William's scream didn't just echo, it tore through reality. The sky split with a titanic CRACK, as if the heavens themselves were caught off guard by the unrelenting anguish and fury in his voice. The planet beneath him, a once still observer, began to tremble as if bracing for the arrival of an extinction-level event. Cracks spiderwebbed across its crust as tectonic plates groaned under the pressure of the raw Ki lashing out from the being hovering high above.
His golden aura flared like a dying star giving its last breath, except William was far from dying. He was evolving, shedding restraint, shedding humanity, and embracing something divine. Lightning, thick as skyscrapers and viridian in hue, spiraled around him like serpents of judgment. With each pulse of his rage, the bolts screamed across the upper atmosphere and carved through the vacuum of space, striking distant moons and detonating them like glass under a hammer.
Allen and Thaedus, seasoned warriors from star-spanning empires, had to shield their eyes, not from fear, but from overwhelming power. Even from thousands of meters away, their skin crawled with the sensation of a predator awakening. The sheer pressure of William's Ki distorted the curvature of the planet's horizon itself, the air warping and shimmering in impossible directions. It felt like gravity was being redefined around him.
William's mouth opened in another bloodcurdling roar, his vocal cords ripped mid-scream from the raw effort, spraying steaming blood that evaporated before it touched his chest. His body twisted slightly in the air, convulsing with the violent surges of energy screaming through every cell, before his healing factor kicked in and knitted him back together mid-transformation.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
And then, CRACK, a titanic bolt of lightning tore through the clouds behind him, illuminating his frame. His silhouette stood suspended, cloaked in rolling thunder and divine rage, his hair whipping violently as it began to change, grow, flowing downward like molten strands of power, flashing gold with blinding luminosity. It grew past his shoulders, past his waist, down to the backs of his thighs, becoming a glowing, golden mane of vengeance.
His eyes, those impossibly bright green eyes, shifted into something otherworldly, twin bonfires lit with golden plasma and arcing electricity, giving off sparks like solar flares. The very fabric of space around him trembled, warping as if struggling to contain the ascension taking place.
Below.
The battlefield that moments before had been a blur of fists, claws, and blood came to a standstill.
Thragg, bruised and panting, had wound up to deliver another bone-shattering punch to Battle Beast when he suddenly missed, because Battle Beast had vanished from his strike zone, instincts screaming at him like never before. The fur across his body stood rigid as though a billion volts had coursed through it, and his pupils shrank to needle-points. For the first time in what seemed like a lifetime, he felt fear.
Not hesitation. Not concern.
Pure, animalistic fear.
Without thinking, Battle Beast bent low like a cornered beast and launched himself away, tearing a trench through the earth with the sheer force of his retreat. Thragg blinked in stunned confusion before roaring, spittle flying from his lips, "COME BACK HERE, FELINE COWARD!"
He lunged, body trailing a sonic boom behind him, reaching out to grasp a handful of the alien's wild mane, only for Battle Beast to twist in mid-air. With a spine-snapping rotation, the warrior swung his body with a roaring motion, and his war mace, a weapon that had practically broken worlds, met Thragg's fist.
"CRUUUUNCH!"
The sound echoed like a death knell. Bone gave way. Thragg's wrist twisted grotesquely, his knuckles caving as the mace detonated against them. The shockwave alone blasted a circular trench into the earth, throwing dirt, rock, and fire into the air like a volcanic eruption. The mace was sent tumbling end over end into the distance, embedding into a mountainside a mile away. Thragg's broken fist snapped backward, dripping blood and twitching like a marionette with its strings cut.
He didn't scream, he was too angry to scream. But his face twisted in agony nonetheless, veins bulging at his temples as he clutched his ruined hand.
Above them all, William had gone silent.
But the silence wasn't peace, it was warning.
The calm before a solar storm.
The last breath before the scream of gods.
And in that silence… the entire battlefield held its breath, for the galaxy was about to witness the birth of a wrath it had never seen before, a Super Saiyan 3 empowered by pain, loss… and fury.
The air above the battlefield was split open by divine fury.
A sun-like radiance flared into existence, blinding and absolute, only to condense into a titanic figure, a colossal energy construct shaped in William's exact image. For a brief moment, it hovered in the skies like a god reborn, suspended between realms of man and myth. Its silhouette radiated heat, power, and something deeper, an undeniable presence that reached across the stars.
Every living being below looked up.
From the Coalition soldiers smeared in blood and ash, to the shattered remnants of Viltrumite warriors, all froze beneath its shadow. Awe swelled in their chests. So did fear. Even Thragg's bloodied form halted, muscles rigid, broken hand twitching at his side.
Then the construct, this solar colossus, tilted its head back and released a silent scream.
No sound came from its lips. But in the absence of noise came something worse, pressure. It wasn't just felt. It was experienced, as though gravity itself had been rewritten.
