Overpowered Wizard

Chapter 245: B3: C35: Cultivator Versus Wizard, Apocalyptic

Zarian nearly lost in the split second it took him to wrangle his darkness under his control.

To be fair to him, there was no hesitation coming from Naomi. Her mind was as deadly as her body, angled toward an impossible pursuit, giving her no room to come out slow.

She wouldn’t even let her disadvantaged position hold her back, her legs racing in place to keep from falling, since she had no footing, only darkened space.

Even as her green-yellow aura condensed and reinforced her impeccable body, her shaky position in the air made her seem like an easy target.

While Zarian tamed his raging darkness, his overwhelming power sought to finish this fight quickly by surrounding Naomi.

That was a mistake.

She kicked back against a tendril of darkness that was already converging around her, reminding Zarian and his Two Percent Darkness there was nothing easy about Naomi Washington. Not as she was now, having broken prior limits to reach a new peak.

If it wasn’t for the mental boosts from his free evil +5 and Intense Arcana Hat, despite them playing minor roles compared to Two Percent Darkness, Zarian wouldn’t have reacted in time.

Naomi’s punch fell short of a few inches when a sheet of darkness slid down from the sky. The dark sheet stopped her from turning Zarian’s skull into splitting atoms.

Instead, she punched through the titanic dark sheet and missed him by an inch as he waltzed backwards into the void.

Once he left the void, he landed on another mountain peak a few miles away. The skin on his left cheek was raw and bruised. The power of her punch and her willful intensity had slipped into the void and touched him.

Zarian updated himself on the deadliness of Naomi’s Second Ignition. He made measures to keep his distance and fight like an out-boxer, as a wizard should.

Of course, his plan wasn’t easy.

Naomi covered the distance at mach speeds. The noise from her jump off, destroying half of the last castle mountain, fell far behind Naomi’s soaring form. It was as if she was her own rendition of She-Hulk, but as a cultivator with aura instead of radiation.

Hell, she was half a head taller than him now.

The condensed and potent power of her current ignition used all of her skills as a foundation that made her Second Stage the first technical tier of Aura Ignition. Supposedly, Naomi should have access to new techniques using her ignition, which clearly amounted to only two. They were simple techniques.

Amplifying her body based on her determination and amplifying whatever the hell she did with her body, even if it meant she had to break physics.

That was all there was, which was plenty enough for her strong-as-hell moves.

But Zarian was the son of overpowered motherfuckers, and he wanted to lay down the law with the simplest projectile.

He shot at Naomi with a bolt the size of a skyscraper. The bolt was made from the darkness of the night, the underground, and the void.

For once, his darkness became more compliant, as if recognizing the threat of the Tempering Cultivator and her foolish pursuit to challenge a young ultra god. ɽaΝốBËs

At the same time, Zarian felt the reality magic of Lion Prince helping him have more control over Two Percent Darkness. The inky and purple sealing layers covering his arms became more prominent as he faced against the wild she-beast of a mortal.

So, even when Naomi punched away one of his most powerful conjurations, Zarian wasn’t annoyed. He noted he could slow her down and keep the space between them.

That way, he could shit talk.

“I’m all aligned now, mortal.”

He stepped back into the void and ended up on another castle mountain a few miles away. The last one erupted with a green-yellow flash after Naomi struck like an epic fantasy nuke.

When he spoke – the night, the shadows, the blackness inside the caverns, and even the gaps where reality thinned and his void magic slipped through – all the dark elements resounded with his voice. His words bore down on Naomi and everyone around the Grimrock Castle Mountains, and perhaps further beyond that.

“Thanks to you, I’ve reached a new benchmark. My darkness is falling under me smoother than before. I won’t need any more power than this to put you down.”

Zarian knew he sounded like a cheesy villain.

He didn’t care.

There was some internal magic that went beyond the Star System happening.

The pride he felt from his name as Sainte-Darkrun was immense, especially the Darkrun part. It was a pride that he shared with his little sister despite their diverging views on how to act as young ultra gods.

