A new chapter

Hyperman then realized that now, he finally had free will for the first time in his life. No longer was there an invisible guiding hand manipulating every circumstance of his life. At this point, he was free to choose how to live and what to do. Hyperman immediately realized what it was that he wanted to do. In a way, he wanted to follow in the footsteps of his father, but he wanted to do it in a more noble way than him. He wanted to be a protector of all of existence, or at least as much as he could access. He wanted to be a beacon of hope to all those he could reach, and mediate between the forces of good and evil. For he was one of the very few to walk the fine line between these two opposing powers.

Prismus asked to stay with Hyperman in his journeys, wanting to have more adventures and discover more things with him. With a chuckle, Hyperman agreed. But the story was not yet over. After he recovered, Hyperman would face a brand new threat. And like the last one, it was a family matter…

Ultraman is a grudgeful defective clone of The Seventh, who harbored a bitter resentment against both his "father" and his perceived "favorite son", Hyperman. He attempted to kill Hyperman and take his place, using Demon Thread to achieve this, but his plan was foiled when Creator banished all Demon Thread – and him by proxy – into the Outside. As a result, he became a Devil and was rescued by Destroyer, who increased Ultraman's power and made him his champion. Still, in the end, Ultraman was ultimately defeated by Hyperman, and sent into a state of eternal recession.

The being that would become Ultraman began his life as a creature named Æ-45b, or just “45b” for short. 45b was just one member of an entire race created by Seven, all made from Seven's own essence and thus, in a sense, offspring of him. 45b was a more experimental clone, who was created by one of Seven’s attempts to create a failsafe for transferring his essence, should his original manifestation have ever been too severely damaged. 45b had all the attributes of a standard member of Seven’s created race, except all of his genetic traits were enhanced to the highest possible degree. As part of the failsafe, 45b was suspended in stasis within an incubation machine, remaining unconscious until the failsafe hypothetically being activated in response to heavy damage sustained by Seven.

When the time finally came, and Seven was gravely wounded in his fight against the other Heptagon Lords, the failsafe was activated. Seven had prior stored a part of his essence within the machine, which upon the activation of the failsafe infused itself into 45b. The problem, however, was that the massive environmental destruction caused by the battle affected the machine, thus also damaging 45b’s body as well as making it so that the machine did not fully activate and release 45b from stasis. To add to this, The Seventh’s original manifestation was still active and not completely destroyed, and thus his consciousness was not transferred into the form of 45b. With 45b no longer being an avenue to gain a new vessel, The Seventh forgot him, especially after abandoning his pocket dimension and going into hiding elsewhere. Eventually, a disruption in the pocket dimension had inadvertently activated the incubator, finally releasing 45b. Given the damage to the machine from the Seventh’s battle, as well as prolonged environmental exposure, 45b exited his stasis as an oozing mass of sludge and gunk. He struggled to keep his form intact, and he was barely able to mobilize himself on his heavily deformed limbs. As the pocket dimension was completely desolate and abandoned, with Hyperman and Prismus having already departed, 45b was completely lost and aimless. He was left with no prior context as to who he was, why he was here and what his purpose in life truly was. However, he still held faint memories that didn’t belong to him, those of The Seventh. Because of that, 45b at first believed himself to have truly been The Seventh, or what memories of The Seventh could be remembered. However, after searching the pocket dimension, 45b uncovered The Seventh’s laboratory. Examination of the left-behind research and equipment revealed to 45b who he was. He was not in fact The Seventh, but rather a failed experiment intended to replicate him if The Seventh's original form needed a replacement. 45b’s life was turned upside down already, and he had only been born mere hours ago. He could not remember any of his own memories before waking up, so he was clearly not The Seventh. Therefore, 45b technically was a mistake, who wasn't even supposed to exist . And judging by the pocket dimension’s derelict state, his "father" obviously didn't know of or care for him.

