Power Overwhelming

------

Just the shockwave of a rank 14, and someone who had power equal to one, unleashing their full power at the same time was almost enough to shatter the world they were standing on. The magical defenses around Karna’s hiding spot did shatter in a moment, although that didn’t matter all that much as the two didn’t stay in place very long. The defenses had been created to slow the other guards, not to truly defend her. Both Pride and Karna rapidly ascended above the world and both separated and came together in clashes of power that sent booming shockwaves of power in all directions. Shockwaves that easily shattered anything they came into contact with, such as asteroids or even the moon that had orbited the world.

Both Karna’s allies and the rebellious guards kept appearing, keeping the balance of power between the two opposing forces nearly equal. None of them had the opportunity to interfere with the two that would eventually decide this battle, even if they’d been foolish enough to get between the two combatants. Not everyone came to the system personally, as those present could sense countless scrying spells as the eyes of the gods turned towards the system. A clear rebellion by a part of the guard was something that needed to be dealt with, but many were hesitant to take a strong position without knowing how this battle would end.

The pair drew closer to the star in the system, and Pride almost disdainfully displayed his power by gesturing with his hand, sending a solar flare out of the star towards Karna, who in turn completely ignored the flames, as they could not harm a phoenix with a bloodline as pure as hers. Instead, she used her magic to create a black hole behind him, mainly as a distraction. The distraction worked only partially, as Pride swung his weapon, sending a blade of Qi to cut the gravity anomaly before it even formed properly. The fact that Qi could overpower a natural force like this was not according to any laws of physics, but after a certain point, those laws became mere suggestions.

As he swung his weapon, Karna used a magical charm with the spell ‘Time Stop’ inscribed on it, but the effect broke down immediately. “You didn’t really think I wouldn’t use my ability to immunize myself against chronomancy, did you?” Pride asked almost mockingly.

“No, I did. I just had to make sure. It would’ve been a waste if I’d assumed you had, and you’d instead used your limited protection elsewhere.” The two of them had fought several times in the past, and Karna had learned several things in those previous fights, just like Pride had.

Pride had two annoying abilities, and the more annoying one came from his Name. His Pride allowed him to reject the abilities of his enemies, rendering himself immune to them. He couldn’t make himself immune to everything, only a certain number of things, and from experience, she knew that he couldn't swap all of them on the fly. He had to immunize himself against some things before a battle and could swap around one or two while in the heat of combat. Since the number of things was limited, it was a good idea to make sure one of the things was chronomancy, because otherwise, this would be a quick fight. Quite literally.

The other annoying ability was a limited form of clairvoyance in combat. Pride wasn’t a seer, but he could see the most likely path his opponent was going to take in combat, which when combined with his other ability, made him very hard to kill. It also made him annoyingly good at fighting, as he could counter your attacks before you even made them. His attacks were almost supernaturally precise and effective, and he would angle his strikes in a way that would force you to harm yourself if you finished your attack. His clairvoyance wasn’t absolute though, and it only showed the most likely path. In combat with a very trained fighter like Karna, all her actions were almost instinctual, as he took the most efficient and advantageous action automatically because of countless lives of training instilling the best choices into his very being. That made her sort of predictable for Pride’s power. That didn’t mean she could never surprise him though, and just because you could predict something, didn’t mean you could stop it from happening.

With the full power of her Aura behind her, she swung the hammer that had already turned into an unrivaled artifact that could annihilate entire countries in a swing right at Pride's head. With a slightly strained grunt, he deflected the attack to the side. Even with the difference in rank, she was physically stronger than him, and she had a better weapon despite him being equipped with the best the Imperial Guard could offer. If she was fighting with finesse, his abilities and skill with a weapon might have made a bigger difference, but she'd gone with a brute force approach for a reason. There was only so much precognition and skill with a sword could do against a blunt-force object coming straight at you with the speed and power that she could now manage. Just like he could counter her abilities, she had developed methods that would work against him as well.

That didn’t mean he didn’t get in his own attacks. Such heavy blows left her somewhat open for counterattacks, and Pride managed to throw a blade of Qi at her open flank. The problem was that the thick layer of Aura on top of her metallic skin deflected such light and hasty attacks. In less than twenty seconds, they’d exchanged hundreds of blows, and he’d hit her several times, never drawing blood. “Annoying. Should’ve expected you wouldn't make this easy.” Pride grumbled.

“Sometimes the best strategy is the simplest one.” She mocked. “Now pull out your hidden cards. I know you didn’t come at me with just this.”

