Rephidim, now fully recovered, covered himself in a yellow aura. His power began to increase. A million...billion...quadrillion...In an instant, he had become a quintillion times stronger than before.
He stepped on the vacuum of outer space and propelled himself towards Walkure, who was already pointing his sword at him.
"This will be done quickly."
Rephidim approached and performed billions of punches. However, Walkure could see through and deflect all of them through her mastery of the sword. In fact, he was still slower than her. Seeing as how he was mindlessly attacking, his body was full of openings. Walkure explored that opportunity and kicked him in his ribs, causing Rephidim to lose balance. Next, she appeared behind him and cut his left arm.
Rephidim recovered himself and stepped away from Walkure.
"What's wrong? Can you feel fear even when mindless? Or is it purely remaining instinct?"
Rephidim started charging a beam from his mouth and quickly shot it at the ethernal. The beam was massive, 30 meters wide, and with speeds faster than a supernova, destroying every speck of space on a quantum level.
Walkure could fully see through the attack before it was even fired. Not to mention, such speed was still insignificant before her. She readied her sword calmly, and when the beam got extremely close to her...
"Viktoria Style: Aegrus."
She swung her sword down, vertically. The beam was split in two, and the cut was powerful enough to reach Rephidim's body. However, he was able to dodge, although barely, which still cost his right arm.
Perceiving himself as injured, his body started healing the lost limbs. In no time, he had recovered himself and was getting ready to jump at her. Rephidim kicks the vacuum below his feet and jumps at Walkure with a speed that goes beyond the principle of time and causality.
Walkure readily raises her sword and blocks his fist, but the impact was still strong enough to push her away, diving her into countless planets and a near constellation.
In the meanwhile, Rephidim's power only grew further. His power was now 10^1000 greater than before. His mere steps would scatter away and crumble universes. His breath would swipe away galaxies and his blink would push away planets. He had long gone past a point where he could contain himself. His increase knew no limits.
"There is no point in trying to drag this further.", Walkure says as she gets ready on her feet after the latest attack.
Rephidim couldn't be taken out by supernatural abilities, and physical damage would only temporarily subdue him due to his new and better regeneration capabilities.
Thus, the conclusion was simple.
Simply use an ability that would disregard that logic.
"I really don't like this feeling of deja vu."
Walkure says as she splits her sword Viktoria into two and raises them both in an "X" gesture. The swords start to shine in a red-blood color. A dark red aura surrounds Walkure and the distant scream of a soul can be heard in the background.
"Iron Maiden."
Hell unleashed upon reality. Across an entire sector, Walkure and Rephidim are superimposed by a dark and red background, disconnecting them from the reality they previously stood on, and placing them into the nightmarish realm. Numerous souls screaming can be heard in the distance, and countless instruments of torture and murder can be seen floating across its infinite-dimensional vastness. The territory of the punisher.
"En Garde.", Walkure says as she raises one of her swords and points at Rephidim, who exhibits no reaction.
"Although this would be much more interesting if you still had emotions left."
Indeed, what would be the purpose of torture and punishment if the individual could not feel anything or flavor it? Utterly meaningless.
Rephidim takes a combat stance. There is a yellow aura surrounding him. Until now, his power had only been increasing non-stop and exponentially. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that he was now 10^999999 stronger compared to when he first encountered Walkure.
Rephidim jumps toward Walkure at speeds that defied comprehension. She can not keep up with his movements at all. And within a fraction of a moment, he was already millimeters from touching her.
His punch directly hits Walkure in the face.......
"And?"
Walkure says as she looks at Rephidim, who still had his fist on her face. She had received no damage. Rephidim punched and kicked her several times more. None of those were having any effect. Has she become more powerful than him in an infinitesimal moment? Wrong.
"This increase of yours is quite unfair, don't you think?"
It didn't take long until Rephidim subconsciously noticed he was slower and weaker than before.
"Thus, you broke rule number 7, which means you are now forced to be a billion times weaker than me and forbidden from surpassing my own stats."
Walkure swings her sword. Rephidim's body is struck by the sudden impact. Even before the sword actually made contact with his body, he was completely reduced to atoms, in addition to his nonexistent soul and mind.
Seconds later, his body started to reform.
"Now, what will you do?"
His body, which has been reduced to atoms, starts reconstructing cell by cell at a fast rate. In a few seconds, he was already fully intact again.
It was at that instance, that Rephidim's body started to undergo a massive change.
