Inside the Ark's main control room, blinding red warning lights flashed frantically, their glare stabbing at everyone's eyes.
Tony Stark stared fixedly at his faceplate, his fingers trembling uncontrollably.
"Damn it!"
A low growl escaped his lips.
The armor he was wearing was gradually disintegrating, while JARVIS's voice had become intermittent, crackling like shredded electrical static.
Beside him, Reed Richards clutched his head with both hands. His bloodshot eyes were locked onto a holographic display, where the curves representing universal constants were rapidly collapsing.
Superman Clark knelt before the observation window, his eyes tightly shut as two trails of bloody tears slowly ran down his face.
Those eyes, which could once see across entire galaxies, had become a curse.
Countless parallel timelines were slicing across his retinas like razor-sharp blades.
Every second he endured was no different from a slow execution.
Crack—
A fracture appeared along the haft of Stormbreaker in Thor's grasp.
Spiderweb-like cracks rapidly spread across the entire weapon, while the six Infinity Stones embedded within it flickered unsteadily.
Scarlet Witch Wanda suddenly coughed up a mouthful of blood, her face turning deathly pale.
The Adam she held in her arms had curled into a ball, the Void Source within him teetering on the verge of losing control.
Every member of the team was gravely wounded.
The entire force stood on the brink of annihilation.
And yet—
One man still stood with his hands clasped behind his back, dressed in spotless white.
Levi stood quietly at the very front of the bridge.
The collapsing spatial turbulence whipped through his hair, yet failed to leave even the slightest mark upon him.
His expression was far too calm.
"Heh."
A faint smile curled at the corner of Levi's lips.
Tony and Reed both looked up sharply.
At a moment like this... he could still smile?
It wasn't a bitter smile.
It was the smile of a hunter who had finally watched his prey step into the trap he had prepared.
"Finally,"
Levi said softly.
"It showed itself."
Against that endless white backdrop, atop the seemingly perfect Ivory Tower—
A discordant stain had appeared.
A black line.
Like a stroke of ink splashed violently across a pristine white canvas.
The end of the black line appeared brutally torn apart, while dark green energy leaked continuously from the rupture, devouring the surrounding narrative threads.
Levi was intimately familiar with that unique aura.
It was obsession born from madness.
The ultimate blasphemy of a mortal against a god.
Its creator was none other than Doctor Doom.
That madman had already transformed himself into a wedge the moment he delivered the Cartographer's remains.
And he had driven that wedge deep into the vital core of the Beyonder race.
"So-called omniscience and omnipotence..."
Levi slowly raised his right hand.
An overwhelming force began gathering in his palm.
The Ark itself trembled.
Not from mechanical vibrations.
But from fear.
The amusement vanished from Levi's eyes.
"In the end, you're nothing more than insects that can bleed and die."
"Heh."
Inside the deathly silent control room, the chuckle sounded particularly out of place.
Three parts indifference.
Seven parts madness.
---
BOOM—!!!
The higher-dimensional projection atop the Ivory Tower finally moved.
It merely raised an arm.
Billions of narrative threads convulsed violently.
The entire multiverse let out a mournful cry.
Fundamental laws began collapsing.
Dimensions themselves shattered apart.
An indescribable pressure descended directly from higher dimensions.
This was not conventional energy.
It was absolute suppression born from the hierarchy of existence itself.
Like an ancient dragon gazing down upon ants.
The mere airflow stirred by its breathing could unleash an apocalyptic storm.
Despair rapidly spread through the group.
Clark suddenly opened his eyes.
Golden streams of energy flowed from their corners.
The Steel Man of the Silver Age trembled violently—not from fear, but because his super-vision was suffering irreversible damage. His retinas and even portions of his brain were being torn apart by attempting to gaze upon a higher-dimensional entity.
"ROAR—!"
Thor bellowed and raised Stormbreaker before him.
Veins bulged across his arms.
The six Infinity Stones flashed desperately, attempting to weave together a defensive network of fundamental laws.
Yet before the silver torrent of narrative power, even the radiance of the universe's greatest treasures resembled mere fireflies struggling within a hurricane.