45b's next goal was to find a way to reconstitute his body into a more stable form. He discovered a spool of thread attached to a contraption, vaguely resembling a sewing machine, left behind by The Seventh. 45b discovered through rereading the research records that this thread was yet another attempt by The Seventh to extend his lifespan. He had captured a multarach and extracted its silk, experimenting on it and modifying the substance. Through the experiments, the Seventh had optimized and repurposed the multarach silk into a new material, dubbed “Demon Thread”. However, it seemed that the demon thread was not effective enough for The Seventh’s methods, and thus he abandoned it as a potential method of extending his lifespan. To 45b, however, it was priceless. He spun and wove the demon thread into his very being, shaping his body into a more stable structure. Over time, as his physical body became increasingly deformed, he became more dependent on the demon thread. Eventually, the demon thread comprised a large part of 45b’s very being, so deeply interwoven into his essence in hypercomplex knots that it was impossible to remove them without destabilizing, even killing him. Compensatively, he went on to achieve a skillful manipulation of demon thread to deadly and devastating capabilities, turning what was originally a necessity for living into a tool that made him feared. 45b largely lived a nomadic and quiet lifestyle in this time, until he heard of a certain being called "Hyperman" by many. 45b believed himself to have discovered The Seventh’s "golden boy", the one who came out "right". 45b begrudgingly watched from a distance as Hyperman seemed to perfectly achieve everything The Seventh intended for his plans. 45b wondered why that couldn’t be him. He felt that he was just as entitled to everything that Hyperman had. Because of this, he grew to deeply resent The Seventh, and to an even greater extent Hyperman. It was to 45b's pleasure when The Seventh finally died, which gave him the satisfaction of knowing his father never achieved his plans. With the Seventh dead, an open spot presented itself for 45b to reside within his life, finally giving him a true sense of self-identity. Still, however, there remained one loose end: Hyperman. 45b had an even greater bone to pick with Hyperman than he did The Seventh. If there was anyone more likely to replace The Seventh than 45b, even indirectly, it was Hyperman. He was the one threat to his goals, and 45b would not let it stand. He found that this would be the perfect opportunity to prove himself, and come into his own. He named himself Ultraman, and forevermore dedicated his existence to overthrowing Hyperman, and taking his place as the supposed heir of The Seventh.

The Hunt For Hyperman

Ultraman eventually tracked down Hyperman. However, he did not immediately strike. Instead, he stalked his target, learning everything he could about Hyperman and his weaknesses. When he felt that the time was right, Ultraman finally revealed himself to Hyperman. He did so by destroying a monster that Hyperman had been assigned to kill by the Hexagon Lords, as part of his training. Ultraman politely introduced himself to Hyperman, and then attempted to kill him. A brief duel ensued, and Ultraman had almost managed to kill Hyperman by tearing him apart from multiple directions with demon thread. However, before he was able to, The Hexagon Lords appeared. They teleported Hyperman away from harm, back into The Folded Cascade. Ultraman was angered by this setback, however he realized that it was only just that – a setback. He then also realized that the Hexagon Lords, who had so rudely interrupted him, were responsible for this setback. Ultraman then knew what he had to do next. Later, upon returning to The Folded Cascade from another mission, Hyperman found himself ambushed by the Hexagon Lords, who violently and aggressively attacked him out of nowhere. Hyperman was incredibly confused and bewildered as he fended off the rogue Hexagon Lords, and his confusion only deepened when many of the Lords were shouting to Hyperman that what they were doing wasn't voluntary, that they weren't in control of their forms. After Hyperman blasted an energy beam, it highlighted the outline of an odd cord-like object near one of the Hexagon Lords in its trajectory. Intrigued, Hyperman sent out a wave of non-harmful energy around him, which revealed many of these cords attached to the forms of all the Hexagon Lords. Hyperman traced the cords, following them until he saw the source behind it: Ultraman. Ultraman's hands maneuvered themselves in complicated and impossible positions, as he pulled on the strings to control the Hexagon Lords as if they were puppets, laughing maniacally all the while. Hyperman was infuriated to see his friends being helplessly exploited by Ultraman, and so he lashed out at him, severing all the strings in one swift motion with his folded stringshard blade. The Hexagon Lords, with their will once again returned, wanted to join in the fray and fight against Ultraman too, but they found themselves too weakened from the possession to do so. What nobody failed to anticipate nor notice in the midst of their fight, was that the demon thread which had been severed from the Hexagon Lords and lost from Ultraman was now loosely drifting throughout archversal space. It found its way into the ownership of many beings in many -verses, many of which utilizing it to deviant ends. It rapidly spread like a plague, and an omniscient being would have been able to observe countless archverses rapidly becoming entangled in a vast interconnected array of the demon thread. Hyperman and Ultraman's fight progressed throughout the Omniverse. They climbed up the Archverse chain together, riding on the power and momentum from destroyed -verses which they channeled into devastating attacks against each-other. With each level they rose through the infinite chain, the more devastating each being's attacks were. They lost focus of all other things in the environment around them, only immersed within their battle with no regard for collateral damage. Finally, at the climax of the fight, a large divine light ruptured above the two. Ultraman and Hyperman looked at the light, and immediately knew that they were in the presence of a god. Not a god in the way The Seventh had been, but a True God. The light, who called “himself” Creator, stated that the battle between the two brothers had caused far more trouble in The Omniverse than it should have, and that the massive instability caused by the spread of Demon Thread warranted his intervention. It was Creator's decision, therefore, to resolve the dilemma by removing all instances of Demon Thread from the Omniverse. And so, Creator willed all Demon Thread within the Omniverse to be gone.