Every combatant had fallen.
These beings hailed as superheroes seemed insignificant before the dimensional catastrophe that had just unfolded—their power no more substantial than dust.
Only one person remained standing.
Levi.
His back faced the world.
The white robe he wore had long been soaked through with gold-red blood, yet his spine remained perfectly straight.
His right hand was still held in a grasping posture.
Faint spatial fractures lingered around his fingertips, remnants of having crushed an inner-universe passageway with his bare hands.
Wanda crouched in a corner, clutching the trembling Adam tightly against her chest.
Her scarlet eyes were locked onto that lone figure.
She had even forgotten to breathe.
Everyone was waiting.
Waiting for him to turn around as he always did, flash that familiar carefree grin, and casually declare:
"Basic operation. No need to spam 666."
One second.
Two seconds.
Three seconds.
But Levi did not turn around.
He simply stood there in silence.
His right hand slowly lowered.
Then the shoulders that had seemed capable of bearing heaven itself trembled ever so slightly.
"All personnel..."
His voice was faint.
Yet it exploded within every soul present.
"Enter silent mode."
"Commence repairs... on Target Zero."
Before he could finish the order, his body suddenly swayed.
"LEVI—!!!"
Wanda's scream shattered the silence.
Her arm shot forward instinctively, as though trying to catch something slipping away.
Pfft—!
A massive cloud of gold-red mist erupted from Levi's mouth.
It wasn't blood.
It was Origin Power purified to the extreme.
The mist exploded in midair, scattering into countless radiant sparks.
Each time one of those sparks faded away, the surrounding space trembled.
A Dao collapse?
Crack.
Then came a crisp sound.
A sound that sent chills down everyone's spine.
Beneath Levi's blood-soaked white robes, countless golden fissures spread outward like a web of madness.
Starting from his chest, they rapidly extended toward his fingertips and climbed all the way to his neck.
These were not ordinary wounds.
His body itself—
No.
His very existence as a concept—
Was collapsing because it had borne a power far beyond what it should have contained.
Levi staggered.
The spine that had seemed capable of holding up the heavens finally broke.
He stumbled forward.
The strength vanished from his knees.
His entire body pitched toward the floor.
"LEVI—!!"
With an explosive roar—
Clark's blue eyes instantly flooded red.
Ignoring the agony tearing through his optic nerves, he forced his super-senses into overdrive.
Boom!
The air ahead exploded.
A red-and-blue blur moved faster than time itself.
The instant Levi was about to fall, a pair of arms capable of carrying entire galaxies caught him.
Yet Clark's face immediately turned deathly pale.
Light.
Too light.
This was not the weight of a human being.
It barely even felt like matter.
The Levi in his arms resembled a cloud dispersing into the wind.
Something called existence was rapidly slipping away.
"Damn it! Damn it!!"
Tony scrambled to his feet from the wreckage.
Sparks burst from his damaged nanotech armor while warning alarms shrieked like funeral bells.
Levi's body was becoming transparent at a visible rate.
This wasn't optical invisibility.
Reality itself was rejecting him.
Like a stain on paper being erased by an invisible rubber.
"This isn't a physical injury..."
Reed staggered forward, dragging his battered body behind him.
His voice was hoarse as sandpaper.
"This is collapse at the level of Origin."
"He forcefully executed an inner-universe transition under the gaze of the Ivory King."
"This is the price mortals pay for touching the forbidden."
"His core overloaded. Causality fractured..."
"Say something I can actually understand!"
Tony's eyes were bloodshot.
"He's disappearing!"
Reed stared at the fading figure.
His fingernails dug into his palms.
"He's being erased at the conceptual level."
"At most, two minutes from now..."
"The name Levi will cease to exist anywhere in the timeline of the multiverse."
Silence descended.
Wanda trembled violently.
She shoved Adam into Thor's arms and stumbled toward Levi before dropping to her knees.
"No... You're supposed to be invincible..."
She stretched out both hands.
Scarlet Chaos Magic erupted like a flood, desperately trying to anchor the disappearing man to reality.
