Though Arceus was now unimaginably powerful, It had ultimately been tainted, corrupted by the forces of Ghost and Dragon Plates. Around the
Though Arceus was now unimaginably powerful, It had ultimately been tainted, corrupted by the forces of Ghost and Dragon Plates.
Around the true form of Arceus, viruses that had spread throughout the world had coalesced into the shapes of familiar Pokémon—Pidgeot, Alakazam, Weavile, Zapdos, Rotom, Coalossal, Dragapult... and countless others.
These virus-forged avatars were nearly infinite in number, embodying every leader-class and king-class Pokémon that Lucius had once infected in the original world. Together, they unleashed a relentless barrage of elemental attacks against the towering, radiant god whose body was shrouded in golden energy.
Elemental cataclysms rained down like divine wrath, detonating upon Arceus's golden shield with wave after wave of violent ripples.
"What… is this?" Arceus was stunned to find that Its energy shield, composed of the eighteen elemental types, was actually being partially breached.
It understood its own vulnerabilities well: Dragon and Ghost could be countered by Ice or Dark. But its other types should have compensated, canceling out those weaknesses.
The answer became clear almost immediately.
The virus, as the world's own will incarnate, had interfered with the natural laws of this realm. It had empowered the invading attacks while also distorting the fundamental principles of type effectiveness.
As the saying goes: enough ants can kill an elephant.
Although each individual strike caused little harm, their sustained assault posed a growing threat, especially when Arceus had no way to replenish Its strength in this corrupted world.
Moreover, each of the virus-spawned Pokémon possessed substantial power; leader-tier at the very least, with many reaching king-class strength. A war of attrition was not in Its favor.
In that case… a swift and decisive blow was the only answer.
Resolved, Arceus abandoned the battle of endurance waged with Its divine authority.
Its immense form soared into the sky, gathering a resplendent orb of radiant light and firing it high above.
No words could capture the sheer brilliance of that light. It was a symphony of swirling color, intricate and overwhelming, yet impossibly harmonious.
Judgment Beams.
The orb exploded in the heavens, unleashing a celestial storm. Countless beams of divine energy rained down like blades from a guillotine.
Each radiant bolt, no less than ten meters wide, carried annihilating force. Even brushing against one was enough to be erased entirely.
A world-ending barrage blanketed the continent. In that eternal night, the sky blazed with auroras of pure judgment. All virus-forged doppelgängers were caught in the light and obliterated instantly.
But obliteration was not death. These things were not truly alive. Formed of viral essence, they could grow or shrink, strengthen or weaken, scatter or reform.
Yet the Judgment Beams weren't aimed at them.
They were meant for the land itself.
As the meteor-like projectiles, each infused with divine rule, slammed into the ground, it was as if magnitude-12 earthquakes were shattering the earth. Millions of square kilometers crumbled like a trampled biscuit.
The seismic shock had barely begun to settle when another rainbow meteor storm roared from the sky.
The second wave of Judgment Beams.
Then a third.
A god of creation had become a god of annihilation.
This divine retribution didn't just eradicate the virus-born invaders, it crushed the last surviving people and Pokémon. Even the lush, vibrant continent that Lucius had nurtured in his earlier experiments was shattered.
In mere moments, it was as if thousands of atomic bombs had scoured the planet's surface clean. Not a single blade of grass remained. All life was reduced to ash.
And then, something even more terrifying happened.
The ruined, crater-ridden planet began to convulse.
So violent was the trembling that it disrupted the planet's orbit, disturbing the gravitational pull of nearby celestial bodies.
And in that instant, the energy membrane that had cloaked the planet, left behind by the sacrificial deaths of the world's mythic Pokémon after the sun vanished, was torn apart.
Now unshielded, the planet was bombarded by gravitational waves from beyond. Gales rose like screaming vortexes, reshaping the ravaged world into a maelstrom of primordial chaos.
Whooosh—!
A deafening howl, like a typhoon roaring through a canyon, echoed across the void, magnified ten-thousandfold.
Amid the relentless tremors, the planet cracked open.
A gargantuan fissure, stretching over 20,000 kilometers, split the earth. Dark and fathomless, it yawned like an abyss without end.
From within came a voice:
"When your power encompasses this world, you shall become part of it."
The words didn't travel through air. They needed no medium. Even the wrenching forces of space-time couldn't stop them.
A gravity field surged forth, dense and crushing, like the collapse of a star.
It seized the chaotic energies on the planet's surface, dragging everything toward the abyss.
Even Arceus.
The Creator was stunned to find Itself ensnared, unable to resist the pull.
Worse still, as It fought back with all Its divine might, something horrifying happened: every one of Its elemental Plates began to flicker with contamination.
They were being corrupted.
Each of the eighteen Plates within Arceus's being now bore blackened marks, stains of viral infection.
Impossible…
Arceus's green eyes contracted. In that instant, It understood the truth.
It was Judgment Beams.
That was Its signature move, wielding the full force of all eighteen types. It was super-effective against everything.
But viruses did not follow such rules. They had no types.
When Arceus unleashed that move with reckless fury, the virus began to break it down.
Just as the virus now spread by conceptual transmission, it had infected the move itself, entering through Arceus's own attack and using it as a backdoor to reach and corrupt Its elemental Plates.
"No… I wield the power of rule. I am immune to your will! How can you override divine order?" Arceus cried out, slipping ever closer to the abyss.
"Hahaha—" Lucius's laughter echoed from the depths. "You seem to have forgotten… in this world, I am the Will of the World. I bend the rules. I rewrite the law."
Ruleforce was among the highest forms of power. Lucius's title, Dominator, meant he held sovereignty over this world's laws.
When two Ruleforces collided, it was the home realm that decided the victor.
Just like a foreigner breaking the law abroad; no matter who they are, they answer to local justice.
Arceus's Ruleforce protected Its essence, keeping It immune to infection. But Lucius needed only the slightest opening.
By subtly warping the rules, the virus infiltrated the beams of Judgment, traveled backward through them, and began to corrupt Arceus's divine power at its source.
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