The World's most Overpowered Side-Character

Chapter 313: Lars.

"The Eighth...?" Cecelia took a step backwards, staring out into the void and searching with her own to confirm his whereabouts. "Are you sure?" She asked a second time, slowly shaking her head.

"We aren't safe here, none of..." She froze and looked at Sol and Ikaris who were both regarding her with stares askance of anything resembling fear or even worry; Sol for one was slightly smiling, while Ikaris had a stare resembling excitement when she looked to the skies a second time and then at Dina.

"Would you like to take a crack at an overpowered opponent?" She extended an invite to the mage who had an expression of annoyance after her appearance had returned to normal. "Dina?"

"I want to say yes, but considering the gap in power between us, it could in fact get me killed before anyone else can react," Dina answered with a bitter expression masking her face.

"This is dangerous, we know who he is but we have no idea what he is capable of outside of the fact that he is supposed to be exponentially more powerful than Nine was, and I stood no chance against Nine, so it is a bad idea."

"Good call, I would never sit here and watch you fight someone of his caste either way," Ikaris hummed and turned to Sol who nodded in agreement with her statement. "The rest of you should retreat, allow me to handle this one myself, I fear you will only serve as an obstacle if you are near me or try to help."

"Don't worry, Ikaris, I've got them covered," Sol looked up at her again and smiled when she huffed and slowly began ascending.

Like she usually did, as soon as Ikaris was out of plain sight Alpha began relaying a feed directly into everyone who had access to the system's head, showign them several simultaneous viewpoints which they could easily alternate between.

Far into the void, the Eighth General stood on a piece of bed floating aimlessly as he stared at the star and at the path that the attack had come from, he was going to follow the trails left by what he considered a surprise attack but he stopped when a nearby planet became a beacon from a great white light shooting off into the outer system from Ikaris.

"You wish to challenge me alone?" The man asked with a smirk, wondering who amongst his foes dare challenge him alone, but confident in his own power he leapt off the debris and flew ahead, arriving so fast and with so much force that the planet was pushed off its orbit destroying the entirety of the surface in the process and leaving it a glowing rock of lava and eruptions.

It was not small, and the entire process took upwards of an hour to even show the signs, but Ikaris stood there patienty for the entire duration enduring everything like a casual wind and then walking clapping her hands with a scoff, undoing the apocalypse he had created in an instant and setting the planet back on its course.

"Oh...?" The general raised his brows in surprise when the hellscape before him was suddenly a calm daytime scenery again; a vast expanse of nothng but sand and stone with not a single sign of life in sight, then from a seemingly random direction Ikaris walked from the last cloud of volcanic smoke and stood facing him.

"Not a shred of enhancements as far as I can see," Ikaris raised her brows. The eighth General was a tall lean man, and unlike all the generals before him that she had met he didn't have ant enhancements at all, not even the suit, he was completely bare of any evidence of tampering by the Emporium, he wore the uniform as it was intended to be worn with nothing on top of or beneath it.

He had eyes of hazel and black hair reaching the length of his shoulder with silver ends and highlights, but nothing of his physical appearance stuck out to the goddess; what she found odd about this man was the strange and slightly familiar energy coming from his person; she somehow knew what it was but she could not figure out why she recognised the strange power or even what it was supposed to be.

"He doesn't have a shred of enhancements on him, and that power he used a moment ago was not fuelled by LAW, and he doesn't have even a shred of mana in his body; who exactly is the eighth general supposed to be?" Sol narrowed his eyes. "Or a better question should be what is he?" He stared. "That man is not human, and I have no idea of any other species that can attain that level of power."

"Could he have found another way to grow that strong, could there be other means of gaining power that we are not aware of?" Arla asked from next to him.

"Someone capable of what he just did without utilizing LAW or Mana..." Sol mused.

"I don't know enough about the powers that be in the Grand Collective to say it's an impossibolity, however, I should have expected somrone like this, the war began before LAW was the absolute power, and there is no rule saying that only mana exists and can empower us, it is merely the foundation of power which we thrive upon, Celestials and other beings out there exist which have utilised strange and terrible power before," He gestured to Cecelia.

"She has the ability to destroy an entire universe by collapsing the black hole that pulls it, she has been able to do that long before she even knew what Mana was, Ikaris and many others I know of could do things like that without the use of mana, the problem there is, they are all Celestial beings of nigh unfathomable power."

"A Celestial... hm?" Ikaris slowly repeated the word after listening in on their conversation for a moment. "What a waste, why would a Celestial work so diligently for the same people who are trying to eradicate his kind from the face of reality?" She asked, amd the general before her slightly narrowed his eyes.

"You figured out I was a Celestial at a glance... well," He paused and looked around at their surroundings, thinking of how easily she had undone the destruction he had caused. "I suppose as a CElestial yourself and a self-proclaimed goddess, you would be able to tell what I am at a glance," He carefully regarded Ikaris from her head to her feet and then balled his fist and pointed it at her.

"I am indeed a Celestial, but do not lump me in with your inferior species, I am High-bred!"

""What nonsense," Ikaris chuckled and raised her fist mimicking his dramatic pose. "Vatui and Godslayers are the ultimate species, there is no denying that, they even surpassed their ancestor Celestial brethren, there are none higher, we are the peak of evolution!" She stared at him with a smirk.

"No, that is not entirely true, my daughter is a new creation; a mixture of Divinity, Vatui and Godslayer, she is the ultimate being, by the time she is of age there will be nothing in existence more powerful than her, not even My husband."

"A mongrel birthed from divine misconception, that abomination you think of as your child is nothing but a filthy mudblood, how disgu-AAGH...!!" His rant turned into a scream of pain when Ikaris's aimed hand suddenly unleashed a thinned and concentrated [PULSAR] directly into his chest from a distance she knew he hadn't expected anything that fast to come from, it didn't pierce his skin it didn't even break his clothes, the speed needed to accomplish this blitz of an attack had sacrificed much of the destructive power it would usually have, but he felt it in his gut like a punch from out of the blue, his feet raised off the ground and his knees landed with a loud thud as the beam spread around him and tore two trenches through the land.

"My daughter is the pinnacle of creation," Ikaris stared at him with her eyes blazing crimson as her hair began turning to white in reaction to her emotions. "How dare you desecrate her name in my presence?" She pointed her finger at him and began walking.

"Even as my enemy, keep your dignity, Lars, Eighth General of the Emporium, do at least that much before you die, you bravely showed up by yourself, confident in your victory and proclaimed yourself superior, so tell me Lars, why are you still on your knees after that weak attack?" She asked.

"You-"

[Pulsar]

Ikaris unleashed another concentrated beam directly at his face, but her eyes flinched when Lars raised his hand and blocked the attack with his bare palm causing it to disperse against his skin as he slowly stood, she already knew such an attack was useless against him, but the mere fact that he was fast enough to catch it when he wasn't even looking made her more wary, of course she already was, which was why she intended to stick with what she knew rather than use new techniques with a higher chance of failure; the plan was a simple one...

[Unknownn tier; Pulsar]