HP: god of potions

Chapter 140

So yes, Gray was once again pulling a Gray, which was basically screwing over everyone else because he wanted a power-up. And it was working, as he was visibly growing more and more powerful with the information he gained about his domain. The only beings who were suffering were the great cosmic horror and Rachel, which Gray felt extremely guilty about. But clearly, from what he had felt, Merlin, even without meeting Gray, was already too powerful for him. And with the speed that Gray was progressing, if he didn't pull what he was currently doing, then he knew that he wouldn't stand a chance. So he had no choice but to stall for time, even if it meant slowly losing his emotions.

-scene change several thousands of death later-

In the void between worlds, where the stars themselves seemed to recoil in fear, Grey hovered, his domain stretched outward like the birth of a new cosmos. The once-fluid nature of his realm had solidified, no longer an ephemeral mist but a tangible force, an extension of his very being.

Rachel stood inside the TARDIS, watching through the vast, reinforced observation window. The shimmering expanse of Grey's domain painted the void in shifting hues—an ever-changing tapestry of energy, matter, and the unknown. As she observed, the ship's systems interpreted the domain's nature, displaying complex data in luminous projections. It was no longer a mere distortion of space but a structured force, capable of reshaping reality itself.

"This time," Rachel murmured, eyes fixed on the battle about to unfold, "he's using only his domain…"

Grey, floating in the void, felt the presence before he saw it. The Great Cosmic Horror slithered from the abyss, its form an abomination beyond natural geometry. Its flesh, if it could be called such, was an amalgamation of writhing tentacles, jagged protrusions, and cyclopean eyes that opened and closed in a grotesque rhythm. It moved with an otherworldly grace, flowing rather than shifting, as if space itself bent to accommodate its presence.

The battle began.

Grey raised his hand, and his domain responded instantly. A lance of pure entropy formed before him, a spear of negative existence, blacker than the void itself. It did not shine, nor did it glimmer—it devoured light, dragging the fabric of reality into its core. With a flick of his fingers, the lance shot forward. It moved without acceleration, as if it had always been where it needed to be, impacting one of the horror's central masses. The effect was immediate and violent.

The horror's flesh recoiled, not from force but from conceptual rejection. The lance unmade whatever it touched, erasing the section of the creature's form from existence itself. A deep, reverberating howl echoed through the void, not a sound, but a thought forced into reality, a scream felt rather than heard. The horror did not bleed—it could not. It merely adjusted, the lost mass replaced by shifting, ever-growing appendages.

Grey did not falter. He gestured again, and his domain obeyed. A great chasm of golden energy opened beneath the creature—a gravitational maw that pulled everything inward. This was not ordinary gravity, but a hunger in the fabric of space itself. The horror's tendrils elongated unnaturally, resisting, but one of its lower masses was caught in the event horizon. The moment it touched the golden abyss, it was not merely crushed; it was rewritten, its existence transmuted into Grey's domain.

Rachel's hands clenched into fists as the horror retaliated. Tendrils of writhing madness shot forward, piercing into Grey's domain. The moment they touched, his domain trembled, resisting the invasion. The tendrils were not physical—they were violations of understanding, concepts of dread made tangible. They slithered through his domain's layers, unraveling the reality he had woven. Grey clenched his teeth as his domain distorted around him, pieces of it folding and warping unnaturally.

He retaliated instantly. With a gesture, his domain solidified further, morphing into crystalline barriers of raw law. Each was a rule given form, immutable axioms that rejected intrusion. The tendrils struck the first barrier and recoiled, unable to comprehend it. They struck again, and cracks spread like veins of fire across the crystal walls. The barriers collapsed, but they had done their job—stopping the tendrils for even a moment was victory enough.

Grey's counterattack was immediate. The ground within his domain erupted into spikes of shifting reality—each spike a condensed fragment of what-could-be, stabbing forward in unpredictable patterns. The horror dodged, its form bending impossibly to weave through the attack. But Grey anticipated this. The spikes shattered, not as a failure, but by design. From each shattered fragment, new spikes emerged, growing exponentially, a fractal weapon that adapted as quickly as the horror moved.

For the first time, the horror did not evade completely. A portion of its body was impaled, and the effect was catastrophic. The spikes did not merely pierce; they rewrote. The impaled flesh became something else entirely—a chunk of it transformed into a mass of inorganic stone, another portion into cascading waterfalls of liquid energy, and yet another became an expanding storm of endless lightning. The horror shrieked, its form unraveling momentarily before it forcibly reconstituted itself.

It lashed out, this time not with tendrils, but with its core presence. A wave of anti-reality expanded outward, washing over Grey's domain. Where it touched, his domain shuddered and cracked. The once-solidified space shattered like fragile glass, sending shards of broken law spiraling into the void. The pain was instant, and Grey's breath hitched. His domain was not merely a tool—it was him, his essence, his understanding made manifest. Having it broken was like having his bones ground into dust, his soul flayed apart fiber by fiber.

Rachel gasped as she saw Grey convulse in midair, his body wracked with agony. The domain continued to fracture as the horror pressed its attack, pouring more of its vile essence into the destruction. Grey struggled to contain the collapse, his mind frantically weaving new structures to reinforce the breaking space, but it was too much. With a final, shattering crack, his domain collapsed entirely, scattering into the void like the dying echoes of a shattered dream.

Grey gasped, his body seizing from the sheer, overwhelming pain. And then— Darkness. A moment later, he was back. The Return by Death had activated, and time reset to 24 hours before.

--- Scene Change: Several Thousand Deaths Later ---

Outside the TARDIS, Grey floated once more, his form bathed in the dim glow of his domain. His emotions had dimmed further, sinking into a void of apathy, yet paradoxically, this loss had strengthened him. Where his domain had once been malleable, now it pulsed with tangible force, a lattice of reality woven with the threads of his will. The fabric of existence around him twisted in synchronization, no longer simply an extension of himself but an absolute law unto its own. And then it came.