Xiong Huang rushed into the nearest warship and punched it straight on the bow.

 

The warship exploded.

 

Along with a dozen behind it.

 

The supers stood still, their eyes opened wide as a single girl began demolishing a fleet by hand. Bob and Nemesis turned to face one another. He shrugged as he began to activate his suit.

 

“Better do our part, or she’s going to be upset.”

 

Nemesis immediately leapt into action.

 

Elise began firing beams of light from her hands, each beam piercing through a warship, while qi empowered missiles and machine guns popped out of panels all over her body, launching a mighty barrage that shattered shields and blew through armored hulls.

 

Kiyosuke swung his blade. Massive arcs of light appeared across space, slicing a ship in two as he blinked through their formation.

 

Nana fired a shot that pierced straight through a ship and changed course, zig-zagging across an entire formation.

 

Saydaa waved her hand and grinned, a massive magic circle appearing before her and surging across an entire formation of ships.

At first, nothing happened, the ships seemed entirely unharmed.

Until they began to turn and fire on one another, both the minds of the crews and the sensors of the ships displaying each other as the enemy.

 

As for Arvid…

The chosen hero had reached the stars in a battle for the fate of the entire world. A battle larger than all the battles of his ancestors combined. Wielding powers greater than all of them combined.

Every moment he even spent in space caused the saga to explode past its prior limits.

The sword burst forth with such light that it could not be seen. A blazing star in Arvid’s hands. His arms trembled as he lifted the star above his head. It exploded into a massive blade of golden light.

 

“HAVE…AT…THEE!!!”

 

He swung the blade with all his might.

A blast of golden flames surged across the stars.

Every ship it struck exploded in golden light.

He swung it back around…

A beam of light shot from the blade and into the stars beyond, destroying all in its path.

The chosen hero had met his destiny…

And surpassed it utterly.

No longer was he succeeding the saga of his ancestors.

 

Now they were simply participating in his.

 

The heroes of the ILS watched as the monsters and supers of the AVS got to work as well, fang and claw and fist smashing straight through advanced warships with ease. Arachnalich in particular was cackling madly as she pulled spaceships together with naught but web, and then drained the life out of their entire crews all at once.

Londyn and Captain Hot Devil looked at one another. She smiled wryly and then turned to the fleet filling the solar system.

 

“Let’s go!”

 

Londyn fired a blast from her grav-cannon.

A black hole appeared in the alien’s formation, wiping out an entire line of ships.

 

A star appeared between Captain Hot Devil’s hands. He thrust both his hands forward…

A beam of fire pierced through the ships.

 

“CHEW ON THIS!”

 

Major General Tina fired her guns…and each shot of her pistols destroyed an entire ship.

 

“American woman, you forget to put me down!”

 

Oh, and she was carrying someone on her back.

 

“Shut it commie! You’re not leaving my sight until this crap is over!”

 

“Da, I understand, but there was no need to bring me to space, da?”

 

Tesla Titan had survived, if barely. Turns out burning out his body had cauterized his wounds from the alien, saving him from bleed out. Major General Tina had been rushing to the nearest field hospital with him strapped to her back…when two surges of power had filled them both, stabilizing the wounded hero.

His arms and powers were still gone for good, but his life was no longer in danger.

No longer in danger from his self-inflicted wounds, in any case. Danger from being strapped to Major General Tina’s back as she rampaged through space on the other hand…

Well, the rest of Tina’s Titans were following behind, destroying anything that approached their flank, so it was probably fine.

 

An entire constellation of magic circles appeared around Aqua Mage, jets of water more like laser beams as they cut through alien formations.

 

A dragon roared amongst the stars. Dragontooth was surrounded by a dragon made of fire, tearing apart ships with burning fangs and claws.

 

Wu Zhengkang frowned. He felt very awkward being filled with the qi of the Eternal Night once again. But the Mistress hadn’t said anything to him and there was work to be done, so he continued to speed across the stars, slicing through warships with his blade. And something felt different about the Mistress’s qi this time.

He also had to admit some satisfaction seeing entire spaceships fall by his hand.

 

Countless supers soared through the stars, Xiong Huang’s qi and the power of the Earth elevating them to new heights. And at their fore, chasing after Nemesis, was the newest generation.

 

Dark Rose too fired black holes with each shot of his cannon.

 

Turns out Crystal Guardian’s crystals were excellent for storing and releasing energy, he just never realized it as he couldn’t generate said energy himself. Now? Now he was glowing bright, firing beams of light from his hands. He also broke off crystals and launched them into ships stuffed with as much energy as he could squeeze into them.

They made for quite the potent explosives.

 

El Mantis’s mighty claws could now punch straight through shields and hulls, forming shockwaves out of the aura surrounding him to blast through ships.