The instant the magic touched the golden fissures—
Ssssss!
Like water splashed into eternal magma, it vanished instantly.
"Why isn't it working?!"
Wanda's voice cracked.
"Why?!"
"This is suppression from a higher dimensional level."
In the corner, Doctor Strange slid slowly down a wall.
The Eye of Agamotto on his forehead had grown dim.
"That authority governs Origin itself and stands above the multiverse."
"Once such authority shatters, it's equivalent to a flaw appearing in the highest laws of the universe."
"Chaos Magic may be powerful..."
He paused.
"But its rank is insufficient."
Those four words fell like a hammer.
"Then what do we do?!"
Clark held Levi tightly as his weight continued to diminish.
For the first time, unmistakable fear entered Superman's voice.
"There has to be a way."
"There has to be, right?!"
No one answered.
This was a dead end.
A perfect dead end.
Crack.
Another sickening fracture sounded.
The fissure in Levi's chest widened dramatically.
Like porcelain moments before shattering.
BOOM—!!!
A pillar of gold-red light erupted from the crack and shot straight toward the ceiling.
The Phoenix Origin within him had completely lost control.
This supreme force that embodied both life and destruction was now pouring outward like a breached dam.
Even worse—
Within that brilliant pillar of light, strands of black mist slowly emerged.
Like parasites clinging to bone.
BOOM!
The explosion seemed to pierce directly through the soul.
This wasn't a simple energy rampage.
The conceptual embodiment of Greed and the Phoenix Force—
Two godlike entities—
Were fighting to the death inside Levi's mortal shell.
Two supreme powers capable of annihilating galaxies collided endlessly within him.
Like ancient beasts trapped inside the same cage.
The only escape was to tear the other apart.
"Fall back! Everyone, fall back!"
Reed's voice cracked from shouting.
His hands moved so quickly across the control console that they blurred into afterimages.
"Damn it! The Phoenix Force and the Origin Entity are devouring each other!"
"If energy of this magnitude collapses—"
"Forget the ship."
"Half a dimension will be reduced to ashes!"
Before he could finish—
The golden crack in Levi's chest shattered further.
A devastating shockwave erupted outward from his body.
BANG!
Clark was blasted away like a kite with cut strings.
His body slammed into a wall forged from special alloys.
The Superman emblem across his chest shattered instantly.
Even the Kryptonian god's body couldn't withstand such force.
Tony didn't even have time to react.
His Mark armor exploded with warning alarms before he was hurled across the room.
A visible crack appeared in his nanotech helmet.
Wanda gritted her teeth and poured every ounce of power into her Scarlet Magic, attempting to create a defensive barrier.
Yet the reality-warping crimson light shattered the moment it touched the shockwave.
She was forced backward despite her efforts.
Her feet carved deep trenches into the metal floor.
And this—
Was merely a stray aftershock.
The Avengers' strongest heroes had been completely overwhelmed.
"Mommy!"
Adam curled up in Thor's arms.
His little face had gone pale.
He could clearly feel it.
The Void Origin inside his father was running wild.
And hidden beneath that rampage lurked a pure will of destruction.
A force that sought to devour everything.
And then destroy everything.
---
Levi floated helplessly in midair.
His limbs hung limp.
The fissure across his chest had spread into his arms.
Golden-red divine flames and black mist collided violently in the air.
Every impact sent visible ripples through space.
Crack—
The Ark groaned in agony.
Its supposedly indestructible liquid-metal armor writhed frantically.
Yet it could not heal the ever-growing wounds.
"Warning... Multiversal-scale Origin collapse detected... Recommend immediate evacuation..."
Even Zero's mechanical voice had become unstable.
"Evacuate your ass!"
Tony fired his repulsors into the floor to stabilize himself.
His eyes burned red.
"The wound."
Strange forced his head upward.
The Eye of Agamotto opened a tiny slit.
A beam of golden temporal power shot directly toward Levi's chest.
The Sorcerer Supreme's face was pale.