His body started changing colors constantly and abruptly growing in both size and muscle. He was now three times bigger than before and disproportionally big in some body parts, akin to a deformed monster. But for what purpose?
It was simple.
"Is that...", Walkure says in confusion, but before she could finish her sentence, her right arm and leg had disappeared. No, it had been severed.
"What...?"
Her enemy, which was no longer within her sight, was already behind her, holding the torn limbs on his mouth and arms.
"Ghhhrrrr...."
It was a strange situation. After deforming his body he managed to increase his speed and strength while bypassing the rules of Iron Maiden. No, this was different. Moments later, Walkure would perceive the creature behind her, but before she could put her eyes on its exact location, it disappeared once again.
This time, the totality of her upper half was destroyed.
But this was not enough to stop her.
Rule 1: You shall not kill.
Walkure telepathically speaks while she reforms herself.
And thus, Rephidim received another penalty. His body, soul, and mind instantly suffered death. Not just any normal death, but the very principle of death was imposed, superimposed, and ectoimposed on him and through all aspects of his existence and history.
Yet...An event that should have not been.
Rephidim's existence, which had been terminated, was suddenly brought back. This time intact, but still in the deformed state. Or to be more exact, it was still changing in response to the last attack received, as if trying to conform with something that it could not before.
"You are adapting..."
Indeed he is. His body started changing rapidly in response to the hostile and law-coded environment he was in. An ability that did not exist in the Rephidim of the past. And in what seemed to be a fit of rage, despite being mindless, Rephidim let out a roar that shook the vastness of Iron Maiden. Perhaps it was some sort of warning.
"Fine," Walkure says while healing herself quickly and taking a combat stance. "I'll play your game."
If the preset rules of Iron Maiden could not hold him back, the strategy was simple. She would stop him by herself. And within this environment, she would be at her strongest.
The next moments would dictate the victor of this dance, and so it happened.
Walkure and Rephidim advanced at each other and clashed.
Swords vs Fists.
Ethernal vs Accursed.
Immortal vs Anti-Immortal.
Numerous explosions and shockwaves from the aftermath of their impacts were causing fissures in the foundations of Iron Maiden. Their power was already infinite. Their speed was infinite. And yet, they kept adapting. They kept growing. Surpassing each other's infinite power consecutively.
In the infinitesimal moment that Rephidim managed to overcome her stats, Walkure adapted in the next infinitesimal one. They would tear each other limbs, instantaneously destroy the other, and instantaneously reform themselves and do the same with the other with power and speed that superseded the previous. A process that kept on going, which seemed to be neverending. But time for those two has long then lost meaning. The scale of their conflict could not be temporally measured anymore. They have reached a level where their mere presence could have been a threat to the Material Substrate. Even the endless-dimensional complexity of Iron Maiden was starting to crumble.
But then, the end suddenly came.
In time, one of the combatants started showing inclination in their movements. Despite still adapting to the enemy, it was getting gradually overpowered over a constant and consistent progress of events.
Without a proper mind, it lacked willpower and a reason to continue, its power began to fade. Rephidim started to succumb to the ethernal's force of will that allowed her to keep standing and fight for literal eternity. Her willpower was beyond infinite. Nothing could shake her foundations. It transcended time and space. Beyond comprehension. Even the current Rephidim, who was mindless, managed to somehow understand this.
And then..."Summum Dolorem."
Walkure, carrying Viktoria in her right hand, dashed at Rephidim, who could not react to her advance in any way, and slashed through his body with a horizontal cut through his abdomen.
"Gaaarrrhhh!"
In the next moment, his body started to glow, and all existent, nonexistent, and yet-to-be forms of pain, and even pains that were literally impossible to be conceptualized, were inflicted on Rephidim's body, soul, mind, and essence. The very principle of regeneration and immortality were also afflicted with this pain, completely denying its doings. It was impossible to dodge, for it targeted the very idea of Rephidim and denied the concept of distance. The sudden impact of this metaphysical pain was so great you could hear his body, soul, and mind crying...until it all quickly faded into no more.
"Humph," Walkure says as she slowly sheathes her sword back on her waist. "I thank thee, fellow warrior. For I have understood that I have much more to learn with this battle of ours. Your defeat will surely be not in vain. After all, it was proven as a stepping stone for me to achieve greater heights."
Only the sound of Iron Maiden dispersing and of screams fading into the distance could be heard now...