paradoxes, twists, or deviations couldn't shatter, evade, or undermine in any imaginable way.

And through that one decree, the full isolated realm burst apart like a bloated sphere, a crushing and total Temporal force surging out in rippling bursts, invading stars, celestial bodies, satellites, emptiness, void, every element in the Acarnis Galaxy getting seized by force; anything below Galaxy-level strength got quelled and replaced as Aaaninja reworked reality on the spot to lock in an Immutable Flawless Canon Event, and changing it would demand at minimum the Universe's total ruin.

Lucian Darkheart sensed the advancing time particles engulfing him, he detected reality twisting and reforming around him with precise certainty, he perceived a shift that even he, with flawless and total mastery over his form, couldn't shatter, push back, or nullify, he felt it infiltrating the depths of his spirit. Still, he couldn't seize its workings or stop its spread.

Yet Lucian's smile stayed firm; on the contrary, his grin stretched wider with risky delight. He'd braced for a dominant power, but this? This went beyond typical madness. Aaaninja no longer had a solid True Body to hit or aim at, since he now was the River Of Time; he existed in all places and no places at once, ever-present yet untouchable, spread out yet commanding.

"HAHHAAHHA! I never expected less from you, Aaaninja Chronisynth Eternos," Lucian bellowed as he cackled like a madman fueled by combat's wild rush. Though he sensed his whole being getting revised word by word, he refused to freak out or recoil.

His eyes lifted to the vast and infinite emptiness of the Galaxy, he detected Aaaninja’s essence everywhere, threaded into the weave of time itself, he felt the Universe bound to him by unseen bonds of time's pull.

"My turn," Lucian declared with resolve, his whole bearing changing as the atmosphere near him started to quake in utter frenzy, as if being itself braced for sacrilege.

As those words escaped Lucian’s mouth, a profound hush swept across the entire Acarnis Galaxy, the quiet overwhelming, insane, tainting even the basic pulses of existence.

Then, in the instant that followed, that hush broke apart as from nothingness sprang forth being itself, a massive surge crashing down from on high, a high none could detect, describe, or grasp, the surge slamming into Lucian Darkheart like a divine beam of radiance falling from a realm past understanding.

Then, in the paused moment after, that surge disappeared completely, exposing Lucian’s form; no outward shift occurred, his hair stayed dark as night, his eyes stayed dark as night, his attire remained the same, but his essence... his vibe... his poise... his calm... they now roared TRUE OMNIPOTENCE with choking dominance, as if he'd crossed past the limits of story and cause.

He lifted one hand and commanded it, and right then worlds exploded into cosmic rubble, suns folded in on themselves, stars cracked into glowing shards, satellites creaked and divided, space caved in savagely, void infiltrated the highest tiers of being like a spreading darkness.

Then, in the beat that came next, they all morphed into myriad strands of diverse hues, each strand glowing with a force no one had ever beheld, pulsing with rhythms that ridiculed understanding.

But the celestial forms like stars and suns weren't the only ones hit; even Laws got compelled into strands, Origin unwound into strands, Existence into strands, Reality into strands, Conception into strands, Actualisation into strands, Infinity into strands, Source into strands, Genesis into strands, Primordial into strands, nothing escaped this breakdown at the deepest level.

They all got stripped down to strands, each pulsing with vast might and shining in every possible shade across the whole range of colors that being could ever produce or envision.

Aaaninja Chronisynth Eternos was remolding the Galaxy through time's absolute rule, but Lucian Darkheart was picking it apart to its rawest threads, breaking it down to its core filaments, as he'd reached a force beyond Ideas and Dominion, a force that didn't just rule reality but existed apart from it, watching it, analyzing it, and reshaping it like the whole of creation was mere delicate cloth in his grasp.