"Friends or Foe… Choose."
Michael pointed the ominous, cold-glowing red spear tip remotely at his former comrades, without a shred of hesitation.
"What if friends? What if foes? Michael, explain yourself clearly first!"
Kevin was still making a final effort. He didn't understand why things had turned out this way, but based on his understanding of Michael, even Elysia's death shouldn't have driven him to this state—
There must be some hidden reason, some unknown purpose Michael held, but…
But why was he unwilling to confide in everyone?
Didn't he previously claim, again and again, that the Flame-Chasers here were his family?
"If friends, then you give up now, return to the Fifth Divine Key, and wait for me to cycle the world back. Then you can emerge and rebuild civilization. If you wish to be my enemies, then I will defeat you here, kill you, and then cycle the entire world back."
"Cycle!?"
Kevin silently repeated the word, but he knew this wasn't the time for semantics. More importantly:
"I'm not asking you to tell us what to do. We just want to know—why? What exactly are you planning? Is there something we can't talk about openly?"
But Michael's response was merely a contemptuous shrug:
"What cannot be said, cannot be said. You don't need to ask further. If you trust me, go back obediently. If you don't trust me, I'll beat you back. Either way, the current state of world destruction won't change. It's that simple."
"Is that so."
Kevin closed his eyes in pain.
Michael seemed indecisive, but was fundamentally an extremely stubborn person; Kevin knew this well.
So he also understood that, having reached this point, for some reason unknown to them, Michael was determined to go his own way to the very end.
Trust?
He certainly trusted Michael. He believed the Flame-Chasers behind him did too. If Michael had proposed some other condition, that would be one thing, but…
"To ask us to abandon our own world… Such a thing is absolutely impossible!"
He pointed the greatsword, flickering with flames, towards Michael, meeting the blood-red spear tip head-on:
"These are my words too, Michael. Friends or Foe… Choose!"
Seeing things heading irreversibly towards disaster, Michael still felt little fluctuation in his heart.
Right. He never intended to resolve everything with words from the start. If mere ambiguous language could make the Flame-Chasers give up… then Michael would have doubted the authenticity of the Flame-Chasers standing before him.
Of course, this didn't mean communication couldn't resolve the conflict between him and the Flame-Chasers… Rather, if they were truly willing to lay everything bare, there was fundamentally no conflict between them.
But…
"Hmph… Fine. Either way, the outcome is the same."
Michael closed his eyes. The spear tip lowered, gradually pointing towards the ground. His body leaned back slightly. The next moment, the blazing sword tip slashed past the front of his neck, missing severing his throat completely by a hair's breadth.
He reached out beside him, accurately catching the green lightning arrow shooting towards him, and redirected it towards Kevin—
Bang!
Michael quickly retreated two steps, emerging from the dust cloud kicked up by the explosion. The whistling sound of a fist came again from behind his head. He made a token effort to dodge twice, then sidestepped. Hua's figure shot past him, directly colliding with Kevin who rushed out from the dust.
Clang!
Hua's pupils contracted. She barely had time to cross her gauntleted arms before being sent flying by the immense force from Shamash. At that moment, Kevin's vision had just cleared the dust. Thinking he had succeeded, he realized the person sent flying was Hua, while Michael stood sideways before him, blinking, then kicking out…
"Tch!"
Kevin quickly swung his sword horizontally, sweeping towards Michael's incoming right leg. Michael, again as if anticipating it, gripped the spear deeply embedded in the ground with both hands, instantly launching himself into the air, twisting his waist, his body nearly parallel to the ground, allowing Shamash's blade to sweep through the gap between his legs.
"Kosma!"
Swoosh!
Michael's body was still twisting mid-air, but his hand had already reached behind his head, snatching the pebble thrown by Kosma. With a flick of his finger, the pebble struck Kevin squarely between the eyes, knocking him back, then bounced up into the air.