Allen fell like a meteor from the sky, crashing through a distant ridge in a cloud of dust. Thaedus, eyes wide and teeth clenched, dropped to one knee, his legs trembling as if the bones within had turned to brittle ice. Every soldier in the air was yanked from the sky, slammed to the earth like marionettes with their strings cut. The few standing found themselves gasping, clawing at their throats as their lungs failed to expand under the crushing weight of raw will.
Thragg remained afloat for only a heartbeat longer.
Already weakened, his body trembling with the pain of his shattered hand, the pressure seized him like a giant's grip. With a sickening crunch, his knees buckled and he was driven down, slamming into the earth hard enough to crater it beneath him.
"CRACK!"
The sound echoed across the broken battlefield as his limbs gave way. Blood seeped between his teeth. His broken fist sank into the stone like it was made of butter, the sheer force driving it down, down, down. The soil gave way as veins in his neck and forehead bulged grotesquely, pulsing with rage and disbelief.
He groaned, body trembling. His pride would not allow him to stay down. Trembling muscles coiled as he tried to rise, but even lifting his chin felt like lifting a mountain. Gritting his teeth, he looked up.
The construct was fading now. Slowly, steadily, it was being drawn back into William's body. That golden titan, once an echo of his inner power, flowed into him like a river returning to its source.
And William had changed.
His hair had grown, long, wild, trailing down his back like a mane of golden fire. Sparks danced across his skin like lightning trapped within muscle. His eyes still held that fierce electric glow, now flickering with something deeper. Something primordial.
Thragg narrowed his eyes.
"Did his hair grow?" he muttered, almost stupidly, the thought clawing its way out despite the agony.
Then movement caught his gaze.
Far in the distance, a blur of white fur moved across the battlefield, Battle Beast. He was running, limping on all fours like a wounded predator, the fire in his chest finally extinguished. He was slow now. Cautious. And for the first time in his life, afraid.
He would not get far.
The ground beneath him shivered, then cracked. In an instant, it gave way, collapsing beneath his powerful legs with a deafening rumble. The earth itself had turned against him. He snarled, eyes wild, claws scrabbling for grip, but it was too late. Rubble swallowed him whole, burying his form under a landslide of stone and debris.
The Viltrumites around Lady Sif all collapsed helplessly as their muscles spasmed from their attempt to resist the pressure and Krieg's monocle cracked leaving him half blind as his face was planted into the very Earth he meant to conquer.
Lady Sif herself struggled against the pressure, but her godly nature assisted in her resistance of William's mighty pressure.
"William... What happened?" She said as he sword plunged into the back of one of the fallen Viltrumites.
"SHLLLKK!" The blade pierced through the Viltrumites body and plunged into the Earth forming spiderweb cracks around it.
Anissa, however, was not as fortunate.
Pinned near the twisted remains of Conquest's corpse, she lay sprawled on her back, her limbs trembling as the crushing pressure in the air increased by the second. The space around her felt thick, almost gelatinous, like the gravity itself had been rewritten by a god with no regard for mortal limitations.
"GUUHHH... HAAAAH! What the hell is this?" she gasped, voice breaking through clenched teeth as she fought to inhale under the growing weight pressing against her lungs.
Her body convulsed slightly, instinctively trying to push up from the cratered earth beneath her, but the moment she moved, she could feel it, the world itself was anchoring her down. A ghostly indentation of her form was beginning to take shape in the crushed earth, the lines of her shoulders, back, and hips sinking deeper with every twitch, as if she were slowly being molded into the ground by an unseen celestial hand.
Every attempt to rise only worsened her position. Her heels scraped uselessly against the dirt, her fingers dug in, but nothing gave her traction. Sweat poured from her forehead, mingling with the blood dripping from her lips. Her bones groaned in protest, muscles quivering as if they too recognized the futility of her struggle.
Around her, the air itself began to shimmer. It wasn't just pressure. It was power, raw, divine, and oppressive. A tidal wave of force bleeding from the heavens, distorting the very atmosphere and making each breath feel like inhaling molten metal.
The corpse of Conquest beside her, grotesque and broken, remained completely still, a mockery of what strength used to be. Anissa turned her head weakly toward it, her vision swimming.
The image burned into her mind was clear: even in death, Conquest's expression was one of defiance.
Anissa's vision blurred at the edges as the weight pressed harder against her chest. Her ribs, already fractured from her earlier battle with Conquest, creaked audibly beneath her armor, each breath she took sounding like a wheeze torn from a crushed lung.
"Hhhhuuuuuhh—!" she tried to scream, but it came out as a choked gasp, her throat catching halfway as a warm trickle of blood leaked from the corner of her mouth. The copper tang filled her senses. Her heart pounded in protest, hammering against the fractured cage of her ribs like a trapped animal desperate for release.
