An unidentified point in time

  Soon, Waldo’s army and the four soldiers of Rāj collide with their weapons. The 654 soldiers of Waldo versus the 4 super soldiers of Raj. Ordinary, in a battle of numbers, Waldo would undoubtedly win this battle. But, his opponent is not so simple. His opponent is none other than the first War Spirit, the Queen of Destruction. Even these four soldiers of hers are a force to be reckoned with. That is made evident as the super soldiers begin to easily tear through the infantry. As many as 100 or 200 of Waldo’s soldiers charge towards just one of Rāj’s soldiers. Despite this massive difference in number, the super soldier would obliterate all of the soldiers that stood in their way. The way they fight using their bodies, their weapon, and their usage of shockwaves, it’s something that Waldo hasn’t even thought of before. How are mere soldiers more capable than him? This has to change. No, it’s going to change very soon. Waldo’s thoughts are suddenly cut short. In just the span of 2 minutes and 7 seconds, his entire army was wiped out by Rāj’s super soldiers.

  “Damn it all! I’ll face you myself! Have at thee!”

  Waldo abandons all hope of beating these soldiers with numbers. If numbers won’t work, he’ll just have to win it with his raw power. Rāj smiles as she watches Waldo sprint from his spot and towards her soldiers. This is the equivalent of Waldo running towards his death. What is going on through his head that would make him do such a foolish action? As Waldo gets closer to the super soldiers, only one of them faces him. The soldier gets into a stance and quickly moves towards Waldo. The distance between the two is swiftly covered. The super soldier wastes no time and immediately tries to take out Waldo’s eye. However, to both of their surprises, Waldo dodges the soldiers hand. He then grabs the soldier’s arm and throws him over his shoulder and onto the ground. The soldier lands on his feet before crashing down. It then grabs Waldo’s arm and easily tears it right off. Waldo grunts in pain and is then kicked in the face. The soldier’s kick sends him flying into one of the colosseum’s pillars. He coughs out a substantial amount of blood.

  The super soldier then appears in front of Waldo. Waldo jumps in a bit of a fright and begins to charge a shockwave in his mouth. However, the super soldier grips Waldo’s jaw and rips it off of its hinges. Waldo doesn’t even get the chance to scream from the pain. He’s immediately grabbed and gets fired at with a shockwave right at his chest. The shockwave launches him towards the other super soldiers. One of them catch Waldo in mid air and then stomp him into the ground. The four super soldiers are now facing down at Waldo. His pitiful state on the ground causes Rāj to walk over and look at him as well. She can’t help but let out a small laugh.

  “Beaten by just one of my soldiers. If your little army of puppets couldn’t do it, how could you ever achieve it? You’re just not thinking far ahead into the fight. Mindlessly charging in like a brute will simply get you killed.”

  Waldo begins to grit his teeth in frustration. He quickly regenerates his arm and jaw and gets up in a flash. He yells out loud and tries to punch Rāj in the face. Before he can even move his punch towards her, she moves her own arm and pierces right through his face. Waldo’s body comes to a complete stop. Blood covers the colosseum and changes the color. Not only did Rāj just pierce through his entire head, but she also has her hand touching a very important part of Waldo’s body: his core. She punctured her fingers through his flesh and is now clutching his core.

  “You know, I’m not quite sure what this is that you have. I don’t have such a thing inside of me. How interesting that you’ve evolved into something else.”

  Rāj’s super soldiers are standing by, waiting for more of her orders. Rāj removes her grasp of Waldo’s core. She looks back up at him. He’s still frozen exactly in place. His body still, but his mind moving sporadically in all directions.

  (Why? Why has it come to this? Am I… really this weak? I’ve been so arrogantly calling out to everything. How can I even do that? I’m not match in the face of real power. Osoroi was right. I’m just a sad excuse of a curse. I’m not the War Spirit at all. If I don’t come to my senses, I might as well just end my existence right here. If I can’t have it all, there’s no point to me existing. That has to change. That has to change. That has to change. That has to change. That has to change. That has to change.)

  That has to change. That has to change. That has to change. That has to change. That has to change. That has to change.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Suddenly, everything goes dark around Waldo. The white void that holds the colosseum disappears from his sight. Rāj and her soldiers seem to fade away. He’s now standing in a pitch black void. The bottom of the void, however, looks like a clean blue ocean. He crouches down and even sees silhouettes of fish down in there. In just a moment, the right side of the void begins to crack open. He quickly looks up and stares at the crack in the void. His body is urging him. He runs towards the crack as fast as he can. When he gets there, he puts both of his hands on it and begins to pull. In a desperate attempt, he tries to increase the space even further. He starts to scream from the top of his lungs as he musters all of the strength he can. Until eventually, the crack in the void completely opens. And then the void is no longer black.

