The moment Ash moved forward, with just a thought the essence of Lysa and Aurelia fused into perfect synchronicity.
A dome-like shield of flames appeared around him â golden-red and alive with mischievousness.
[A/N: Picture Aang in his avatar state....] ;)
As he advanced, the flames were hovering and orbiting his body in constant, graceful motion, yet responding to his will with deadly precision.
FWOOSH!
FWOOSH!
FWOOSH!
With just intent, they shot out beams of fire â thin, concentrated lances of pure conceptual flame â piercing through the thousands of beings around him.
No matter if they were human imperials, Genasi, mind-controlled Alchemists from the Council, and the incoming reinforcements â none were spared.
Each beam found its mark with unerring accuracy, burning through armor, flesh, and soul alike.
FWOOOOOM!!!!!!!!
Wherever the flames touched, reality itself seemed to push the target away â bodies burned from the inside out, and any screams were silenced before they could start.
The fire Ash wielded wasnât anything extraordinary; he simply bent it to his will... to consume, to erase. In that moment, it didnât just destroy matter, it devoured the very notion of their existence.
Through it all, Ash moved through the chaos like a storm of deliberate ruin.
In a heartbeat, he appeared directly in front of the Human General.
The Generalâs eyes widened and before he could even move.....
Ash punched forward â a simple, straight strike infused with raw Unus Battle essence.
BOOOOM!!!!!!!!
CRACK!!!!
The Generalâs ornate imperial armor shattered like cheap glass. The force sent him flying backward, coughing blood, his chest caved in.
"ARGâ"
Before he could react, Ash disappeared and popped up right behind him.
In that instant, he tapped into Kaelthyrâs power over Souls.
With a single touch to the Generalâs back, Ash read the manâs entire existence in a brief, overwhelming flash â his history, his loyalties, his secrets, his fears, every thread of his soul laid bare.
Then he laughed as the essence of the God of Mischief took over.
"Oh, so there are nine Human Empires...." He said with a smile and then he cycled through more of his inhabitantsâ powers.
HALT!
Using Isis power over time, with a simple thought everything froze.
The battlefield, the lightning, the shadows, the thousands of attackers â all of it halted in a single, perfect moment of stopped time.
Then with the same smile... Ash grabbed the General by the leg.
... And he ran.
In that moment, a marathon began.... one for endless light-years.
The Generalâs body dragged behind like a ragdoll, his armor scraping and sparking against every surface Ash passed.
The first few seconds were nothing but a blur of pure velocity.
But that quickly turned into pure torture as the terrain began to take its toll on the General.
Ash darted through collapsing spatial tunnels, slamming the Generalâs body into folding walls, bones cracking as space itself tried to crush him.
Then came the jagged mountain ranges â the General bounced and scraped across razor-sharp peaks, rocks carving deep gashes into his flesh, while Ash casually plucked a glowing fruit from a passing tree and took a bite.
"Hmm, pineapples are much better," Ash muttered mid-sprint, juice dripping down his chin.
He paid no mind to the Generalâs raw, agonized screams tearing through the wind â or rather, he drowned them out, humming light, airy notes as he ran.
Melodies that somehow twisted the Generalâs pain into a strange, discordant kind of harmony.
Hours later, they burst into a forbidden zone where reality itself warped.
The Generalâs body contorted unnaturally as laws, concepts, trans-concepts, and unclaimed forces shattered around him â limbs bending at impossible angles, organs shifting within his torso.
And as blood spewed from his mouth, trailing behind them like the tail of a crimson comet....
Ash, he just kept eating the fruit.
----
Only after literal weeks of dragging the general did Ash finally reach his destination.
They arrived in the Human Domain.
Specifically, the central barracks square of the Fourth Human Empire â the very heart of the Generalâs own territory.
Ash appeared in front of the entire imperial army.
Here there were countless of ancient beings, new recruits, captains, commanders, and towering giants hundreds of feet tall.
However.... in this moment all of them stood frozen in perfect formation, eyes widening in shock as their supreme general was held upside down by one leg like a broken doll.
Ashâs voice rang out â dark, menacing, yet carrying a smile that didnât reach his eyes.
"IS THIS YOUR GENERAL?!"
He chuckled once, low and cold, before casually tossing the General forward like a piece of trash.
"MY.....MY LORD!!!!!!"
The broken body hurtled toward a loyal captain, who had surged forward in fury to catch his lord.
The instant the General slammed into the charging cultivatorâ
HUMMMMMMM!!!!!
With The One Godâs power still active, he blended more of his wivesâ abilities, this time drawing on Morganaâs void, Ravenâs emptiness, and Summerâs isolation...
A black hole ripped open at the point of impact.
And.... it didnât just swallow â it erased.
The void swallowed everything in the barracks in an instant, regardless of rank, as Ash knew some of the beings here couldnât be taken down in one strike anyway.
But that wasnât the main point.
"Letâs start a little civil war... while Iâm gone~" Ash said, watching as soldiers, ancient warriors, towering giants, weapons, buildingsâeven the very essence of the barracks itselfâwere swallowed into absolute nothingness...
KRRRRAAABOOM!!!!!!!!!
Then the black hole exploded outward.
A cataclysmic wave of all-consuming emptiness, once confined to this single area, ripped through the entire Fourth Human Empire like a bomb of pure erasure.
Cities disappeared.... Armies disintegrated... Mountains all collapsed into dust that never returned to the ground.
When the haze â or more accurately, the void where haze should have been â finally lifted, the infrastructure of the Fourth Human Empire was no more.
Countless lives had been lost, though not everyoneâbarely even half of the populationâhad perished.
Still, all that remained of what was once a proud empire was a barren, glassy crater.
And itâs important to remember, Ash was channeling the Unus of Mischief more than anything else at that moment, so the only trace left behind was a single, intentional piece of evidence.
FWOOOOM!
A blazing holy white fire â pure, radiant flames that could only belong to the Third Human Empire â flickered faintly across the edges of the destruction.
A clear, unmistakable message.
Ash dusted off his hands, still smiling. Then before returning to the Alchemical Domain, he spoke.
"Damn...."