Her forearms quivered as she attempted to push herself upright again, and that's when the damage worsened.
A sharp pop echoed from her left shoulder. Agonizing lightning lanced through her arm as a previously bruised joint finally gave way, dislocating from the strain. Her elbow collapsed beneath her, and she fell flat again with a strangled cry.
"AHHH—!"
But the scream was swallowed by the dense pressure blanketing the battlefield. It didn't even echo. It was as if the atmosphere itself had forgotten how to carry sound.
Her body sank another inch into the dirt. Pebbles and dust clung to her armor and skin as the indentation around her deepened further, a pit shaped in her exact form.
She could feel the pulsing of the ground. No, it wasn't just the ground. It was reality itself reacting to something monumental.
Her bloodied eyes rolled up toward the sky, and she saw it, the golden titan above, still changing. William's aura was no longer flaring uncontrollably. It had become focused, precise. The violent, sunlike energy around him had begun folding inward, warping space with its sheer intensity. Clouds swirled unnaturally far above, and the sky dimmed in response to the light he radiated, as if the heavens themselves dimmed to avoid comparison.
It's not done… she realized with dread. He's still transforming…
The thought hit her like another blow. She was already at her limit. Bones strained. Muscles tore with even the smallest motion. Her body was beginning to fail, trembling violently against forces it couldn't comprehend.
A spiderweb of red began to bloom beneath her as burst capillaries ruptured across her skin. Her knees and elbows were scraped raw, blood seeping into the cracked earth.
But despite the pain, the weight, and her worsening condition, Anissa refused to lose consciousness. Her eyes, barely open, locked on William's shape high above. The light surrounding him had grown blinding, like the birth of a new sun. His hair, now cascading like a gilded river to his lower back, rippled in the cosmic wind. Lightning danced over his frame, but it wasn't wild anymore, it obeyed him.
And just as the last echo of Anissa's resistance was snuffed out by the weight, her broken body slumped completely into the earth.
Right at that moment, William opened his eyes.
They shone like supernovas even as tears poured from them, and the skies themselves trembled in response.
William's thigh-length hair floated around him like strands of divine silk, untouched by gravity, untouched by the laws that bound lesser beings. There was no wind. No storm to carry it. And yet it danced, an extension of the godly energy still radiating from his form like heat from a sun.
He descended, not like a man landing, but like a judgment passed.
Below, a Rognarr groaned as it pushed against the cracked, bleeding earth with limbs trembling from the absence of the pressure that had pinned everything to the ground. It barely had time to lift its head. A shriek, more instinct than strategy, tore from its maw—
"RAAAAHHH—!"
It was the scream of a predator, but also prey that had just realized its place in the food chain had been irrevocably rewritten.
"SLLLLKKKKK!"
William's foot pierced through the Rognarr's spine, cleaving its body in two with such violent grace that it didn't even collapse right away. For a brief moment, it remained suspended in a grotesque, twitching balance before the halves slowly began to slide apart, entrails unraveling like a severed rope.
He stood atop the corpse, unflinching.
Beneath him, the ground was soaked in blood and viscera. Crimson rivers snaked between shattered stones and scorched soil. The battlefield was silent except for the wet sounds of the Rognarr's bifurcated body slumping lifelessly. William looked down at the devastation beneath his feet, a canvas of war, painted in gore.
Then, slowly, his chin rose, and he cast his eyes toward the heavens.
As he looked upward, his golden hair, heavy with the gore of the beast, slipped down across his shoulders. Strands fell forward, dipping into the puddle of the Rognarr's blood. The radiant gold absorbed the crimson fluid like divine silk accepting mortal stain. By the time he fully looked to the sky, the tips of his hair were dyed a deep, glistening red, an eerie blend of divinity and carnage.
"RUMBLE!"
Thunder cracked violently overhead. The clouds, which had twisted and gathered unnaturally in the wake of his transformation, now churned in a swirling vortex of emerald lightning. Jagged bolts illuminated the entire hemisphere in erratic, godless flashes. And then, as though the sky itself could no longer contain its grief or terror—
It began to rain.
Not a light drizzle.
Not a cleansing downpour.
The rain came in heavy, boiling drops, falling with the weight of judgment and despair. Each impact on the battlefield struck like a hammer, fizzling against the residual heat of the supercharged land. Steam rose. Blood diluted. But the scars, on both land and soul, remained untouched.
And at the center of it all stood William.
A god reborn.
Hair streaked in blood and gold. Eyes smoldering like twin stars. Skin radiant with power no mortal should possess. The storm raged around him, and yet he was untouched. No raindrop kissed his flesh. No lightning dared strike near.
It was as if the world itself avoided him even as it mourned for what was about to happen.