The abrupt stop of the Omnisoul's distorted rippling drew Alexander's attention. What followed afterwards was expected and unexpected. Connecting to every single surviving life form in the multiverse took a lot of his focus, momentarily delaying his reaction time.
And that momentarily delay was all it took for him to lose more than half his face.
The massive black and gold claw came too swiftly, barely giving Alexander time to be shocked and react. It almost felt like the attack was already in his face when he lifted his head.
The force behind the claw swipe blew him away from the massive bundle of threads his hands were buried in, sending him across the multiverse at speeds no living entity was capable of.
Fortunately, he had emptied the universes of life, sparing him the guilt of crushing through them. However, that was not what left him overwhelmingly shocked and rattled.
…It was what the claw had done to his existence.
Alexander's face was ruthlessly sliced open, the massive claw cutting through his left temple to his right jaw. The claw separated the upper part of his head from the rest of his existence, exposing the brimming essence that made up his existence.
The wound would have been extremely disturbing and deadly had his existence been made of flesh and blood. Lingering around the cut was the vile essence of corruption attempting to invade his existence.
'...'
Alexander was left in a momentary state of shock while the creature that had left him in that state let out a mighty draconic roar of defiance, fury, vengeance and challenge.
The roar shook the barely existing foundations of reality, rippling through the already falling apart universes and hastening their breakdown. Taking the moment and expanding it out for as long as needed, Alexander tried to make sense of what had happened to him.
Slicing his face open posed no danger to his existence at all. But when that claw sliced half his face off, Alexander felt drained… tremendously at that. He actually felt like his infinite reserves took a hit!
Even then, that was not the most shocking part… it was the fact that his trait of nothingness got drained along with his essence! That trait should not have been an exhaustible resource! It wasn't even a measurable trait!
However, when he carefully thought about the phenomenon, it made sense.
Alexander was an absolute existence, but so was the Omnisoul. The Omnisoul had the trait of nothingness. That trait was what defined them as self-existing entities or wills.
From what he knew from studying himself, Alexander knew that nothingness also gave his attacks the property of absolute oblivion, the complete and irreversible ability to kill anything down to erasing the very essence that made up the entity or object.
That also meant… he could be killed.
'No… It's even worse than that.' Alexander gulped as the realisation hit him. 'More than killing, it is being forcefully absorbed and integrated, stripped of your will and wholly becoming a part of another existence.'
Suddenly, 'infinite' and 'invincible' did not sound very absolute. He was very much killable if he moved and acted without caution.
A shudder ran through his existence as he dismissed the stretched-out moment and directed his gaze at the seemingly majestic creature with an unfathomable presence.
The divine dragon rooted its majestic form in the void, right at the spot Alexander had been moments prior. Its scales shone like sunlight made solid, lighting up the void in golden brilliance.
Yet beneath that brilliance lay faint, unsettling cracks — dark streaks that pulsed with a quiet, creeping corruption.
Its wings beat with the boundless essence of the void, but each rise and fall carried a whisper of something twisted, as if a shadow clung stubbornly to a creature born of pure light.
Then there were its eyes. Deep, harrowing abysses of darkness and corruption radiated in place of what he imagined would have been golden brilliance. Simply meeting that gaze threatened to send more shivers through his existence.
Alexander furrowed his brows as he took in the dragon's presence. What Cthulhu had done to the Omnisoul had not spared the divine creature within…
It had not spared the Supreme One… it had not spared Aurelionth.
The dragon of origin now harboured corruption. But more than that, Aurelionth did not seem himself — just as the Supreme One had feared… but was that truly the case?
Alexander could not tell… not when another absolute stood before him — a still maturing and corrupted absolute. He could feel boundless rage and… and immense pain radiating from the Supreme One.
There was also malice, despair, obsession, and hopelessness; these emotions coalesced into a twisted symphony of dark sentiments that intensified the corruption it radiated.
From Aurelionth's majestic form came boundless void essence. The dragon held nothing back, uncaring about the destruction his presence wreaked on the multiverse.
