"So smug...but for how long?" [vs. Crim El Furaga]

Crim would have been scratching his head if his hands weren't already occupied. Because that was really the only appropriate reaction to what was transpiring here. It was a real head-scratcher. He could only surmise that the AI was unable to fully grasp the nature of what it was dealing with here, and as a result, could not formulate an effective countermeasure. Either that, or it had some kind of multilayered plan in mind, and all of this was some kind of elaborate ploy to lure him into some other action. Something...predictable, perhaps? Though the idea was actually pretty funny to him, he was starting to get a bit bored all the same. He certainly could sense and feel that the android had been attempting to mess with him via some sort of physics-based mumbo-jumbo. True enough, there was a certain degree of...shall we say, 'overlap' (if only superficially) between the basic laws of nature, as seen in a purely scientific light, and the laws of 'Ether', which also had their own scientific and non-scientific fields of study (depending on where or even 'when' you were). But still, the laws of Ether and all related forms therein, generally eclipsed, surpassed, and outright defied those of common physics, to the point where any attempts at serious comparisons between the two would be not only pointless, but just downright silly. Hell, even the term 'laws of Ether' was kind of misleading in and of itself, being that the only real law, or 'rule' when it came to Ether-based phenomena, was that there really weren't any. Nothing hard and fast that could always be 100% reliable in any given situation, at least. Again, it was always highly situational - where, when, etc.

Suffice it to say, the Captain's powers were not rooted in basic physics, and in particular, the powers he was currently drawing from the DaiKeiOh were especially unique, in that they came directly from a 'cosmic' level divine entity. In essence, the laws of physics, including such core principals as the fundamental building blocks of matter and energy, did not...well, matter. Or at least, they weren't of any real significance. Certainly, Crim himself was still very much a physical being, and subject to the basic laws of whichever universe he happened to be in at any given time. But in addition to that, he was a being who was not only fully versed in the utilization of Ether (in the broadest of terms), but also positively swimming in it at all times. Saturated, even. It actually took more effort to keep it all contained, rather than simply allowing it to flow freely, which was generally the opposite to most Ether-flinging folks. As such, Crim existed in a state where he was both subject to, but also transcendent of common physics. He was fully capable of essentially shattering natural law at will, and did so with casual ease, treating the fundamental physical constants like they were mere suggestions, rather than immutable rules that governed the fabric of (most) reality.

'Entaglements' and quarks and hadrons were all well and good, sure. Hell, Crim could manipulate and repurpose those too, through various means, but that wasn't of any real interest to him in most situations. Why would they be, when his own path of least resistance was so comparatively simple, yet also so very much more potent? Regardless, one thing was absolutely certain: Crim's body sure as hell wasn't susceptible to whatever cockamamie bullshit this android was trying to utilize against him. His atoms or molecules or what have you wouldn't be 'confused' in the slightest, because he held complete dominion over himself and his own state of being. He used the power of the DaiKeiOh to temporarily alter his physical state, but it wasn't in line with anything that common laws of physics held any sway over, much less even understood. Ether existed both as a part of nature and beyond it as well. In a sense, Crim himself existed in much the same way, even to the point of being in outright defiance of what 'should' and 'should not' be possible. In the here and now, the 'Divine Light' (as well as Fire) that unleashed from the DaiKeiOh was not merely photonic in substance, but rather, something drastically more powerful and useful. This was the essence of a divine being, which could freely command common elements and higher Elements alike. Crim's only mistake thus far had been his assumption that the android possessed adequate programming parameters to enable it to grasp these concepts. Unfortunate how that didn't appear to be the case...though he still held some hope that it had some manner of learning algorithm that would allow it to acquire and process new information. After all, it wasn't as though Crim was the only Ether-attuned ne'er-do-well out there. Far from it. Granted, he might be one of the premier individuals of this particular stripe...in that sense, this android might well have been tossed into the deep end wearing a straight jacket by whomever its handlers were. Maybe that was the point? Or maybe they, too, were simply ignorant. Well, either way, it's not like it was his fault or anything! And even if it was, shirking responsibility just happened to be another one of his specialties!

