Herpo the Foul blurred into another Key timeline.
He staggered and fell, his knees striking the rocky earth with an audible thud.
There was a mile-long trail behind him made up of his transparent, blurry projections, all occupying a timeline.
These projections weren't Avatars.
Not in the same way he had used to infiltrate the Mirror timeline, which housed the parasite — the Yellow Warlock.
Each of these projections dictated the probability of Herpo the Foul's presence in that timeline. With a mere thought, the Above the Pillar from the Harry Potter Bubble could increase or decrease that probability between zero and one, appearing and disappearing from one timeline to another.
In that way, he neither existed in one timeline at any particular moment, nor could anyone actually figure out where he would appear next.
Because, in the end, it was all a game of probability.
It wasn't powered by Magic, Spirituality, Life, or any similar concept, either.
It was Herpo the Foul's uniqueness — a uniqueness that could only be obtained once a Character became unique in the Bubble.
For Darth Vader to not only figure out how the uniqueness worked, but also prepare a counter for it…
That's why he let himself fall into the illusion of Soul Vision, Herpo the Foul thought, wiping the blood off his mouth. It wasn't just to relive his past moments, but also to analyze my uniqueness and prepare a counter for it. That shrewd bastard… is a fucking genius!
The Legendary Wizard looked down, all his projections imitating the action.
The hole was still there, brushing against his heart and smelling of charred flesh.
It was regenerating, but the little particles of Force, like parasites, were nibbling at his flesh, slowing the regeneration to a crawl.
It didn't matter, though.
Jormungandr should buy him enough time to heal.
And once that was done, he would rewrite the laws governing his uniqueness using Primeval Parselscript so that Darth Vader would never be able to use the same move again…
CRACK!
Herpo the Foul was kneeling on the earth, leaning against his Basilisk Staff.
Suddenly, at the heart-wrenching sound, the wizard's head snapped up, and he saw the most unbelievable sight since the fight had begun.
His Staff…
The compilation of his Mysteries…
Bas — the wooden, sentient being — who had remained with him for eons…
It cracked, a tear running down its length as if someone had plunged a dagger into it from inside, dragging it downward.
Herpo the Foul screamed, his eyes rolling into the back of his head.
In the sky, an image of a World Serpent, with its head twice the size of a planet, appeared.
Slowly, the entire image disintegrated, becoming ash before getting scattered by a cosmic wind that none could see.
And, just like that, between the battles of Above the Pillars, a Mystery ceased to exist.
…
A BOOM resounded as Darth Vader crashed on the planet like a meteorite.
A crater, hundreds of meters wide, appeared at the crash site, plumes of dust and shockwaves destroying living and non-living alike within a several-mile radius.
From the clouds of dust, loud thuds rang as metallic boots landed on the freshly formed layer of glass, crunching them into powder.
Sparks crackled in and around Darth Vader's suit as he walked out of the crater, his black cloak barely visible between the holes and tears it had gained.
He breathed… and held his breath… before letting it out.
Blood dripped down from the cracks in his mask, but Vader managed to keep standing on his feet.
Slowly, he looked down at his right hand.
The black-cased lightsaber he had carried all these years… had shattered.
Was it a price worth paying to annihilate Herpo the Foul's Mystery — Jormungandr?
Darth Vader thought about those questions, but rarely bothered to get an answer to them.
Rubbing the shattered, metallic dust of his broken lightsaber, he looked up and found the man looking back at him.
Herpo the Foul stood there, barely on his feet, using his Basilisk Staff as a walking stick; a cracked walking stick.
The Inquisitor stepped forward, each step landing squarely on the earth to make sure he wouldn't lose his footing and fall.
"Surrender," Vader said. "You have no other choice left. If you are waiting for help, then… you must know it's not coming."
Herpo the Foul smiled, showing his blood-drenched teeth.
"Help?" he said, straightening his spine. "… Haha… Hahaha… Everyone in this Bubble wants me dead. But… I… I cannot die. Not yet. I have a mission, Inquisitor. A desire. You… You of all must know how it feels… to have a desire. I am sure Ms. Padme would have…"
A growl escaped Vader's mouth.
He clenched his right fist, planted his feet into the ground, and shot forward like a missile.
Herpo the Foul grinned in return, a layer of green-colored draconic scales covering his entire body as his left hand became a fist as well.
Dark Cosmos —
Primeval Parselscript —
A bolt of lightning, blacker than black, consuming all the light, circled Vader's fist.
Around Herpo the Foul's scaled fist, a similar bolt of lightning, but green in color, lingered, eroding the very space in its surroundings.
— Mortis Execution!
— Soul Extermination!
Even before the two fists met, the world ceased to exist.
Herpo the Foul and Darth Vader simultaneously appeared at the same location but in different timeline, almost as if they had never moved.
Their fists continued to progress toward each other frame by frame.
And, with each frame, a timeline vanished.
With each frame, billions died.
If the fists met, then the destruction wouldn't limit itself to the Key timelines.
If the fists met, then the aftereffects would reach the Mirrors, going as far as the Pillars.
Surprisingly, and fortunately, the fists of the two Above the Pillars never met, the gap between them being stretched to infinity.
And, in the middle of that infinity stood another Inquisitor, wielding his sword.
"Calm down, Lord Vader," Sousuke Aizen said, smiling gently. "Herpo the Foul… is not needed anymore."