Chapter — 3,050%
Torin stepped forward.
Voss grabbed his arm.
"Don't."
Torin looked at him.
"Someone has to."
Voss tightened his grip.
"Not you."
Torin smiled faintly.
"That's usually when I do it."
Karma looked toward him.
He barely seemed interested.
Torin activated Consequence Deferral.
His body hurt.
Deferred.
Fear crushed his lungs.
Deferred.
Muscles began failing.
Deferred.
His heartbeat stuttered.
Deferred.
Then he reached for the modifier.
Voss's face changed.
"Torin."
The number appeared.
OVERCLOCK: 91%
Then:
130%
Voss shouted, "STOP."
Torin continued.
241%
Blood ran from his nose.
600%
His capillaries burst across one eye.
1,008%
His legs fractured under his own muscle tension.
The consequence was deferred.
He remained standing.
Voss stared.
"That's impossible."
Torin looked toward Karma.
The number climbed.
1,900%
2,400%
His nervous system began failing.
Deferred.
His organs entered shock.
Deferred.
His heart stopped for almost half a second.
Deferred.
3,050%
Everything became still.
Voss stared at the number.
No modifier user in the records he'd personally studied had ever approached anything like it.
Torin walked.
One step.
Then another.
Every step should have killed him.
The consequences formed behind him like an invisible avalanche waiting for permission to arrive.
Karma finally looked interested.
"You aren't strong."
Torin breathed through blood.
"No."
"You cannot defeat me."
"No."
Karma tilted his head.
"Then why are you standing there?"
Torin looked back.
At Kaosu.
Raiyo.
Yamiya.
Nyxus.
Then at Voss.
"Because they're behind me."
Karma smiled.
"How sentimental."
Torin raised his fists.
"Yeah."
Karma approached.
Torin didn't move.
Fear told him he would die.
Anixiety would have made that fear real instantly.
Karma merely made it likely.
Torin deferred likely too.
Not logically.
Not cleanly.
He simply refused to process the consequence yet.
Karma stopped in front of him.
For one second—
Torin remained standing beneath the full presence of the God of Chaos.
Karma looked genuinely impressed.
"Three thousand percent to stand still."
Torin smiled weakly.
"Efficient, right?"
Karma laughed.
"No."
Torin wasn't offended
"Resolv-"
He punched Torin once, before he could finish speaking.
For a second, his body remained still, and Karma's fist couldn't budge; this would make Torin the first to take a multiversal punch from Karma unmoved.
But I said a second.
Torin's body flew backward.
Every consequence came due at once.
Bones fractured.
Organs failed.
His vision vanished.
Voss caught him before he hit the ground.
Torin was still conscious.
Somehow.
Voss stared down at him.
"Torin, rest in peace, you should be proud; you did something most couldn't."
Karma turned toward ACT.
"Now."
His Chaotic Escutcheon returned.
Stronger.
Reality recoiled from the threat of everything around him.
Karma pulled one arm backward.
Farther.
Farther than a shoulder should permit.
Then the anatomy changed.
His elbow divided.
One joint became two.
Two became four.
Four became sixteen.
The arm lengthened through articulation rather than flesh.
Hundreds of joints.
Thousands.
Millions.
sextillions.
googols.
googleplexianths.
The limb curved behind him like a living whip composed of increasingly microscopic hinges.
Kaosu's eyes widened.
Karma compressed pure Chaotic Energy into his fist.
Not broad destruction.
Absolute intent.
Reality itself began preparing the destination.
There would be no dodge.
No retreat.
No cut.
No denial.
The attack had already been accepted as inevitable.
Karma smiled.
"Your time is up."
He swung.
The arm moved like a whip.
Every joint multiplied the next acceleration.
The fist crossed the Battlefield.
Universes trembled before it reached anything.
Then—
BOOM.
Karma's fist stopped.
Not diverted.
Not denied.
Stopped.
Against another fist.
The shockwave erupted outward.
Air accelerated so violently that it became cutting force.
Distant universal boundaries split.
The Karmic Battlefield cracked.
Karma's eyes widened.
His fist had been met.
Equal force.
No.
More.
The stranger twisted.
Karma threw his second punch instantly.
The strike missed.
Someone appeared behind him.
A heel struck Karma between the shoulders.
The God of Chaos moved.
That alone should have been impossible.
Reality always carried him.
Caught him.
Corrected momentum around him.
His body and reality behaved like one nervous system.
This time—
reality failed.
White fractures appeared in the empty air behind Karma.
Not air.
Reality itself had cracked trying to catch him.
Karma hit the ground.
His back struck first.
Then his shoulders.
Then the back of his head.
Silence.
Kaosu stared.
Raiyo forgot his injuries for a moment.
Yamiya's eyes opened weakly.
Voss looked up.
Karma lay flat on his back.
For the first time in his existence.
Not even as an infant had gravity been permitted that indignity.
The luminescence faded.
White hair.
A pale coat traced with blue.
Calm eyes.
Aoikishi stood over him.
Kaosu whispered, "No way."
Nyxus remained unconscious.
Which was unfortunate.
He would have enjoyed this immensely.
Aoikishi looked down at Karma.
Then toward ACT.
His gaze rested on Kaosu's broken arm.
Yamiya's bloodied face.
Raiyo's shattered swords.
Nyxus lying motionless.
Something changed in his expression.
Aoikishi looked back at Karma.
"Funny."
Karma's eyes narrowed.
Aoikishi continued, "You call yourself a god, yet all I've seen you do is test your strength on people who haven't reached yours."
Karma slowly sat up.
Aoikishi's voice stayed calm.
That made it worse.
"These are my students."
A fracture ran across the Battlefield beneath his foot.
"These are my children."
Across Archaverse Twenty-Seven, beings who had no idea what was happening suddenly felt cold. It wasn't a subjective event; it was the fact that reality itself had felt fear and regret.
Predators stopped moving.
Machines produced inexplicable error messages.
Entire civilizations experienced the same irrational sensation:
Something had become angry.
Reality sent tremors across a distance further than just archaverse 27; its regret was so pure that it began reverting some of the damage done out of pure fear.
Aoikishi looked directly into Karma's eyes.
"And you raised your fist at them."
Karma stared.
Then smiled.
Not mockery.
Joy.
Real joy.
"Oh."
He stood.
"So you're Aoikishi."
Aoikishi didn't answer.
Karma rolled his shoulder.
"Perhaps..."
Chaotic Energy erupted around him.
"...I should take you seriously."
Aoikishi smiled faintly.
"That would be a nice change."
Karma attacked.