I hurled myself into the dark void of outer space and using my ability to fly oriented myself towards my enemy; the empress of the starmazons, Stella. She was also flying through the dark void of outer space and spinning as she aimed her mighty mallet at me. Both of us were roaring at each other, and the noise we made psychically traveled out of our mouths and into the ears of the starmazons who were watching our battle.
Partway through my flight towards Stella, I decided to momentarily stop messing with her. So far throughout my fight with her, I had largely pretended to only be a single step above her. A creature immune to her attacks, but one who needed to try a little to actually hurt her. That wasn't reflective of my actual strength.
I allowed myself to move almost as fast as I could, and as I sped up I watched the empress seemingly freeze mid-swing. She "froze" because of how much faster than her I was, since I had the sort of speed that allowed me to cross truly unfathomable distances in less than one instant. I instantly reached the empress, and I laughed as my claws sped into the empress's vulnerable body.
My claws effortlessly cut through the empress's armor, and then penetrated her psionic armor, before finally sinking into her flesh. I felt the empress's dense muscles attempt to resist my silver claws and knew that it was useless. My abilities, and especially my attacks owing to my nature as a savage sanguinarch and an archdemon of wrath, were all capable of ignoring defenses that would otherwise normally stymie them unless such defenses were ascendant level in power. That was thanks to a power possessed by all ascendants named "Piercing" which until now hadn't been especially useful but at this moment was quite helpful.
The empress was still, in my high-speed perception, "frozen" aside from blood which began to trickle out of her now wounded stomach. That blood was nearly instantly absorbed by me, my mind racing as I began to absorb her powers, knowledge, memories, and skills.
"Delicious. The blood of royalty... Exquisite." I whispered, darkly, in the immediate wake of my beginning to absorb the power of the empress. I immediately hated that dark whisper and the sinful part of me that uttered it, but at the same time, I understood what had caused it. Stella exemplified more than one sin, and that coupled with her power and her nature as royalty made her blood sinfully delicious.
The sin that was the easiest one to attribute to her was wrath. She was a powerful combatant and had a fierce temper which allowed her to power through pain and fight with incredible fury. Another sin that was easy to associate with her was pride. It was her pride that allowed her to tear apart minds and mentally dominate her lesser, which until recently had been everyone she had ever met. And it was her pride that I found the most fascinating.
Stella had a dark heart, one filled with an intoxicating sort of pride and unfettered belief in herself. As her blood was steadily absorbed by me, I felt some of that pride seep into myself, and I knew, somehow, that I was now closer to gaining the power to influence the sin of pride. That was, to Stella's credit, a testament to her immense pride and personal power.
I pulled my claws out of Stella's stomach and chuckled as her face slowly began to twist in pain, even as blood continued to seep out of her and evaporate before flowing into me. Her mallet was still flying towards me, incredibly slowly. I tilted my head to glance at it, and smiled as I felt its incredible power.
"How intriguing..." I uttered, even as I continued to absorb the blood of the empress. I studied the weapon, and when I reached out and touched it I was surprised to find that I couldn't. Something that even I couldn't surpass prevented me from touching the weapon, although attempting to do so wasn't actually painful or anything just ineffective. The hammer continued to move, extremely slowly, towards me. Internally I asked why I couldn't touch the crown, directing my question to my iteration of the system.
[You cannot touch the crown because you are not the empress. Crowns of might are powerful artifacts created by unbelievably ancient and powerful cosmic gods, and they are only usable by those designated as their owners, either by their creators or by an old owner who has ceded ownership rights over them. At your current level of power, it is not possible for you to take one by force while sparing the current owner. It is possible, though, to claim them forcefully by killing the previous owner, which is what happened with Stella's particular crown.]
The system's explanation was quite revealing and made me wonder if I ought to kill Stella and then revive her. If I could acquire a crown of might I'd be gaining an unbelievably powerful item for someone at my level. I was already at a universal level with some things, if I could obtain a crown of might my personal power would skyrocket. That said, that felt unnecessarily dark. I could almost certainly earn the right to command the crown a different way.
