The wings at Taranis’s back trembled in an attempt to move away from the absolute disaster coming towards him, their feathers of dark flaring with desperate urgency. His body had only slightly moved from its place when Doom slammed a foot into his gut, pinning him down with crushing force, and grabbed his wings.
"You are not going anywhere," Doom declared and ripped out the wings with a sudden jolt of its hands. The sound of tearing flesh and splintering bone echoed. The outer skin of Taranis’s back was pulled out along with the wings, blood splattering across the grey surface as he groaned in pain, his body arching against the agony.
Doom threw the black wings away, watching them tumble into the distance, and vanished from the place. What followed as it vanished was the largest moon of Jupiter coming terrifyingly closer to him in a suffocating silence of vacuum, the dark space and Jupiter completely being covered by the grey surface of Ganymede.
The surface of Callisto itself began shaking as it was pulled by the gravitational pull of Ganymede, the frozen crust groaning and cracking under the immense force.
"Fuck... I need to get away from it at all cost," he muttered, groaning in pain, his voice strained and weak. His body was broken, his strength fading.
He shifted his body, moving onto his chest as a few of his bones had already healed. He could now see the split surface of Callisto beneath him, since it was bisected by the impact he had been slammed into. He was lying on one side of the moon, with the distance between the two parts increasing slowly.
He activated the Void Step to move as far away as possible in between the two parts of Callisto.
The first step allowed him to reach its middle. He activated Void Step again, reaching outside from the diametrically opposite part of the moon. The space around him warped as he disappeared from one point and reappeared at another.
However, before he could move any further, the two moons collided. The impact was apocalyptic, a cosmic catastrophe that defied imagination.
An explosion unlike any other recorded in the history of human civilization occurred in the Solar System.
The impact eclipsed the nearby stars as an ocean of blinding light erupted from their collision. A bright sphere of white-hot plasma blossomed from the point of impact, expanding faster than the eye could follow. Billions of tons of rock were pulverized into incandescent fragments, while colossal chunks of the moons were hurled into the void like celestial shrapnel. The shockwave rippled through the cloud of debris, scattering glowing boulders in every direction, some of them joining the rings of Jupiter, while others fell into its very surface itself, creating new scars on the gas giant’s face.
Taranis managed to avoid the direct collision but was still caught in the cosmic energy released from the impact.
His body was hurled several thousand kilometres away, flying freely in the void space. His limbs were obliterated, his hair and clothes burned away from the sheer heat. One side of his torso was gone, and what remained of his skin had suffered deep sizzling burns, the flesh blackened and peeling. The halo flickered at his head, the taiji at his chest, and his dual yin-yang eyes dimming as he began losing consciousness, the light of his power fading like a dying star.
---
"I do not approve of this plan," Ume snapped, rising to her feet, her fists tightening at her sides.
Before Taranis could reply, Nymeria said, sitting on the sofa at his other side, "I do not like this plan either. Sister Ume could transfer the control of the array to you while she can deal with the Doom with her Divine Soulforce."
Taranis released a sigh before answering in a calm tone, his gaze moving between the two women he loved, "She is not powerful enough to defeat it, and nor do I possess enough understanding to control an array of such large scale." His words, although true, only increased the frown on both of his wives further.
He knew Ume would rather sacrifice all of her tails here to kill the Doom than have Taranis’s life endangered. To make sure she would not resort to such a method, he revealed, his voice carrying a note of reassurance, "Lord Ashwathama has taught me the method to defeat the Doom."
He placed his hand on Nymeria’s belly, feeling the warmth of her skin beneath his palm, and promised, his eyes locking with hers, "I will emerge victorious in the battle. Trust me."
---
As the promise he made to his wives appeared in his mind, he held on again, gritting the teeth that were not even there, his jaw clenched with sheer willpower. He channeled the yang energy through his body to regenerate it while using the yin energy to prevent his soul from leaving the body due to the severe injuries.
The torso was the first to regenerate, where his internal organs had been destroyed. It was followed by his legs and arms, the bones reforming, the muscles reweaving, before reaching his head, where his hair sprouted again. Most of his major wounds were healed, but the minor injuries were taking time to completely vanish, the burns and lacerations lingering on his skin. He could already feel it, his regeneration was becoming slower, the strain of the battle taking its toll. He would not survive an attack of such scale again.
It was only when the wings on his back sprouted again that he managed to regain the balance of his freely moving body through the void. They were not of the same thickness as they were before being ripped, their edges thinner. The regeneration had taken its toll.
"My strength is fading..." Taranis muttered, clenching his fists, feeling the fatigue deep in his bones. "It must have used a lot of its power to pull off a move of such scale. I need to end this now."
He stared at the planet, where around its magnificent rings, he could see Doom standing there, its massive eye closed, and veins of purple energy channeling through its body like rivers of malevolent light.
"As I thought, he is not unscathed," Taranis mumbled, grabbing the halo on his head and moving it down. The disc of light descended, its glow intensifying as it reached his palms. The final gambit was about to be played.
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