MARVEL: GAMER PATH - CHAPTER 281 (Patreon)

[Alex Walker POV]

With the seal that held Knull finally broken, Klyntar started shaking violently as a piercing malevolent shriek filled the void around me, accompanied by a fair bit of shadows that formed around the planet. Soon enough the shadows that had momentarily enveloped Klyntar started to join, forming a singular entity, Knull.

“Finally… free,” Knull muttered, in a low, almost hissing tone. His eyes scanned his naked body with a sick smile, without even acknowledging my existence.

[Knull LV 1666]

1666? That was the peak of his power? It made no sense… If that were to be the case, Arishem himself would be more than enough to deal with him.

“Yes, yes!” Knull muttered, hurling himself at me, in a state of ecstatic laughter.

I said nothing, blasting at him with [Light Nova], vaporizing his entire body down to a molecular level. 

“Light? I see,” Knull cackled, his body reforming as if nothing had happened. This time, however, his body wasn’t naked as it had been a few moments ago, with now Knull wearing a black set of armor, just like in the comics.

[Knull LV 2666]

I frowned, feeling the change in his energy. His power increased a lot, and the only difference from before was his armor.

He was either playing with me. 

Or…

His power was heavily reliant on how powerful his tools were. If this was the case, then, it was safe to surmise his max power would only come to show, after he equips All-Black.

“I will give you a chance to make your end a quick one,” Knull said in a hiss, pointing at me with his bony fingers. 

“I am honestly quite tired of every enemy I have ever faced asking me that, like do you all get your dialogues from the same book?” I replied with a tired sigh, using the time he was giving me as a pleasantly welcomed static target to charge [Holy Rainfall]. “Just avoid the small talk, and try to kill me will ya?” with that said, I unleashed the spell upon him, once again overwhelming him, erasing his entire body in a hail of light.

“That won’t do a thing, child. I can’t die,” Knull said, his body, once again reforming as if nothing had happened. This time, however, taking just a bit longer to do so.

I said nothing, I already knew that my attacks wouldn’t kill him, that was never the intention, to begin with. Right now, I was simply testing the waters.

But while I knew my attacks would not kill him, I was also very aware of what Knull was trying to hide. The little fact my attacks were actually having some kind of effect on him. As much as he tried to brush it off for the show, so far, each time I erased his body it would take him a microsecond longer to reform the next time. 

I hadn’t ruled out the likelihood of him playing with me, but while that remained a possibility, I was confident he was simply trying to get into my head to kick me out of my game.

It would not be that easy.

“Immortality, or in your case, amortality, it’s not the same thing as invincibility,” I replied, after a few seconds of silence, my eyes on him.

“I agree,” Knull nodded, smiling in an unsettling way. His red eyes gleaming with mad delight as he stared into my eyes for a brief moment, before turning his attention to Arishem, and then to Klyntar. “You brought guests… Good.” 

The time had come, the real battle for the sake of the universe would commence soon. 

“Arishem,” I muttered, giving the Celestial a look.

“I know,” Arishem replied, getting into position.

Without another word, I shifted my attention back to Knull, before glancing to the planet below us, which had just now begun to tremble uncontrollably, as an unquantifiable amount of symbiotes flew out of it in all directions. 

“Now the guests will have something to do, as for you,” Knull hissed, his right arm extending to his side in a perpendicular fashion, as something started to bulge out of his limb, moving like a worm inside of the soil, before bursting out of him in a gory show, forming a blade, a sword, his weapon.

All-Black.

[Knull - All-Black - LV 3400]

And there it is. The god-killing blade. 

The increase in his power was lower than I expected and lower than it should’ve been for that matter, fully aware whatever increase he had gotten was nothing but Knull trying to hide All-Black’s power.

He was playing the long game, for what end? No idea.

“Surrender, end your suffering before it begins child,” Knull spoke, his voice rasping like a nail on a chalkboard. “Do you not realize… you can’t win? I am Lord of the Abyss. God of the Symbiotes. I am the Void!”

I sighed, saying nothing in return as I cracked my neck and fingers, before activating [Thought Acceleration] to amplify my thought processing speed by a few thousand times. 

“The darkness inside of you? That darkness bows to me. As will everything in this universe,” Knull hissed, his eyes fixed on me.

“Not to burst your bubble, but there are at least ninety beings stronger than you, in this universe alone for that matter,” I said, taking a step forward. “Not that you will live long enough to meet any of them.”

“Hm,” Knull sneered, as all around him a multitude of beings started to appear seemingly forming out of thin air. At first, I couldn’t discern with certainty what or who was forming, but soon enough I realized what was happening, he was summoning Celestial corpses, all under the control of his symbiotes.

What made this even more depraved than it already was, was the fact that the Symbiotes didn’t like bonding with a corpse, at all. In fact, it pained them a lot, as dead beings were poison to them when bonded, bringing to them nothing but agony, and yet, their own creator was forcing them to suffer.

“Now children, go and bring me his corpse!” Knull ordered as I got into position, initially assuming he was giving them the command to attack me, however, I was soon proved wrong when all of his troops, the ones he had just summoned rushed towards Arishem.

However, before they could move too far, I moved forward, closing the distance between Knull and me, in the process, one-shotting all of his zombie-like beings with a single [Holy Nova] in a fraction of a second. As I came to a full stop in front of him, a single hand bracing against his chest gently, before using [Lumen Cordis] as well as [Teleport] to blast him away, taking this golden opportunity he had given me to finally isolate him.

“Take care Arishem,” I muttered, before teleporting to where I had sent Knull with my combined attack. To find Knull sitting on an asteroid, patiently waiting for me.

“I still have more of those you killed back in Klyntar, you know that right?” Knull mentioned, before turning his eyes towards me. “You only killed a few, the rest will take care of your friend. You only delayed his demise.”

“Friend is a strong word. I would say, associate,” I replied, walking towards him, equipping [Serenity].

“Very well, I’ll play your game,” Knull sneered as he stood up from the asteroid, All-Black in hand. “You wanted me for yourself, you got me. Now, show me your grand plan.”