I teleported away from the empress and momentarily slowed down to allow her a chance to really feel the pain of the blows I had dealt her. When I forced myself to slow down and allow time to pass, I watched Stella's eyes close as amber-colored tears began to pour down her face. She was in pain, and my decision to allow her to really feel the pain was working, even as she continued to spin towards me, her mallet slowly inching closer and closer.
"Enough." I uttered, opting to give her a chance to accept her defeat graciously. I didn't expect it to work. When the empress roared inarticulately I simply smiled, eager to have a chance to continue this battle.
"Fine. Just remember that I gave you this chance to surrender once you knew you were outmatched." I told her, smirking at the still spinning empress. She silently focused and ignored her pain, readying herself to try and take me down. She had some intense determination, and I could admire that. But her pride was an obstacle, one that her inability to overcome would hold her back or even kill her depending on the events of the next few minutes.
"I'll... kill you!" She hissed, her telepathic voice audible in my mind even through the airless void of space. I continued to smirk at her, utterly unafraid of the powerful but still lowly empress. We were fighting at such speeds that her followers were still adjusting to the reality of her sins against them, but I knew that the way of the starmazons had been forever changed by my actions here.
I stood still and waited for her attack to close in on me. When she was almost within striking distance I teleported away from her, easily vanishing from her view and reappearing behind her. That angered her, and I heard her utter another infuriated scream. The sound was long and loud, and surprisingly it was a purely physical noise, despite that being physically impossible. When she stopped screaming she began to speak.
"Fine. Maybe I can't win alone but... I refuse to surrender. I can still win. All you are is fast. I can handle that... With help." She uttered, clearly not truly understanding the difference between the two of us, before her eyes began to turn a sickly shade of purple. Her skin began to become strangely slimy and amorphous, and her hair began to morph into weird, brown tendrils.
"Mhabia! I call upon your aid in my hour of need. Today I am invoking your end of our pact. Give me the power to overcome this enemy of the starmazons!" She shouted, again doing something physically impossible even as she called upon an ally of hers that I knew to be a strange being that possessed physically impossible powers.
Stella began to radiate darkness, and in the center of her chest, a single monstrous eye abruptly appeared over her armor. The eye began to look around, and as it did it saw me. When it did writhing tendrils abruptly jutted out of Stella's back, almost like a pair of horrifying wings and red veins began to extend from the center of the eye, as if the eye were irritated at me specifically.
"So that's what the pact does..." I muttered, having peered deep enough into Stella's memories to know that she made some sort of pact with the eldritch abomination just as she had with the strange "Superior Genies" who also resided on her capital ship. I rose a hand and found that even though she was harder to move than she had been before she wasn't actually impossible to move. I began to pull her closer to me, and she began to gasp in fright as she found that even in her empowered state she couldn't free herself.
"That's not good enough. You're not good enough." I exclaimed, as she continued to try and break free of my grip. I felt her purposelessly pushing back against my grip, but she wasn't nearly strong enough to actually break free.
"My telekinesis can move galaxies, and you think you can break free? How pointlessly arrogant." I told her, as she was dragged closer and closer to me. As she was pulled to me she began to glow but that wasn't the result of her or her strange pact-powers. I gazed at her radiant skin and realized, almost unconsciously, that however that was working I was the one responsible for her beginning to glow. As I did that, space around her began to shimmer and distort and a strange, androgynous voice began to emanate from the shimmering aura around Stella.
"How... strange. An eldritch soul, in a divine body?" The voice asked, speaking in such a way that it was physically audible despite emanating from what appeared to be a simple distortion in space.
"Are you calling... me, an eldritch being?" I asked, projecting my voice quite easily, even as Stella continued to slowly be pulled towards me, unable to escape my psionic grip. Stella suddenly turned on me and roared in desperation, before her tendrils suddenly lashed out at me. I watched them hurtle towards me, and when they reached me I sped up and punched the tendrils away in my ultra-fast state very lackadaisically. I sensed the strange presence continuing to watch me and appraise me curiously.
"Perhaps... I myself am not sure." The aura uttered, and I felt unnaturally uncomfortable as it sized me up, studying me and somehow appraising my very soul.
