✧ Chapter 71 ✧

Cherry and Hisa woke up suspended in a floating state, only to find themselves trapped inside of a fractal cage. It was similar in design to the one that held the Eternal Lights in the Infinite Infernum. The only difference was, the one they were inside of had been made entirely out of fractal energy instead.

Trying to escape currently would be futile.

Hovering there outside of the fractal cages however, Voltaze had been staring at them while his clones made progress on replacing each black hole with a fractal hole so it could consume the fabric of every cosmic threshold in existence.

Meanwhile, the Singularity Stronghold itself was starting to transform.

The threads of each multiverse were all converging into the Megaverse of Ynadith that Voltaze was controlling. This meant every other stronghold that previously existed was now destroyed in favor of connecting all of them into this one.

However, that meant this fractal stronghold would end up dissipating the original ending of every universe’s timelines; essentially wiping their potential futures away.

Inhabitants on the other hand were beginning to experience everyday life in a much more unusual way. The natural forces of their environment shifted, creating unseen chaos as an interrupted event made time go counter-clockwise up to the creation of a planet.

This alerted many protectors of those planets, but they were unable to detect or even stop Voltaze who was able to watch the madness unfold from everywhere around him.

“Voltaze, please listen to us! You don’t need to do this! For all we know this could be what Prism wants you to do!” yelled Hisa.

“I don’t see your indulgence as formidable. Prism created this Omniverse to brainwash the masses into suffering by staying alive. If anything, this will be exactly what it doesn’t want. It may fight to gain control, but clearly it cannot contain everything without losing something else in the process.”

“You’re not understanding me. Also, why are you keeping us alive to suffer right now then? You’re no better than your own claim against Prism if this is how you want to act!”

A strong grunt came from Voltaze as he began to pity her for even asking this question.

“Speaking in favor for your delusional kind. Humanity was in part responsible for everything they did to me. To think you yourself are innocent when I know full well about your connections.”

“My connections?” asked Hisa amidst the confrontation.

“Uninformed I see… Does the name, Mayor Nebules, remind you of anything?”

The moment this was mentioned, Hisa’s eyes widened out of shock.

“How do you—“

“Know him? He was there occasionally, watching me in my cell alongside all of the other scientists and armed guards. Reading those abandoned files, it was quite revealing.”

“Even if that is true, Mr. Nebules did help to prevent the destruction of StarSpace when The Great Invasion occurred... Unfortunately, after the falling out I had with him recently, I don’t see a world where I would ever join his side again.”

“And yet you decided to help The Guardians Of The Omniverse. You had the choice to leave their mission. Instead, you chose an ignorant move that blindsided not only you, but your allies as well. I see no reason to give either of you mercy.”

As Voltaze was about to continue scolding Hisa, he directed his attention towards Cherry.

“I see you are speechless Vanilla. You know, with what you did those many years ago, I developed a grudge against your presence. You will now see how it felt for me to be imprisoned. Got anything to say?”

Cherry, who was not in the mood to talk to Voltaze, strangely closed her eyes with pursed lips.

Although Voltaze expected no response, he could tell she was looking at something behind him.

“Styra Star…” he muttered under his breath while growling viciously.

He turned to face Styra who transformed in her human form alongside the other Judgment Warriors that were floating around as well, ready to fight.

“Kinda ironic that you get mad at us for crashing in, when you did that almost all the time yourself. Didn’t know you enjoy crashing out,” said Styra enthusiastically.

Folding his arms out of a growing impatience from seeing them arrive, Voltaze responded with a stoic tone.

“I don’t enjoy it… Emotions are a wasted cause anyway. Soon they won’t exist. Completely nullified as it should have been.”

“Really? What’s stopping you from doing that now then? Oh, that’s right… Last I checked, you need all Ten Eternal Lights to actually do anything. In that case…”

In the middle of her words, she took out The Scroll Of Scarlet Spades as bait.

A heightened jump in adrenaline rushed through Voltaze’s mind as he used The Eternal Light Of Time to keep The Judgment Warriors from moving while a clone could teleport from behind her to take it for him.

On the other end of the spectrum, Styra and Eternika were already becoming more immune to this. Nearly dodging his punch, the duo decided to distract him by flying into random realities outside of The Singularity Stronghold.

Each time she tried to evade his subtle approaches, he ended up gaining the upper hand in almost every scenario, destroying entire populations in those megaverses amidst using the corrupted Eternal Lights within his possession.

However, this destructive behavior was starting to get carried away as he would end up annihilating Mechatopolis without caring. Whilst all the other Eternal Lights were disillusioned, The Eternal Light Of Time specifically could now see that Voltaze was not keeping his word of respecting their boundaries concerning the worlds he was destroying.

In fact it was doing major harm to The Eternal Timeline.

A sense of regret passed through this Eternal Light as it decided to break its bond with him over the course of the fight, switching over to Styra instead and calling within her mind to fix the situation.

Recognizing this as an opportunity after she had been put through a lot, Styra decided to secretly create Time Rings that would send her friends and herself towards Animearth in the present day to recover without Voltaze knowing.

The team were now located in the center of Centreplex’s Paradise Park on a bright summer day. During this sudden change in view, they immediately recognized that freeing Hisa and Cherry would be difficult to accomplish within the crossfires of this conflict.

Unfortunately during this reunion, Voltaze caught onto what had happened when Styra disappeared out of nowhere while they were fighting.

