Sobek's body shrunk as he deactivated [Ultimate Mutation]; thanks to this, his head slipped off the robot's foot and the dinosaur was free again. Within seconds, a new arm replaced the severed one, the dorsal sail repaired itself, and all wounds vanished. The spinosaurus picked up his [Personal weapon] again.

Wafner watched as he tried unsuccessfully to restart the robot, which still didn't move an inch. "What have you done?"

"Easy. You said this was a video game for you, right?" Sobek said. "Well, it was for me too. With the difference that I played two games instead of one"

"What… what are you saying?"

"Very simple. You must know that I can use up to three mutations at the same time… but so far, to face you, I have only used two. Why?"

Wafner froze as he was struck by the revelation. "Did you do something to the robot!?"

"Of course yes! I could never have won in a one-on-one battle against this mechanical monstrosity with the use of my brute strength alone. But everything has a weakness, and I had the perfect mutation to exploit yours" Sobek's smile widened. "[Water Mutation]. To put it simply, hydrokinesis"

"Hydrokinesis?"

"The Moon isn't just made up of dust and debris, as many people think. There are tiny drops of frozen water all over the surface" Sobek replied. "I had to summon all my concentration, and it was very difficult while we fought… but during our fight I collected every single water molecule around us and put it inside your robot. I filled every single available space, every joint, every delicate piece of equipment. And when everything was filled, I changed the mutation. Instead of hydrokinesis, I activated cryokinesis. And so, the water was turned into ice. One of the interesting characteristics of water is that it increases in volume when it solidifies. Right now, your robot is filled with pressurized ice which prevents any movement"

"You bastard! How did you know the robot had empty spaces?"

"Part of it was obvious. It would be impossible for that stuff to work if it was a single block of material. And then, you yourself revealed it to me, when I tried to use my roar" Sobek laughed even more. "I played a dangerous game, you know… if I could have knocked myself down just seconds earlier, I wouldn't have had time to be able to block you. Thank you for being so talkative"

Wafner's anger rose. Had he been in front of the spinosaurus, and not hundreds of thousands of kilometers away, he would have thrown himself at it to punch it, regardless of the disproportion of forces. "If you think that's enough to stop me…!"

"I don't think so at all. In fact, I'm certainly not going to wait for you to recover! If you think I'll wait for your microbots to destroy the ice, stay cool!" Sobek exclaimed. "Let me show you another interesting feature of water!"

[Select Mutation: Electricity Mutation]

Sobek's claws sizzled and a small beam of light emerged from them and hit the robot's chest squarely. For a moment nothing happened, then several explosions were generated inside the robot. The artificial backsail shattered piece by piece. The huge machine fell to the ground from the force of the blow.

"What... What the…" Wafner whispered.

"Electrokinesis" Sobek explained. "One of the fundamental characteristics of water is that it absorbs electricity and returns it with far greater power. Right now inside your robot is full of frozen water. My lightning used it as a conductor to travel throughout your machine and fry every circuit it reached. In particular, it destroyed your solar panels" he said, pointing to the shattered dorsal sail. "Did you think I wouldn't notice? Everything in this world needs energy. Your robot's solar sail was used to obtain energy from the Sun. This is why you chose to face me here on the side exposed to the Sun, rather than on the dark side, even if there I would have been more in difficulty due to the lack of light. You were clever to put the solar panels in a spot that I would hardly have reached in a one-on-one battle, but unfortunately one of the characteristics of solar panels is that they are incredibly fragile… a little excess electricity was enough to destroy them"

"Damn you! Why don't my microbots fix it!?"

"What microrobots? The electrical discharge fried every single electrical circuit in your robot, including microbots. I am more than certain that this machine has a way to produce more… but how will it do without solar panels and, therefore, without energy?"

Wafner grit his teeth. If Sobek had been able to see him he could not have held back his laughter: the emperor had turned red with rage and seemed about to explode.

"Now, let's finish this!" the spinosaurus exclaimed, and his [Personal weapon] mutated into an arrow with two small engines at its base. Sobek had created it some time ago based on the arrow of Yondu, a character from the 'Guardians of the Galaxy', and it had taken a long time to get it working, but now it was ready.