 

Teslida fired the largest lightning bolts anyone had ever seen, the bolts arcing from one ship to another to fry entire formations at once. It was like a tree of blue light extending from the girl.

 

And then there was PSI Omega.

Contrary to expectation, PSI Omega did nothing at all, standing still with her eyes closed. One might expect the girl to wipe out entire formations with a wave of her hand and certainly she was capable of such. And previously, she would have done just that to show off what she could do.

But now she realized her fight was in a different arena.

For the Vophae were not idle in this fight. Vophae scattered across the largest ships in the fleet had joined together in a psychic union, intending to strike at their enemies' minds directly. So PSI Omega joined with the Otter King and Baba Yaga, blue runes and glowing, seemingly random objects circling about her.

And so she warred against the Vophae in an invisible battle, protecting the supers from strikes unseen.

And one by one, the Vophae began to fall. One, rolling on the floor and screaming at unseen terrors. Another surrounded by runes, their mind cut off from the outside world. Still others, crumbling into dust as they perished in the mental realm, no psionic cohesion left to hold their cells together.

 

As for Aurora Legion…

 

Wonder Knight shot through the stars, smashing straight through a line of ships. He grabbed the last one, spinning several times before lobbing it.

The ship pierced through several more before exploding.

 

An army of pink supers and animals rushed through the stars, each destroying a ship with powers of every type. At their front was Pink Star.

She had surrounded herself with a clone of Xiong Huang, and was striking the ships with her own fists.

It felt good.

 

Icy Rose spread her hands out wide…and a barrage of comets surged forth. The comets took the shape of birds of prey, swooping down on the alien ships.

Falcons of Ice fell upon their foes, one last time.

 

Chronolock stretched out her hands and an entire region of space in front of her began to warp and distort. Inspired by the Director’s gravity attacks, she created a multitude of randomly shifting time fields, where time would move differently within each field. Spaceships began to collide with one another as they randomly sped up or slowed down. The larger ships that crossed multiple fields began to rip themselves apart as different sections of each ship began moving at different speeds.

 

And then there was Voidspeaker.

Voidspeaker chanted to fire his beam, intending to erase a ship in front of him.

But something happened that he did not expect.

Voidspeaker was not merely empowered by Xiong Huang and the Earth.

After all, Voidspeaker channeled the power of the void, read the stars for portents of inexorable doom.

So what would happen if he channeled his power…while in the void of space itself?

Among the very stars he sought to read?

His beam warped and expanded, splitting into innumerable tendrils of pure darkness. They were like blackholes, sucking in all, even light. They could not be seen, save for the black silhouettes where even the light of the sun would not shine.

And they began to wrap around entire formations of warships, the ships simply vanishing on contact with the void given form.

 

The people of Earth told of shimmering stars shining up in the sky as the Sol System filled to the brim with exploding ships.

 

---

 

High Admiral Siendir was silent as he watched the scene in front of him.

 

“Contact the Emperor’s Word. Punishment Protocol, Authorization Code 62B-7581.”

 

“The Emperor’s Word? B-But High Admiral, that will destroy the entire system! What about our fleet?!”

 

The High Admiral simply pointed to the monitor and the multitude of explosions contained within.

 

“Just do it. The fleet is lost either way. We cannot allow a threat like this to run amok.”

 

The lieutenant gulped, but the High Admiral’s eyes began to glow, so they turned to their monitor and got to work. The High Admiral prepared to direct his psionic presence outward, to finalize the operation…

 

---

 

In the Vuxunus system, a megastructure hung in space. A construct far larger than a mere planet, bigger even than a star; a testament to the technological advances, engineering prowess, and sheer abundance of resources the Vophae Imperium possessed. A massive Dyson Sphere, a metal container that had hidden an entire star, monopolizing all of its energy in countless panels.

And what had the Vophae built as a testament to their progress?

A warm light for all life in the Imperium?

 

No.

 

The Vophae had built a weapon.

 

The Emperor’s Word.

 

A final contingency against all who would defy them.

 

A command by the one who ruled over all life in the galaxy.

 

A number of concentric rings surrounded the Dyson Sphere, and these began to hum to life, lighting up as the full power of the star flooded into them. They began to move and rotate around the Dyson Sphere until they were all aligned, a ring around the contained star. Then they began to float outward, the smallest first, until they formed something of a cone, or nozzle, extending out from the sphere.

And the Sphere began to glow bright…

A massive dark energy beam shot from it, accelerated by the rings to faster than light speeds.

It hurtled across the galaxy…

Until a bright light began to shine in the Sol system far away.

The beam headed straight for the Sun. Should it strike, it would cause a chain reaction that would make the star explode, wiping out the entire system.

And the Vophae flagship began to broadcast a message, beamed straight into the minds of Earth’s defenders.

