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Jason stared at his palm where the massive Ankh had rested moments ago. Now it hung around his neck, a small pendant that pulsed with dark energy, its surface only seventy percent full. The souls of his demons had given willingly, but even willingness had its limits.
"Destined Death," he murmured, turning the pendant over in his fingers. "Quite the good ability. Of course, I cannot spam this, nor use it freely like Death does." He tucked the pendant beneath his shirt. "I have to use it on a target that isn't moving. And I have to consume a small piece of the souls that serve me. It won't kill them, of course. But eventually..." His jaw tightened. "Eventually, it will."
Three times. He could use it three times before the Ankh emptied. Three chances to end something that couldn't be ended any other way.
The domain disintegrated around him, dark water receding, shrine fading, the nightmare realm rushing back in with its oppressive weight and eternal twilight. Jason emerged in the chaos just as Dove came hurtling toward him—clothes tattered, body exhausted, hair wild across her face.
He jumped and caught her mid-air, cradling her in his arms. His eyes immediately caught the tear in her costume, the way the fabric had ripped across her chest. He grinned.
"Wow. Didn't think you'd throw yourself at me this fast."
Dove blinked. Followed his gaze. Looked down at her exposed breast, barely covered by the remnants of her uniform.
"What?—" Her face flushed crimson. "Oh, you fucking pervert!" She twisted in his grip. "Put me down! I'm gonna fuck up that bastard! He's fucking relentless!"
Jason dropped her unceremoniously. She landed on her feet, stumbling slightly, already turning back toward the battlefield.
"For the current bringer of peace here," Jason said, "you aren't very peaceful."
"Shut up!"
Jason turned to assess the state of the fight. Mahoraga and Agito were a mess—the Devastator's body lay in pieces nearby, already beginning to twitch and reform, while the two summons struggled to keep up with Red Death's impossible speed. Mahoraga's wheel hung motionless above his head, unchanged, unmoved.
The same problem as against the Absolute Joker. Mahoraga couldn't adapt to something that was already adapting to him.
"Agito. Mahoraga." Jason's voice cut through the chaos. "Change of plans. Leave the big one for me and our dear exhibitionist here." He pointed at the blur of crimson lightning. "You handle the fast fuck. Mahoraga... you know what to do."
Dove spun to face him, her cheeks still red. "I'm not an exhibitionist!"
She floated up, white light gathering around her damaged form, her eyes scanning the battlefield.
"You got a plan?"
Jason smiled. "Yup. We just have to pin the fucker."
"Okay..." Dove narrowed her eyes. "And how do you suggest we do that?"
"Dove." Jason turned to face her fully. "Are you a fast learner?"
Dove's expression shifted—the indignation fading, replaced by something harder. More focused. "Fuck yeah, I am. I wouldn't have survived this place without it."
"Would you say your soul is still pure?"
Dove hesitated. Her gaze dropped to the ground, then rose again. "Maybe in the past. But not now." Her voice was quiet, but steady. "Not after everything I've done to stay alive."
Jason reached into his coat and pulled something out—small, dark, pulsing with energy that seemed to drink the light around it. A Cursed Lantern Ring. One of the prototypes, not yet finalized, not yet tested on anyone who wasn't already attuned to cursed energy.
He held it out to her.
"Wear that." His voice was calm, measured. "And show me your adaptability. You either die..." He let the words hang. "Or we win. And leave this place." He met her eyes. "What do you say?"
Dove stared at the ring. At him. At the chaos unfolding behind them—Red Death's crimson lightning, the Devastator's reforming flesh, the distant tower that held their only way out.
She grabbed the ring.
"Fuck yeah."
She slid it onto her finger.
The ring activated immediately—dark energy crawling up her arm like living shadow, sinking into her skin, her veins, her soul. Dove gasped, her body arching, her eyes going wide. White light exploded from her chest, fighting the darkness, trying to push it back.
Jason watched, ready to intervene, ready to pull the ring off if she started screaming.
Dove didn't scream.
She gritted her teeth. Her hands clenched into fists. The white light and the dark energy swirled around each other, neither winning, neither losing—and then, slowly, they began to merge. Gray light. Not white, not black, but something in between. Something new.
Dove's breathing steadied. Her eyes opened.
They glowed silver.