At this point, Michael's body was almost landing, but he suddenly reached out, pushed off the ground, and launched himself upwards again, dodging the two Keys of Domination shooting low along the ground. He then casually snatched them out of the air and threw them back towards Kosma, who was once again approaching from the side.
Schink!
Schink!
Kosma had to halt his forward charge and quickly retreat. The Keys of Domination stabbed into the ground, even tearing off a piece of his boot tip.
But before he could breathe a sigh of relief, he saw Michael execute a roundhouse kick mid-air, precisely striking the pebble that had been knocked into the air.
"Hiss!"
Instinctively, he covered his forehead with both hands. The next moment, pain shot through the back of his hands. The immense force from the pebble sent him flying once more.
Michael landed gracefully, dusted off his clothes, leaned his weight against the spear, and stretched lazily, almost provocatively:
"Heh… Is that all?"
His eyes might be vacant, but they radiated a light of unclear meaning. Like Aponia once did, countless threads appeared before his eyes, but these weren't predetermined fate, rather infinite future possibilities.
And this was one reason why Finality could not be defeated.
The corners of his lips curled slightly, perhaps mocking the so-called "ants trying to shake a great tree," or perhaps merely self-deprecatingly.
The next moment, his figure staggered. His feet sank completely into black mire. Verdant green electric arcs flashed everywhere. A massive amount of electrons surged into his body, scrambling his neurons into chaos.
"Mobius!"
Then, a heavy weight pressed down on his shoulders, making every tiny movement, every breath, an impossibility.
"The Ninth Divine Key… Eden!"
In an instant, the tables turned. Michael was trapped, unable to move.
Then, blazing Shamash ignited before him, the phoenix-cry-like sound of fists howled behind him. Advance or retreat, neither was an option.
"Sunfire… Transform!"
"Hehehehe…"
Accompanied by a shout and a cold laugh, a blue monster and a green giant serpent lunged at him from left and right respectively.
But that wasn't enough—"Hahahaha… Hahahahaha! Michael, you… are doomed!"
Michael struggled to look up at the sky. That tiny spark of fire gradually enlarged in his vision, its outline sharpening, soon reflecting the figure descending from the heavens,抱着 a massive Pillar of Destruction.
"Kch…"
Kalpas's maniacal laughter nearly became the only sound in the world at that moment. But Michael still keenly sensed the disturbance beneath his feet. Looking again at Dystopia and Ato, who had already used their telekinetic attacks twice, Michael had reason to suspect countless Keys of Domination were moving beneath the thick lunar regolith, each aiming its sharp blade towards him.
"Looks like I arrived just in time!"
Countless disc-shaped drones flew in, their rotating blades flashing menacingly, completely sealing off any remaining gaps in the offensive. Far away in the sky hovered a bizarre aircraft. Its body split open sideways, revealing the giant cannon hidden within its belly. The cannon was already fully charged. As Vill-V waved her top hat, the projectile launched…
"You really think highly of me…"
With Mei's intelligence, she should have already guessed Finality's Authority. The initial probing attack was enough for her to confirm her hypothesis.
As for the subsequent second probing attack, it served partly to further confirm the guess, and partly to distract Michael while repositioning the Flame-Chasers into a complete encirclement.
Then, since individual attacks could be leisurely dodged by Michael who controlled time, the solution was to seal off all his escape routes, leaving him no possibility of dodging. This was Mei's tactical logic.
Moreover…
"It's not over yet… Karma Wheel!"
Invisible causality locked onto Michael again. Now, not only was the possibility of dodging completely sealed, even counterattacking became impossible. The only "choice" left for Michael was defense.
Yet Michael's eyes showed no hint of worry—if they thought they could defeat him with attacks of this level, weren't they underestimating Finality?
"Hmph…"
Despite this, he made no defensive move. Instead, he narrowed his eyes, looking meaningfully at Kevin charging towards him.
In his eyes, the flow of time slowed to an extreme, almost reaching a state of stagnation.
