The planet's heart, only minutes ago alive and pulsing, now lay still, snuffed out in the wake of titans.
The battle between William and the Hulk had been apocalyptic. Their blows had split mountains, shattered the upper crust, and sent seismic waves ripping through the mantle. But it was their final clash, an earth-rending impact, that had done the unthinkable: it had silenced the core. A world, alive moments before, now teetered on the brink of death.
And in that silence, in the pressure-choked hollows beneath the world's surface, William stood alone.
The molten chamber was dim and fading, lit only by the blazing constructs he had forged with his own ki, burning handholds and footholds driven deep into the unyielding inner wall of the planet. His body was a sculpture of tension, every muscle taut like a drawn bowstring. Each breath he took came ragged, filled with heat and pressure and the weight of impossible expectations.
The world beneath him was dying.
And yet—
It moved.
Just slightly. Like a chest taking its first breath after cardiac arrest. The core turned, reluctantly, hesitantly, groaning under its own mass as if confused about whether it deserved to live again.
The movement sent a vibration up William's spine. He felt it, not just physically, but spiritually. It was working. But not fast enough.
His jaw tightened. The strain pulled sweat from his skin in rivers, and the heat was now unbearable even for someone like him. Still, his eyes burned, not with exhaustion, but with purpose.
"Come back…" he growled under his breath, voice trembling with emotion. "Breathe… live again…"
The construct under his hands flared suddenly, changing hue, from molten orange to brilliant blue, as more of his ki surged into it. The transformation was elemental. Now they weren't just energy anchors, they were extensions of his soul, digging deeper, fusing with the mantle, injecting raw vitality into the very bones of the planet.
And still the core resisted.
The toll on William's body became visible: veins bulged like cords around his neck and arms, skin flushed red with overexertion, ki flickering erratically around him. His aura spiked, briefly hitting Super Saiyan, then wavering, his body flickering between golden radiance and chaotic sparks of godlike blue.
His teeth bared in a snarl. He clenched his fists tighter around the construct grips.
"RRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!"
The scream tore through him like a volcanic eruption.
It wasn't just a roar of exertion, it was a command to the cosmos, a demand that the universe obey. The sound tunneled through miles of earth and stone and burst out of the surface like a shockwave. On the crust above, the sky shook. Wind froze. People felt it.
In every city, village, and ruin on the planet, the same phenomenon unfolded: heads snapped upward, ears ringing from the divine noise. Children cried. Warriors dropped to one knee, instinctively recognizing something ancient in that voice. Some wept. Others worshipped. A few trembled in terror.
They thought it was the wrathful cry of a god.
But below, in the bowels of the planet, it was just a man. A man raging against death itself.
And slowly… painfully…
The heart of the world began to turn.
Not because it was ready. Not because it could.
But because William refused to let it die.
"RUMBLE!"
The sound was no longer seismic, it was primordial, the voice of the planet itself groaning under the strain of rebirth. Beneath the crust, at the molten crossroads between life and annihilation, William was changing.
The blazing blue constructs, once golden and furious, now deepened in color, shifting into an unstable amethyst glow, flickering like lightning behind storm clouds. The heat around them warped space, and the air grew thick with a pressure that felt divine, like reality itself braced for what came next.
William's aura, once a controlled blaze, erupted.
It fractured outward in jagged waves, electricity crackling and dancing along the edges like sentient chains of light. Snaking bolts of lightning twisted through his limbs and spine, merging into his ki, until they were no longer separate energies, they were one force, a chaotic blend of rage, divinity, and momentum.
And then—
The entire chamber flashed white. William ascended.
Super Saiyan Two hit like an eruption. His golden aura sharpened into jagged flames, chaotic and violent, crowned with wild arcs of bio-electricity that tore through the atmosphere like celestial whips. The constructs surrounding him expanded, their surfaces shimmering like superheated metal, and from his back—
Another pair of arms emerged.
Not flesh. Not ki. Something in-between. They moved independently at first, like predators testing their claws, and then coiled into purpose. With six arms now flaring with energy, William looked less like a warrior and more like an Asura of fire and wrath, a deity of infernos birthed from the planet's pain.
Unseen by William in his blinding surge of power, a transformation deeper than Super Saiyan was underway.
Above the crown of his head, the air shimmered, as if something resisted entry into the world. But it came regardless. Two demonic horns, jagged and ancient in shape, began to slowly materialize. They didn't grow, they appeared, like old memories forced back into existence. Just above his scalp, they hovered… halted, as if kept at bay by some invisible law, some final tether to his humanity.
Until it snapped.
An inverted Omega sigil, pitch black and burning, etched itself onto William's forehead, like a brand carved by fate. The horns clicked into place. Not grafted. Not forced. Chosen.
And then, everything went dark.
Not outside. Inside. William's mind vanished. His consciousness slipped beneath the waves like a candle into a black ocean. What remained standing wasn't William anymore, it was something older, something buried, now stirred loose by the cataclysmic energy he'd dared to summon.
The constructs around him shifted again.