"He's reviving," Jason said, nodding toward the Devastator's reforming body. "If you master that, pin him. I'll take care of the rest." He cracked his neck. "For now, I'll stall him."
He moved.
The Devastator rose from his pile of pieces just as Jason's fist connected with his jaw. The impact sent the monster stumbling back, bone protrusions scraping against each other, but he didn't fall. His eyes found Jason's—dead, empty, hungry.
"Come on," Jason said, raising his fists. "Let's see how many times you can get back up."
The Devastator screamed and charged.
.....
Jason landed in front of the Devastator as the monster finished pulling his last piece into place. Gray flesh knitted together. Bone protrusions slid from reforming limbs. The dead eyes found Jason's face and something like recognition flickered across the creature's ruined features.
Jason raised his hand. Slashed.
The Dimensional Cleave struck the Devastator's chest.
The monster didn't flinch.
Jason's eyes narrowed. He slashed again. Again. Each blade cut into gray flesh, drew black blood, carved wounds that should have dropped any enemy. The Devastator kept walking. The wounds closed before Jason could finish the motion of his hand.
Adapted.
Already adapted.
Jason lowered his hands. The slashes stopped. He could pour more power into them, could make them stronger, faster, more precise—but it wouldn't matter. The Devastator would adapt to each change within seconds. He had fought Doomsday before. He knew how this worked.
Lucifer's illusion wouldn't help here. The Devastator's mind was too simple to trap—no ego to exploit, no pride to wound, no fear to weaponize. Batman was in there somewhere, buried beneath the rage and the hunger, but not the Batman who planned and schemed. Just the Batman who endured. Who kept going no matter what.
A mindless monster with unbreakable instincts.
Jason rolled his shoulders. Cracked his neck. Settled into a fighting stance that had nothing to do with slashes or domains or cursed techniques.
"Fine," he said. "Old fashioned it is."
The Devastator charged.
Jason met him head-on.
The first exchange lasted less than a second. The Devastator's claw swept toward Jason's skull—Jason dropped beneath it, pivoted on his heel, and drove his elbow into the monster's kidney. The impact felt like punching a mountain. His elbow screamed in protest. The Devastator didn't even grunt.
But he turned.
That was the key. He turned toward the pain, toward the attacker, his massive body rotating in place. Jason was already moving, already circling, already staying one step ahead of those dead eyes.
Not stronger. Faster.
The Devastator swung again—both claws this time, a wide arc designed to catch anything in front of him. Jason dropped to his back, sliding between the monster's legs, and kicked up into his spine as he passed. The Devastator stumbled forward, his weight carrying him off balance for just a moment.
Jason used that moment to put distance between them.
He glanced at Dove. She hovered in the air, silver light swirling around her, her face tight with concentration. The ring on her finger pulsed—gray light, not white, not black, something new. She was still learning. Still adapting.
He needed to give her more time.
The Devastator charged again.
This time Jason didn't dodge cleanly. The monster's claw caught his shoulder, raking across flesh and bone, tearing through muscle like paper. Jason hissed, spun with the impact, and drove his knee into the Devastator's jaw. The monster's head snapped back. Jason's leg screamed.
They separated.
Jason's arm hung limp at his side, the shoulder a ruin of shredded meat and exposed bone. His reversed cursed energy flooded the wound, knitting flesh, sealing arteries, forcing the arm back into functionality. It took seconds. It felt like hours.
The Devastator was already coming again.
Jason met him with his other arm.
The pattern repeated. Dodge, strike, circle, survive. Each exchange cost Jason something—a cracked rib, a broken hand, a smashed kneecap. The Devastator's blows were slow by speedster standards, but they carried the weight of something that had killed Kryptonians. Even grazing hits shattered bones.
Jason healed. Moved. Kept the monster's attention on him and away from Dove.
A claw caught his leg mid-dodge—not a direct hit, but enough. Bone snapped. Jason went down, rolling, coming up on one knee, his leg already healing. The Devastator loomed above him, both claws raised for a killing blow.
Jason smiled through the blood.
"Too slow."
He launched himself between the monster's legs again, came up behind him, and drove his fist into the base of the Devastator's skull. The monster stumbled. Jason used the opening to put another twenty feet between them.
