The veil of reality had truly suffered catastrophic damage. Everywhere Alexander looked was riddled with long stretches of harrowing scars, with the vile essence of Cthulhu mixed in.
His exchange with the Master of Horrors had only been for a few short microseconds, but it did a lot more damage than everything Alexander had single-handedly done.
It was a miracle that reality was still holding together.
Alexander had wondered what the Omnisoul was waiting for. With the Supreme One's presence nowhere to be found in the multiverse, there could only be one place left.
… Inside the Omnisoul.
Recalling the conversation he had had with the Supreme One, Alexander wondered if the fears the Supreme One shared with him had come true.
'There's no point wondering anymore. I'll know soon enough.'
The primordial roar from the core of the Omnisoul had interrupted the catastrophe battle… but only for a split moment. However, with that roar came a wave of dread so murderous that Alexander raised a brow in mild shock.
But then, that was all it took for everything to fall apart.
Alexander sharply turned his head back to Cthulhu when the Master of Horrors slipped out of the flow of time.
'Shit!'
Alexander's reaction was a bit slower than Cthulhu…
The Cosmic Horror had changed its primary target from Alexander to the shimmering core. Stepping out of the flow of time and void eliminated the concept of distance, allowing Cthulhu to appear before the Omnisoul.
It had lost its right arm, leaving an empty and essence-leaking blackness at the base of its shoulder. But it still had its left arm, stacked with dreadful-looking claws teeming with corruption.
Without so much as hesitating, Cthulhu swiped at the Omnisoul. With its colossal form several times larger than the core, it looked like a mountain falling onto a tiny pebble… a pebble frozen in place.
One of the tips of its claws phased through the Omnisoul with absolute ease.
Alexander's eyes widened in terror as he witnessed the unexpected development. Abruptly, he came to a stop, utterly perplexed by the creature's actions.
Wasn't it attempting to absorb the Omnisoul? Why would it then choose to destroy it? Standing outside the flow of time, Alexander shifted his gaze from the Omnisoul and then looked at Cthulhu.
Everything around the two titans was frozen in place… at least, in their perception. Stepping out of the bounds of time was no different to stopping time entirely. It was the ultimate expression of freedom… freedom from the Omnisoul's influence.
However, that did not spare the multiverse from receiving severe damage. Anything done outside of the Omnisoul's sphere of influence would leave a scar that manifests in real time.
With the Omnisoul pretty much crippled, the multiverse and all its life forms were done for. The moment he returned to the influence of the Omnisoul would be the moment it would all fall apart.
Alexander had been holding back this entire time. He did it because he did not want to harm reality too much. The life forms within were already in a world of suffering.
The least he could do was minimise the adverse effects of his actions.
From dealing with the sea of abominations to minimally pushing back its suppression when he needed to, Alexander had hoped to spare the life forms as much pain as possible.
But now…
"Why…?"
Staring blankly at the nightmarish abomination, Alexander wasn't even angry… he was just indifferent. Then again, he decided when he wanted to experience emotions.
The Cosmic Terror simply stared back at him, its remaining, grotesque tentacles wiggling gently. The look in its eyes conveyed no intent… just an ever-present swirl of terror and madness.
Alex let out a soft sigh when the Master of Horrors made no attempt to reply. Not that it actually mattered. He more or less knew the reason for its actions.
What the abomination had done was terrible, to say the least. But what it did not count on was that it had eliminated every consideration that held Alexander back.
Fortunately for the master abomination, there was one more thing keeping it alive. Cthulhu had absorbed a piece of the Omnisoul long ago. For what he intended to do next, he needed the essence contained in that piece.
Before acting, however, he needed to secure the multiverse.
'This is going to get real messy.'
Alexander dreaded what would befall the multiverse the moment he returned. He needed to act fast… and that meant causing more harm by ruthlessly tearing through the suppression.
Abruptly, he appeared before the Omnisoul, prompting Cthulhu to back away. The creature was right to be wary of Alexander. After all, its powers barely affected him.
Ignoring the creature, Alexander stared at the Omnisoul for a moment and then lowered his gaze, focusing on the bundle below it. Even with his increased size, the bundle was massive.
