"Ah, the stench of mortality... The mundane disgusts me," said a bulking fellow with shoulder-length black hair, clad in dark armor with bright green eyes radiating with Divinity.
The bulking man had the deference of every single one of the gods that came in after and while the crack in the sky stretched all over the sky of the Nexus world, they all chose to descend at the Imperial Palace as that was where the signature of the abnormality was most prevalent.
"General Karmit," said a fellow with an impressive build that was only made scrawny in comparison to General Karmit. The fellow spoke with deference obviously seeking orders,
General Karmit, whose eyes befell the one he had struck down upon making his entry, chuckled,
"Raze this world to the ground... It is a failed one after all... However, before you get carried away with the destruction I have charged you with, sniff out the rest of this abnormality's forces. We have it on good authority that he has not been working alone,"
As General Karmit spoke, he descended even further with his point of trajectory being the one he had kept stomped against the ground.
Karmit sniffed a few times and then he said,
"Apart from the disgusting smell that is the lack of divinity in this world, I can also perceive spatial manipulation. A pocket dimension was accessed from here. We find the entry and I am sure we will find them,"
*Bang*
Karmit's gentle landing on the ground shook it and he used his mighty force to pull Hal off the ground so that he could close a hand around his neck.
"I have to say, I'm disappointed," Hal said even as the hand of the godly general tightened around his neck,
"And why is that?" Karmit asked with a grin of superiority.
"Well, I expected Zalser to come personally," Hal said without even trying to struggle against Karmit's hold just like he gave off no sign that the tightening was having an effect on his breathing or speaking.
"Hahahahaha, Lord Zalser... Come here, to deal with a pest like you personally? What a joke!"
"Oh but I'm being serious. I mean, he considered me a personal threat when he tried to attack me with his words, did he not? Maybe... Maybe he's scared,"
"Lord Zalser? Scared? The amount of drivel that falls from your lips..." Karmit was clearly about to be on a roll but he was interrupted by Hal,
"Maybe it's drivel but I do know that he has only sent you here to test the waters. He does not expect you to succeed... If anything, he expects you to fail,"
"How stupid can you be? I am indeed not the most powerful in my Lord's ranks but for this world and you, I am more than enough. You're nothing but a bug for me to squash," Karmit said and he delivered the last words slowly and deliberately as though to make sure that they got through Hal's head and stuck.
Hal shrugged and he did it quite well with his neck in a stranglehold,
"Then do it, Karmy the incapable, Squash me!" he said with defiance that stoked the godly general's anger as he roared,
"Gladly!"
General Karmit next employed his godly strength to break Hal's neck but before he could, there was suddenly a limit to how tight his fist could get around Hal's neck. There was an inscrutable force with roots in Primordial Conception that had formed a protection around Hal.
For a second, Karmit was surprised and then decided to employ more of his strength to shatter the protection.
He overwhelmed Hal and succeeded in breaking the protection but Hal had only employed that tactic to allow himself to delve into the Monument gem he had retrieved from his inventory.
Hal had no interest in bonding with the gem as had been the case with Nozel and Tanya but that did not stop him from properly tapping into its abilities and using them as though he had bonded with the gem.
He shrouded his body with the energy of the portal that gave access to the monument and in the split second before Karmit could completely break his neck, he was gone and the godly general closed his fist around nothing but air.
Hal knew he had no chance in a battle against Karmit and he made his escape as quickly as he could to begin the innovation of his previous plans.
His previous plans had not in any way involved the monument gem which he had planned to destroy but now, with the predicament he and the Nexus world were in, Hal could not imagine success without the monument gem and thus the Monument Of Ordinances itself.
Closing his fist around nothing and being a victim of Hal's sneaky escape caused Karmit to yell and the sound and force of his yell alone destroyed buildings and caused earthquakes in the Imperial City.
While he raged, the godly force he had brought with him scoured around for the entrance to a pocket dimension and they were getting close. Even worse, the legion as well as the other forces of the cult within could feel them getting close but would not stop trying to advance or prepare until the very last second that their safety was gone.
...
Within the Monument...
Hal's entry had not taken him to the outskirts or anywhere random within the Ordinance-filled structure, but rather he was brought to the center of it...face to face once again with the Avatar Of Order, the Monk.
The Monk smiled benevolently but the malice behind that smile was clear to Hal who returned a natural smile but made sure it was clear that the malice was reciprocated.
"And so we meet again. Time is not the same as on the outside. The two years we have not met could have been a thousand here. Imagine that... A thousand years to stew in the absolute audacity you had to trap me in the Nether realm," the Monk said and Hal just placed his hands on his hips as he said,
"Well, it's been a hundred years for me... A hundred years to plan just how to end you permanently the next time we met."
"And what have you come up with?" the Monk asked.
"Nothing. The plan never involved meeting you so soon," Hal said with a sigh.
The Monk's benevolent smile became a wide taunting grin,
"Plans are a funny thing. You make them and we make them and then we execute ours before you and you have to scramble," he said.
Hal shrugged,
"Sometimes the best plans are the ones gotten in the moment. Like a plan that involves this gem for example," he said and brought out the monument gem.
"What do you plan to do with that?" the Monk asked and he made the smallest of movements that made it clear he was preparing to strike down whatever Hal's plan was before it could reach fruition.
Hal used Infinity as a concept to maximize the sentience within the Monument gem and as he did, he made sure to tie that sentience to himself.
The sentience was in no way powerful enough to resist Hal's manipulation and as it was maximized, its connection to the Monument was increased as well.
It went from being a physical gem to becoming a wave of energy powered by Infinity that was tieing itself to every aspect of the Monument.
"This feels... Wonderful," the voice came from all over and it was from the sentience of the gem who, by the power of Hal's Infinity, was eating away at the actual sentience of the Monument that was powered by Order.
"Stop that!" the monk said with his previous serene posture gone and replaced by agitation at the clear realization of what Hal was attempting,
"STOP IT!!!"
"Make me!" Hal said with a yelling grin and as he did, the Monk tried to manipulate him as it had done when they met in the Monument two years ago (excluding unnatural time manipulations) and the Monk found that he could not.
The concept that made Hal who he currently was had set him free from such and so the monk decided to attack Hal with his might as a being with godly strength.
As it pinned Hal against a wall of the Monument within the section they were in, the Monk aimed to rupture Hal's center of power by inflicting true Order-of-being on him.
With him at a disadvantage, Hal saw another apparition of his mother,
"This is where you accept Mommy's help," Nihasa said and Hal rolled his eyes,
"No thanks," he said before sinking into the wall and manipulating it to hold the Monk down and place him in a prime position to be punched in the face.
The Monk was surprised at how easily Hal had been able to manipulate the Monument and knock him away but the blow had not even caused a scratch and it had not been too powerful for the Avatar of Order to regain his balance.
Before the Monk could aim to strike out at Hal though, he found himself thrust out of the Monument, and as he floated in a limbo between the Monument and the closest world, it hit him that for Hal to have done this, he was too close for comfort to getting what he wanted; Absolute control over the Monument Of Ordinances.
The Monk pulled himself back into the Monument and reached out to aid the sentience of the Monument to push back the sentience of the gem but Hal cut him off before he could.
"Your fight is with me!" Hal said and for a second time, he forced the Monk out of the Monument but this time, he made it especially harder for the Avatar Of Order to return.
This 𝓬ontent is taken from f(r)eeweb(n)ovel.𝒄𝒐𝙢