Pfft!
Wanda spat out another mouthful of blood.
The Chaos Magic barrier she had reconstructed survived less than 0.01 seconds before being torn apart like paper.
The entire team was collapsing.
"Narrative-level erasure process entering final countdown... three seconds."
Zero's voice echoed coldly.
Like a funeral bell.
"The Ark's defensive systems have reached zero. Estimated survival probability... 0.0000%."
It was over.
The thought appeared simultaneously in everyone's minds.
And yet—
Levi never turned around.
He still stood with his hands behind his back, straight as a spear.
The world behind him crumbled endlessly.
Yet none of it seemed to concern him.
His gaze remained fixed upon that black thread hidden in the void.
A savage glint suddenly exploded within his eyes.
The target had taken the bait.
---
Atop the Ivory Tower, the higher-dimensional projection slowly raised its hand.
Its fingertip lightly touched the void.
Countless narrative threads danced around it like strings manipulated by a divine puppeteer.
Then, an icy voice exploded directly within everyone's soul.
"Abnormal variables from lower dimensions."
"This is forbidden territory beyond your right to tread."
"Kneel."
"And receive death."
Before the final syllable even faded—
The silver torrent descended like an inverted celestial river.
This was not energy.
It was a higher-dimensional rewriting of reality itself.
The Ark's liquid-metal armor, capable of enduring a supernova, began melting away like snow beneath the sun.
It wasn't being physically destroyed.
Its very existence was being judged as something that had never existed.
"Warning! Hull integrity has dropped to 47%! Conceptual defense modules... deemed invalid!"
For the first time, even Zero's electronic voice carried a trace of fear.
"Get lost!"
Clark's eyes turned completely crimson.
His roar shattered the surrounding vacuum.
He threw a punch powerful enough to shatter an entire planet.
Space itself fractured wherever his fist passed.
Yet the instant it touched the silver torrent, the indestructible fist became transparent and insubstantial.
The very concept of his strength was being deleted.
"For Asgard!"
Thor roared.
Stormbreaker unleashed endless thunder.
The six Infinity Stones spun wildly around the axehead, weaving Time, Space, Power, and the other fundamental laws into a dazzling defensive web.
Yet before the narrative torrent, that defense was as fragile as soaked paper.
Pfft—
Thor spat golden divine blood into the air.
His body crashed heavily into an alloy bulkhead.
Whether he lived or died was unknown.
Wanda's Chaos Magic barrier shattered into countless crimson fragments.
Her face was pale as death.
She held Adam tightly in her arms, despair filling her eyes.
Complete defeat.
In a single exchange, the Avengers' greatest champions had fallen.
Despair spread rapidly throughout the control room.
And at that moment—
Levi finally moved.
He neither retreated nor attempted to evade.
Expressionless, he simply stepped forward.
BOOM—!!!
A dazzling pillar of gold-red light erupted outward from his body in all directions.
The power of fourteen supreme laws was driven to its absolute limit.
The supreme authority inherited from the Living Tribunal awakened like a sleeping dragon, unleashing a roar that shook the heavens.
The narrative torrent capable of devouring and rewriting everything—
The instant it reached within three feet of Levi—
Stopped completely.
Unable to advance even an inch.
As though an insurmountable abyss stood before it.
Ignoring the collapsing universe around him, Levi extended a pale, slender hand deep into the void.
Hidden there was a black thread invisible to ordinary sight.
"Found you."
His voice was soft.
Yet it exploded like thunder within everyone's soul.
In the next instant, his fingers ignored dimensional barriers entirely and clamped onto the severed section of that black thread with absolute precision.
---
Beep! Beep! Beep!
Tony's holographic display erupted into frantic alarms.
Data cascaded down the screen like a waterfall.
"Holy hell! This completely violates science!"
His eyes nearly popped out of his skull.
"JARVIS says his energy readings have gone completely off the charts! He... he's tearing apart concepts with his bare hands?!"
Beside him, Reed Richards—the smartest man in the universe—looked equally stunned.
His hands flailed wildly through the air as his voice rose into a near shriek.
