A voice exploded inside Levi's mind.
"Levi!"
It did not pass through his ears. It was pure will—mixed with thunder and the shriek of tearing metal—crossing immeasurable distance and slamming straight into his consciousness.
Images followed.
Broken. Chaotic.
Thor was kneeling in a field of dark-red ruins, using Mjolnir to prop himself up.
Each breath he exhaled came out in white mist. His blond hair was matted with blood and ash. His armor was cracked and scorched black. The left pauldron was gone, exposing torn flesh still sparking faintly with electricity.
He was surrounded.
Figures in black armor and pale, expressionless masks closed in silently.
"The Aether… Jane… they have her… I need—"
The voice cut off. The image went dark.
Tony and Pepper heard nothing. They only saw Levi's expression shift in an instant—his usually lazy eyes turning cold.
"What happened?" Tony asked instinctively.
The chill faded just as quickly.
"A friend picked a fight with too many people," Levi said lightly. "He's about to lose."
He glanced at the two of them and shrugged.
"Business trip. Carry on."
The air distorted violently around him. His form blurred, turned translucent—
—and vanished with a soft pop.
Only the faint scent of ozone lingered.
Pepper stared at the empty space. "He… he wasn't joking about magic?"
Tony didn't answer.
He was already at the holographic console, scrubbing through the security footage frame by frame.
Levi's body had disintegrated into countless microscopic points of light within one-thousandth of a second. Each point collapsed toward an invisible singularity—then nothing.
"JARVIS," Tony said hoarsely, "record all spatial fluctuation data. Build a new physical model. Cross-reference quantum tunneling, string theory, higher-dimensional frameworks—everything. I don't care what it takes."
He stared at the vanished point, frustration and obsession warring in his eyes.
"This can't just be magic."
Pepper gently placed a hand over his.
"Tony… maybe some things just are."
"No." He shook his head stubbornly. "If he can do it, there's a rule behind it. I'll find it."
He turned back to the data storm, determined to chase the shadow of a man who walked like a god.
---
One step.
The Malibu coastline vanished.
In its place—war.
The sky was a sickly green. Two fractured moons hung overhead.
The air reeked of burnt feathers, ozone, and rust.
Not far ahead—Thor was failing.
Each swing of Mjolnir crushed one or two enemies into paste. Lightning lashed down around him in desperate arcs, buying seconds.
But there were too many.
Dark Elves in black armor and white masks formed a disciplined perimeter. They kept their distance, firing strange rifles that launched spinning black singularities instead of bullets.
Thor's lightning struck their armor and was absorbed. The singularities, slow but relentless, devoured anything they touched. The battlefield floor was pockmarked with perfectly circular voids.
Thor's movements slowed. Each breath dragged.
A Dark Elf captain seized the moment, stepping from behind cover and leveling his weapon at Thor's exposed back.
Thor sensed it—but his body lagged behind his instinct.
Too slow.
A figure appeared behind him.
Levi extended two fingers and caught the spinning singularity midair.
The violent energy sphere, which devoured light itself, hummed helplessly between his fingers like a glass marble.
"Hey, Thor," Levi said casually. "Rough day?"
The Dark Elf barely had time to react before Levi flicked his fingers.
The singularity shot back ten times faster than before, striking the captain squarely in the chest.
No explosion.
No scream.
The Dark Elf and his armor compressed into a pinpoint—and vanished from existence.
"Levi!" Thor staggered back to him, awe and relief mixing with exhaustion. "How did you—so fast?"
"You were yelling pretty loud," Levi replied, scanning the battlefield and the scythe-shaped warships descending in the distance. "When did the Prince of Asgard start losing street fights?"
"They're Dark Elves!" Thor panted. "Led by Malekith. They want the Aether—a primordial weapon. It's inside Jane."
Levi's eyes flickered.
The Aether. The Reality Stone.
"Where is she?"
"With them. During the Convergence she was infected. I brought her to Asgard for help, but Malekith attacked. My mother was gravely wounded protecting her. I had to flee—"
The Dark Elf forces reorganized.
All rifles lifted simultaneously.
Dozens of singularities filled the sky, sealing every escape vector.
Thor raised Mjolnir, summoning the last of his strength.
"Behind me," Levi said calmly.
He stepped forward.
An invisible barrier unfolded.
Every singularity halted three meters away, spinning furiously yet unable to advance.
Levi clenched his fist.
Space — Collapse.
The suspended singularities were crushed together by unseen force. They devoured one another, compressed—
—and winked out of existence with a muted pop.
For the first time, unease rippled through the Dark Elf ranks.
"Warm-up's over," Levi said, rolling his wrist. "My turn."
He vanished.
Appeared in the center of their formation.
He extended a hand toward the nearest Dark Elf.
"Break."
Law of Force.
Atomic bonds. Molecular cohesion. Fundamental interactions—
Severed.
The Dark Elf disintegrated silently into fine dust.
Then the next.
And the next.
Levi walked—not ran—through them. Wherever he passed, enemies dissolved into nothingness.
A Dark Elf commander roared orders. Weapons focused on Levi.
He didn't even glance their way.
The singularities curved away from him, striking empty air—or their own allies.
Panic spread.
These were veteran soldiers. They knew warfare.
But this?
This was not battle.
It was inevitability.
Warships overhead tried to retreat, engines blazing green.
Levi looked up.
"Did I say you could leave?"
He raised his hand and clenched.
The ships halted mid-flight as if seized by a cosmic fist. Hulls shrieked and buckled. Metal folded inward, crushed like paper.
Explosions blossomed in the sky as the vessels imploded into flaming wreckage.
On the ground, the remaining Dark Elves broke.
They dropped weapons. Fled.
Levi didn't chase.
He simply raised his other hand.
"Still."
Every fleeing figure froze mid-stride.
He snapped his fingers.
"Scatter."
All of them dissolved into drifting ash.
Silence fell.
Less than a minute.
An entire elite Dark Elf unit—gone.
Thor stared at Levi, stunned beyond words.
He knew Levi was powerful.
He had not imagined this.
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