  .

  .

  Before Iravin can bring his hammer fists down on Waldo, he stops half way. Something is amiss. The air and vibe just completely changed in an instant. What could have caused it? There’s no other presence closing in on the area. It’s only Iravin, Waldo, and Mara. Hold on, Waldo’s presence is still so large? Why isn’t it faint like a dying man? Wait, it’s getting even stronger by the second. The cursed energy is reaching incredible heights. Iravin feels as if he should put Waldo out, but a part of him is excited by this sudden change. And so, he simply steps out of the crater and waits to see what happens.

  In the blink of an eye, Waldo’s shattered body disappears from the crater. Iravin has to muster a lot more strength in order to follow his speed this time. Waldo stands in front of Mara’s unconscious body. His body has been completely repaired along with his garments. He crouches down for a further inspection. She’s in such a rough shape. Her hands are burned and are shedding quite a lot of skin. She’s sound asleep, probably dreaming about something. Waldo gets back up and turns around to face Iravin. His eye feels different, a more dignified stance. And that pendant… Waldo definitely did not have that on him before. Did he materialize it out of thin air? How else would he have gotten it? Waldo begins walking back to Iravin. The cursed energy levels around him are incomparable to before. His demeanor has changed as well. The way he walks and carries himself isn’t the way as before.

  “I apologize, Iravin. I have returned. I’ve made some realizations and my sight is finally clear. I will be able to fight you with all I have now.”

  In a flash, now traveling at Mach 10, Waldo appears in Iravin’s face and throws a full power punch. Although Iravin can still perceive and sense this attack, his body has not adapted to Waldo’s new sudden increase in power. Because of this, Waldo’s punch lands directly on his chest. This punch’s power is in a whole other league. Waldo drives his punch downward and slams Iravin into the ground. A massive crater is formed from the force of the punch, as wide as 7 kilometers in radius. Waldo had made sure that Mara wouldn’t be affected by the power. He has several of his shockwave soldiers shielding her from the impact. His eye turns blue once again but with a much more dignified light.

  “It’s time we both go all out. Get ready for Act 2, Iravin.”

  Waldo definitely felt his punch do a lot of damage. It did several times more damage than his God Flash earlier. He quickly glances over at Mara. The shockwave soldiers did a good job making sure that she wasn’t harmed from his power. Waldo looks back at Iravin and jumps away from the crater’s center.

  (That isn’t enough to end him. His previous displays of power tell me so. He’s not out yet. He’ll just continue to evolve during this battle.)

  Sure enough, Iravin slowly rises from the center of the crater. His head is bleeding and there’s a large bruise on his chest. However, those wounds begin to regenerate shortly after appearing. It takes Iravin a few moments to process the new power behind Waldo’s strikes. An ecstatic smile is plastered on his face. He knew that Waldo would come back stronger, but not THIS strong! It’s too good to be true, yet it’s the reality! Iravin begins to mutter to himself once again. Waldo stands by in his stance, prepared to deal with any attacks Iravin will dish out. He smiles as well, satisfied with this new power. Recollecting all of his memories and remembering what his technique can do really helped him out. Now, he just has to continue applying that to this battle in order to win. Actually… he decides to do that.

  Waldo relaxes his body and lifts his hand in the air. Iravin watches intently. Waldo begins to focus on all of the cursed energy residing in him. He speaks to it, he commands it, he becomes one with it. Then, he starts to rapidly use multiply and create mass amounts of cursed energy. Iravin can feel Waldo’s cursed energy levels spike up continuously even within a second. With such continuous multiplying, Waldo begins to feel some backlash and grunts in pain from this. However, he endures this and finishes multiplying his cursed energy by several times. The cursed energy that was created is then being transferred to the end of his palm. It starts extending and materializing. Waldo begins shouting as the cursed energy starts coming into the world.

  “I summon…!”

  Soon, the cursed energy begins to condense and shape itself. Waldo is soon able to grab it with his own hand and take in its power. His eye suddenly flares violently and tightly clutches the cursed energy.

  “I summon… Hades!”