Cosmic energy was the purest force in existence, born with the universe itself. Anyone who could absorb it and control it at will was, for all practical purposes, a god.
The best examples were the beings at the top of Marvel's food chain.
The Elders of the Universe, ancient remnants of extinct races, had survived the destruction of their worlds and gone on to absorb vast amounts of cosmic energy after the Big Bang. That energy had granted them near-immortality and power that placed them above almost every other living thing.
Then there was Galactus, one of the five great cosmic entities, along with his heralds, including the Silver Surfer, all of whom could wield cosmic energy effortlessly.
And of course, the Celestials, those absurdly overpowered cosmic judges who had beco the universe's unofficial asuring stick for god-tier combat. By nature, they could absorb cosmic energy, transform it, and manifest impossible abilities from it.
Above all of those stood the Eternals, creations of the Celestials and one of the few exceptions among biological life. They too could absorb cosmic energy through their bodies. In so branch of reality, an old, unadorned Thanos had once absorbed cosmic energy without the Infinity Gauntlet, without outside help, and had simply ascended to a level so ridiculous he could fight the Celestials head-on and trample the Living Tribunal beneath his feet.
For ordinary life-forms in the universe, cosmic energy was not a blessing.
It was a death sentence.
Anyone reckless enough to try absorbing it without the right physiology would explode from the inside out.
As far as Drex Valen knew, there were almost no alien species in the Marvel universe capable of truly handling it. The Kree Empire probably had the deepest research into the subject, but even they could only work with traces so faint they were barely worth ntioning. Even then, one hundred Kree subjects might undergo modification and only a single one would survive.
Drex suspected the Ancient One probably knew how to work with cosmic energy.
He also suspected that going to ask her about it would be a terrible idea.
So he decided not to.
In Super Kryptonian state, Drex unleashed speed that bordered on obscene. He shot out of the solar system, circled around, and ca back just to test how far the transformation could carry him.
The results satisfied him.
Kryptonians already began from a ridiculous baseline. Compared to Saiyans, whose bodies were mostly refined through ki alone, a Kryptonian's physical foundation was absurd to start with. Once that foundation was boosted by a hundredfold through Super Kryptonian state, even his steel-hard body beca sothing monstrous.
Every aspect of him had been amplified by a hundred tis.
It was so good Drex almost hated to turn it off.
The only issue was leakage.
Even though his recovery rate was fast, the form still burned through energy faster than he liked.
So Drex started thinking.
What he needed was a full-power Super Kryptonian state.
If Son Goku could do it, then Drex could too.
He spent a full day in that transford state, and by the end of it, he had found a way to stop the leakage.
It was simple, once he understood the trick.
Use electromagnetic force to replace ordinary senses at a microscopic level.
Control his own atoms.
Control his own energy.
In the frawork of a certain old battle-fantasy setting, it was basically a Fourth Stage Gene Lock technique, except Drex had leaped straight to the finish line. He not only stopped his energy from leaking, he also learned how to drive attacks deeper into the atomic and energy level itself.
Punching Wolverine to death was no longer a joke.
Immortality in front of him had beco a punchline.
Of course, any mystical form of immortality was still another matter.
Those were harder to break.
Drex exhaled slowly.
"Just electromagnetic force alone already gives enough to dig through for years," he murmured.
He still had not even left that field behind. The four fundantal forces were still waiting for him, and each one was deeper than it looked.
As for magnetic martial arts, Drex had not yet figured out how rubbing cells together was supposed to produce such absurd power.
Could cells even be rubbed like that?
Or was the real reason he had not mastered it yet because his worldview was too grounded in actual physics, and he needed to throw that out and just think, screw it, I can rub cells and it'll work?
He considered the idea for a mont, then dismissed it.
That style of madness was a little too much even for him.
So he walked back to Earth.
The Ancient One noticed imdiately that Drex had beco stronger again.
He really was full of surprises.
Normal ti-based abilities probably would not work on him much longer. If the Ti Stone were not involved, Drex could probably distort ti outright with electromagnetism and gravity alone, enough to twist its effects around himself.
Unfortunately, the Ti Stone's priority was too high.
Even if Drex went all out, he would still be affected.
That was annoying.
If not for that, he would already have been stirring up a much bigger ss. Instead, he was still moving carefully, testing the Ancient One's boundaries a little at a ti and retreating the mont she showed any reaction.
Co to think of it, the Ancient One had also never responded to his monster-making spectacle.
Drex had started with monsters as the first real test of his reach, and the fact that she had not co down to stop him only made her position harder to read.
If she only handled dinsional gods and invasions, then why had she interfered before?
But if she handled more than just invasion events, then why ignore sothing this outrageous?
Ancient One, you are making this very difficult for .
A striking, mature woman stepped out of a black Chevrolet-like vehicle bearing a "T1" license plate.
She wore a jacket with only two buttons fastened, enough to reveal the white shirt beneath it, maintaining a sense of propriety while still showing off the sharp elegance of her figure.
It was the kind of woman who drew the eye of almost any man in the area, especially when she had not even tried to be seductive and still carried herself with cold composure.
The SWORD Bureau agents on lockdown duty, dressed in black protective gear rather than suits, straightened instinctively.
"Director!"
One of them saluted sharply.
Tifa Lockhart gave a small nod. "What's the situation?"
"Looks like a Tiger-level disaster, ma'am. It escalated fast. We're sealing off the periter and waiting for orders from above."
"Tiger-level?" Tifa asked. "There aren't any other superheroes nearby? What about the Symbiote Troops?"
"The local heroes are already handling other monster incidents," the agent said quickly. "The Symbiote Troops are still in another city cleaning up alien creatures."
Tifa reached down with her white fiber gloves and lifted the periter tape aside before walking in.
She had discovered, sowhat unexpectedly, that Drex was a glove enthusiast.
When he wore gloves, he got noticeably more excited.
That did not an he would accept just any pair, though. He only seed to like leather gloves and fiber gloves.
So Tifa had started preparing plenty of them for him.
Not that Drex was actually obsessed with gloves.
It was just because she was the one giving them to him.
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