And this was all thanks to the other Eternal Lights telling him that The Eternal Light Of Time (and especially The Eternal Light Of Surreality) had double-crossed their reinvented beliefs which were in full favor of Voltaze’s chaotic order.

With a clenched fist, he began to send devastating bloody blows towards Styra upon seeing her.

With his powers growing infinitely, she crashed into a massive water park known as Tidal Tubes where her body collided with a towering slide called the Super Torpedo Twist in that area.

Although Styra was re-energized by splashing into the water, an unfortunate situation arose as she saw Miri, Aoki, and Hiroto within the vicinity of the falling slide.

Prioritizing flying as fast as she could to prevent these three from getting hurt, Eternika popped up to prevent the destruction of the park’s landmark by creating a Dark Kra Forcefield.

During the implementation of this barrier to protect the people that would have been affected by the collapsing structure, Voltaze instantaneously spawned his clones again.

Specifically from Animearth’s planetary core.

Striking up from underneath the ground, they disrupted Dark Eternika’s forcefield and killed everyone from inside that Styra was trying to save.

No matter how hard the team fought, Voltaze wasn’t letting up.

Because the Dark Kra Forcefield was absorbing dangerous levels of fractal energy too, it was now fighting against the depletion of Styra’s regenerative abilities. Meanwhile, Voltaze’s fractal energy was starting to surpass the durability of her own armor, mostly damaging even the mask she wore each time he threw punches at her.

It wasn’t adding up.

How was it still not enough?

Wait…

There was another thing they still hadn’t considered yet.

Holding a firm stance, Styra stood up with two ideas in mind while wearily holding a fragmented Dark Eternika by her side.

Since the Eternal Lights’ cores were being opened up by the fractal energy Voltaze possessed, the opposite effect of The Dark Kra Force healing dark matter and imploding fractal energy into The Void could be potentially strengthened the same way. All she needed was one or maybe all of the Eternal Lights’ power to assist it in some way.

Still, that plan was a lot more complicated considering the bonds they held.

A simpler option remained in which even the weapon could tell she was planning a more riskier decision at a time like this.

“Styra, I know you want to call Emeraldion into battle. We have to remember what he told us. The consequences are dire if he leaves it unguarded.”

“You’re right. Maybe it’s not what we think it could be, but I do know this. I am done holding back. We need to get Cherry and Hisa out of those prisons first. Eternika, tell Emeraldion you will stay and guard it. He will help to buy us some time.”

Rethinking its position on this request, the blades disappeared for a while to visit Niantom before reappearing a few seconds later with frantic news.

“Emeraldion is missing.”

A steady silence drowned out the chaos happening around her.

A few reasons as to why this occurred kept clouding Styra’s mind as she could feel an unpleasant sense of rage fuming from inside.

Either Voltaze had done something behind their backs, or Emeraldion completely lied to them and in the process betrayed his own brother. She didn’t want to believe either scenario, but it was looking more and more likely.

She had enough of it.

Using the collective power of the Dark Kra Force, she immediately aimed a Dark Kra Blast at both Cherry and Hisa’s fractal cages. It was still not enough though since Styra’s health kept weakening from usurping more of the fractal energy to free them.

When it looked to be that the situation she was in would be critically endangering, Flight came over to grab her hand to help re-energize Styra’s abilities. During this moment, he also shot a beam from the Surreality Shard’s power at them as well to help give the Dark Kra Force a boost.

In an anticlimactic turn of events, their combined capabilities instantly proved to be an effective solution, completely removing the fractal cages before Voltaze or his clones could even catch them doing it.

Amidst Cherry and Hisa bracing for impact toward the ground upon being freed, Styra realized there was only one real way to close the main fractal portal in outer space.

It would require any team member with an Eternal Light’s power to help imbue its positive qualities onto The Dark Kra Force and possibly repair the tears in space-time.

During this introspective thought, Chelbie, Kade, and Hisa were fending off Voltaze and his clones as a way to distract him.

His seething rage teetered high as the three of them suddenly knocked him down progressively one by one. Deciding to relocate the fractal cage, he unexpectedly got zapped around by the Cherrirang of all weapons.

Without wasting any more time, Styra (who had been eyeing Cherry’s attempt at fighting) ran next to her friend in order to help them both muster up the courage to kill Voltaze. Within a matter of seconds, they worked together to use one of their strongest techniques as a duo that they could have ever pulled off.

A spinning hook kick from Styra leading in with Cherry mimicking the infamous diving strike which was used to defeat the Princess Candiere Statue previously.

It caught Voltaze by surprise so fast that the move in isolation threw him violently all the way out into outer space. A sudden uppercut later from Flight with an inherently deadly combination of jabs and elbow-hitting that both Styra and Cherry used led to Dark Eternika making a bold decision in the process.

Without any form of mercy, the three of them slammed Voltaze down with their fists altogether that caused him to fall at an uncontrollably rapid speed that surpassed the layer of an entire Gigaverse.

Before he could even recover, Dark Eternika stabbed Voltaze over a billion times until finally imploding him into The Void as a speeding projectile at the corrupted Creperus’s golden brace.

The strength of this attack was so potent that it not only pushed the Alpha Guardian into the main fractal portal, but patched the fabric of dark matter behind them, closing them off from the most substantial layer of The Omniverse itself.

Voltaze was now unconsciously trapped within the golden brace which was capable of containing and fusing the more chaotic nature of the original nine Eternal Lights.

As the four Judgment Warriors watched, Styra still hoped one day Voltaze would make the choice for himself to change instead of them trying to do it for him.