Star-Lord ran fast.
Very fast.
Blurred afterimages overlapped behind him as he sprinted through Ego's internal pathways.
And no, the slight belly wobbling beneath his shirt did not slow him down in the slightest. Even freshly awakened Celestial power still placed him far above most superheroes and villains in raw physical ability.
Ego's avatar pursued closely behind him.
The reason Ego had struggled to find Star-Lord earlier was simple: Peter was absurdly good at running away, and because their divine powers shared the sa origin, tracking him had been difficult.
But now that Peter had wandered directly into his line of sight, escape had beco nearly impossible.
The floating avatar drifted behind Star-Lord like a ghost, speaking in a coaxing tone.
"Peter, stop resisting. You're inside my body. You'll never escape."
"How do you know if I don't try?" Peter shot back while running. "And seriously, back off. One more step and I start screaming."
"Heh…"
"AAAAAAAAAHHHHH!"
Peter Quill was many things.
A scamr.
A thief.
A shaless flirt.
Chronically broke.
Frequently wanted by multiple interstellar civilizations.
But deep down, he genuinely believed he was a good person.
So when Ego first appeared and promised him a massive inheritance, Peter had been more than willing to acknowledge him as his father.
Blood relation?
Who cared.
If soone handed him an inheritance, they were family.
But then Ego revealed the truth.
The inheritance wasn't money.
It was the galaxy.
Eventually the universe itself.
And Peter refused.
He was a simple man with very simple dreams.
Unlimited spending money.
An exciting life.
And preferably a large number of won Gamora would never find out about.
Universal conquest and galactic genocide were not on the list.
According to Ego's plan, his seeds would spread across every planet in existence until the entire universe beca an extension of himself. In the end, only father and son would remain.
The last two gods in existence.
To Peter, that sounded horrifying.
No friends.
No bars.
No trouble to get into.
Just eternal existence with a creepy old cosmic dad.
"What's even the point of living like that?"
"Peter," Ego's avatar said coldly, slicing apart nearby pathways and collapsing the maze around him, "even if you won't think about , think about yourself."
The shifting tunnels continuously redirected Star-Lord in circles, shrinking his escape routes little by little.
"The being outside is unbelievably powerful. If you continue resisting, I will die. And once I die, you'll lose your divine power forever. You'll beco nothing more than an ordinary human."
"I've been ordinary for thirty years," Peter shouted between breaths, flipping him off over his shoulder. "Other than my wallet situation, I didn't hate it."
"Trust . The joy of being normal is sothing you'll never understand."
The avatar gritted its teeth furiously.
It simply could not comprehend why anyone would willingly abandon absolute power.
Turn every planet into an extension of yourself.
Rule existence itself.
Beco invincible.
What part of that was unappealing?
Ego didn't know the word idiot, but at this mont, he felt like he understood the concept perfectly.
Then suddenly, just as Ego's avatar was about to catch Star-Lord, its expression changed dramatically.
The avatar vanished instantly.
Peter froze for half a second.
Then imdiately turned and ran even faster.
Whatever had happened, it was probably terrible.
A streak of divine light tore through the barriers blocking the tunnels.
Drex Valen had arrived.
Along the way, countless Ego avatars were annihilated instantly as Drex carved a direct path toward the central core ford by Ego's brain.
The brain was Ego's true source.
His consciousness.
His power supply.
The planetary shell and massive energy body were rely artificial armor protecting that central organ.
Put simply, Ego was essentially a Celestial brain.
Nothing more.
And even then, he possessed enough power to dominate entire regions of the universe.
That fact alone said enough about how terrifying true Celestials really were.
BOOM!
A spear manifested from the Reality Stone and transford into a beam of light, pinning the fleeing central core in place before it could escape again.
Drex did not kill Ego imdiately.
Instead, he raised a hand and unleashed a devastating energy shockwave that erased every surrounding avatar instantly.
Ego's brain-core was enormous.
Comparable in size to a small asteroid.
Its surface area alone rivaled an entire city.
"Who… who are you?" Ego demanded.
No matter how much he thought about it, he couldn't understand how he had provoked such a horrifying enemy.
He had rampaged across the cosmos for countless years.
This was the first ti he had ever encountered soone who could overpower him so completely.
Drex ignored the question.
The Reality Stone glowed.
Then it did exactly what Drex had hoped.
It copied Ego's data directly.
Drex's eyes lit up slightly.
"So this is how the Reality Stone is actually supposed to be used."
Satisfaction flickered across his face.
Without another word, he turned and left.
Ego: "…"
Star-Lord: "…"
"WAIT," Peter shouted in disbelief. "Big guy, aren't you forgetting sothing?!"
Panic instantly flooded his face.
Ego slowly rose to his feet with a cold sneer.
"Peter," he said, cracking his neck, "where exactly do you think you're going?"
He still had no idea why Drex had shown up, beaten him senseless, copied sothing from him, and then casually left.
But one thing was certain.
This idiot son standing right in front of him was absolutely not escaping again.
Later, by the ti Yondu finally learned what had happened from the Guardians of the Galaxy…
there was nothing left of Star-Lord.
Not even ashes.
anwhile, Drex had already created a perfect duplicate of Ego.
A complete copy.
One hundred percent identical.
Even the mories had transferred over.
"How are you here?! Why am I here?! What's happening?!"
The copied Ego panicked imdiately.
Drex casually used the Mind Stone.
An instant later, the duplicate's eyes beca vacant and unfocused, like a child whose mind had been wiped clean.
"Black Queen," Drex said calmly, "begin archival protocol. Start Celestial gene research."
"The first archive has already been established," Black Queen replied.
She diverted only a fraction of her attention toward the task. Her computational capabilities had already evolved to absurd levels. While she still had not surpassed the Kree Empire's Supre Intelligence, she was easily the second greatest artificial intelligence in the universe.
And Drex was already planning to build her things like the Great Clock and Heavenly Blade supercomputers in the near future.
…
Alan was rich.
Obscenely rich.
He lived in a mansion large enough to qualify as its own neighborhood and belonged to the uppermost layer of Arican high society.
Recently, however, he had beco hopelessly addicted to a ga.
Krypton Empire.
Then the developers announced a full wipe.
Everything was reset.
The forums exploded in outrage, but Umbrella Corporation remained completely unmoved. The gaming industry represented only a tiny portion of the company's overall revenue.
Alan nearly collapsed on the spot.
"I spent weeks grinding for that ch!"
And now it was gone.
In his rage, he even considered using his family's financial influence to pressure Umbrella Corporation by buying shares and taking control of the gaming division.
Unfortunately, his father inford him with a sympathetic smile that Umbrella Corporation was not sothing ordinary capitalists could touch anymore.
Even the world's superpowers struggled to interfere with it.
The company possessed private military forces, independent infrastructure, and influence across nearly every industry imaginable. It barely relied on Earth's resources anymore.
Today marked the first login after the wipe.
Alan entered the ga with tears in his eyes.
As expected, most things inside Krypton Empire had changed.
Krypton Coins were gone.
In their place was a more traditional currency structure of gold, silver, and copper, albeit entirely digital.
The Ultraman exchange system had also disappeared.
Now every single player had to mine, haul cargo, and participate in infrastructure construction in order to earn money.
No shortcuts.
Just labor.
...
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