"A madman! He's a complete madman!"
"That's a narrative thread! The foundational logic that allows reality itself to exist! Touching it directly should trigger immediate causal backlash and erase him into nothingness!"
"How can he dare do this?!"
"And how is he still alive?!"
Levi offered no answer.
His fingers tightened.
Primal power surged into the black causal thread like molten lava.
The moment he touched it, an icy chill ran through his body.
It felt as though he were touching a gravestone in a cemetery.
Then he saw what lay within.
At the fractured section of the thread, dark green energy seeped continuously outward.
Doctor Doom's masterpiece.
A weapon designed specifically for godslaying.
A conceptual virus.
A meme engineered to hunt higher-dimensional beings.
A cold smile appeared on Levi's face.
"Old man."
He spoke softly.
"You planted this nail the moment you delivered the remains, didn't you?"
His eyes narrowed.
"A ruthless move."
---
Outside, the battlefield had descended into complete chaos.
The silver torrent had swallowed the Ark.
Countless causal threads tightened like executioner's nooses.
Everything they touched vanished into nothingness.
The ship's liquid-metal armor wasn't even given the chance to break apart before being erased.
Not physically destroyed.
Simply denied the right to exist.
The frontline was even worse.
Clark's iron fists, capable of pushing planets, had become nearly transparent.
The bones beneath his skin were clearly visible.
Gritting his teeth, he launched another punch.
The instant his arm touched a causal thread—
It disappeared.
His entire arm was erased directly from the root of the timeline.
Thor lay collapsed in a corner like a beaten dog.
Stormbreaker had gone completely dark.
Wanda's Chaos Magic shield had shattered three times already.
Yet she still stood before Adam.
Blood drenched half her body.
The entire defensive line had collapsed.
Everyone present felt the same helpless despair.
Everyone except Levi.
He remained standing at the center of the destructive torrent.
Unmoving.
Like a nail driven into the heart of reality itself.
"COME OUT!"
With a thunderous roar, Levi's back arched.
Every muscle in his body tightened like forged steel.
The surrounding space groaned beneath the strain.
As though it might explode from the pressure.
BOOM—!!!
A dull explosion echoed.
Something had been torn free.
The black thread Doom had hidden for who knew how long—
Was forcibly ripped from the narrative network by Levi's bare hands.
In the most primitive.
Most brutal.
Way imaginable.
A pillar of dark green light shot into the heavens.
This was not magic.
It was a specially coded memetic virus created to hunt higher-dimensional beings on a conceptual level.
Sizzle—
A nauseating sound of corrosion echoed through space.
The moment it escaped, the virus revealed its terrifying aggressiveness.
Like ink dropped into clear water, it lunged toward the surrounding white narrative threads.
In an instant, seven major narrative trunks were completely infected.
Their pure white color faded into sickly green.
Twisted runes multiplied across them like wildfire.
The entire narrative network descended into unprecedented logical chaos.
Every region touched by the green light suffered total collapse of its underlying logic.
Causality itself reversed.
Most terrifying of all—
The infected narrative threads did not disappear.
Instead, they seized control of themselves.
And began executing commands directly opposite to their original programming.
The attack reversed.
Thousands upon thousands of dark-green narrative threads turned simultaneously.
The power once intended to erase all causality now locked onto its original master.
Even the projection of the Ivory King trembled violently.
That finger, meant to judge the fate of all existence—
Shook.
For the first time.
A crack had appeared in the defenses of a higher-dimensional being.
"This is impossible..."
The voice had lost its lofty indifference.
Panic seeped into every syllable.
"How can mere lower-dimensional insects... accomplish this?!"
"Impossible?"
Levi slowly raised his head.
Mockery filled his eyes.
"Then open your eyes and watch carefully."
He stared at the once-invincible god, now showing unmistakable signs of defeat.
"Detonate."
The void shuddered violently.
The magnificent and sacred narrative network transformed into a hellscape of collapsing logic.
Pure white narrative threads screamed as they snapped apart.
Dark-green viral runes laughed madly as they spread.
At this moment—
Hunter and prey exchanged places completely.