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*****
The Aile flew a few hundred meters up. Everyone stared at the warlike scene below, faces set and grim.
Mountains collapsed, the earth split, torrents of energy raged—an even more shocking sight than the battle on Xandar.
A black streak blinked in and out of midair; every time it appeared, the giant that Ego had formed lost a massive chunk of its body.
Mike was like a carving knife, slicing and sculpting at high speed.
The giant roared, pale blue light—the planet-light—coursing over his frame to mend his wounds. Countless blue tendrils writhed like seaweed, snatching for the incoming Mike.
But Mike was far too agile; even when the tendrils snagged him, he tore free with ease.
Yet even with the strength he'd shown, Mike had no conclusive way to deal with Ego.
As a living planet, Ego didn't fear attrition. Even if Mike killed the giant a hundred times, it meant nothing.
Mike slipped outside Ego's attack radius and hovered high above, looking down at the howling Ego.
"Roaaar!"
Ego's fury at Mike burned hot—Mike had actually rescued Star-Lord and spirited him away.
Who knew how much trouble it would take to drag Star-Lord back again?
If Star-Lord really wanted to hide, Ego wasn't even sure he could catch him.
At that thought, he couldn't help unleashing two more enraged bellows at Mike.
Mike arched a brow.
Several cards appeared between his fingers and flicked away like sparks.
Name: Ultimate Flash.
In the next instant, pillars of blinding light crashed down like divine judgment, punching one crater after another through Ego's gargantuan body.
Mike hadn't intended to inflict any meaningful damage with the technique—Ego was just annoying, and Mike wanted to blast that big head off, that was all.
He hadn't expected the giant to stagger as if struck a mortal blow—and then collapse with a thunderous crash.
Mike's eyes narrowed. With super-vision, he swept the fallen mass and saw the brilliant, enormous planet-light condense rapidly, coalescing into Ego's human form.
Mike moved. He dove from the sky, tracing a clean arc, lancing through the rubble of the giant's body and blasting Ego out from within.
This time, however, one punch didn't blow Ego's head off.
"Armor?"
Mike eyed the plating sheathing Ego, a note of surprise in his voice.
Ego had fashioned himself a suit of armor with planet-light—its defensive power was off the charts.
Ego sneered and hurled a fist for Mike's head.
Pale blue planet-light flared from his knuckles like rocket exhaust, pouring terrifying speed and force into the blow.
Mike caught the fist and squeezed.
Crack!
A hairline fracture split Ego's armor.
But with a surge of energy, the crack vanished in a blink.
Suddenly, streams of energy raced along every point of contact, snaking toward Mike.
Mike's eyes flashed. Twin beams of heat vision hammered Ego's skull, bursting it apart. He seized the body and drove it straight down.
Boom!
The ground detonated, a vast crater yawning where they struck.
Dust geysered skyward. The land heaved like a storm-tossed sea, waves of earth rolling away in all directions.
Ego's body dissolved into pale blue energy, scattering. Strands of it sluiced over Mike.
Instantly, the energy skittered across Mike's body.
His brow creased.
The energy that touched him actually imposed a faint restraint.
Then, one Ego after another sprouted from the soil like weeds, encircling Mike.
They smirked in unison and launched a fresh barrage.
Bang!
With a sonic boom, Mike shot for the sky.
The Egos gave chase, planet-light jetting from their backs in blue torrents as they swarmed to hem him in.
The two sides streaked through the heavens, clashing and carving the sky to tatters.
Each impact cracked the air with thunder. Egos exploded one after another, and pale blue planet-light fell like rain, seeping into the ground and vanishing.
Just then, Raven's voice sounded in Mike's earpiece.
"Mike, quit playing around and finish him. He sent other avatars after us."
Mike glanced off to the distance. The Aile was speeding away—and behind it, several Egos were in hot pursuit.
"Got it."
He answered mildly. As the other Egos bore down on him, Mike gave them a quick smile, dove for the ground, and twitched his fingers—more cards snapped into his hand.
Sorry, he'd wanted to see if Ego had any more tricks.
A heartbeat before he would've slammed into the earth, Mike flickered out of sight.
Several Egos smashed nose-first into the dirt, gouging new pits. The rest checked their momentum just in time, hovering above the ground.