He watched as the color of half of Kevin's body gradually deepened, watched the ten fingers gripping Shamash sharpen, watched the white of his left eye turn into a pitch-black turbidity, watched the Honkai Beast horn grow on his left forehead, watched the purplish-blue tail extend behind him…
This transformation, which took less than 0.1 seconds in reality, unfolded perfectly and orderly in Michael's eyes.
He watched him shoulder Shamash, watched strands of flame rise from the blade, watched the greatsword gradually approach "Might of An-Utu" under the tempering fire, watched bluish ice frost grow wildly alongside the flames, until it condensed into a sword body thousands of meters high…
Michael closed his eyes with a hint of barely perceptible satisfaction. In the blink of an eye, all attacks closed in before him. Unavoidable, and no need to avoid.
He opened his eyes, pink pupils rapidly stretching and evolving into blood-red cross-shaped stars—
"Did you all… perhaps underestimate Finality?"
BOOM!
The entire plain rapidly caved in under immense pressure, looking no different from the surrounding scattered impact craters.
But as the sound of the explosion gradually faded, the piercing screech of metal clashing against metal became even more prominent. Continuous high-frequency vibrations rapidly dispersed the dust cloud outwards, allowing Kevin to finally see clearly what had blocked their attack.
"Imaginary Barrier!!!"
If Michael had blocked a single Flame-Chaser's attack with an Imaginary Barrier, that would be one thing; his former self could do that. But simultaneously, effortlessly blocking everyone's attacks like this…
Is this the power of Finality?
"He's currently affected by the Karma Wheel and cannot counterattack! Don't hesitate, maintain the offensive!"
Mei's voice echoed directly in all the Flame-Chasers' minds via Aponia's relay. But Kalpas had already acted ahead of her—
Thick steam enveloped his body. He stood atop the Imaginary Barrier, his skin cracking open, revealing magma-like flesh beneath. Muffled shouts escaped his lips as he raised the thick, heavy Pillar of Destruction high, slammed it down, raised it again, slammed it down again…
Each blow easily cracked the Imaginary Barrier, but the spherical barrier was like a giant onion; peeling one layer revealed another, seemingly endless.
Michael glanced up, then turned his gaze forward again. Kevin swung Might of An-Utu frantically, each strike shattering three or four layers of the barrier. To the left, the fallen Kosma tore relentlessly with his claws, his speed no slower than Kevin's. To the right, Mobius…
"Hmm?"
Michael sensed something and tilted his head. His peripheral vision caught several pink feathers shooting towards him from behind, ignoring the Imaginary Barrier's obstruction. Simultaneously, golden, scale-like powder silently filled the space within the barrier.
"Heh… Useless."
Michael closed his eyes. Both the Eighth Divine Key and Aponia's psychic power seemed to vanish like stones dropped into the sea upon entering his body, creating not even a ripple, as if nothing had happened at all.
Not just Hua, even Aponia stared wide-eyed in astonishment—she clearly felt her attack hit the target, and didn't sense Michael using any authority to block, yet the intended effect of her attack completely vanished…
No, not vanished. It simply never existed, never happened at all.
This was definitely not her problem; such a situation had never occurred in all the years since her surgery. So it could only be… Finality's Authority!
Just then, Michael opened his eyes again. He ignored Hua behind him, ignored the Flame-Chasers diligently attacking the Imaginary Barrier. Instead, he looked past everyone, fixing his gaze on Aponia.
Their eyes met. Countless pieces of information flooded Aponia's mind. Then, her pupils slowly transformed into the shape of blood-red cross-shaped stars.
She took a step forward, squinted her eyes in confusion, then her features contorted in pain. Finally, she collapsed silently to the ground.
"Aponia!"
Everyone was fighting; only Su, also a psychic MANTIS, noticed her abnormality immediately.
He had to maintain the Karma Wheel, able to spare only a sliver of consciousness to probe Aponia's state. But that sliver, entering Aponia's body, nearly took over her form directly. Su checked again and again, but received the same incredibly cruel and real information—
Aponia… was dead.
