The portal sealed shut behind him.
The golden sparks faded, leaving behind only a faint trace of sandalwood lingering in the air.
He stood motionless on the cold alloy floor.
Two forces hummed within his body. One green—Time. One blue—Space. They shared the same origin, like long-lost brothers drawn to each other, spiraling and intertwining into a slowly rotating taiji diagram.
It was a signal.
There was too much inside him. Too chaotic.
Logan's healing factor. Steve's serum. Carol's energy. Ego's cells. Odin's bloodline. And his own rudimentary grasp of force and space. Everything crammed into one body like a pot of overcooked stew. Usable—but clumsy. Unrefined.
Now, it was time to smelt it all into a single piece of iron.
He needed a place where absolutely no one could disturb him.
Levi raised his right hand toward the empty air before him and made a gentle slicing motion, as if unzipping reality itself.
Space split open.
On the other side was not anywhere he had been before, but a kaleidoscopic Mirror Dimension. Buildings and streets twisted and folded like wildly overgrown vines.
He stepped through. The rift closed behind him.
With a thought—
The entire mirrored New York shattered like toy bricks crushed by an invisible hand, collapsing into pure streams of data. In the next instant, the data reassembled.
A boundless, pure white void took shape.
Beneath his feet stretched a mirror-smooth crystalline floor. Above him, an abyss that devoured all light.
This was his laboratory.
Levi sat cross-legged, letting his consciousness sink inward.
First step—replace the skeleton.
Ego's Celestial lifeform was powerful, but it carried that madman's selfish, devouring imprint. Too tainted. The Asgardian physique was pure, but limited—its upper ceiling locked within the Nine Realms.
What he intended to do was shatter both completely, discard the dross, retain the essence, and reforge them anew.
His will ignited into invisible flames from within.
Pain drowned him instantly.
Not the pain of flesh—but the disintegration of genes and soul.
Golden divine power melted into its most primitive life energy. The Celestial cellular structure was forcibly dismantled. He could clearly see the parasitic spiritual imprints left by Ego wailing and dissipating within the flames.
The process was like smashing every bone in his body by hand, grinding them into powder, then painstakingly reassembling them.
Levi's expression did not change.
His will was an iceberg floating upon a sea of magma, coldly orchestrating everything. Pain was merely data. Emotion, nothing but noise.
Time lost meaning.
When the last trace of Ego's impurity was finally erased, the golden divine power and the purest Celestial life blueprint fused together.
No longer two separate things—but a brand-new, stable structure glowing faintly with gold.
Each cell resembled a miniature galaxy, self-sustaining and indestructible.
He had succeeded.
He had forged a law that belonged solely to himself—the Law of the Body.
Not something comprehended from the outside world, but created from within. It was his vessel for crossing the Sea of Laws, and the anchor that would bear all his power.
The preparations were complete.
Levi took a deep breath. His spiritual will detached from his newly forged body and stepped forward into a realm that existed only as concept.
The Sea of Laws.
Boundless.
Closest to him lay a serene, mirror-like ocean of deep blue—
the Sea of Space.
His will assumed humanoid form and stepped directly onto it. The seawater solidified beneath his feet, forming a stable path. He crossed it with ease.
His understanding of space had originated from the Tesseract; it was already masterful.
Beyond that shore lay a crimson ocean.
Violent. Chaotic. Brimming with destruction. Each wave was the detonation of a star.
The Law of Force.
Levi frowned. He could feel the naked rejection radiating from that sea.
He did not retreat.
The newly forged Law of the Body transformed into a close-fitting suit of golden armor, wrapping around his spiritual will. Like a diver clad in the heaviest deep-sea suit, he inhaled and plunged in.
Boom!
Raging force swallowed him instantly.
His spiritual form fractured within the first second. Yet gritting his teeth, he advanced in the clumsiest and most direct way possible—brute-forcing his way forward against pressure that could crush a seed.
One step.
Another.
Like a mortal climbing the event horizon of a black hole against a storm of gamma radiation.
His will was crushed and reforged again and again. With every step, his understanding of force deepened.
When he finally staggered out of the crimson sea onto the opposite shore, his spiritual body was riddled with cracks. The golden armor had dimmed, webbed with fissures.
He looked ahead.
Two oceans remained, deeper still.
One was green, eerily still—like time itself frozen solid.
The Law of Time.
Merely gazing upon it made his thoughts jump wildly between past, present, and future, nearly fracturing his sanity.
The other was gold—heavy as the earth.
His own Law of the Body.
He had created it—but was far from mastering it.
Levi fell silent.
He knew he could not cross them. The spiritual power he had left wasn't even enough to muster the courage to step into either sea.
Too greedy.
He murmured to himself and decisively withdrew, retreating from the Sea of Laws.
This breakthrough—had failed.
His will returned to his body. He opened his eyes and exhaled a long breath.
In the pure white space, that breath condensed into a gray, lifeless crystal before shattering into dust.
Though he had failed, it was not without gain.
His comprehension of Space and Force had reached a new height. The various powers within him were no longer feuding warlords, but forces unified under these two great laws, more condensed and refined than before.
He was stuck at a bottleneck.
Just one step short of pushing open that door and becoming a true Skyfather-tier being.
But that step weighed heavier than Mount Tai.
"How much time has passed?"
He rose to his feet. In the Mirror Dimension, time was vague.
With a casual gesture, he sliced open another portal and stepped through.
The base looked exactly as it had when he left—immaculate.
But the sandalwood scent in the air was stronger now.
Someone had come.
And they were right outside.
Levi walked to the door without hesitation and pulled open the heavy alloy entrance.
A man stood there.
He wore a faded blue sorcerer's robe, a red Cloak of Levitation draped over his shoulders as if alive, and hanging at his chest—the ancient Eye of Agamotto.
Fatigue lined his face. Dark circles hollowed his eyes, stubble rough along his jaw. Yet the hands that once belonged to a world-class surgeon were steady within his sleeves. His eyes were extraordinarily bright, carrying a weathered resolve beyond his years.
Stephen Strange.
The future Sorcerer Supreme.
"You're… Anthony Chen?" Strange asked, uncertain. He had learned the name from information left behind by the Ancient One, but hadn't expected someone so young.
Levi did not answer. He simply looked him over, his gaze lingering briefly on the green Time Stone.
"The newly appointed Sorcerer Supreme. Seems your first day hasn't gone too smoothly," Levi said evenly, as if commenting on the weather. "I can still sense the residual energy from the Ancient One's passing clinging to you."
Strange's pupils contracted sharply. His body tensed in an instant.
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