{BGM: "Erosion of Madness"}

Anyways, he figured it was high time he got movin'. For real this time. First, with a simple flick of his left thumb against the tsuba (guard) of DaiKeiOh, he exposed a small sliver of the blade contained within. Doing so resulted in an obscene flash of blazing white and red Divine Ether which generated a spherical shockwave made up of said power. But this actually was just a byproduct of the action itself, serving little purpose other than possibly being a distraction (though it was incredibly destructive all the same). The actual 'main event' or 'big show', as it were, was the thin yet extremely bright and densely focused beam of identically colored Divine Ether that shot out from the sliver of exposed blade. It sliced effortlessly through the building from the ground up, but not all the way through to the top. Instead, it honed in on the android girl's location and increased its intensity several fold when it came into contact with her barrier. This beam was a pure manifestation of the power of DaiKeiOh, and as such, it was easily several times more powerful than the previous blades of Divine Light that Crim had sent out. And again, this wasn't made up of mere photonic energy, either. This was Divine Ether, originating from a deity that hailed from a higher plane of existence, channeled through a cosmic level artifact, wielded by a man who casually defies the laws of reality essentially as a hobby.

To that end, it would have been easy to miss, especially for any normal person who happened to be watching events unfold, but the very instant Crim flicked his thumb to expose the sliver of sheathed blade, he himself seemed to vanish into a mysterious swirling black and white void that appeared to his right side. The sword remained hovering in the air, unleashing its pent-up payload, even as the android girl's own assault continued relatively unabated, albeit with the Divine Ether beam slicing through it along with the building (which was subsequently destroyed entirely).

So what was all this, then? It was more of Crim's physics-bending antics, obviously. This actually hadn't been the first time he'd used this power today, though. He'd also done so earlier, against his prior foe. This was the power granted to him via the Mark of Zeeuvia upon his left hand, which bestowed the blessings of a minor interdimensional deity. Specifically, it allowed him to call upon her at his leisure, in order to 'borrow' her dimensional-rift capabilities, so as to traverse them himself at will. Obviously, such a pact brought with it numerous applications. Also obviously, there would be various limitations (mostly due to the goddess Zeeuvia being stubborn, but also not exactly the strongest of gods). But overall, for Crim's purposes here today, Zeeuvia's 'Spirit Path', as she often referred to it as, was more than adequate. There was a brief time lag after he vanished, which was actually deliberate, so as to throw things off from the perspective of the android. Unless her scanners were multi-dimensional, there would be no way for her to actually track Crim's location during this time. On top of that, she'd have the DaiKeiOh and its overwhelming presence, as well as that pesky beam of ultimate destruction bearing down on her, to contend with.

About 0.66 seconds after the beam struck (assuming it wasn't prevented somehow), the swirling vortex of pitch black and stark white appeared approximately 20 meters off to the android's right side, and from within said vortex, a streak of blazing golden Divine Light surged. Again, this was Crim. He covered the distance in a fraction of an instant, but this time, he returned to his physical form without slowing himself down, colliding his right fist with the barrier while the beam from his sword continued to furiously bombard the barrier from the front. This was one of Crim's signature techniques, and it was only possible due to his various other passive skills being activated in unison.

The first was his Tenken ability, which enabled him to move while bypassing troublesome impediments to high speed movement, such as wind resistance and friction, thus protecting him from sustaining damage simply from moving through the air. His Ether Field also assisted in this regard. Then, there was the phenomena of his hands and arms seemingly glowing red, with veins of radiant white-gold spreading throughout. This was actually his Armament Flow ability, which normally manifested as a green saturation with black veins. But when using it while equipped with DaiKeiOh, the effect is essentially 'colored' by the presence of the blade's innate Elemental affinities, thus resulting in the red/gold coloration. The effect was still the same, of course, which was to drastically bolster Crim's raw physical stamina, strength, and defense by hyper-saturating his body with Ether (or Divine Ether in this case), thereby fortifying his physicality several fold. His bones, muscles, even his skin thus became massively more resilient, to the point where he would be able to weather extreme impact and stress forces, far greater than he would otherwise - and he was already pretty strong in that regard to begin with!

