___________ POV Narration___________
"What a strange creature you lot have envisioned... I've no doubt that many of you poured your lives into creating it..." Ashton stared at the beast as he looked at the distorted space.
'You won't escape!~' A hundred voices shouted at once, promoting the old hunter to just sigh in annoyance.
"Why would I run?" Ashton said as his tail whipped through the air. Immediately coming into contact with the being in front of him.
To Ashton's surprise, nothing happened. At least nothing happened to that calamity. Ashton looked at his tail with fascination, mangled and broken almost beyond recognition.
Exoskeleton crushed and digging into his flesh, the bell and the teeth broken in an instant.
Ashton's instincts then warned him of what was to come. He once again dashed to the side, managing to dodge dozens of spears as well as a strange surge of blackish Nen that the creature exuded.
The spears came from a group of Seraphs, controlled by the same five gods as before. Ashton sneered when seeing the weak being. Maybe they were to be classified as powerful predators, but the current Ashton far exceeded the former king of the Dark Continent.
"Stop trying to tickle me..." Ashton glared at the Seraphs that were hiding within a large crowd of flying monsters.
He wasn't worried about the spears that had the potential to hardly scratch him. He was more interested in the strange purplish energy that the calamity had sent after him.
It seemed to be folding the space around itself while travelling towards the sturdy walls of earth and bark he had created. It completely ignored them, folding and slightly expanding after reaching that surface.
It looked like a small sphere sucking in the space around it.
After a second, it created a large hole within that wall, after which it simply disappeared without a trace.
'An attack that can ignore all defences... And a defence that can ignore all conventional attacks...' Ashton looked at his rapidly healing tail as he smiled a bit.
"The cost for creating such a beast must not have been easy to pay, even for you lot. I reckon most of you are actually bound to that thing now... The same way the strongest one of yours was bound to the Guardian..." Ashton tried to probe them for information, but he only got a few grunts and angry growls in response.
The 'gods' clearly made this move out of desperation, which likely made them hate Ashton with a passion. More so than they did before.
Once more, another volley of spears came towards Ashton, this time from different directions. Ashton rubbed the bridge of his nose as his half-healed tail whipped around in the air and shot down all of the spears.
"You guys really never learn..." Ashton snapped his fingers and all of the Seraphs hiding among the army of beasts seemed to be squished alive. It was as if the wind around them was crushing their bodies.
In the end, all of them were compressed into balls of flesh, bone and feather. Ashton didn't even spare them another glance as he pointed one of his hands towards the calamity in front of him, his real adversary.
Ashton's palm seemed to light up, sparks appearing around it as he looked at the aura of the calamity, it was surging madly, it was much smaller than that of the guardian, but it was also a lot more dangerous.
Ashton's palm released an explosion, a large boom of fire barreled towards the calamity as Ashton used Parasitic Explosion to the fullest, even using Wind Aspect to fan the flames even more.
The explosion was released like a stream, covering everything 10 kilometres in front of Ashton. The old scientist was quite sure that he had gotten quite a few of the beasts in the horde with that attack.
But, even though the thick black smoke, he could tell that the attack didn't do much to the calamity, its aura was still raging like nothing even happened.
Then it clicked to him. 'This thing isn't even in the same dimension as me...' He now saw it clearly, the strange way space was bending around the calamity seemed familiar to Ashton.
It was as if he was only looking at a portrait of the calamity within this world, but the beast could clearly affect its surroundings. So the answer became obvious the more he thought about it.
"Will this really be a game of hide and seek?" Ashton muttered as he blurred all around the calamity, his rhythmic steps in midair created many afterimages that looked as original as could be.
Then, something quite unexpected happens, or rather, it was quite predictable. The calamity was unwilling to stand by and let Ashton attack it any longer.
Its aura surged once more, outwardly this time. It seemed to be folding all space around the being, it seemed to try and swallow Ashton up too.
But it didn't work quite as intended. Ashton, instead, decided to dash in, using the pull of the aura to transport himself to a very familiar place.
A place that served to remember him of how foolish he once was. The Abyss.
Inside that place, he could see the calamity, simply idly floating there. But it was certainly not silent.
"HOW DARE YOU COME INTO OUR HOME?!~" The same hundred voices spoke at once, trying to blow out Ashton's eardrums unsuccessfully.
"What, was I supposed to knock on the door?" Ashton tilted his head as he pointed his palm at the calamity once more, this time, at its actual body.
He released another explosion, one powerful enough to shake the space around then...
Still, after it ended, Ashton raised an eyebrow in confusion.
"You kidding me? So it can traverse at will..." Ashton muttered once more as he looked at the calamity, once more appearing as if in a portrait, only this time, there was a blue backdrop around it.
It was clearly taking refuge in the outside world. 'Did you truly think it would be so easy?' Asked a voice at the back of his mind. It sounded somewhat amused as if it was enjoying a show.
'And who might you be? I don't remember going insane yet...' Ashton responded in thought.
'Me? I'm no one special. I was called by many names, but I guess you can call me Ozzy.' The voice gave Ashton a strange and familiar feeling.
'I guess you have a lot to explain, Ozzy...' Ashton thought as he prepared to continue fighting the calamity.
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