Where once they resembled his own hands and feet, they now mutated, volcanic in shape, ashen gray with cracks that burned from within. Deep green flames erupted from those fissures, flames that didn't just burn matter, they seared soul, scorched intention, and radiated a power that no mortal tongue could name.
From William's lips, now curled in a feral, wicked smile, steam and smoke poured like breath from a dragon's nostrils. His teeth glinted unnaturally white, canines sharper than before.
And then, in a voice that didn't belong to him—
A voice that rumbled like thunder from the belly of the world—
"MOOOOOVVEEEE."
The command was not a plea.
It was law.
The aura around William no longer resembled ki. It had become fire itself, dancing and devouring with wild sentience. It ignited the very chamber, crawling along stone, liquefying rock, devouring gravity. The flames licked the edges of the core, no longer hesitant, no longer needing coaxing.
Every inch of the core blazed alight.
The massive, resurrected sphere of planetary metal roared into motion, spinning as William's six flaming arms wrenched it around like a wrathful titan turning a celestial crank. It no longer moved reluctantly. Now it spun like a storm, the fire of a million suns blooming from its surface.
A world was being reborn.
Above the surface, the world trembled.
Cities that had cracked beneath the weight of destruction now felt a new energy surging from below, an unnatural, rolling pressure, like the belly of the planet had turned into a furnace ready to erupt. Skyships lost altitude. Birds fell still in the air. Across continents, even the tectonic plates seemed to hold their breath.
And then—
"HULK… SMASH."
The ground split.
From miles away, a green comet of muscle and fury rocketed into the crust, punching a hole in the mantle with nothing but knuckles and rage. The Hulk, scarred, bloodied, seething, descended like a meteor into the hell below, tearing through miles of bedrock with bare hands and primal instinct.
But this wasn't the rage of a beast.
This was purpose.
He had felt it the moment William vanished. The moment the roar echoed through every fiber of the planet. Hulk didn't understand the magic or the science. But he knew what was happening.
The boy was gone.
And something else had taken his place.
He wasn't going to let that happen.
Through pressure tunnels and magma rivers, Hulk carved his path, shrugging off superheated stone, ignoring molten pressure that would've crushed tanks flat. His skin sizzled. His breath steamed. But he kept digging, faster, harder, his fists hammering like drills, his growls deepening into a battle cry against the world itself.
And then, finally—
He broke through.
The chamber opened like a wound, and Hulk landed hard, his feet slamming into the scorched floor of the planet's core with a shockwave that cracked molten rock.
He froze.
In front of him was William, but it wasn't William anymore.
Six arms of flame spun around the spinning planetary core like a blasphemous god. His aura was alive, ravenous, green fire swirling like it wanted to consume creation itself. Volcanic constructs churned with unnatural precision. The Omega brand on his forehead pulsed with power, and his eyes, if they could still be called that, were wide, empty, and glowing like dying stars.
William stood in fire like a king of hell.
But Hulk didn't flinch. Not even a step.
"...Kid," he muttered, voice low. There was no anger in it, just recognition. "You're not supposed to burn out like this."
William didn't respond.
Not with words.
The green fire flared, defensive, hungry. The six burning arms twisted, rotating around the core like celestial machinery. William's head tilted just slightly, the smile still on his face. The body was alive. The mind wasn't.
Hulk stepped forward through the inferno.
The heat was immense. Unnatural. Every step was like walking through solar wind. His skin blistered, peeled, healed, and peeled again. But he didn't stop.
He couldn't stop.
"You think this scares Hulk?" he growled through gritted teeth. "I've fought gods. I've broken stars. But I don't leave people behind."
Flames swirled, trying to push him back. The inverted Omega glowed brighter. The six arms raised, ready to strike—
But Hulk didn't strike back.
Instead, he leapt forward, through the whirling vortex of chaos, and wrapped all four of William's true arms in a bear hug so tight, so raw, it shook the chamber itself.
"ENOUGH!" Hulk roared. "YOU'RE COMING BACK!"
There was no ki blast. No punch. No clash.
Just a collision of will.
Green gamma energy met blazing green fire. Anger met something older. The spinning constructs flickered, hesitated. The volcanic arms began to spasm, their rhythm disrupted. William's body thrashed, possessed by forces even he didn't understand, but Hulk held firm, like an unbreakable mountain wrapped around a dying sun.
"You're not a demon," Hulk growled, his voice almost gentle beneath the rumble. "You're a kid... and you're mine to beat up later. Not now."
The horns on William's head cracked. The Omega symbol began to dim.
And somewhere, deep beneath the layers of transformation, power, and fury—
William blinked.
Just once.
And then collapsed.
His aura extinguished like a flame in a vacuum. The volcanic arms shattered into sparks. The constructs dissolved. The core, now fully reignited, spun on its own, no longer needing to be forced.
The planet would live.
And in the center of that inferno, Hulk cradled the unconscious body of William Parker, shielding him from the flames with his own battered form.
"…Told you," Hulk whispered as he turned, leaping skyward with his arm curled tight around the kid's shoulders. "Nobody burns out on my watch."