Owning up to that pride felt right, especially with his tail lashing confidently, his darkness-dripped cloak waving like a flag of ultimate power.

Maybe if he wasn’t so drunk off of himself, he would’ve cringed or felt embarrassed by his own words. Instead, he leaned all the way into the act.

“You can start being afraid now. I’ll beat you up a little before ending this with a neat death.”

He really wanted to keep this fight between him and Naomi contained with the power of Two Percent Darkness. And playing up his role made the power of Lion Prince stronger for him, manipulating the flow of causality and keeping his darkness further bound.

Yet, not everything fell under his whims perfectly.

“Nah, I’m here to win. And Two Percent Darkness isn’t enough to beat me. You’ll see soon.”

Naomi’s voice traveled to Zarian’s current castle mountain with a shockwave.

His mind spider was still in her head, which was fine. That made it easier to locate each other after every dramatic exchange of attacks and maneuvers.

Neither of them were trying to hide, and Zarian noted how Naomi would only shut off the connection to her mind spider when she was about to make her next move.

The moment her mind spider went dark, Zarian cocked back a hand and gathered every type of darkness he could.

Darkness streamed from the caverns and castle mountain gaps below. The night melted into streams of darkness flowing down to him. He used his Void Domain to make reality thinner so the darkness from the void, the most powerful darkness, would join the others.

By gathering darkness from all places, he could focus more on control instead of conjuration. For Naomi to fight him under the night was the epitome of arrogance.

There.

Movement.

She was trying to strike without making a big scene. The human-shaped projectile came in faster than sound, too, just like the last time.

Zarian shot forth a dark javelin that was twice as long as a skyscraper. He realized his mistake a split second before impact.

The human-shaped projectile was a piece of crumbling stone Naomi had thrown earlier. The real human projectile flew at him faster from a lower angle.

She threw a punch with all of her might, but Zarian’s darkness remained plentiful, unyielding, and stable.

Even with his mistake, he fired off another overwhelming javelin and slowed Naomi down while diverting her off course.

Then instead of waltzing into the void like the last time, he drenched the entire castle mountain he stood on in void-manipulated darkness. The moment Naomi landed three hundred feet off to the side, the void-wrapped castle mountain endured her landfall.

Next, Zarian took the entire castle mountain, which was a few miles tall, and carried it through the void with him and Naomi on it. When they exited the void, he hurtled the void-wrapped castle mountain and the cultivator down on a slightly bigger castle mountain.@@@@

The two geographical features of epic world design crashed into each other, and the void-wrapped one became the victor while slamming Naomi through the weaker one, breaking into the caverns below.

Only then did Zarian yank back the void and let everything fall to obliteration underneath him.

The noise from the impact traveled halfway across the Walled Continent and sent debris raining down on the nearest civilizations, Central Crossdeath being one of them.

Thankfully, Zarian was aware enough of collateral risks. He had giant dark tentacles swinging about to stop the largest pieces of debris from crushing cities, farms, and whatnot.

But even that sort of act of dark godliness was terrifying as people near the Grimrock Castle Mountains looked up.

They saw whipping tentacles that were miles long and made of the deepest darkness. They saw debris the size of city blocks get smashed apart by those same titanic tentacles. Then they had to run for cover as smaller pieces of debris rained down like hail.

***

Around the World of Castles and Caverns, many peoples reacted in ways that were mostly predictable.

Many lost their nerves and thought another Darkrun Apocalypse was upon them. A few grabbed their weapons and made way to fight the greatest battle Corma had ever seen, forgoing whatever event that held their current attention. Others made doomsday sacrifices to summon whatever or whoever they could.

In the old North Crown Peak Region, now occupied by Ride-or-Die Village, Ruvaria the First Free Elf was laughing drunkenly with a glass of elven wine in hand.

She’d finished another step to turning Jack into a dungeon an hour earlier. She was now overlooking the start of a long and drawn out siege from the wolf dragons and wolf kobolds, with hundreds of thousands of scaly mongrels positioning themselves north of Ride-or-Die Village.