The result? A culmination of abilities that enabled him to unleash his Mass-Energy Impact technique, which was essentially a relativistic kinetic precision strike. Normally, it'd be somewhat limited to somewhere below the speed of light, but since he had the boon of DaiKeiOh's special ability, he was able to go full bore on this one. He appeared with his fist already extended, sliding along the ground (kicking up no dust or debris thanks to his Tenken). He struck with a 'vertical fist' , leading with his right knee forward, slightly bent, while his left hand was extended out behind him, palm open, fingers spread apart. It was at this specific instant that he 'released' his Tenken, which then produced a secondary impact, focused entirely on the same point as his fist strike. At this point, a colossal shockwave explosion was unleashed, which was powerful to the point where it blew every bit of debris and molten mass away for a radius of a full kilometer in every direction, leveling multiple buildings, if not outright obliterating them into dust depending on the construction materials. And he still wasn't quite done. The final stage of the strike incorporated a drill-like construct, made entirely of the Divine Ether that saturated his right arm. The Ether spun up with the intent to penetrate and obliterate anything that still managed to stand in his path. It generated a horrific sound, akin to that of a roaring beast intent on shredding its prey with untamed savagery. Meanwhile, Divine Flames kicked up around his feet and legs, seemingly assisting in driving him forward with even more force. The intense red glow had crept up over part of the left side of his face, while his left eye burned with Divine light and Fire, though now the glow was localized to his iris, while his sclera was an ominous black.

His aura flared up again, unleashing a truly fearsome amount of power, along with a sentiment that could only be described as 'wrath'. Wrath of DaiKeiOh? Or...was it something else? Something...worse? It was probably lost on the android, regardless. Whether she was even still intact... That would depend on whether her barrier could withstand an impact equivalent to an extinction-level event being concentrated into an area roughly the size of a human fist...

For his part, the look on Crim's face could only be described as that of a battle-frenzied madman. It was rare indeed for him to be able to go this hard, after all. So it was only natural that he'd go ahead and cut loose a bit.

{BGM: "Mr. Blue Sky"}

As expected, Crim's attack absolutely demolished the barrier-shell thingy, obliterating it outright and sending its particles scattered and vaporized completely to the four winds. In fact, he overwhelmed it to such an extent, that his forward momentum was hardly even affected at all, as he continued on his trajectory nearly unabated. It was around this time, a mere fraction of a fraction of a second, that he noticed the girl had somehow managed to seemingly predict his course of action in the wake of the introductory beam attack, in order to make herself scarce. Not quite what he would call a 'nasty' surprise. Maybe a bit irksome. Or at least it would have been under other circumstances. Thing is, Crim had himself anticipated this as a very likely outcome. In fact, he'd practically been counting on it. Sure, it had hinged on a hunch, and a fair few other factors that would normally have been considered to be wholly unpredictable, but Crim was a man who enjoyed a long shot. And the longer the shot, the better the payoff.

While the android-chick's attention was apparently diverted elsewhere - which only served Crim's purposes more - he immediately called DaiKeiOh back to his outstretched left hand. During that time, off in the distance, there occurred some manner of large explosion, but it was so far away that it barely registered. Crim had no idea what the point of that could possibly have been, but he figured it was just another strange anomaly. He reckoned something was definitely off about the way this android had been programmed, which was causing it to act irrationally and make various tactical errors that were highly uncharacteristic of battle-oriented androids. Which, suffice to say, provided him with an unexpected advantage, though for his part, such an advantage was both unneccessary and unwelcome. He wanted a proper challenge, after all!

But in any event, the reason he had extended his open palm behind himself at the time of his previous furious strike upon the now annihilated barrier construct, had been specifically for the purpose of calling DaiKeiOh back to his side. Indeed, his intention all along had been to return the blade to his grasp, only this time, it was no mere summoning. As stated, his momentum continued unhindered, and further propelled by the intense Divine Flames that had enveloped his feet and lower legs. He wasn't traveling at light speed this time, but he really had no need to be. And besides that, his course of action required a certain...corporealness in order to be viable. His path took him directly adjacent to the location that the girl had chosen as her point of retreat, a mere 25 or so meters - a paltry distance, really, which he covered in an instant as one might expect at this juncture. This was where the offensive began in earnest. In summoning the blade from his position, it placed the girl directly in its path. This was something of a hidden feature inherent to all of the Cosmic Elemental Gods that Crim wielded. The ability to summon them naturally enabled him to use the process itself as a means of sudden sneak attacks.