The arrow flew, moved by its master's will, and penetrated the robot's right shoulder. Without any difficulty he reached the joints, now barely intact due to the ice and the electric discharge, and destroyed them in one fell swoop.

There was a crack, then his arm began to detach, exposing the inside of the robot. Sobek fired his [Personal anti-aircraft] at the damaged spot, completely destroying it. The shattered pieces of the right arm collapsed on the lunar ground and never moved again.

Sobek repeated the operation for the other arm, the legs, the tail, the head; wherever there were joints, he destroyed them. Eventually, all of the robot's limbs were reduced to useless fragments. The only part that remained intact was the torso, the only piece of the robot where there were no joints since it had no parts that moved independently of the others.

"It's over" Sobek said. "Now I can leave. I will exit this area and then use [Teleportation] to return to Eden". His tone hardened and his eyes narrowed. "I told you I'd come get you. Your plan has failed, Wafner"

But unexpectedly, the robot's torso sizzled and lit up again. Under the surprised eyes of the spinosaurus, the material of which it was made changed shape and turned into a perfect sphere, devoid of any opening. "It's not over yet!" Wafner exclaimed. "I said you would die here, and you will die here! I may not be able to punch you to death like I wanted to, but you won't survive this!"

"What the hell…? Shit! It had an auxiliary generator!" Sobek thought, then reactivated the [Atomic Mutation] and fired an atomic beam at the sphere. However, even as the surface began to liquefy, the spinosaurus was barely able to scratch it. Evidently, all the super-dense material of which the robot's torso was made had compacted to form a patina with the same characteristics as [Reinforced skin] several meters thick.

"Inside this sphere is a teleportation device!" Wafner shouted. "In less than twenty seconds, it will be carrying here a kilogram of plasma directly from the core of the Sun! As soon as it arrives, it will explode with the force of a star! You will be turned into steam instantly! You don't have time to escape or destroy the sphere! You're done! Surrender to your fate!"

Sobek felt fear grip his heart. He had no doubts that what Wafner was saying was true: this was just the final surprise attack that he expected from someone like him.

Sobek knew of the Empire's plans to bring pieces of the Sun to Eden, so he had been able to read up on them. And now he knew that if that happened, the solar plasma stripped of the pressure and gravity that held it together would explode with unparalleled power. A single gram per cubic centimeter was enough to burn everything within a radius of 300 km.

If a kilogram of solar plasma had come so close to him, Sobek would have died for sure. And not only that: it would have been catastrophic for everyone.

The solar plasma, exploding, would have wiped out a good part of the lunar surface. Even if there was no one on the Moon who could get hurt, thousands and thousands of debris would have been hurled straight towards Eden. If that had happened, it would have been very bad in the extreme.

It was unlikely that even one of those micrometeorites would make it to the ground, but that didn't matter. That many hot rocks passing through the atmosphere at once would have heated the air to hundreds if not thousands of degrees Celsius. The surface of Eden would have literally been baked. Temperatures could have reached levels that would melt silver.

In the face of such a calamity, any animal and plant life that was unable to escape underground would be cooked alive. The oceans might even have boiled. Practically, the apocalypse wanted by Wafner would have already been well underway.

He had to prevent it.

But how? Wafner was right, he had no way of breaking the sphere, not in such a short time at least. He still only had ten seconds left. Even using all of his mutations at once, he'd never be able to crack the ward.

Unless he… used 'that'.

Sobek froze for a moment. He'd hoped he'd never have to use it. When he had read the description of that monstrosity some time ago, he had decided that he would not use it unless it was an extreme situation.

Well, that was an extreme situation. If not now, when?

"Congratulations, Wafner" Sobek said.

Hearing those words, the emperor laughed: "So you give up?"

"Of course not. But it is right that I congratulate you. No one, before today, had ever managed to push me to my maximum potential. Neither Quaritch, nor Davis, nor any other opponent I've ever met" Sobek replied. "So rejoice. At least, you can say that you really cornered me! You have shown me the true power of human technology; allow me now to introduce you to the true power of the universe!"

The spinosaurus opened his mouth and seemed to roar at the dark sky.

[Ultimate Move: Black Hole]