She floated above the northern wall and defenses as guild members, enlisted adventurers, and paid villagers scurried about frantically beneath her in their efforts to repel an invasion. Magic artillery cannons blasted off consistently with other siege weapons at play.

She could have ended this conflict easily, but she didn’t. She would observe instead, just like how she observed the dramatic life of her dear student.

Her orbital simulacrum scryers fed her everything, though the feed was hazier and darker than usual because of her student’s apocalyptic and dark power.

Surprisingly, he came out untouched as an entire castle mountain clattered to pieces from around them.

“No,” she mumbled. “Don’t stop like that.”

“We need to stop, Naomi,” Zarian urged softly. “You’re reaching too far. You might not come back from this.”

“Hit me with three percent. One last exchange. After that, I’ll stop, at least for tonight.”

“Fucking idiot.” Zarian looked away, feeling angry, scared, and thrilled. “Crayon muncher. Jarhead. Dumb jock. Idiot. If you don’t come back from this, I will find your soul and give you hell.”

“Rah.”

Zarian sighed as he walked through the void. Naomi walked through the void with him ... by smashing her way in and out.

When they left the void, they came out on top of the largest castle mountain on the range. The darkness in the sky and the darkness in the world spiraled as if they were throwing a jubilee. The celebration was more menacing, more threatening, and more wrong.

Zarian wasn’t sure if he should go to three percent. But Naomi was too determined to let this end simply.

I could shoot myself, Zarian thought.

But how would that affect Naomi? Hell, how would that affect Gilbert, who would get angry with Zarian for choosing that option. Even if the Divine Revival Charm would save Zarian, knowing Gilbert’s feelings about that slowed his hand.

The sentiment around taking one to the dome wasn’t practical in this instance. But Zarian couldn’t go through with it. He didn’t want to disappoint Gilbert, nor would he want to hide something like that.

Wow ... I’m literally trapped by the power of friendship here. The irony keeps getting stronger.

Besides, he was already this far deep with Naomi.

Zarian stood three hundred feet away from Naomi. The look in her eyes worried him. She wasn’t all there. She was nothing but ambition.

She was the Dao of Power.

So this is what it’s like to face Broly.

He knew he shouldn’t do this. He knew he should deny Naomi’s request and find another solution.

But there was a part of him that was curious about hitting three percent and coming out okay anyway. He also wondered how Naomi would handle it

With a sigh, Zarian ignored the wrongness of causality and took a risk. He performed the same song and dance once more for the sake of the moment.

“Overwhelming Darkness: Twenty Dark Locks Sealing Style Technique. Unlock Dark Lock One. The Worm Lurks Buried Deep Under Fabled Myth...”

Zarian trailed off.

He looked up at the night sky.

There were no blocky clouds in the way.

And there were no stars. Barely any light. The moons were deeply submerged. The darkness reigned supreme above their heads, covering all vision of the cosmos beyond the moons.

He could feel the darkness of the world reaching up from its gaps, its faults, and its deepest caverns. The oldest and most unseen darkness streamed upward toward their young lord.

With so much darkness gathered for the son of ultra gods, the east side of the Walled Continent darkened heavily, making the night look like a place in the void. Crossdeath, Windy Strider, Stalwart Paladin, and other civilized areas experienced nothing but darkness from above and below.

Whether they were evil, good, or neutral, the inhabitants and adventurers of these places cried out for the help of the gods. But none of the gods, good or evil, answered them.

Zarian looked across from him and saw the emptiness in Naomi’s eyes. She was losing herself further and further.

He prayed to the Funnest and Biggest that Naomi would come back from this, and that he wouldn’t lose control. Then he finished the technique with a hopeful smile on his face.

“Three Percent Power Unsealed. Triple Threat Darkness.”

The next moments happened quickly. Naomi threw herself at him. Zarian raised his left hand.

As he lined up his shot, he felt from in front of him and within him two immense forces he had to battle.

Naomi’s insatiable determination to break the curse of her humanity bore down upon him like a flying sun. Her green-yellow ignition was changing, too, shifting toward a more orangish color.

