The fight couldn't happen in the vacuum of space. With a grunt of impatience, Lobo had seized Utopian in an iron grip and dragged him into a brutal atmospheric re-entry, aiming for the planet's largest desert to have plenty of room.
They crashed into the Sahara like a meteor, sending up a wave of burning sand that instantly turned to glass. Utopian staggered to his feet, his white costume already covered in dust and soot. Facing him, Lobo laughed, a harsh, cruel sound that echoed over the dunes.
"So, pretty boy? We gonna have some fun?" bellowed the Czarnian, hefting his energy axe.
Without further ado, Lobo charged. The first impact was cataclysmic. Lobo's fist, driven by strength capable of moving planets, struck Utopian square on. The hero was sent flying through three successive dunes, his body plowing through the sand for hundreds of meters.
Pain.
Pain like he had never known, even against Reign. The bones in his jaw had nearly shattered. He got up, spitting sand and blood, already feeling his cells working frantically to repair, to adapt. Compound V was meeting a near-limitless brute force.
"You still breathin'? Damn, I love it when they last!" Lobo cackled, suddenly appearing above him.
Utopian barely dodged an axe blow that split the desert for two kilometers, creating a gaping chasm. He used his heat vision, but the beams slid off Lobo's armor like water.
"Puny lasers are for kids, bastich!" roared Lobo.
Utopian quickly realized brute force alone wouldn't be enough. Lobo was a primal entity, a vortex of pure violence. He punched, slashed, and laughed. Every cell of his being was dedicated to carnage.
Utopian changed tactics. Instead of meeting force with force, he redirected it. He used his Wing Chun and Bartitsu techniques, evading, pivoting, using Lobo's monstrous momentum against him. When the Czarnian charged again, Utopian grabbed his arm and, with a cry of effort, threw him over his shoulder.
Lobo crashed down like an asteroid, creating a new crater. For the first time, his laughter stopped.
"Monkey tricks?" he growled, rising, his armor covered in melted sand. "I'm gonna rip your head off!"
The battle raged, transforming the landscape into a field of craters and molten glass. Utopian was a white lightning bolt, fast and precise. Lobo was a hurricane of destruction, slow but absolute.
Utopian realized one thing: Lobo didn't tire. He seemed to draw energy from the violence itself. Utopian, however, felt his own reserves draining. Every regeneration, every adaptation, came at a cost.
As he blocked another punch, his legs buried up to the knees in sand, Utopian looked Lobo straight in his red, murderously joyful eyes.
"You're the last," Utopian gasped. "You killed your own people. You hunt for money, but deep down, you hunt so you won't be alone."
Lobo's fury reached a new peak. "SHUT YER FACE!"
His attacks became even wilder, more frenzied. The rage made him unpredictable, but also less precise.
Utopian, exhausted, bleeding, but clear-minded, saw an opening. As Lobo raised his axe for a final blow, Utopian didn't try to block it. He dove under the swing, and with all his remaining strength, he struck not Lobo's body, but the haft of his axe.
The impact was so violent the overcharged weapon exploded.
The nuclear-level blast threw both combatants in opposite directions. Utopian landed unconscious several kilometers away, his body broken but already fighting to survive.
When he reopened his eyes hours later, Lobo was gone. The desert was silent, scarred by the stigmata of their battle. There was no clear victor or vanquished. Only a field of ruins and the certainty that a new, terrifying threshold of power had been crossed. Lobo wasn't a planetary threat. He was a galactic force. And he would be back.