A shriek—so piercing it twisted out of shape—rang out. The clone's massive diving momentum collided head-on with Saitama's upward punch. The outcome was never in doubt. The clone's entire jawbone shattered into powder, and its huge body was launched up into the air, completely out of control.
Like a tattered doll thrown with full force, it flew backward, smashing through several obsidian pillars along the altar's edge—pillars used to stabilize the energy channels—before finally crashing to a stop in a chaotic heap of rubble. The dark energy on its surface became wildly unstable, flickering on and off like a lamp with a bad connection. It was clearly heavily injured.
The altar's violent tremors—and the Demon God clone's agonized roar—drove the remaining dark believers, who were desperately trying to maintain the ritual's final phase, into total despair. They saw the ritual's core Dark God Book being purified. They saw the Demon God clone being severely wounded. They understood the descent plan had failed.
Fanaticism turned into madness, and despair bred a ruthless determination to die together.
As the leading believer screamed a blasphemous spell in an ancient language, all the remaining believers made the same final move at once—opening their arms wide and detonating every drop of life force and all the dark magic they had cultivated for years!
"For the eternal darkness!"
Dozens of thick streams of dark energy erupted from their bodies—not aimed at the enemy, but drawn toward each other, merging. In an instant, they condensed into a gigantic, destructive dark shockwave.
This shockwave didn't distinguish friend from foe. Carrying the horrifying aura of annihilating all living things, it surged forward like a raging black flood, sweeping straight toward Strange and Wanda—who were in the middle of casting and couldn't move. They meant to break the purification… and drag the two culprits down with them!
"Watch out!" Hawkeye had been guarding the perimeter the whole time, tracking the entire battlefield. The moment he saw the believers' expressions turn abnormal, he knew something was wrong. He snapped out a specially made explosive arrow, drew to full, and loosed it with a sharp twang—straight into the front edge of the shockwave.
The arrow hit dead center, detonating part of the energy early.
Boom!
A violent explosion flared, firelight ripping open some of the black fog—but the main body of the believers' mass-sacrifice shockwave wasn't fully stopped. Instead, the blast churned it into something even more ferocious.
Deadly energy aftershocks fanned outward and slammed across the area.
Hawkeye dropped to the ground in time, but the terrifying force still flipped him up and hurled him away. He crashed hard into a distant wall, letting out a muffled grunt.
Peter reacted even faster. Webbing shot out, sticking precisely to the flying Hawkeye, and to Wanda and Strange on the other side—who were closer to the explosion. With a brutal yank, he dragged them out of the blast's core zone, making them temporarily safe.
But in saving them, he exposed himself to the front of the oncoming aftershock. Instinctively, he lifted his hand to fire more webbing and dodge—yet the instant his web-shooters touched that chaotic dark energy flow, they spat crackling sparks and instantly shorted out.
"Oh, crap!" Peter only had time to yell before the raging energy aftershock smashed into him head-on.
It was like being struck by a giant hammer. He was blasted backward, tumbling through the air. Luckily, his physical conditioning was far beyond normal humans—he forced his body into alignment mid-flight and barely managed to land, but his blood surged violently, his arms numb and buzzing.
(End of Chapter)
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