While the girl was in the midst of setting up whatever it was she was trying to do, the DaiKeiOh streaked through the air in its Divine Light Ether form, which itself was an extremely powerful, potentially lethal thing to be caught in the path of, which at a bare minimum, would not be a pleasant experience for the android. Would it be enough to end her? Probably not. But it would almost certainly be an extremely disruptive event, and one that had the potential to cause not only a fair amount of injury, but also knock her way off balance, thus causing a significant delay in her actions and response. Even if she somehow saw it coming (highly unlikely though that would be, especially since she apparently believed the blade to have been moving around, which was why she had caused an explosive event well beyond the scope of the battlefield), she would need to divert her attention one way or the other in order to deal with it all. Either onto the incoming sword, or onto Crim himself. Such was the nature of multi-vector attacks, which happened to be one of Crim's areas of expertise.

And of course, of course, Crim wasn't content to simply end with that. He moved to meet the incoming blade partway after it passed by (or quite possibly through) the android, propelling himself with speed and force that well-exceeded anything he'd demonstrated thus far in physical form. He was able to withstand this thanks to his body being physically fortified by the saturation of Ether throughout his bones, joints, musculature, and even his skin. Combined with his Ether Field and his Tenken, the forces exerted upon him from moving so goddamned fast were reduced to a very tolerable minimum. If someone were to be clocking his speed, they'd record him at something approaching 25% of the speed of light. Of course, the incoming DaiKeiOh moved at precisely the speed of light itself. This differential caused the blade to reach Crim just slightly before he reached the girl, which was by design as well. He caught the blade at around ten meters distance from his target, and it immediately manifested back to its physical form, ready to be drawn in earnest for the first time. Which was precisely what he did in that very instant. The blade unleashed an ear-splitting howl as it was torn from its scabbard in a deadly arc, producing numerous effects simultaneously. A raw physical shockwave surged through the air, of such magnitude that it caused dimensional vibrations that actually destabilized spacetime itself, if only briefly, and localized to the immediate vicinity (primarily focused on the android, obviously). Alongside this, no fewer than a half-dozen rotating crescent-shaped blades of Divine Fire/Light Ether were sent forth, each one traveling at light speed, and each one capable of easily rending the armor of high-level mobile units or battleships, shields and all. But as potent as these forces were, they still paled in comparison to the direct strike from DaiKeiOh in Crim's hands, which was an exceedingly rare thing to witness indeed.

His sword-drawing techniques were the stuff of legends, though he almost never opted to utilize these skills. This was largely due to their sheer lethality, which was a constant concern for him, given his 'curse', which inflicted dire pain and punishment upon him if he ever killed Humans or other such beings. However, the curse did not extend to monsters, demons, deities, or artificial life forms. Which gave him free reign to 'go nuts', as it were, whenever facing down such entities. In this case, though, he still opted to hold back juuust a tad. While the physical shockwave and Divine Fire/Light blades were indeed lethally powerful on their own, he had a strong feeling that they wouldn't be quite enough to destroy the android, even if they all connected - which was a likely outcome, given the sheer suddenness of his counter, and the fact that she had essentially, perhaps even catastrophically, misjudged the situation. His direct strike, or rather, strikes with DaiKeiOh itself were aimed at crippling points, but not to outright kill. The gleaming red and gold-tinted blade, looking like it had come straight out of the Divine Forge, radiated with unnatural power as Crim slashed at her shoulders and knees - with such speed that each strike seemed to happen at the exact same time. From her perspective, enhanced as her visual prowess may have been, it very likely would appear as though Crim was somehow making four simultaneous cuts at different points of her body, due to the fact that up to this point, Crim has demonstrated a clear edge in the speed category. But also coupled with the preceding (by mere microseconds, really) physical and Ether effects that had unleashed from the blade simply through the act of drawing it, which in all likelihood would have stunned the android at an absolute minimum, if not inflicting severe damage on their own.

With his momentum still largely intact, he'd continue a trajectory beyond the android's location post-assault, spinning around as he careened across the ground. Unless, of course, something managed to prevent him from doing so. The Ether saturation covered most of his body at this point, with trails of red/gold mist-like energies rising up from him. Even his hair was glowing an even brighter shade of red than usual, looking like bloodstained fire. He held DaiKeiOh out to his right side, grasping the scabbard in his left hand, with both objects radiating Divine Ether, as he looked on from a distance of a little over 300 meters, coming to a halt with his back to the remaining outer wall of a smoldering, ruined building...prepared to react yet again, in the event that his adversary had managed to escape his sudden brutality unscathed. If so...well, he still had plenty more where that came from.