Perhaps this conclusion was too hasty, but after searching her body for a long time, he couldn't find the consciousness that originally belonged to Aponia. He had only encountered such a situation in dead soldiers.
Su's eyes widened in disbelief, looking towards Michael standing motionless within the Imaginary Barrier.
"Michael, you…"
No one… no, at least he hadn't taken Michael's earlier words seriously, like the phrase—"If you wish to be my enemies, then I will defeat you here, kill you, and then cycle the entire world back."
He had originally thought it was just Michael bluffing. But Aponia's vanished consciousness proved… anyone who stood in his way, even so-called "family"…
Had to die!
But as Su gradually regained his senses, he felt things weren't that simple. It was too early to jump to conclusions. After all, no one could say for sure what Finality's Authority was capable of. Besides, deep down, he didn't believe, refused to believe, Michael was someone who would do such a thing.
Realizing this, he didn't immediately inform everyone of Aponia's death. Instead, he extended his own psychic power, reconnecting the network Aponia had used to link with the command center.
"Hmph… Is that enough?"
Watching the Imaginary Barrier being broken layer by layer, Michael remained completely unfazed, even covering his mouth and giving an exaggerated yawn.
"Heh… Time to end this."
As his voice fell, Kevin's pupils trembled. Instinct urged him to retreat rapidly. But the others weren't so lucky. As a white light flashed, the Imaginary Barrier that had been passively absorbing attacks suddenly exploded outwards. Layer after layer of the barrier rapidly expanded, pulverizing everything encountered into dust.
"What! The Karma Wheel had no effect!"
Su had no time for shock. His form was quickly engulfed by the dazzling white light emitted by the Imaginary Barrier.
If the entire battlefield previously resembled a crater, now it was as if a giant hand had used a hemispherical mold to scoop out a vast chunk of lunar regolith, forming a hemispherical basin hundreds of kilometers across.
Michael still stood leaning against the blood-red spear, as if he had done nothing, as if the surrounding devastation had nothing to do with him.
The entire world seemed to fall silent at this moment.
"Hmph…"
He snorted lightly through his nose. The next moment, the loose lunar regolith at his feet once again oozed black, viscous mire. Countless green lightning spears surged forth, swelling to blot out the sky, then crashed down like a tsunami towards Michael, standing at the center of the surrounding mire.
An impressive-looking attack. Obviously, such an uncoordinated assault would have no effect. The green spears hit the solid Imaginary Barrier and exploded into arcs of electricity.
But the attack successfully drew Michael's attention. He turned his head towards his right. A small mound rose from the silver-grey lunar regolith, and then a small green figure burrowed out.
She knelt on the ground, straightening her upper body as much as possible, until she almost tipped backward.
A hint of verdant green appeared in Michael's blood-red eyes. The two gazed at each other from afar. Mobius's eyes held a mixture of anger, jealousy, and pity.
But she didn't speak. She knew Michael understood what she wanted to say.
And Michael's choice was to extend his hand towards her remotely—
"Ugh!"
Mobius's body flew uncontrollably towards Michael. Michael's outstretched hand caught her throat precisely, lifting her into the air.
"Hhh… Hhh…"
Mobius initially flailed her limbs, struggling, but she quickly calmed down.
She cast a pitying gaze into Michael's eyes, as if trying to awaken the former brilliance within them.
She reached out a trembling, cold little hand and gently rested it on Michael's face.
Michael's body trembled. The lunar wind brushed past; his eyelashes fluttered for a long time.
Finally, he spoke calmly:
"I'm sorry, Mobius."
"I'm sorry, Mobius."
He repeated himself.
Mobius's features quickly contorted in pain. Her straight, vertical pupils seemed slashed horizontally, transforming into blood-red cross-shaped stars.
Her body instantly went limp, then grew as cold as the lunar soil in the endless night.