---
"The world is not beautiful, and that is why it is beautiful."
- Kino (Kino's Journey)
---
<(Atem POV)>
"Damn. He wasn't pulling his punches, huh?" I muttered, rubbing the side of my face, which was honestly feeling a bit sore now. I had no real clue how strong this Hulk was compared to the one from my original timeline, but if I had to guess, he was probably stronger than the base version of my universe's Hulk.
Come to think of it, most of the so-called 'normal humans' I've killed so far have had bodies that were a little tougher than their counterparts in my universe. Whether it was Stark's internal organs or Black Widow's head, they felt a bit more... resilient than how they are supposed to feel, though at the end, that extra durability still didn't mean much against my advanced telekinetic powers. I'm guessing their demonization might've boosted their physical bodies a bit beyond what they were in my universe's base forms, though I doubt it'd change much in terms of life or death when going up against someone like me.
"Boost. Boost. Boost." I amped myself up three more times with my Divine Boost ability, octupling my divine energy for ten seconds. Then, raising my left hand and shaping it like a gun, I aimed my index finger at Thor and Wanda, who were standing close together, their panic-stricken attention split between my unscathed body and Hulk's slowly burning form. Next, with a firm mental tug, I dragged out a certain divine ability I hadn't used in ages—an ability I'd always thought was way too dangerous to unleash around other people back in my universe: the power of Nothingness Manipulation.
Within a second, a small sphere of black energy formed out of thin air at the tip of my index finger, about the size of a ping pong ball. "Bang!" I grinned as the tiny black orb shot toward the god-and-witch duo at bullet speed.
"No!" Demonized Thor was the first one to react, his superior senses realizing just how destructive that dark energy sphere was. But instead of dodging it as any sane person would, he stepped in front of demonized Wanda and tried to block the attack with his hammer.
'Maybe this version of him never had his hammer broken by anyone, which probably made him more confident in its invulnerability—and thus led him to make this really bad call out of pure arrogance,' I thought.
Anyway, the very next instant, the impact triggered an explosion... or at least tried to, as magical lightning erupted from Thor's cracked hammer in a tangled web, and billions of volts of electricity struggled to burst free in a storm the likes of which the world had never seen before, a storm that could probably destroy the entire city of New York within minutes if not contained. However, before the storm could do any damage to the surroundings, the black energy from my attack rapidly began devouring the lightning, looking like it was actively absorbing all the unleashed force into itself like a ravenous black hole.
But I knew better. This wasn't a black hole at all—it was the power of the void itself. And its nature wasn't to devour or absorb anything. No, what it did was erase everything it came in contact with. After all, within my knowledge, there was no matter or force in existence that the void couldn't unravel from existence as if it were never there. Thor's lightning, powerful as it was thanks to its magical nature combined with Odin's runes and Uru's natural amplification powers, never stood a chance against the void, which can even completely reduce black holes and singularities to nothing if they clashed.
'This is so powerful that this would probably be my go-to attack if it weren't so damn dangerous... or so energy-consuming.' I thought as I felt my octupled energy reserves settle back to normal, a minuscule amount of exhaustion slowly creeping into my body, something that rarely happened with any of my other powers, given my nearly inexhaustible energy.
