According to the Ancient One, Drex Valen's increasing mass functioned similarly to Iceman's mutation.
Iceman could generate ice from nothing, effectively creating matter out of thin air. Even among Oga-level mutants, that ability was terrifying once you thought through the implications.
But Drex was far worse.
He wasn't creating new mass.
He was consuming the mass of the universe itself and adding it to his own existence.
Even if the process wasn't intentional, the consequences still spread across reality like cracks in glass, affecting not only this universe, but neighboring parallel universes as well.
"Can it be stopped?" Drex asked.
He couldn't suppress the phenonon himself.
His biofield could isolate ordinary gravitational influence within physical reality, but if this attraction extended into higher-dinsional layers of existence, then conventional control thods beca aningless.
More importantly, there was no precedent for what he had beco.
A Black Hole Kryptonian had never existed before.
Doomsday at least provided a rough template for adaptive mutation.
But Drex's self-evolved Black Hole Kryptonian state had already surpassed anything remotely comparable to Doomsday.
That made finding a solution much harder.
"You could try consuming the Infinity Stones," the Ancient One said.
Drex blinked.
"The Infinity Stones?"
That was not the direction he expected this conversation to take.
"The power contained within an Infinity Stone is not inferior to the energy of a universe," the Ancient One explained calmly. "Most beings simply lack the capacity to fully utilize them. But for you, they can function as fuel."
She looked directly at him.
"Even you would require an extrely long ti to digest one completely."
Drex considered it for a mont before nodding.
To anyone else, the idea of eating an Infinity Stone sounded suicidal.
To Drex?
With the combined evolutionary traits of Doomsday and a Black Hole Kryptonian, it barely even qualified as a life-threatening risk.
"So how exactly do I eat one?"
"I recomnd starting with the Power Stone."
That made sense imdiately.
The Power Stone amplified the output of the other Infinity Stones. In many ways, it was the foundation that allowed the others to unleash their full potential.
It possessed effectively limitless physical energy.
An individual wielding it could manipulate and dominate nearly any form of force or energy imaginable.
It could reinforce the other Stones.
Copy physical superpowers.
Push offensive and defensive capabilities to absurd levels.
And most importantly…
The Power Stone itself contained an incomprehensible reservoir of raw energy.
Of course, "eating" it wasn't literal.
Otherwise Drex could simply swallow the gem whole and explode five seconds later.
Following the Ancient One's instructions, Drex released the restraints on his biofield.
The effect was imdiate.
The temporary Mirror Dinsion around them shattered apart instantly under the pressure of his unleashed mass.
Drex had beco so impossibly dense that even reality warped violently around him.
For a fraction of a second, his gravitational pull threatened to annihilate everything within billions of light-years.
Then the Power Stone intervened.
Its energy flooded into the void like a cosmic dam sealing a collapsing star.
Brilliant purple light erupted from Drex's body.
The radiance surpassed a million suns.
No.
Far beyond that.
The raw radiation alone could exterminate countless lifeforms instantly. Even the Green Hulk probably wouldn't survive prolonged exposure to sothing like this.
Drex himself felt sothing entirely different.
Fullness.
Saturation.
As though a starving abyss inside him had finally been fed for the first ti since his transformation.
The sensation was almost intoxicating.
As the Power Stone's energy fused into him, hundreds of new abilities surfaced instantly within his awareness.
But at this point, Drex barely cared.
Compared to what he already possessed, individual superpowers had beco almost irrelevant.
"The Power Stone should sustain you for several centuries."
The Ancient One visibly relaxed.
From her higher-dinsional perspective, Drex no longer resembled the living embodint of universal destruction.
Before this, what she perceived wasn't truly a person.
It was a black hole projected across higher-dinsional reality.
Even within subspace, Drex existed as an imnse gravitational shadow radiating absolute force and death.
Just looking at it inspired instinctive dread.
Now, at least temporarily, that endless abyss had been sealed.
Agamotto's request had finally been completed.
Drex rolled his shoulders slightly, purple energy flickering beneath his skin.
"'Several centuries' doesn't sound especially reliable," he said dryly. "My growth rate isn't exactly slowing down."
The jump from single-universe existence to higher universal tiers wasn't sothing asurable with ordinary numbers.
It was infinity layered upon infinity.
A conceptual leap impossible to quantify.
But Drex had a feeling that if he underwent another major mutation, he might cross into multiversal territory outright.
Especially considering what future Franklin Richards had once said.
Uncle Drex was his hero.
Whether that admiration ca from personality or sheer power remained unclear.
Still, by that future point, Drex would almost certainly have surpassed single-universe limits already.
He was dangerously close even now.
"These were the conclusions reached by Agamotto and the Vishanti," the Ancient One replied.
In truth, when she first realized Drex might eventually trigger universal collapse, her original solution had been very different.
She had considered turning him into a dinsional entity.
There were countless unclaid dinsions scattered throughout existence. She could have sealed Drex inside one easily enough.
Eventually, he would likely evolve into a true dinsional god.
At that point, interfering with physical reality would beco far more difficult.
Dormammu would probably have lost his mind hearing that plan.
The man had clawed and struggled his way into becoming a dinsional ruler.
anwhile Drex could apparently achieve the sa thing by accident and still get to choose his dinsion afterward.
Unfortunately, Agamotto and the Vishanti rejected the idea imdiately.
Because Drex had another option.
He could simply consu the dinsion itself.
If that happened, his total mass would exceed the mass of the current universe entirely, accelerating either universal collapse or universal fusion catastrophically.
Thankfully, the Infinity Stones offered a safer alternative.
The Power Stone alone could buy several hundred years.
Even if each remaining Infinity Stone only delayed the problem for another century, that still created a massive buffer.
Drex narrowed his eyes thoughtfully.
"Agamotto and the Vishanti seem unusually interested in ."
Being watched by entities on that level rarely ant anything good.
Drex strongly suspected at least part of them wanted to trick him into so abandoned dinsion and lock him away forever.
Not that he was especially worried about it.
After all…
What prison in existence could truly contain a being created from the fusion of Doomsday evolution and a Black Hole Kryptonian?
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