In the northernmost part of NY, where the giant sphere had once stood, another drastic change was underway.
The chains, covered in countless strange symbols that had once bound the sphere and kept it contained, were now almost entirely gone. The symbols across them grew fewer by the second, vanishing one after another.
This had been going on for nearly a full day now, and the first effects of that phenomenon were beginning to show.
Various creatures, twisted by the Abyss gods’ corruption, were waking up, and upon sensing something strange, maybe a comand, or maybe something else, began converging, all moving in different directions, directions that led to strange structures of the most bizarre shapes, from the simplest to the most elaborate.
An impossibly tall tree that seemed to tower over the entire area, almost as if it touched the sky itself, creaked in several places, its branches twisted, made not of wood but of something closer to flesh, veins of glowing violet pulsing faintly beneath the surface.
A massive fetus lying at the bottom of a vast chasm, its malformed body showing increasingly frequent movements within, as if something inside it was slowly awakening.
A strange architectural structure that might once have been a bridge, now an immense architectural aberration, half skeletal tower, half pulsing cartilage bridge. Its non-Euclidean surfaces folded in on themselves in defiance of logic, dotted with black singularities like gaping mouths onto the void, while the entire structure flickered in and out of existence, making the air tremble with a faint, sinister pulse that seemed to warp the space around it.
And many other diverse entities, all of them beginning to stir, no longer bound by the chains’ restraining effect, which weakened moment by moment, making it clear to these beings that the moment of their freedom was drawing near.
***
Unaware of any of this, Evan, having already deployed every move at his disposal, held nothing back and unleashed himself fully on the avatar.
Ash, still hovering in the air, had only four sparks left. He no longer used them to form arrows.
Instead, the bow in his hand trembled, then shattered into fragments of pure energy, only to reform into a different weapon, a spear of refined yet menacing design, its tip carrying an almost regal aura.
The weapon hung suspended in midair as the four remaining sparks, floating above Ash’s head like glowing horns, moved, each one settling into a different point along the spear’s shaft.
The instant they locked into place, the weapon began glowing with an intense reddish-orange light, as if gathering a pressure ready to burst.
Shadow, for his part, didn’t stay idle either. The scythe in his hand began to pulse, its curved blade taking on a shade of pure obsidian black, wrapped in an aura of dark violet energy, thick, almost liquid.
Evan, blade already in hand and wrapped in void energy, charged toward the plant’s stem, which noticed his movement instantly.
It didn’t waste time reacting, several of its vines lashing out like whips. But just as he was about to bring his sword down, the avatar, already worn down by the relentless drain from the marks corroding its vitality, found itself intercepted by a flying strike from Shadow’s scythe, which blocked the attack at the last instant, deflecting it.
The avatar didn’t stop, immediately trying again, but Shadow kept striking, and with him the rest of his army, their combined attacks focused less on dealing direct damage and more on deflecting, disrupting every trajectory of the avatar’s strikes.
It went on like this until Evan reached the base of the flower, where dozens of eyes scattered across the avatar’s grotesque surface fixed on him with growing intensity, pulsing with a violet glow.
It was a soul attack, one that struck anything within a certain range, a range Evan had just entered. However, by focusing entirely on him, the Avatar lost sight of Ash, who was still hovering above.
Ash didn’t waste a second. With surgical precision, he hurled the empowered spear straight at the center of the flower, where one of the largest mouths remained gaping open.
BOOOM.
The blow was so powerful the entire area shook violently. The energy released by the explosion was far greater than anything Ash had unleashed before with his arrows infused with those sparks. The plant convulsed violently, its stem’s structure finally beginning to destabilize, buckling, twisting in on itself.
"A weak insect like you actually dared to strike me? I’ll kill you all, and turn you into nourishment for—"
The avatar roared with fury, its voice echoing as it cursed both Evan’s clones and Evan himself for reducing it to this state, but it didn’t get the chance to finish the sentence, because a searing pain tore through it, and only then did it realize Evan was no longer standing in front of it.
He was in the underground cavern, where the red crystal rested.
That crystal was its core, and Evan had just struck it with an attack strong enough to crack it.
The avatar went on high alert instantly, its entire form beginning to writhe and unravel into thick strands that looked like living tentacles, as it tried to pull itself back together.
"W-wait..." The avatar’s voice echoed through the cavern, no longer filled with rage, but something much closer to panic. It tried to say something, but before it could, another attack struck the crystal.
Evan didn’t even bother listening.
He knew nothing good would come from letting it speak.
The underground cavern trembled more and more violently as the avatar prepared something massive, a final desperate attempt to eliminate the one who had dared reach this place.
But Evan had no intention of allowing it to do whatever it wanted.
Without hesitation, he struck the crystal again, each blow dealing further damage to the avatar. One strike after another, he continued his assault without giving it even a moment to recover.
"S-stop..." it said, the word barely escaping its throat, all traces of the arrogance it had displayed only moments ago completely gone. "We can talk about this... it doesn’t have to end like this."
Evan didn’t slow down.
He kept attacking, and within a few seconds, he struck the crystal several more times until finally...
CRACK!
One last powerful blow landed, and hhe crystal shattered.