Urban Plundering: I Corrupted The System!
Chapter 436 - 436: Justice vs Living Art

High above Manhattan's devastated landscape, Ma'at floated with divine authority that made the air itself crystallize into geometric patterns around her teenage form.

She appeared no older than seventeen, her dark skin radiating power that predated human civilization, while her pristine white robes flowed with movements that existed independent of any earthly wind. The ostrich feather of truth in her hair glowed with inner light that revealed the fundamental nature of all things—including the abomination she now faced.

Once, she had been the goddess of truth, justice, and cosmic order in the age of the pharaohs, weighing souls in the afterlife and maintaining the balance between chaos and law with absolute authority. But she had fallen during the great war that shattered the old pantheons, her divine essence scattered across dimensions when the ancient order collapsed into ruin.

For eons she had existed as fragments of cosmic principle, her consciousness dispersed among the stars until the gods had found her broken pieces and offered something unprecedented—rebirth.

As their Champion!

Now she existed as both ancient deity and young warrior, her teenage form housing the accumulated authority of millennia spent judging the dead and maintaining universal order. Her memories stretched back through weeks of being a human, yet her body carried the vitality of youth combined with divine power that made reality itself bow to her will.

Her ancient eyes blazed with fury that went beyond mere anger—this was the rage of someone who had witnessed the moment when order collapsed into chaos, when everything she had sworn to protect was painted into destruction by a madman's brush.

The memory was seared into Ma'at's divine consciousness with perfect clarity.

She and Hercules had arrived in New York from Canada at Perseus's call and wanted to enjoy New York first, but their senses had been drawn to the disturbance emanating from the financial district. They had expected to confront the Street Rat—the shadow entity whose rampage through Citaeus Bank had left security footage of impossible darkness consuming everything in its path.

But when they had arrived at the bank, ready to face the shadow bearer in combat, something else had appeared. A figure that materialized out of nowhere—starving, desperate, clutching what looked like a quill enlarged to the size of a painter's brush.

His smile had been the first thing they noticed: wide, manic, absolutely delighted by some cosmic joke only he understood.

Neither Ma'at nor Hercules had time to react. The stranger had raised his impossible brush with speed that defied perception, and in those first few seconds, he had drawn something that took their breath away—not through beauty, but through the perfect, crystalline horror of absolute destruction given artistic form.

New York had fallen!

Not through explosion or earthquake, but through being painted out of existence and then painted back wrong. Buildings twisted into impossible geometries.

Streets that flowed like rivers. The very concept of "city" had been deconstructed and reconstructed according to an artist's fevered imagination, leaving millions dead through the simple fact that they could no longer exist in a reality rewritten by cosmic madness.

Now, high above the devastated landscape, Ma'at faced him again.

"You painted this," she declared, her voice carrying harmonics that made reality itself vibrate. "Not just the destruction we see now—you painted the first fall!"

The Painter's response was immediate and violent. His right hand swept through the air in a massive arc, and from his brush erupted a pack of wolves the size of city buses. Their fur was liquid shadow, their eyes burning coals of malevolent intelligence. They didn't just appear—they tore themselves free from the canvas of reality, leaving gaping wounds in spacetime that bled impossible colors.

Ma'at raised her hand and spoke a word of power in ancient Egyptian. Her scales of justice materialized instantly, each pan blazing with divine authority. The lead wolf struck the left scale mid-leap, its massive jaws snapping at Ma'at's throat.

The impact sent a shockwave that should've shattered every remaining window within three miles but they were protected by Nyxavere's earlier intervention.

But instead of dissolving under divine judgment, the wolf's claws raked across the golden scale, leaving scratches that sparked with dark energy. These weren't mere illusions—they were painted with enough reality to wound divine artifacts.

"Too slow, goddess!" The Painter laughed as three more wolves flanked Ma'at from impossible angles, their forms shifting between solid matter and abstract art. One materialized directly behind her, jaws wide enough to swallow a car.