They craned their necks, searching for Mike, even sweeping the area with planet-light in a full-spectrum scan.
Suddenly, as if struck by the same realization, their faces changed. They dissolved back into energy and vanished.
A second later, Ego reappeared at the heart of the planet—in the hollow shell that housed his core.
Quick as he was, he was still a step slower than Mike.
When he looked up and saw Mike, disbelief carved across his face.
"No!"
He launched himself at Mike with a mad roar—eyes wild, and threaded through with a sliver of despair he didn't even recognize.
Beside Mike stood a massive green figure.
Name: Professor Hulk.
Description: He possesses Bruce Banner's intellect and the Hulk's indomitable physique.
Note: I'm a Doctor of Physics—yes, that physics.
This was a manifested Hulk—Bruce's "Endgame" form, conjured by Mike.
And on his hand gleamed a golden gauntlet.
Mike had manifested an Infinity Gauntlet.
Three Infinity Stones already studded it:
Space, Reality, and Power.
Exactly the three stones Mike had acquired.
What truly plunged Ego into despair was what appeared in Mike's palm as the summoning card flared out—the other three Infinity Stones.
A yellow Mind Stone, an orange Soul Stone, and a green Time Stone.
Mike's hand swept in a blur. The three stones clicked into the Gauntlet's empty sockets.
In an instant, horrific energy surged from the Gauntlet.
The manifested Hulk bellowed, lifted his arm high.
The moment Mike called him forth, he'd known his mission. He was ready.
And as Ego hurtled within striking distance—
Snap.
A crisp report echoed. Ego's body froze where he stood.
"Goodbye," Mike said softly.
Ego's planet-light body fractured—and then sifted away as dust.
Faster still than Ego's erasure, the three manifested Infinity Stones on the Gauntlet winked out.
"Thanks, Bruce."
Mike nodded, accepted the Gauntlet from Bruce, then willed both Bruce and the Gauntlet to dissipate. The other three stones—the real ones set into the Gauntlet—dropped neatly into Mike's hand. He slipped them back into his dimensional pouch.
He let out a small breath.
Good—just in time.
He had manifested three Infinity Stones.
Each one had cost him ten days of sleepless effort, and once manifested, each could barely persist for two seconds.
If not for the previous tier-up of his powers increasing his manifestation capacity—plus a lottery reward boosting his recovery rate, and a trait where the less manifestation energy he had, the faster it replenished—he wouldn't have pulled this off at all.
But no matter what, he had done it—he had manifested three Infinity Stones.
Mike Kent is just that good.
He offered himself a quiet compliment.
Then he looked at Ego's core, and his expression turned solemn.
Now, his plan was only half complete.
His ultimate goal was to make this planet his—to take this world… home.
So that snap Hulk fired off wasn't to erase Ego entirely—it was to wipe out Ego's consciousness, or soul, rendering the core an object without a will.
That was why the planet hadn't collapsed when Ego vanished.
Next, what he had to do was—
His gaze sharpened. He streaked toward Ego's core.
Just then, Raven's voice crackled again in his comms.
"Mike, the Egos chasing us just vanished. Did you finish him? Are you hurt?"
Raven didn't know the plan—this was the surprise Mike had prepared for everyone.
"I'm fine. Ego's gone. Wait for me on the ship—I've got a little more to take care of."
He tapped the comms off and got to work.
A short while later, after opening a slit in Ego's core, Mike slipped inside.
"What a massive… brain! Wonder how it'd taste in hotpot."
Staring at the glowing mass whose shape and structure looked a lot like a brain, the thought popped unbidden into Mike's head.
He coughed, then fished a black sphere from his dimensional pouch and pressed it to the core.
The device—crafted by Jor-El over the course of a month—flowed like liquid as it met the core, spreading to adhere tightly across the surface. Even so, compared to the core, it still looked tiny.
At the center of that unfurled black material, several recessed slots waited.
Mike raised a brow, produced a black key engraved with an S, and pushed it into place.
A phantom-like silhouette shimmered into being before him.
Jor-El.
He cast a glance at Ego's core, awe flickering in his eyes. Then he closed them briefly, feeling the controller hum to life. He opened them and nodded to Mike. "No issues. Everything's nominal. We can proceed to the next step."
(End of Chapter)