[AN: No cliffhanger]
The glow around Tony intensified until it stopped resembling light and began to feel like pressure. Cosmic energy rolled off him in bright yellow waves, cutting through the gray like a sunrise the Shadow Realm had never prepared for.
For the first time, Gorr hesitated.
The Necrosword reacted instantly. Its surface writhed and thickened as shadows poured into it, as though the realm were forcing its power into the blade. The sword pulsed faster and faster, its rhythm locking into Gorr's fury.
"You think raw power makes you a god?" Gorr snarled. "I have slain gods far greater than you."
"You think I care?" Tony replied.
He moved.
Tony crossed the distance in a blink, leaving a streak of golden energy and drove his fist into Gorr's ribs. It looked as if someone had drawn an arc with yellow paint on a monochrome canvas.
The impact detonated outward.
Gorr's body folded around the punch and he was launched clear across the plain, bouncing once, twice, then skidding until he hit nothing at all and vanished into the dark horizon. The shadows caught him and dragged him to a stop.
Tony was already there.
A knee crushed into Gorr's ribs. His ribs shattered on the spot. A second punch slammed into his gut and folded him inward. Cosmic energy flared brighter with every impact, disrupting the shadows before they could knit back together.
Gorr screamed and slashed wildly.
The Necrosword carved through space, tearing open a crescent of void and driving it straight toward Tony's chest.
The blade shrieked as it struck.
Cosmic energy detonated on contact. The impact hurled Tony backward, his boots ripping trenches through the stone, yet the weapon failed to hurt him.
Tony glanced down at the scorched glow on his chest, then lifted his eyes to Gorr. 'Dang! I thought it was going to slice me in half. Is the 0X working in passive mode? Whatever, no time to waste on thinking...'
"Really, man? This was my favorite shirt," Tony said, dusting his chest.
"Just why won't you die?" Gorr roared and charged. Shadows burst outward as the realm itself closed in, warping space and crushing gravity around Tony. The Shadow Realm twisted its own laws to answer its master.
Tony clenched his fists.
Cosmic energy surged.
The pressure collapsed.
A blinding flash tore through the darkness as Tony forced the realm back, pushing against it like a tidal wall. Black stone vaporized beneath his feet. The sky split open, its layers ripping apart as if something enormous were trying to escape.
Tony launched himself forward again.
His punch crashed into Gorr's chest and erased what it touched. The impact left an empty cavity where substance should have been. The Necrosword howled as shadows rushed to repair the damage, only to be burned away by the cosmic blaze.
Gorr staggered, coughing black mist, disbelief bleeding through his fury.
"You should not exist," Gorr hissed.
Tony seized him by the throat and lifted him from the ground.
"Buddy," Tony said calmly, "You've no idea."
He drove his head forward.
The impact lit the realm like a dying star. Gorr's body smashed into the ground, fractures racing all the way to the horizon. Tony stayed on him, relentless, blows hammering down in rapid succession. Every strike stripped more shadow from Gorr's form and forced the Necrosword to fight harder just to keep its host standing.
Gorr screamed as he slammed Tony with a void burst.
The darkness slammed shut around Tony like a coffin.
Shadow thickened into something heavier. The pressure carried intent. It carried hate-given weight. The Shadow Realm folded inward and crushed space itself, grinding at him from every direction as Gorr poured everything he had into the trap. The Necrosword drove into the ground and spread like a root system, veins of living black crawling up Tony's legs, his arms, his throat.
The sword wanted him more than it wanted Gorr.
Tony felt it immediately.
The sensation spread through him like a forced presence inside his mind.
Cold fingers slid into his thoughts and pried through memory, ego, and fear. The Necrosword whispered without sound and filled his vision with burning images. Earth in flames. Natasha is screaming in pain. A child sobbing in the ruins of a city. It offered solutions that felt dangerously simple—kill first, rule quickly, erase threats before they could grow.
Tony clenched his jaw.
"Oh wow," he muttered. "That's creepy. You went straight for the trauma folder."
The pressure closed in tighter.
Gorr stepped closer, eyes blazing, his voice rolling through the crushing dark.
"All power rots," he said. "All light fails. You will die just like the gods I've butchered."
Tony's body flared.
Cosmic light surged outward and forced the darkness back inch by inch. Shadows smoked where they touched him, burned away, re-formed, and burned again. The Necrosword shrieked, its voice sharp and brittle now, stripped of its earlier confidence.
The corruption failed to take hold.
0X-All Immunity did more than block it. It expelled the darkness.
The whispers shattered on contact. The invasive energy unraveled the instant it touched Tony's core, reduced to nothing before it could anchor itself. The sword pushed harder, flooding him with void energy, panic bleeding through the link.
Tony laughed.
"Oh no," he said. "You don't get admin access."
Power detonated outward.
Binary Form ignited in full.
The Shadow Realm recoiled as if struck in the chest. Golden cosmic fire burst from Tony's body and vaporized the shadow in a massive expanding sphere. Black stone turned white-hot and split apart. The crushing pressure collapsed into a roaring silence.
Gorr was hurled backward, skidding across the fractured plane.
Tony hovered in place, glowing like a living star.
Gorr forced himself upright, breath ragged. Dark veins pulsed violently beneath his skin as the Necrosword poured power into him. He roared and charged again, faster than before.
Tony held his ground.
Gorr struck like a freight train.
The impact launched Tony through layers of warped space, his body smashing through floating slabs of black stone. Bone cracked loudly. White light burst across his vision as he slammed into the ground and carved a trench that stretched for miles.
Tony coughed, blood splattering the fractured surface. 'Now I can imagine what Thor went through. Bastard got way stronger than I imagined.'
