As the colossal fireball traveled the short distance between Jack and the crater that held the old hermit, the continuous rumbling of solar activity, and thunder sparking around the outskirts as the Magic that bound this ball of plasma separated it from the normal world began to break down.
Jack continued to laugh hysterically with his arms outstretched downward, as he watched with eyes that now swirled with darkness as if the God-King's eye sockets were as vast as the boundless void of space.
The ape had roused himself from his crater and stood up to look at the incoming fireball. He watched around him, as small stones and even larger pieces of rock were being pulled up into the massive incoming attack. It seemed to him that this powerful attack included the power of gravity!
"OO-UH! COME ON THEN! CHOU NOT WON! ME SILL HAVE POWER!" The Mountain Ape Hermit got to his feet as a green shield of power surrounded and covered every inched of him.
Now with a thick dark green luster protecting him, the old ape dug his feet into the carter he was in, and with a ground-cracking force, he launched himself toward the incoming rumbling solar giant.
Jack became silent, as he sensed below that the old ape jumped into his attack...
If one looked closely... They may wonder if even skeletons can smile...
"...Foolish..." Jack remarked as he closed his hands in midair.
Immediately around the ape, as he passed through the corona of the proto-star, he began to feel a restricting gravity pull, but he pushed on with the intent of going through the attack, breaking it, and reaching the God-King on the other side to finish what he started... Crushing the God-King, like his disciple.
The falling star paused in midair, just before reaching the ground, as the giant ape surrounding by his dark green shield reached the innermost part of the fireball... The Mountain Ape Hermit was finding it very difficult to continue, as the gravity around him binding his actions, and slowing his progress. He watched as the intense hell fires born from this tyrant of space began to eat away at his shield, as the Mountain Ape continued to supply more power to it, quickly exhausting his Cultivation.
"RAWR!" The Mountain Ape Hermit was making his last stand, as regret was finally setting in for his action to wade through this attack... Why was the God-King now so much more powerful, than before...? It didn't make sense to him... He had made a fatal error! Underestimating his enemy, even if the God-King was an abnormal existence, and touched his reverse dragon's scale, he should have kept his guard for those two reasons alone.
The old hermit came to a pause, as he struggled to continue moving, as he found that the fires surrounding him began to twist and churn. He was a few meters from the middle of the fireball, as he witnessed, though shielded by his power, with his eyes the multiple explosions of light forming in the middle that gave birth to this monstrous entity... But now, in the center, as the explosions began to become more erratic, and all around him, the flames were being pulled to the middle of the star.
He blinked in astonishment, as a pinpoint black ball formed. As the pinpoint grew larger, the flames around it were being constantly drawn, and disappearing at the event horizon!
The Ape now began to struggle more, as he now wanted to get away from this new creation! This wasn't like anything he had seen or read before! His back was being pounded by numerous rocks, and chunks of the ground that was pulled away and being funneled into this anomaly.
In his futile efforts, he too like everything around his was being sucked into this now baseball-sized black hole. The fireball was gone, and only the baseball-sized black hole remained, with the Mountain Ape Hermit fighting to get away from it, as his green shield was rapidly thinning, with his power was waning.
The Ape looked around frantically, as he looked up to see the self-proclaimed God-King.
"..."
The ape hermit was at a loss, as he watched the God-King with his hands behind his back...
"Tell the others, the Lich King sent you..."
As the last words, this ape heard, before his shield ruptured, and his body cracked in half, being pulled through the small hole. At the event horizon, now unprotected by his shield, the meat and flesh of the mountain ape hermit dissolved, froze, and burned in rapidly changing succession before being sucked into the innermost part of the void.
With a zip sound, the baseball-sized black hole shrank at a visible rate before disappearing from the face of the Underworld. In the wake of this attack, the surrounding grounds west of Saigunrai. The area was half melted into molten rock and resembled the brimstone ocean just south the wastes.
Jack rubbed his bald head, [Why did I say that?] He then reached into his rib cage and felt the heart that was still beating, though it quivered during a few beats, beating still, it was...
He turned in midair flying back to Saigunrai, crossing the Holy Inlet and over the City port to wear his lover was...
He came down to see that Leslie was awake and floating next to Joan.
He reached out toward Leslie with his right hand, still with the Void in his eyes.
Regardless of how Jack looked Leslie was beyond elation, as she too reached out for Jack to receive him back.
She watched as Jack's void-like eyes fluxed, and then dissipated, and he plummeted out of the air.
Horror crossed her face, as she watched Jack fall from the height of seven meters to the ground, and skid along the ruined cobblestones and dirt of the ruptured land of the inner city of Saigunrai.
She and Joan quickly went to his side, and flipped Jack over to his back, in his tattered robes, as they watched his runic tattoos on his bones come back to their previous golden brilliance, though Jack didn't move.
Leslie looked deeply at Jack, as Joan to the side called out to him, "My God-King! My God-King are you okay!"
"Shhhhhh, Shhhhh, Shhh... He's only sleeping... He does this a lot." Leslie consoled, as black tears formed at the corner of her eyes.
"Let's take him to his room." Leslie reached under Jack's large skeleton and heaved him up despite her open soul wounds and current weakness.
"Consort Leslie allow me!" Joan watched Leslie struggle to lift him.
"No... Just... Escort me back." Leslie finally lifted Jack into her embrace, as his body was limp in his arms.
She flew slowly, as Joan shook her head, and picked up her weapons. She sheathed them on her back, as she began walking toward the Holy Palace through the ruined earth of the City.
[Dead again...] Leslie giggled, as she silently wept; tears falling onto the bones of her lover.
*******
One-minute Jack felt he was flying to Leslie and the next... He was here...
[Where is here? That is the question.] He felt much more clear-headed than he did just a moment ago. A moment ago, he didn't half know who he was or what he was doing, except to kill that stupid monkey man, and save Leslie. Thankfully, Leslie was okay.
[I might have overreacted...] Jack thought, as he began to walk through a small tunnel.
"Overreacted? You threw a sun at the old bastard that became a Black Hole, Bahahaha!"
Jack heard a voice resound in his mind.
"Who said that?!?" Jack called out, as he exited the tunnel.
As Jack exited, he looked around and saw a vast starry sky, with many cosmic bodies. Galaxies clusters and many stars dotted along them. Magnificent nebulas, as the cradles of stars. It was as if the Macro Cosmos was on fast forward, as Jack could see the violent birth of stars, and then the slow decay of them afterward, and then stars that refused to die, and become black holes or other anomalies he wasn't sure of...
"How long are you going to gawk for?"
Jack heard that void again, he looked around, and in front of him was a very interesting looking undead.
He was a black skeleton from head to toe and was as tall as Jack. He wore a simple white robe with his hood up, with a black sash around his middle.
"I know you don't have a tongue, but so does the cat, indeed, have it?"
"..." Jack was at a loss of where he was, who this was, and what he was supposed to do!
"Well, it's good to see you again, anyway, my mute friend... You used to be very vocal! Anyway, how long has it been since I last saw you in person?"
The mysterious skeleton walked forward and drew Jack into a bear hug.