The air around him exploded in a wash of crimson and sulfur. The fight was no longer mere slaps and blades — it had become a sacred rite of good and evil, a judgment written in blood.
He raised his upper hand and opened the book to a fresh page. Black letters rose like thorns, then his hands moved as if plucking the strings of death: a whisper, a sign, a name written in ink that touched the soul.
First, he turned to the blazing man who had thought himself the master of fire. Kim did not touch him; he merely owned time with a blink. The "Arms of Doom" spun a full turn and every particle of the opponent's flame began to rewind along temporal measures. Everyone watched as the man's fire returned to its source as if recalled from the past; then his body disintegrated like shards lifted from an old painting. The book absorbed the fire's energy and turned it into a new entry between its pages — another name now nested under its cover, its ink laughing: "Sin — Slain Flame."
Then came the moment of the time-wielding woman. No need for a hand-to-hand clash; the Arms of Doom spun twice, and the air around her froze as in an ancient photograph. Each second of her life collapsed and writhed in her chest, her pain becoming eternal. Kim seized a moment of her skill — plucked the power from time itself and placed it in his book as a pliant constraint. Its title imprinted: "Arms of Doom — Copied."
After that, the speedster teen came next. He thought motion contained him; he thought time was his toy. Suddenly the Arms of Doom completed a doubled turn. The speed he controlled splintered into overlapping images — strikes at the borders and time repeated and then gathered into a single instant. The body ruptured as if the speed carried no soul, only an explosive shell. The book swallowed him and etched his name between its dark pages.
It did not stop with the heroes. The Dimension Guards who leapt in to end the "interference" vaulted with a cosmic spear and seals to block the crossover. Kim ignored them as if they were ants. The Arms of Doom spun a misty cycle, and the timing chosen for the spear reflected upon itself — the spear struck its initiator first, then its tip, and the guard cried out as he vanished inside his own weapon. Another tried to close a small rift; the sealed space opened into a wider abyss, and shadows crawled from the edge to devour his legs.
All the powers the book consumed did not leave without a price. With every copied ability, a piece was taken from his body: a hot pulse in the heart, an internal assault, a small loss of images from his memory. The Everflame raged over his wound; he unleashed it to close his chest — both a spark of healing and a scalding fury. The wound knit as if nature itself surrendered its rules — yet he felt the Abyss hang a portion of his soul inside it, another stone added to his throne.