His ribs reset with a wet snap and flesh knitted almost instantly. Damage erased itself as though it had never existed.
"Okay," Tony groaned, pushing himself upright. "That one had some spice."
Gorr was already closing in.
The Necrosword came down in a brutal overhead arc and cleaved through Tony's shoulder. The blade carved a line of empty space as it passed, severing the arm in a flash of void.
Tony hissed as the limb fell away.
The sword shrieked in triumph.
The sound cut off mid-scream.
Golden energy surged. Bone and muscle rebuilt themselves in a burst of light. The arm reformed seamlessly and the wound sealed as if it had never opened. Tony flexed his fingers, unimpressed.
Gorr froze.
"You should be breaking," he snarled.
Tony stepped forward.
"Oh yeah. Instant regeneration, motherfucker."
Gorr attacked again and poured everything into it.
The Necrosword slashed and stabbed, hurling waves of void energy that bent the Shadow Realm around Tony. Space compressed and twisted, slamming him with gravity spikes and crushing pressure walls. The blows drove him into the ground again and again, blasted him through fractured terrain, and pinned him under collapsing planes of shadow.
Each impact buried him.
Each time, he rose.
Bruises faded within seconds. Blood vanished almost as quickly.
The Necrosword forced its corruption deeper, furious now, trying to outrun his regeneration. Black veins crawled up his arms and spread across his chest toward his throat.
They burned away as soon as they formed.
The sword screamed like a wounded animal.
Tony caught Gorr mid-swing and smashed his head forward.
The impact cracked through the realm itself.
Gorr flew backward, spinning, barely stabilizing before he hit the ground.
Tony was already there.
His fists burned like miniature suns.
Each blow carried the weight of a collapsing star. Gorr's body fractured, rebuilt itself, and fractured again. The shadows struggled to keep pace, repairing him more slowly with every exchange. The Necrosword pulsed erratically, its connection stuttering and destabilizing under the relentless cosmic surge and All-Immunity's effect.
Gorr screamed in rage and fear.
"You are nothing!" he shouted. "A mortal pretending to be a god!"
Tony stopped inches from him.
Golden light flooded the space between them.
"I've been called worse," Tony said evenly. "Usually by people who lose."
He drove his fist into Gorr's chest.
Cosmic force tore through him and erased matter and shadow alike. Flesh, darkness, and void collapsed into searing light as the Necrosword shrieked and its host sagged, shadows scrambling frantically to hold what remained together.
Tony then grabbed Gorr's throat and pulled him up.
Gorr twitched in Tony's grip.
Even broken, even barely holding together, he tried one last thing.
With a snarl that scraped raw from his throat, Gorr drove the Necrosword upward, aiming for Tony's chest with everything he had left. The blade screamed as it struck.
It stopped.
The tip pressed against Tony's skin and went nowhere.
A sharp crack echoed through the Shadow Realm.
Tony looked down.
Fine fractures spiderwebbed across the blade, spreading from the point of impact. The sword shrieked in panic now, no longer hungry or confident, but afraid. It tried to pull itself free, shadows surging to reinforce it.
Tony raised an eyebrow.
"…huh."
He caught the blade with his left hand.
Cracks exploded across its length and the sword broke apart in Tony's hand, fragments collapsing under the pressure of his grip. The shadows screamed as the pieces crumbled, trying desperately to reform, to pull themselves back together.
They almost did.
Tony watched the fragments twitch and crawl, knitting slowly, stubbornly refusing to die.
He sighed.
"Yeah, no. I've had enough fun for today."
His eyes glowed brighter.
"Disappear from reality!"
Reality bent.
The Reality Gem flared in his subspace as Tony drew out its power.
There was no explosion and no flash. The fragments of the Necrosword simply stopped existing. Shadow, void, hunger, history, all of it unraveled at once, rewritten out of the universe like a bad idea someone finally erased.
The Shadow Realm shuddered.
Gorr screamed.
The sound tore out of him as the connection vanished, as the thing that had sustained him was ripped away completely. Dark veins faded from his skin. The shadows fled him like rats from fire.
His body began to crumble.
Ash flaked away from his arms, his chest, his legs. The fury drained from his face, leaving behind something smaller and painfully mortal. Tony lowered him to the ground, easing him down despite everything.
Gorr lay there, breath shallow, eyes dimming.
Tony stood over him, the golden light around him finally softening.
"Was it worth it?" He asked.
Gorr laughed weakly. It was dry, cracked, but honest.
"Yes. You'd have done the same thing if you were in my place," he said. "Tell me, do you have a family and people you love?"
"Yes," Tony nodded. "I do."
Gorr looked into his eyes. "Then, I hope you're strong enough to protect them from all harm. I hope you succeed where I failed. But the universe is endless... Threats are looming at every corner. One day, you will realize it too."
Tony frowned slightly but said nothing.
"Today you saved a god," Gorr continued, voice fading. "Tomorrow, when you need help, that god will not be there for you."
His gaze drifted upward, unfocused now.
"Well, I hope I don't have to face such a situation in the future."
The last of him turned to ash and scattered across the black stone, carried away by a wind that did not exist.
Silence settled over the Shadow Realm.
Tony stood there for a long moment, light dimming, cosmic power rolling back under his skin. The realm slowly began to stabilize, cracks knitting themselves closed as the absence of All-Black rippled outward.
Tony exhaled.
"…I hope you reunite with your family on the other side unless Death has other plans for you," he muttered, rubbing his face.
He looked around once, eyes narrowing.
"Alright," he said quietly. "Time to go get the Thunder God and get the hell out of emo space."
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