Ma'at spun with fluid grace, her white robes becoming a whirlwind of divine energy. Her fist, enhanced with the authority of cosmic law, crashed into the wolf's snout with the force of a falling star.

The impact created a sphere of golden light that expanded outward, vaporizing the creature in a burst of purified energy.

But the explosion left her exposed. Two wolves struck simultaneously—one sank its teeth into her left shoulder while the other raked claws down her back. Divine blood, golden and luminous, splattered across the air in perfect droplets that fell like burning rain.

Ma'at's scream of pain and fury shattered the sound barrier. She grabbed the wolf at her shoulder and spoke a word that unmade its very concept of existence. The creature didn't just die—it ceased to have ever been real, its painted essence unraveling like a tapestry pulled apart thread by thread.

The second wolf pressed its attack, claws aiming for her spine. Ma'at twisted impossibly, her teenage form moving with the combat experience of millennia. She caught the wolf's paw mid-strike and spoke another word of unmaking. But this time, the Painter was ready.

"Not so fast!" he called out, painting reinforcement directly onto his creation. Golden energy clashed with impossible artistry as divine law fought painted reality. The wolf's form flickered between existence and non-existence, caught in a metaphysical tug-of-war.

Ma'at gritted her teeth and poured more power into her word of command. Ancient Egyptian syllables cascaded from her lips like falling hammers, each one a fundamental law being reasserted. The wolf began to dissolve—

A massive eagle, painted into existence with supernatural speed, slammed into Ma'at's back with the force of a freight train. Talons the size of swords punched through her robes and into divine flesh.

She tumbled forward, golden blood streaming from puncture wounds that sparked with artistic poison.

"Art adapts!" the Painter screamed with manic joy, both hands now working at superhuman speed. His left hand painted power into himself while his right conjured a pride of lions that materialized with perfectly coordinated timing.

The lions attacked as Ma'at struggled to right herself in mid-air. One pounced from above, its massive paws aiming to crush her skull. She rolled sideways, the creature's claws missing her head by inches but shredding her hair and the ostrich feather of truth, which burst into sparks of violated cosmic law.

A second lion struck from below, jaws snapping at her legs. Ma'at kicked downward with both feet, her heel connecting with the creature's nose in an explosion of divine force that sent the lion careening through the skeletal remains of a skyscraper.

But she'd left herself open again. The third lion's claws raked across her ribs, tearing through divine flesh like it was paper. More golden blood sprayed across the battlefield, each drop hitting the ground with impacts that created small craters.

Ma'at landed hard on a platform of crystallized air, one knee down, her teenage form trembling with pain and rage. Her white robes were torn and stained with luminous gold, her dark skin bearing claw marks that glowed with infected artistry.

"Is this the best cosmic justice Earth can offer?" the Painter taunted, painting himself larger and more substantial. His starving frame filled out as raw creative energy coursed through his system. "A little girl playing at being a goddess?"

Ma'at's response was pure fury given divine form. She spoke three words in rapid succession, each one carrying the weight of absolute cosmic law. The air around her exploded outward in a sphere of purified reality that dissolved everything painted within fifty yards.

Wolves, lions, eagles—all of them unraveled back into component impossibilities. Even the Painter's platform of crystallized imagination began to crack and dissolve under the assault of pure order.

But the Painter was already adapting. His brush moved in sweeping arcs, painting not creatures but concepts. He drew speed into his own form, reaction time into his nervous system, durability into his flesh.

When Ma'at's wave of order struck him, it met not just artistic madness but strategically reinforced existence.

The divine purification washed over him like water over stone. He stood unmoved, grinning wider than ever.

"My turn," he whispered.

His brush moved in a complex pattern, painting something that hurt to perceive directly. Ma'at's divine senses screamed warnings as reality buckled around whatever he was creating. She launched herself forward, desperate to interrupt whatever cosmic atrocity he was conjuring.

She was too late.

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