The number of universes it channelled essence to was no joke.
Unlike how he saved his universe, Alexander could not go around harvesting one universe at a time. It would take forever… even in his current timeless state.
'And I doubt it would stand by and watch…' Alexander threw a furtive glance Cthulhu's way, considering his options.
'It had no problem crippling the Omnisoul, and it is smart enough to have already deduced my weakness.' Even a child could see why he was holding back.
Timeless or not, things would only get worse… it was a nightmare. The level of destruction that awaited the multiverse would be on a scale never seen before.
Now the question was… what was he willing to sacrifice to save the rest?
'...'
He should have been faster… he should not have held back… he…
'Hah… there's no point.'
Alexander looked down at the multiverse, silently appreciating its cosmic beauty. He accurately pinpointed the position of his friends and vassals and briefly smiled.
They had lost all semblance of their bearing because of the incessant, violent shaking of the void, and were now frozen in place due to his stepping out of time.
'I'm sorry…'
Without so much as lifting a hand, his friends and vassals disappeared. They had done enough, saved enough universes. But what was about to transpire was out of their capabilities.
Turning his attention back to Cthulhu, Alexander looked at the master abomination, his eyes flaring with a dangerous, determined light. Since there would be sacrifices regardless, Alex decided to stop holding back.
It would be prudent to finish the Cosmic Terror off as swiftly as possible.
Almost as if the Cthulhu could see through his thoughts, it let out a defiant clicking intent, its tentacles flaring wildly. Slowly, it put more distance between itself and Alexander.
Then all hell…no, all reality broke loose.
Cthulhu was the first to move, madly dashing towards the multiverse, its intentions evident. In the blink of a timeless eye, the master abomination disappeared into the listless multiverse.
Alexander coldly looked at the fleeing abomination and released a misty breath made entirely of essence. When he finally moved, the veil of reality in the domain of the Omnisoul ruptured, the cataclysmic destruction waiting to manifest.
Faster than he had ever moved before — in time and out of time — Alexander flashed past the Master of Terror, turned around and planted a powerful left foot in the void.
Left in the wake of their destructive speed were thousands of universes waiting to fall apart, everything within them doomed to wither away without them ever knowing how.
Through gritted teeth and eyes burning with vengeful and destructive radiance, Alexander shot a right hand forward, the void rupturing with every inch his hand covered. He intended to finish off Cthulhu in a single decisive blow.
Cthulhu's monstrous eyes widened when it realised what Alexander had prepared for it. Unfortunately for it, it was far too close to change trajectory, and with them already outside time, that escape path was eliminated.
A wall of absolute and creeping darkness manifested before Cthulhu's figure. Unperturbed, Alexander's hand met the wall of darkness. He felt the wall of darkness offer a sliver of resistance before giving way completely.
As his hand tore through the wall of darkness, and hence, his eyes, Alexander noticed Cthulhu's form contorting unnaturally, turning ethereal and formless. When his hand finally made contact, Cthulhu's form exploded in a mist of darkness.
'Not so fast.'
The abomination had managed to escape instant death… not for long, though. A powerful and invisible pulse erupted from Alexander's body, creating an isolated domain in the timeless void.
There would be no shifting through the void… no jumping of wills into other void creatures… no escaping into nothingness. Cthulhu had dissolved its form in an attempt to escape.
Alexander's figure flickered and disappeared, reappearing trillions of light-years away, his colossal size reduced to match the abomination's new size.
Cthulhu had violently crashed into his invisible domain when the Master of Horrors possessed one of its minions and attempted to flee into nothingness.
Reality was falling apart, and Alexander wanted to minimise his destructive footprint as much as possible. Every universe and life lost left a bad taste in his mouth.
Before the Cosmic Terror could recover from its violent collision, Alexander drove his hand into the void creature's back, locking Cthulhu's will in its current vessel.
The creature let out an irritating scream of pain, the light in its eyes flickering with shock and unwillingness.
Without slowing down, his hand invaded the abomination's inner realm and unleashed a wave of annihilating essence of nothingness…