Pride didn't say anything and simply turned a gem at the handle of his curved blade, and suddenly a dark energy permeated through the blade and surrounded him. Karna recognized it immediately and didn't stick around to be affected by the power, instead using Kun-Peng's speed to take distance. In that single moment, thousands of slashes came at her, but each of them was dodged with a combination of speed and the luck of a Tressym.

“That’s a dark power you’ve drawn on.” She commented simply.

The dark power held a concept similar to her form that internalized the concept of ending. This power was that of corruption. It wouldn’t immediately strike through her defenses. Instead, it would infect her and slowly corrode her from the inside. If he couldn’t win this fight with a single decisive blow, he’d win it by wearing her down. “Not any darker than the one you wielded against the Growth.” He countered, not entirely unfairly.

“I see. However, you know me. I don’t do long fights.” She argued, and they both knew she was speaking the truth. None of their fights had lasted for very long. The corruption would not be enough unless he managed to land a decisive blow that would allow the corruption to spread more quickly.

“Time for you to show me how you intend to finish this quickly then.” He countered instead. His plan was more about forcing her to act in a certain way than actually turning the fight into a long one. “Oh, but before that.” He materialized another part of a mutilated corpse. “I finally managed to pay a visit to the Higher Planes. You wouldn’t believe how difficult it can be when the emperor is watching over my every move.” The severed head was stuck in a grimace of pain, but Karna could still recognize Duskclaw. “Her anger when I killed her son in front of her eyes was something to behold. Tried to attack me despite the obvious gap in power. Gotta hand it to the anger of mothers. Wasn’t that how your Wrath also got started?” He didn’t know, but he had a good guess. And while Karna didn’t like spreading the information around, she wasn’t exactly hiding it either.

That one angered her. It really did. “You’re going to pay for that. You fight dirty.” Instead of burning hate, her anger turned into a cold resolution. One way or another, Pride was not going to walk away from this one.

"Dirty? Do you think this whole thing has been fair? You do realize the deck has been stacked in your favor the entire time? I may not have planned on attacking you while you were a child, but even if I had, I wouldn’t have been allowed to. Both your mother, father, and the emperor himself have been doing their best to stack the deck in your favor. But I don’t complain about such issues. I overcome them. That’s my Pride. Obstacles are there to be overcome. This.” He shook the severed head. “This is just petty revenge for making me jump through so many hoops. And because I know it will hurt you.”

His desire to hurt her was clear and not entirely unearned. She had hurt him in the past as well. Not with cruelty, but with callousness instead. She would never call the death of Duskclaw or Pride's cruelty fair, but she was not surprised by it. Of all the Sins, Pride had the largest reasons to hate her, and some of those reasons were well-earned. Didn’t make his actions excusable, but it did make them understandable.

“Well, you wanted a card, and you shall have one.” The enormous scales depicting her totem appeared behind her. “Be judged for your sins.”

The power of his karma seemed to weigh on him just for a second before it too vanished. "And obviously, karmic powers are on the list as well.” He cracked his neck carelessly. It seems he had improved. Usually, any powers gained from the Names could not be affected by another such power, but Pride seemed to have overcome that hurdle. That’s how their fight had ended last time. Pride broken on the ground, crushed by the weight of his own sins.

“Unexpected but yet not at the same time. Luckily that wasn’t the point." Karna's Domain suddenly expanded into a Reality Marble that covered the entire area. Ironically, in space, it didn't look all that different, as it seemed to place them in space as well. Space that allowed her to draw on an almost limitless amount of power as well as isolating them from everyone else. Dark tornadoes of power rushed at Pride from all directions, empowered by her Wrath, making them even stronger than those that she’d made during her Awakening to the 12th rank.

A pyramid of transparent energy surrounded Pride as his Qi protected him. “Not enough!” He growled. “Not nearly enough! Show me the Wrath that destroyed entire universes! Destroy everything you hold dear, just like you destroyed everything I held dear!” As his Pride rejected even the conceptual attack, leaving only the dark energy itself which wasn’t enough to penetrate his defenses, Karna’s eyes sent the power of a Beast of the Apocalypse with her death gaze at him, but it too was negated. “I’ve seen that one as well! Use the power! Draw the power and life from this universe to feed your hatred! Show everyone what true Wrath is! Otherwise, you will lose!”

He swung his weapon, and instead of a concentrated attack, he saturated the entire area with corrosive energy, sending it out like a tsunami that even she couldn’t avoid. It was like being splashed with acid. It didn’t do too much immediate damage, but slowly it would damage even her despite her enhanced defenses. It would also make regeneration impossible, for as long as the source of the malignant power remained.

