X-GENE OMNITRIX-Chapter 42: XGO - 39

The dawn in the sanctuary brought no peace.

Blood-red sunlight filtered through ash-choked skies as tremors rippled through the ground. The World Tree, normally pulsing with serene power, convulsed with unnatural tension. Across its immense canopy, leaves curled and blackened at the edges—shimmering not with their usual ethereal light, but with writhing shadows that seemed to consume the very essence of the sacred tree. Deep cracks appeared along its ancient bark, oozing golden sap that hissed when it touched the scorched earth below. For the first time since its rise, the World Tree was in pain.

Alex stood at the highest point of the crystalline observatory, his knuckles white as he gripped the railing. The wind whipped his hair while he watched the horizon with narrowed eyes. Already, the outer defensive perimeter lay in ruins—shattered barriers, still-burning vegetation, and the scattered remains of fallen defenders marking where a storm of flame and bone had tested their defenses. The sanctuary, still recovering from the first wave, had little time to breathe. Below, dryads with splintered limbs and mutants bearing fresh wounds scrambled to rebuild, relocate, and recover their injured.

"Three more breaches in the western quadrant!" shouted a voice from below. "The healing pools are overflowing with wounded!"

But something had changed.

A low, resonant hum rippled through the air—a harmonic tone like the Earth itself was trying to speak. It started as a whisper, then grew to a bone-rattling vibration that made Alex's teeth ache. The World Tree answered.

Blinding light burst from the base of the trunk, sending shockwaves that knocked nearby defenders off their feet. The roots groaned and twisted, tearing through soil as they rearranged themselves with crackling intensity. From the moss-covered bark and ancient soil rose a colossal figure—an avatar, an embodiment of the Tree's will.

The elemental titan stood thirty meters tall, its body a perfect fusion of living wood and ancient stone. Wreathed in vines that moved with serpentine intelligence, its armor-like bark was etched with glowing runes that pulsed in rhythm with the Tree's heartbeat. Its eyes blazed with emerald and amber fire, peering out from a face that resembled a warrior's mask carved by nature itself. Its massive arms resembled twisted branches reinforced with crystalline growths that caught the firelight, and each thunderous step left behind fresh blooms in the scorched ground—defiant life amid destruction.

"It's fighting back," Elara whispered beside Alex, awe written across her wooden features. Her bark-skin had grown pale, stress fractures visible across her shoulders where she'd helped hold the eastern barricade.

"No," Alex corrected grimly, scanning the treeline where shadows moved unnaturally. "It's defending what's left."

The World Tree Avatar threw back its massive head and let out a bellowing war cry—part howling wind, part primal roar—that shook leaves from branches and made the very air tremble. It charged into the forest, each thirty-foot stride covering impossible distance as its body glowed with ancestral power.

From the darkness beyond the sanctuary's boundaries, new monsters stirred. The ground split open with a sickening crack, revealing molten veins beneath the surface. Giant infernal spinosauruses erupted from the ruptures, their flesh half-skeletal, their exposed ribs resembling prison bars that contained whirling hellfire within. Their spines radiated waves of Hellfire that scorched the air itself, turning oxygen to sulfur with each exhalation. Their footfalls left smoldering craters, and their jaws—triple-hinged and unnaturally distended—dripped magma that ignited whatever it touched.

One of the beasts caught a fleeing defender—a young mutant with scaled skin—and snapped him up in its jaws. The victim's scream cut short as hellfire consumed him from within, turning him to ash in seconds.

The air shimmered with heat distortion as a flock of corrupted pterodactyls swooped overhead, their leathery wings trailing brimstone smoke as they screeched in unholy harmony.

Alex's attention snapped upward as the sky itself seemed to fold inward. A crack formed—not natural, not magical, but infernal. A tear between realms that revealed glimpses of somewhere else. Somewhere worse.

The rift from Hell.

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It began as a hairline fracture in reality, then widened with a sound like tearing flesh. From within it, liquid fire spilled, accompanied by whispers, growls, and the faint sound of weeping souls. The air around the tear shimmered and warped, reality itself struggling to maintain its integrity under the assault from another dimension.