 

“It’s over. I commend you primitives on your valiant defense. But you struggle in vain. Watch now as the Emperor’s Word wipes out your entire system. Witness our full might in your final moments, and know that today you shall be our example. And all will know that the Vophae Imperium is the strongest!”

 

Every super, monster, and alien in the system shielded their eyes as the bright beam approached.

 

And then one girl stood in its path.

 

“The strongest? DON’T SCREW WITH ME!”

 

Xiong Huang pulled her fist back as the beam approached her.

 

She began to glow bright as she gathered her qi.

 

She glanced back at a certain armor suit behind her.

 

Her light grew as bright as the one approaching, shielding her from view.

 

She suddenly rushed towards the approaching beam…

 

“THERE’S NOTHING STRONGER THAN MY LOVE!”

 

She slammed her fist into the beam.

 

A bright light exploded into being. Xiong Huang shone even brighter than the sun, crashing against the torrent of energy.

 

Until….

 

Finally…

 

The dark energy stopped.

 

And began to flow the other way.

 

Smaller beams of dark energy twisted and broke off, flying out to the sides and wiping out more of the Vophae fleet as the beam wobbled and twisted, a massive ball of energy bulging as two competing energy flows crashed into one another, twisting and spinning into a spiraling sphere of pure destruction.

 

And then…

 

Xiong Huang thrust her fist forward.

 

And the ball of energy flew back the other way.

 

Traveling along the beam and wrapping up the flow into itself.

 

Growing and growing.

 

Until it reached its system of origin.

 

Vophae technicians shielded their eyes as something like a star approached them.

 

And slammed into the Emperor’s Word, smashing through the case of metal, revealing the star once more.

 

The twisting ball of energy sunk into the star within.

 

Which began to glow…

 

An entire system vanished from the Vophae Imperium that day.

 

The testament to their progress and power…

 

The will of the Emperor made manifest…

 

Destroyed utterly.

 

Back in the Sol System, High Admiral Siendir stared blankly. The monkeys had resumed their assault. The battle was completely lost. They had not claimed a single casualty, their ultimate superweapon destroyed, and his entire fleet on the verge of destruction.

 

“H-High Admiral, we must retreat.”

 

“...the fleet of High Admiral Siendir does not retreat. Has never retreated. We may lose, but we will not break.”

 

Well this was fine. The fleet would be destroyed, his body here killed. But he had plenty of cells to spare in his pocket dimension, and maintained psionic beacons linked to him on his important worlds. There was no need to regenerate his body in the same exact location, after all. All he need do was focus on one of the beacons and he could regenerate over there and begin organizing a new fleet.

And then he would rally the full might of the Imperium. They had lost today, yes, and their superweapon not only failed but was entirely wiped out, yes. But the power of the Vophae was never in fleets or weapons. In fact, they had not even known of technology until the first auxiliaries had arrived on their planet. So if they abandoned these trinkets, if they returned to their roots, if the full might of the Vophae race was gathered, if all the elites put together their full psionic might, surely they would come up with a solution.

 

Surely.

 

And it was fine. These monkeys didn’t have space flight and weren’t even aware of the Imperium until he arrived. It would definitely take a great deal of time before they would be able to assault his domain. And even if they did, there weren’t that many of them on the level of that…monster there. He could contain the damage while rebuilding his fleet and waiting for reinforcements.

 

Yes.

 

This was fine.

 

So the High Admiral repeated to himself as Xiong Huang burst through the bridge of his flagship, grabbing him by the neck.

She raised an eyebrow.

 

“You seem very calm.”

 

“I may die today, but you will never defeat the Imperium!”

 

“Oh I get it, you have one of those pocket dimensions, don’t you? So you won’t actually die here, huh? And let me guess, you can probably choose where to regenerate, so you’ll just escape from me once I destroy this body?”

 

The High Admiral froze.

Curse Captain Sildeth! He always talked too much when he got excited.

But this was also fine. Just because she knew about the pocket dimension didn’t mean she could do anything about…

 

Qi began to gather around her fist, glowing bright.

 

And worse…

 

The space around it began to distort, cracks of white light rippling through the air.

 

Xiong Huang made a dark grin at the High Admiral, flashing all her teeth at him.

 

“You shouldn’t have imprisoned me in your little dimensional void. You see, back then I didn’t even know about dimensional walls, much less how to break them. So if you had just let me kill you normally, you would have gotten away, at least until I found where your body regenerates. But now? Thanks to you I’ve corrected that little oversight of mine. And now there’s nowhere left for you to hide.”

 

“Wait…”

 

She slammed the fist into his face.

 

And her qi rippled across space…into the High Admiral’s pocket dimension.

 

A blazing fist was the last thing he ever saw.

 

And so High Admiral Siendir of the Vophae Imperium met his end.

 

And the Battle for Earth came to a close.