“And you better do it soon!” Pride goaded. Clearly, he had some kind of a plan, and she could already sense it. Pride thought he had hidden it well. However, it was impossible to hide from her eyes, even with the power of corruption covering and obfuscating his blade. There was another power hidden in his weapon, similar to what she had in hers. It had the ability to negate her attacks and send them back at her. So, if she attacked with a strike empowered by her Wrath, then she'd only be faced with her own attack.

“I will show you something, but not that. No, you haven’t earned my Wrath. You’ve earned something different.” Suddenly everyone on the battlefield could feel something very unnatural coming into existence. Something that made everyone instinctually take even more distance from the fighting Sins. A gray blade seemingly made of smoke and ash materialized in her hands. “I’m going to end you. And I’m going to end you for good this time. We’re not going to dance this dance ever again.”

She was suddenly in front of him, the grey blade flashing down at him. Sensing that this blade likely couldn’t be blocked the normal way, Pride dodged instead. His entire focus was on her, but his clairvoyance was enough to avoid her attacks, even if only barely. “Even with that, you’re not enough!” Pride growled and managed to slash her across her chest, making a wound that was smoking with the corrupting energy of his blade. It wasn’t a deep slash, but it was not good either. However, instead of avoiding it, she stepped into the attack, forcing his blade deeper in. With him now locked close to her, she slashed down at him, but he managed to grab her wrist with his free hand. The two were simply too close for a proper attack, and now they were grappling. “You can’t escape. I have you now!” He stated fiercely, knowing the corruption would soon take her and he didn’t need to do anything further.

“Well then, it’s a good thing I’m never alone.” She revealed the card that she’d been saving this entire time, and with no room for Pride to escape either.

Another identical copy of her stepped out from behind her and swung down with the hammer she had dropped only moments before. Before the copy managed to attack, Pride made his own and burst out his Qi in an attempt to disperse what he assumed to be a clone technique. The problem was that this wasn’t a clone. The copy took the attack with the same fortitude Karna had, crushed Pride’s clone, while moving at the same speed she’d displayed before, before smashing the hammer into his back. The strike had behind it all the power that Karna also possessed, which was more than enough to do horrid damage to even Pride, who couldn’t immunize himself against all the different powers flooding him from the hammer. His entire torso shattered in a moment. Not content with that, the clone turned her claws into that of the wolf that could cut anything and tore out his heart before consuming it.

“That’s my final trick. I’m never fighting alone.” Karna crowed as she slashed down the blade of the Reaper with her newfound power, now capable of shattering even a soul as old as Pride’s. Every reincarnator in the universe felt a scream of unnatural power as one of the most powerful and oldest souls was erased from existence. Most of them fell to their knees out of sheer nausea.

As Pride's soul was being erased from existence, Gem, as the copy was, of course, Karna's spirit Gemini, grabbed his falling sword and fed it to Karna's sheath, allowing her to gain control of the power of corruption wracking through her body. “Thank you. Saved me again.” Karna spoke with relief as the nasty power left her system, allowing her regeneration to kick in.

“Always. It seems even Pride forgot my existence.” Gem noted.

"That's why we kept you hidden lately," Karna said simply. Even if people were aware that she had a spirit, no one except Arjuna was aware that Gem could copy her as well. There was a reason she was called Gemini. The copy wasn't perfect, but it was good enough.

“Your father will not like this.” Gem spoke, gathering Duskclaw’s head carefully and cleaning it up before Karna caused it to disappear into her numerous storage items for proper burial. Gem also took a look into the dimensional artifact Pride had used to make sure there were no more surprises hidden inside. Luckily there weren’t.

“No.” She gave a sad sigh. “No, he won’t. And I'm not pleased either. Duskclaw wasn’t the best of parents, but she didn’t deserve this.”

“I don’t suppose anything could be done?” Gem suggested carefully, knowing her master had her ways.

"With Pride involved? I doubt it. It is sad, but everyone dies eventually. Hopefully, she'll have better luck in her next life." It was also perhaps a little unfortunate that she couldn't manage to feel more sad at the loss than she was, but she'd gotten too used to loss in her countless lives. She also had spent more years away from Duskclaw than the two had spent together. Truthfully the only reason she hadn’t already forgotten the beastwoman was because she had tried to create a way for Arjuna to become the Emissary and spend more time with his family. “Arjuna’s going to be heartbroken.”

"Maybe he can settle for being a grandfather?" Gem suggested. "In certain ways, you could say he's one twice over, as Tsumi's child could also be considered yours in a twisted sort of way."

“Perhaps that can help him cope with the sadness." Karna nodded. "Well, we still have a fight to deal with, although I doubt the guards will have too much fight in them with Pride gone." She lowered the Domain, allowing everyone to see the results of the battle.

As she'd predicted, it didn't take long for the surviving guards to surrender.