His arm was broken. His leg was broken. His cursed energy reserves were draining faster than he liked.
But Dove was ready.
The black hammer appeared from nowhere—massive, crude, forged from light that had been twisted into something harder. It smashed into the Devastator's side with enough force to send the monster tumbling across the battlefield. He rolled, came up on all fours, and turned to face his new attacker.
Dove floated above him, silver light blazing from her hands, her eyes, her chest. The ring on her finger pulsed in rhythm with her heartbeat.
She didn't give him time to recover.
Beams of gray light lanced from her palms, striking the Devastator's chest, his arms, his face. Each impact drove him back, carved divots in his flesh, forced him to regenerate instead of attack. He tried to charge—Dove rose higher, out of reach, and kept firing.
Then she raised both hands.
The ship appeared above her—massive, ancient, its hull covered in barnacles and battle scars. It looked like something that had sailed through nightmares for centuries. Dove brought her hands down, and the ship followed.
It crashed onto the Devastator with a sound like the world ending.
Metal shrieked. Bones cracked. The Devastator vanished beneath tons of dark matter and forgotten steel. Dust and debris exploded outward, forcing Jason to raise an arm to shield his eyes.
When the dust settled, Dove floated down to land beside him. Her chest heaved. Sweat streaked her face. But she was smiling.
"You did good," Jason said.
Dove's smile widened. "I never thought I'd be a Lantern." She looked at the ring on her finger, at the silver light that still pulsed around her hand. "A cursed one, apparently."
"First of your kind." Jason clapped her on the shoulder—the one that wasn't still healing. "Congratulations."
The ship exploded.
The Devastator burst through the wreckage, his flesh torn, his bones visible through gaping wounds, his eyes brighter than they had any right to be. He was already healing—faster now, adapted to the damage, ready to keep fighting.
But Jason wasn't fighting alone anymore.
Chains erupted from the ground—hundreds of them, forged from gray light, anchored to nothing and everything. They wrapped around the Devastator's arms, his legs, his chest, his throat. He strained against them, snapping one, then another, then a dozen. Each broken chain was replaced by two more.
Dove's hands were outstretched, her face locked in concentration, sweat dripping from her chin. The chains were hers. The light was hers. The will behind them was hers.
Jason grinned.
He reached up and touched the Ankh around his neck.
The pendant detached, floated into the air above his palm, and began to grow. Dark energy swirled around it, feeding on the souls of Hell, drawing power from the billions who had sworn themselves to their new king. The Ankh rose higher—above Jason's head, above Dove's, above the struggling Devastator.
"Destined Death."
The Ankh didn't fall. It simply... moved. Descended with the inevitability of tomorrow, the certainty of dawn, the absolute finality of something that could not be stopped.
The Devastator saw it coming. He cut through the chains faster, strained harder, roared loud enough to shake the ground. One arm broke free. Then the other. He reached up, claws extended, trying to swat the Ankh from the sky.
His claws passed through it.
The Ankh wasn't physical. It wasn't energy. It wasn't anything that could be touched or blocked or destroyed. It was simply... his end. Arriving at the appointed time.
It touched his forehead.
The Devastator froze.
For a single heartbeat, nothing happened. Then his skin began to crack—not like stone, not like ice, but like something that had been holding itself together through sheer will and had finally been told to stop. The cracks spread across his face, his chest, his arms. Gray light leaked from the fissures, then black light, then something that wasn't light at all.
He tried to scream.
His jaw shattered before the sound could escape.
His body disintegrated piece by piece—not exploding outward, but collapsing inward, each fragment of flesh and bone crumbling to dust that crumbled to nothing. The Devastator's form folded in on itself like a tower built on sand, and then he was gone.
No body. No remains. Just the afterimage of something that had existed and now did not.
Jason watched the last particles fade.
"Soulless or deathless," he said quietly, "it doesn't matter. All things have an end." He touched the Ankh as it shrank back to pendant size and returned to his neck. It's surface was empty now...
"I guess some take more to kill than others.....Now...Onto the Last one"
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If you Like this story! Check out my other story ! Shadow Monarch in Danmachi!
AND
If you wish to read more or simply support me just because ? than check out my patréon at
"https://www.patréon.com/Riadooo"
You can Get Access to 3 More Chapters OR 7 More Chapters if you want !