Through this rift, Mephisto's throne loomed beyond—a shifting monument of molten bone and screaming faces, shadowed beneath spires of brimstone that reached impossible heights. Chained figures writhed at its base, their forms barely recognizable as once-human. The demon lord's power now pulsed directly through the tear, funneling crimson energy that resembled arterial blood into his chosen vessel.

Sam.

The once-rescued mutant walked forward through a field of flames that parted before him like loyal subjects. He was unrecognizable now. His eyes were deep pits of blackened flame that left smoking trails in the air when he moved. Wings of molten fire, twice his body length, arched behind his back, leaving rivers of liquid flame wherever their tips brushed the ground. His body had grown larger, clawed, twisted—his skin now a tapestry of reddened scales and exposed muscle that pulsed with infernal power. Chains dragged from his wrists like ceremonial bindings, each one etched with infernal runes that glowed hot enough to melt stone where they trailed behind him.

"Alex..." came the voice—but it was not Sam's. Mephisto's voice layered atop his like oil over water, the dual tones creating a nauseating dissonance. "You resist your destiny... when you should be embracing it."

Without hesitation, Alex vaulted over the observatory railing, plummeting thirty meters through the ash-choked air. He landed in a crater of dirt and roots, the ground quaking beneath him as his impact sent fissures racing outward. Rising slowly, his eyes never left Sam's transformed figure.

He didn't answer—not with words.

Instead, he raised his wrist where the Omnitrix pulsed with anticipation. With practiced precision, he activated the device, selecting his form with deliberate intent.

The world slowed for a heartbeat.

In a burst of glowing crimson light that pushed back the encroaching darkness, his body twisted and expanded, cells rearranging, power flowing into new configurations. He took on the regal armor and burning gaze of Itachi Uchiha in his Susanoo form. A giant, spectral warrior of chakra enveloped him, its semi-transparent body glowing with ethereal blue energy that towered nearly as tall as the Tree's avatar. The Susanoo's four arms materialized, wielding the legendary Yata Mirror—a shield of perfect defense that reflected all attacks back at their source—and the Totsuka Blade, a sealing weapon that trapped anything it pierced in eternal illusion.

The ground beneath them cracked under the pressure of two godlike entities facing off.

To their left, the avatar of the World Tree fought with primal fury, swinging fists wreathed in nature's wrath. It caught one corrupted raptor mid-leap, crushing it between wooden palms before hurling the carcass at an approaching ankylosaur. The dinosaur's spiked tail shattered a section of the avatar's shoulder, sending splinters flying, but the tree-being simply regrew the damage, vines and bark knitting together with determined speed.

Above them, the sky burned with ash and sulfur as Hell-infused pterosaurs began dive-bombing the upper sanctum. Their screeches harmonized into an unholy sound that caused defenders to clutch their ears in agony. Where their shadow passed, plants withered instantly.

"Mephisto," Alex growled, voice echoing through the Susanoo's aura, eyes transforming into the blood-red Sharingan. "Come out and fight."

The demon's laughter filtered through the flames, a sound like breaking glass mixed with children's cries.

"I have no need to waste my essence on mortals," came the reply, the voice causing nearby vegetation to blacken and die. "But if you wish to reach me," Mephisto's tone deepened, resonating through Sam's corrupted form, "then survive my vessel."

Sam lunged forward with impossible speed—flaming claws extended like molten daggers, wings slicing the air like blades. The ground beneath him melted into obsidian with each step. Alex brought up the Yata Mirror just in time, the spiritual shield intercepting the attack with a thunderous crash. The force of the blow sent shockwaves through the trees, uprooting smaller plants and shattering crystalline formations hundreds of yards away.

"You think this sanctuary is your paradise?" Mephisto sneered through Sam's mouth, while the boy's corrupted form pressed harder against the shield. Cracks appeared in the air itself around them as reality strained under the conflicting powers. "It's a cradle waiting to burn. You saved children and gave them peace... but what did you give the ones who died screaming in cages, Alex? Justice? Vengeance?"

With a roar, Alex pushed back, the Susanoo's massive form shoving Sam's burning figure across the battlefield. The Totsuka Blade slashed forward in a brilliant arc of spiritual energy, catching the tail of one corrupted triceratops trying to flank them. In a burst of spiritual fire that temporarily turned night to day, the beast vanished—sealed in the blade's genjutsu realm, to dream for eternity in an inescapable illusion.