She was reaching toward the Third Stage of Aura Ignition, stability.

Zarian wished he could enjoy her growth with her. But he was stuck on the edge as his darkness stopped acting like a servant.

His darkness was trying to take control. His darkness wanted to rip him apart from the inside, destroy Naomi, and then treat everything else as a buffet.

The safest thing to do would be to hold back Three Percent Darkness and let Naomi get the hit.

She would probably transition to Third Ignition, and if they were lucky enough, she might survive afterward. Then Zarian would revive because of the charm while stopping his darkness from breaking free. They could carry on merrily from there.

There was one problem with that.

Zarian would’ve felt like a bitch, more so than any moment prior. He refused to lose to both Naomi and his darkness at the same time.

He chose the third option.

He bent Three Percent Darkness to his demands and shot out a dark beam that he aimed upward with a curve. He ignored the warnings of causality and put everything he could to control his darkness and kill Naomi.

The sheer blowback flattened the castle mountain they stood on along with the neighboring ones. The three percent dark beam carved a path across the sky that was visible to everyone on the Walled Continent.

The beam looked like a line of blackness that was blacker than black. Then the beam exited the atmosphere, crossed the orbital space of Corma, and carved away half of the orange moon – Cavern Hellion.

The three percent dark beam kept on flying into space while Cavern Hellion flew into an alternate angle, with the orange moon crashing into the blue moon – Sea Strider.

Orange and blue moon rocks flew into Corma’s atmosphere, the moon meteorites raining down on the Walled Continent and half of the world. Some of those rocks landed around Ride-or-Die Village, though none of them touched the home of the Dark Lord...

***

Ruvaria the First Free Elf thought it wise to intervene for the sake of her dear student ... so he wouldn’t feel too guilty about the doom he brought down upon the world.

She made sure none of the moon meteorites struck down on the home of the Floridians. She blew up the largest pieces of moon rocks to save a few little civilizations from total annihilation.

Then she teleported to the desolation where the Grimrock Castle Mountains had once stood. They were all mostly gone now.

Ruvaria found the lower half of Naomi Washington lying on the floor, her bottom cheeks pointed to the sky. The First Free Elf checked the magical fate surrounding the dead human and saw the odds were terrible.

She made mental notes to help her dear student grieve later. She threw those aside when Naomi pulled off another impossible feat. She revived herself despite the odds.

She was back to being a plain human, though. And she was unconscious, stuck in a coma, in fact. She might not wake for a while, at least not for the next few months.

Still, that was better than the more likely outcome of Naomi staying dead. She was the perfect match for Ruvaria’s dear student. The stubborn human’s continued existence was a necessity for Zarian.

Turning away from the reckless black woman, Ruvaria walked over to where her student struggled with his darkness. A cosmic power that wanted to consume the Star System from the inside out covered half of his body, the left side specifically.

He was doing everything he could to stop it, but he couldn’t quite seal it with his sealing technique.

Ruvaria glanced up as more moon chunks rained down in streaks of flaming orange and blue. Half of Cavern Hellion was gone, and the remaining half of the orange moon had smashed its face into the side of the blue moon, staying stuck to Sea Strider.

Never had Ruvaria seen such a sight, such a calamity, from a small percentage of someone’s true power. It was quite impressive.

“I can’t stop it,” Zarian moaned, falling to his knees in front of her. “Please ... Ruvaria. Please ... stop me.”

His call for her was both touching and painful.

But she was his teacher first and foremost.

“Start from the basics,” she instructed.

He tried to argue.

She cut him off. “I don’t care that the fate of the universe rests on this moment. I am your teacher, and this is a wonderful learning experience. Now sit back in the proper position. And start with the basics. If you wish to play with forces beyond your control, then you must clean up your mess properly.”

Zarian slowly nodded. He sat back in the proper position with his legs crossed.

Orange and blue moon meteorites streaked above her as Ruvaria smiled down at her dear apocalyptic student. “Now let us have another session of the most studious kind.”