No. I was not dead. In fact, I was very much alive. But what happened? Just how did the final stage of this conflict take place? Well, it was somewhat difficult to explain since everything happened so fast, so I did my best to recount what had occurred in those few little moments.
As soon as the two of them came into contact with each other, Cozy used the chaos magic to displace space and time itself in order to slow Grogar down. Grogar himself had just as much power to accomplish the same thing, so I initially figured that their abilities would cancel each other out.
The flash of light? That was a black hole! A place where every concept of reality could be warped to the creator’s will!
That’s when I realized: Cozy trapped the old ram in a mental, infinite loop! Right before he could even touch her, she enacted a spell that caused him to repeat the same events over and over within his own mind. As a result, Cozy was able to replay the same situation until she got the outcome that she wanted.
With everything reshaped to function how she wanted, there was little, if anything Grogar could do to break himself out of it. The only failsafe that existed would be if he could find a gap in the time loop and escape it.
But Cozy thought of that also.
Every gap in the time loop she generated was offset with some of the chaos energy that was rigged to implode upon, and disintegrate any magic signature that it came in contact with. In other words, trying to escape would kill Grogar.
And to my horror, that’s exactly what he tried to do.
Before Cozy could properly finish him off herself, the ram attempted every manner of spell-casting in the book to force himself out. Teleportation, shapeshifting, displacement, refraction--you name it.
“I...will...never...submit!”
He trudged forward, his body overpowering the effects of Cozy’s magical minefield. Awash in a sea of his own chaotic red and Cozy’s orange magical auras, he was a being fueled by raw determination.
“What the--?!” Cozy yelped with her wings expanded from sheer terror, “Just how strong is he?”
“Too strong,” I grumbled to myself, and huffed hard enough to release steam from my nostrils. “Seems like I have no choice...this is gonna require all my power, kid.”
She turned to me with a fearful glare. “...Dad? Dad, what are you gonna do?!”
“Just keep it going as you intended, Cozy,” I replied as I stepped forward, “He just signed his death warrant…”
“How do you know?!” she asked.
I tilted my neck to the left, then right to loosen my joints with a crick of my bones. “Trust me…”
Cozy’s magic had weakened him just enough. Grogar, despite the fact that he clung to his last strand of almighty power, was no different than the rest of us. But ultimately, the fact that he was essentially a figment of someone else’s ambition with no drive of his own--left unchecked could destroy the very fabric of our reality.
And I could sense it. His final act of desperation as he limped towards us was clear. I wondered if he was really that rooted in his mental state or if there was a small part of himself that secretly wished to die, and the only way to do so would be to make the move he was about to make. Either way, all I could think to myself was one simple phrase:
“Does the puppet finally see its strings?”
“Die...Die...DIE!” Grogar roared in a fit of unkempt rage as he charged at Cozy with fangs out, intent to kill clear as day.
In a flash, I intercepted this.
My body took on a bipedal stance akin to that of an upright bear as I practically teleported in front of Cozy to defend her. And as soon as I got there…
TCK--BLOOM!
I punched him one time. One good and hard time. Hard enough to both break the sound barrier, and rend his entire soul all in one blow. The blowback was so massive, that it felt like the entire continent beneath my hooves had experienced a class 7.0 earthquake. A frontal set of rings in a conal formation appeared with a trail of smoke were also after-effects of my attack. Essentially? It was akin to a Sonic Rainboom performed horizontally, minus the abundance of color.
After all of it, I was left in a fully drained state as I huffed heavily over and over. “...No one...messes with...my daughter…”
“PALE!” Cozy screamed as she knelt down next to me, “Are you alright? Speak to me?”
I could feel myself cough up a bit of blood as I offered my best smile. Resting in the care of the kiddo was...heartwarming to say the least. “Hm...never better…look…”
And almost immediately, the Tree of Harmony was already slowly reversing itself.
The question remained: was everything going to return to the way it was before?