His voice trembled.
"I can see it..."
"There is a penetrating fracture within his Origin."
"This isn't physical damage."
"A higher-dimensional force literally tore a hole through the concept of his existence."
Reed's pupils contracted sharply as he stared at the readings.
"The Ivory King..."
His voice turned cold.
"He never intended to merely destroy Levi's body."
"He wants to erase the concept of Levi itself from the source of causality."
Scarlet power surged from Wanda's hands as she desperately poured it into the golden cracks.
"Heal!"
She screamed.
Blood tears streamed down her face.
But it was useless.
These were not wounds.
They were the collapse of Dao itself.
Every strand of Chaos Power dissolved into nothingness the moment it touched the fractures.
Like snowflakes falling into molten lava.
Pfft—
Wanda coughed up blood and collapsed backward from the backlash.
Thor barely managed to catch her.
"Stop wasting your strength."
Reed never took his eyes off the data.
"This is a Dao wound at the level of fundamental laws."
"A dimensional suppression."
"Not even a single-universe god could touch the core of this injury."
The air grew still.
And then—
A tiny figure broke free from Thor's arms.
Adam.
Stumbling forward.
Running toward Levi.
He pressed his small hand directly onto the most violent golden fissure.
"Adam!"
"Come back!"
Wanda and Thor both lunged to stop him.
Too late.
Everyone believed it was over.
Even Chaos Magic was shredded instantly by that Origin Power.
A child touching it directly—
People instinctively closed their eyes.
Yet—
No explosion came.
No gruesome scene followed.
Instead, a strange humming sound filled the room.
Everyone opened their eyes.
Then froze.
Adam's small hand rested against the crack.
The black-and-red energy pouring out moments ago suddenly behaved like children finding their mother.
It surged eagerly into his body.
Pure black rapidly swallowed the whites of his eyes.
Patterns symbolizing the Void spread across his youthful face.
There was no pain.
Instead, he sighed softly.
As though tasting the greatest delicacy imaginable.
"He's... devouring the energy?"
Clark inhaled sharply.
Even his steel body stiffened.
"Same origin."
Doctor Strange stared fixedly at Adam.
"As the Child of the Void, the Void Origin within him shares the same source as Levi's power."
"The forces that are lethal poison to us..."
"For him, they're nourishment."
As Adam greedily absorbed the energy, the crack in Levi's chest finally stopped expanding.
The destructive pressure gradually subsided.
His body remained translucent like glass.
His life force still flickered like a candle in the wind.
But at least his condition had stopped worsening.
"His life is stable for now."
Reed continued manipulating holographic displays at incredible speed.
His expression remained grim.
"But we only have three days."
"Adam is merely serving as a temporary container."
"The fundamental Dao fracture still exists."
"If we fail to repair Levi's Origin within three days..."
"Then even the gods themselves won't be able to save him."
Three days.
Tony's face darkened.
Then he issued orders.
"Zero. Report the Ark's condition."
"Bzzzt... Hull integrity reduced by 63%... Jump engine completely destroyed... Life-support systems operating at minimal power..."
The broken mechanical voice delivered one piece of unexpectedly good news.
"Current coordinates unknown."
"System analysis confirms this location is a conceptual blind spot."
"It possesses properties capable of blocking all forms of causal tracking."
A conceptual blind spot.
An absolute dead zone hidden even from beings such as the Watchers.
Tony took a deep breath.
Determination returned to his eyes.
"As long as they can't locate us, we still have a chance."
"Move Levi to the highest-level medical chamber immediately."
"Reed. Strange. Stabilize his condition."
"Clark. Thor. Repair the ship."
"I don't care if you have to hold it together with brute force."
"The defense systems must be restored."
His gaze shifted to Wanda, who knelt on the floor holding Adam tightly.
For a brief moment, his tone softened.
Then it became deadly serious.
"Wanda. Protect your son."
"This child is now the key to keeping Levi alive."
He paused.
"And he's also our best hope of surviving what's coming next."