"I gave them a place to belong," Alex retorted, the Susanoo's voice amplifying his own into a thunderous declaration. "You offer only chains."

Sam's possessed form circled overhead, wings leaving contrails of burning sulfur. His laughter—that horrible mixture of boy and demon—echoed like a discordant bell.

"And yet the one you saved... offered you to me willingly."

The ground trembled again—only this time, it was from behind.

The gates.

A roar erupted that silenced even the battle cries of the World Tree's avatar. The reinforced entrance to the sanctuary—twenty-foot thick walls of ancient wood and enchanted stone—splintered inward as though made of paper. An enormous, corrupted T-Rex, infused directly with Mephisto's essence, tore through the barrier, sending defenders flying like broken dolls.

This was no simple corrupted dinosaur. Its hide was made of black bone and magma-veins that pulsed with unholy rhythm. Its skull had split open like a grotesque flower, revealing a crown of twisted horns that dripped with something that resembled both blood and fire. Its eyes were pits of bottomless rage that seemed to drink in light rather than reflect it, and its jaws—large enough to swallow a car—were lined with serrated teeth that glowed like hot iron. As it stepped into the sanctuary, the ground beneath it died—plants shriveled into dust, the light dimmed as though being consumed, the World Tree groaned in distant agony.

Gasps and screams rang through the defenders as several broke ranks and fled.

"That... thing," Elara said, eyes wide with horror as she clutched a wounded arm. "It's feeding off the Tree. I can feel it—it's draining the life force directly from the roots!"

Alex turned sharply, the Susanoo's massive form pivoting with surprising grace. "Get the children to the underground shelters! Evacuate everything behind the crystal barracks. Elara, go!"

"What about you?" she demanded, even as chunks of flaming debris rained down around them.

Alex looked at the abomination approaching, its footsteps causing mini-earthquakes that toppled defensive structures. He glanced at Sam's flaming figure circling overhead, leaving trails of brimstone. Behind both threats, the rift to Hell pulsed wider with every passing second.

"I'm not done yet."

His Susanoo's eyes blazed brighter as Alex channeled more chakra into the spiritual construct. The giant warrior's four arms spread wide in challenge as it turned back to face Sam.

And for the first time, he spoke not to Mephisto... but to the boy he had rescued.

"Sam, I know you're in there," he called out, his voice softer despite the Susanoo's thunderous projection. "I know they broke you, and I couldn't fix it all. But this... this isn't the way."

For a moment—just one heartbeat—Sam's face twitched. The fire in his eyes flickered, momentarily revealing the frightened boy beneath the demonic possession. His wings faltered, dipping him lower in the sky.

Then Mephisto roared louder from within, forcing the wings to blaze again with renewed intensity, the flames changing from orange to blue with the heat.

"Too late for that," he growled, and launched forward once more.

Sam's possessed form collided with the Susanoo at meteoric speed, the impact creating a shockwave that flattened trees for a hundred yards. Claws of hellfire scraped against spiritual armor, creating sparks that ignited the very air. The Totsuka Blade swept in great arcs, forcing Sam to perform impossible aerial maneuvers to avoid its sealing touch.

Meanwhile, across the sanctuary, the World Tree Avatar wrestled with the flaming T-Rex, its wooden limbs charring where they connected with the beast's molten hide. The avatar hammered thunderous blows against the dinosaur's skull, each impact creating sonic booms that shattered windows throughout the sanctuary. The T-Rex retaliated by clamping its jaws around the avatar's arm, molten teeth sinking deep into living wood. The Tree's champion howled—a sound like a hurricane through an ancient forest—and slammed its free fist into the creature's eye, driving it back.

Defenders rallied where they could, dryads summoning thorny vines to entangle smaller hellbeasts, mutants using their varied abilities to protect the evacuation routes. But for every creature they felled, two more crawled through newly-formed cracks in reality.

As Susanoo's blade clashed with hellfire claws again and again, each impact lighting up the battlefield like daylight, and the World Tree Avatar wrestled a flaming dinosaur twice its size, the fate of the sanctuary balanced on a knife's edge.

And far above it all, the rift to Hell widened inch by inch, the throne of Mephisto growing clearer with each passing moment. Spectral chains began to extend from the portal, reaching downward like hungry fingers toward the sanctuary's hear