Beyond the figure of the corrupted dragon was the Omnisoul… or at least what looked to be left of it. The Omnisoul barely spat out any essence as its radiance was significantly dimmed.
'Looks like the Omnisoul put all its eggs in one basket…' Alexander deduced, his gaze falling back to the Supreme One. 'Unfortunately for it, the 'egg' could not escape the corruption.'
The lingering corruption on his sliced-up face soon dissipated, allowing Alexander to reform his head. As for the lost trait of nothingness… Alexander could feel himself recovering.
The bad news, however, was that it would take a while.
Cthulhu had turned out to be a secondary villain instead of the ultimate one. The abomination barely posed a threat to his existence, while Aurelionth posed a deadly threat to his existence.
In all honesty, Alexander could choose not to fight the Supreme One, since he had pretty much saved the lives that could be saved. But where would he go?
The vast and infinite abyss of nothingness was an option, but who knew what was out there? His claircognisance only covered what he knew about what an absolute was and what they were capable of.
Since there was one reality, there could be more. Not to mention other abominations more harrowing and threatening than Cthulhu. He had no intention of exploring the boundless nothingness… at least not yet.
Withdrawing his existence into his existence? While that would work, it would take more than a moment to make himself completely invisible and untraceable… something he doubted the raging dragon would allow.
That only left him with the option of fighting… a fight that actually threatened to devour his existence. This was a fight he had to be careful about, lest he cease to exist.
As Aurelionth let out low, threatening growls at Alexander, what seemed to be left of reality resonated with its will, warping and twisting as though it were in the presence of its maker.
Abruptly, Aurelionth lunged at Alexander with ruthless momentum, the force of his takeoff resounding with a definite boom. No one said the Supreme One had to wait for Alex to make sense of what had happened to him.
This time, however, Alexander was ready for him.
Without hesitation, he charged at the Supreme One as well. He stretched out his right hand and conjured his spear, feeling it quiver in his hand. Then, the two clashed.
Golden black claws met the shaft of a semi-sentient spear in a devastating explosion of apocalyptic proportions, the resulting essence shockwaves rippling out like an electromagnetic pulse.
The shockwaves travelled the vast multiverse at unimaginable speeds, wiping out scours of universes like collapsing dominoes.
'...'
Alexander was once again left surprised by the potency of Aurelionth's power. The shockwaves of their clash had not pushed him back, nor had it affected the Supreme One.
But it had rippled through his existence like lightning.
'Dissolution.' Alex narrowed his eyes as he swiftly deduced the power imbued in Aurelionth's claws. 'He's not playing around at all.'
His spear, on the other hand, carried no killing intent at all, granting the Supreme One the first win. But then, who cared about counting wins?
Before the shockwaves had dispersed entirely, Alexander and Aurelionth exchanged countless devastating blows, Alexander flawlessly blocking the Supreme One's attacks with his spearmanship.
Aurelionth savagely used everything at his disposal… his claws, his fangs, his wings and tail, the weight of his blows heavier than anything Alexander had experienced.
From time to time, Aurelionth would unleash a wave of eerie and corrupting darkness, prompting Alexander to unleash a wave of his essence to neutralise it. More and more of reality chipped away as the two absolutes clashed.
But that was not all…
With every blow Alexander exchanged with the Supreme One, he sensed the Supreme One's power and strength grow. And Aurelionth's attacks never failed to carry obliviating traits.
So far, Alexander had not taken any further damage, momentarily content with matching and demolishing the annihilating traits imbued in Aurelionth's attacks.
'But I can't keep this up forever…'
He did not want to kill the Supreme One. However, with how things were going, he would soon be taking damage when the Supreme One matured as an absolute. He needed to think of something… and fast.
Their cataclysmic fight had already sent them deep into the far reaches of the multiverse, wiping out the empty universes and tearing the fragile Chaosveil apart. Soon, there would be nothing left of the multiverse.