"Even if I die, I'll die standing. That's the only justice I believe in."
There was no sky left to see.
The stars had died. The planet lay fractured, torn apart by the weight of impossible power. Mountains had been shattered to dust, oceans boiled into vapor, and the heavens themselves cracked beneath the force of a battle the universe could no longer contain.
In the center of the ruin stood Garou.
His once-sharp eyes, wild with purpose, were dulled with exhaustion. Blood—blackened, burned, corrupted—seeped from countless wounds. His breathing was shallow, his heartbeat fading. His body, so often the canvas for monstrous evolution, was at its limit.
He had faced gods, monsters, and ideals. He had stood against the notion of heroes themselves. And in the end, he had faced him—Saitama. The one man even evolution could not conquer.
Their battle had not been for justice. Not for peace. It had been something purer—raw, brutal, final. Two forces beyond reason, colliding with the fury of collapsing stars.
Now, only one remained.
Garou dropped to one knee, fists clenched into the soil of a dead Earth. There was no crowd. No witnesses. No legacy.
Only silence.
And then, he laughed.
It wasn't loud. It wasn't triumphant. It was the laugh of a man who had fought the world and lost—and still refused to kneel.
> "So that's it… huh?"
He tilted his head toward the black sky where the stars used to shine. The void didn't answer.
> "I fought everything. Everyone. I became something no one could define. A beast. A god. A monster. And still… not enough."
Garou slumped backward, lying flat against the scorched ground. His breath came slower now. His eyes blinked once. Twice. Then began to close.
And then—
The void blinked back.
There was no light, no sound. No warning.
Just absence. A presence that felt like a memory before it was even formed. Something beyond the scale of anything Garou had fought. No physical form. No shape. Just awareness. It hovered above the broken world like a question not meant to be asked.
Reality bent.
And Garou, already slipping into unconsciousness, was lifted from the planet.
No struggle. No protest. Not even pain. His body, broken but alive, drifted upward—past gravity, past reason, past the shell of the universe he once knew.
He didn't scream.
He smiled.
---
He did not awaken in heaven. Nor hell. Nor the reincarnation wheel of any karmic doctrine.
He awoke to silence.
Vast. Pure. Eternal.
A place outside of time. A gulf between multiverses. A reality that should not be.
A silver ocean stretched around him, endless and still, yet he was not submerged. He stood—or believed he did—upon something that shimmered with starlight and memory.
A voice that was not a voice echoed in his mind.
> "Garou. Beast of adaptation. Hunter of purpose."
He turned. There was nothing behind him. Nothing ahead. Yet he could feel it. Something watching. Something vast. It wasn't trying to control him—it was weighing him. Not good or evil. Not worthy or unworthy. Just… truth.
> "You hate gods."
Garou chuckled. His voice, hoarse but defiant, cracked across the void.
> "No. I hate cowards. Liars. People who use the word 'god' to justify control."
> "You desire evolution without end."
> "I don't desire it. I am it."
The silence pulsed. Not approval. Not rejection. Just response.
> "Then awaken in a place where gods are many… and truth is rare."
Light exploded—not blinding, but infinite. Garou felt his body twist, dissolve, reconstruct. He had no say. No will. But he didn't resist.
He had done his dying. Now it was time to hunt again.
---
Somewhere in the Marvel Universe…
A barren moon drifted in the shadow of Earth. Cold. Lifeless. A forgotten rock orbiting a world full of chaos, heroes, and secrets.
Until today.
A bolt of white energy slammed into the moon's surface like a meteor. Dust exploded outward, casting a brief halo of light around the crater.
Inside, something moved.
Garou rose.
Not reborn. Not restored. But reshaped.
He gasped as the alien air clawed into his lungs. Gravity, thinner here. Light, strange and filtered. But he was already adjusting. His bones thickened. Muscles coiled tighter. His skin shimmered faintly, the last traces of interdimensional radiation bleeding away.
He staggered to his feet.
His reflection shimmered in the dust. Taller. Sharper. Stronger. More.
This place… this reality… it felt different. The laws weren't like his old world. Power here didn't come from martial mastery or sheer will. It came from concepts—divinity, lineage, cosmic inheritance.
He hated it already.
A glint in the sky caught his eye. Fast. Fluid. Headed right toward him.
Someone had noticed.
And they were coming.
He smiled, eyes narrowing with something between curiosity and bloodlust.
> "Let's see what kind of 'heroes' you have here."
---
Far above the moon, on the outer edge of the Earth's atmosphere, a being of silver rode a ribbon of stardust.
The Silver Surfer, herald of Galactus, narrowed his eyes as the sensors in his board pulsed in warning.
> "Anomalous energy detected. Interdimensional disruption. Class-7 cosmic flare point."
The board hummed beneath his feet.
The Silver Surfer frowned.
> "No… not a flare. A presence."
He turned toward the moon, eyes piercing through miles of space.
There, standing alone amid the dust and silence, was a man—or something like one.
No readings. No genetic matches. No psychic profile. Just… motion. Purpose. Threat.
> "Who are you?"
He didn't expect an answer.
But something in his soul shivered.
Because the universe had seen monsters before.
But this one didn't just destroy.
This one evolved.