Levi was running out of patience.
Scott Lang's training, in his eyes, looked like a clumsy circus performance. Watching that man wobble on the back of an ant and spend an entire night just barely mastering the basics of takeoff was unbearable.
Waiting any longer—for Scott to fully understand the Ant-Man suit and then copying the ability from him—was like waiting for a grade-school student to solve a university-level math problem.
Too slow.
Levi decided to change his approach.
He didn't need to wait for the fruit to ripen.
He could simply take the entire cultivation method of the tree.
His target: Hank Pym.
That very night, while Hope and Scott were out buying dinner ingredients, Levi found Hank Pym alone in the basement, adjusting equipment.
Using the Law of Mind, Levi concealed his presence completely.
Pym had no idea someone was standing behind him.
Levi reached out and lightly tapped his shoulder.
A system notification sounded in his mind.
Target detected: Henry Pym.
Copyable abilities:
[S-Rank – Mastery of Quantum Physics]
[A-Rank – Insect Behavioral Research] …
Levi chose the first without hesitation.
A vast torrent of knowledge poured into his mind—organized, clear, and precise.
It wasn't memorized data.
It was a new way of perceiving reality—an intuitive understanding of physical rules at the subatomic level.
In that instant, he grasped the true nature of Pym Particles.
They weren't simple shrinking technology.
They used a special quantum field to forcibly compress the spatial distance between atomic nuclei and electrons, effectively folding three-dimensional matter along a higher-dimensional axis.
Levi withdrew his hand and silently left.
The old man continued working with his instruments, completely unaware of what had just happened.
---
Back at his base, Levi went straight to the workbench.
He ignored the apple sitting on the table.
Instead, he dragged over a solid tungsten cube, one meter on each side.
It weighed nineteen tons—a target used for testing physical attacks.
Levi extended a single finger toward it.
This time he used no flashy energy effects.
He simply combined his newly gained quantum physics understanding with his Law of Space and issued a simple command:
Fold.
Silence.
The cube didn't shrink.
Instead, a fist-sized section of one corner simply vanished.
Levi frowned.
He could clearly sense what had happened.
At the moment he executed the command, multiple laws within his body had violently clashed.
The Law of Space tried to compress.
The Law of Force tried to crush.
And Chaos Magic attempted to rewrite the region's very concept of existence.
The three forces fought each other.
The result?
The chunk of matter had been erased from reality entirely.
"…Wrong."
Levi muttered.
He tried again.
This time he forcibly suppressed the Law of Force and Chaos Magic, guiding the action using only the pure Law of Space.
BZZZZ—
The cube began vibrating violently.
Its edges blurred like a glitching television signal.
It flickered between shrinking and returning to normal size, distorting the surrounding light like a miniature black hole.
Levi's expression changed.
He immediately cut the connection.
The cube returned to normal.
But its surface was now covered in spiderweb cracks.
The internal structure had been completely destroyed.
He had failed.
What he created wasn't Pym Particles.
It was an extremely unstable spatial bomb.
---
Levi sat down and closed his eyes.
His consciousness sank inward, into the chaotic sea of laws within his body.
Space was deep blue.
Force was violent purple.
Time shimmered green.
The Law of the Body appeared as dense earth-colored matter.
The Law of Mind glowed pure yellow.
The Law of Reality flickered mysterious crimson.
And now—
A new nebula formed from countless precise symbols had entered the system.
The Quantum Physics field.
He had once believed that after comprehending the Law of Mind, he was only one step away from becoming a true Skyfather-level being.
All he needed was to use his powerful mind as a furnace and melt all these powers into a single ultimate law.
But now he realized something terrifying.
Each additional law didn't increase difficulty linearly.
It multiplied it exponentially.
They were like wild beasts with completely different temperaments, locked inside the same cage—rejecting and tearing at each other.
His mind—the supposed furnace—was nowhere near strong enough.
At any moment it could be torn apart.
Levi opened his eyes.
For the first time in a long while, he felt exhausted.
He had been doing things the wrong way.
He kept copying abilities.
But he had barely truly understood most of them.
"Pause."
He said quietly to himself.
Until he fully digested everything he already possessed—
He would not copy any more abilities.
He needed to dismantle these laws one by one, understand their mechanics, and find the common thread connecting them.
---
Just as Levi stepped toward the meditation chamber—
His mind, now capable of covering the entire Earth, suddenly sensed something.
A familiar yet weakening divine power.
In New York.
It belonged to Asgard.
To the All-Father.
Odin had arrived.
Levi stopped.
Standing at the doorway, he closed his eyes and locked onto the source.
New York.
Manhattan.
A small alley near Greenwich Village.
The divine energy was fading rapidly.
Odin was dying.
Levi's newly formed determination shattered like paper in the face of reality.
He had once promised Odin three favors after his death.
Now the creditor had come to collect.
More importantly—
Odin's death meant something else.
His sealed eldest daughter—
Hela, Goddess of Death—
was about to break free.
Levi had no intention of letting that madwoman make her entrance in the middle of Manhattan and turn the city into her divine kingdom.
Seclusion?
Power digestion?
The universe clearly wasn't giving him that luxury.
Levi took a deep breath and walked toward the center of the base.
Instead of opening a neat portal as usual, he violently tore open space with raw mental power.
A crack split the air.
He stepped through.
In an instant, the sleek metal base vanished—
replaced by a filthy, damp New York alley.
The smell of rotten food and rainwater hit him immediately.
At the end of the alley stood an old man in a cheap suit.
Thin.
One-eyed.
Leaning against a graffiti-covered dumpster while staring blankly at passing traffic.
He was no longer the majestic ruler of the Nine Realms.
Just a lonely homeless man abandoned by time.
Levi walked slowly toward him.
The sound of his shoes splashing through puddles echoed in the narrow alley.
The old man didn't turn.
He seemed to have already sensed Levi's arrival.
Only when Levi stood before him, blocking the alley's only light source, did the old man slowly lift his head.
His cloudy single eye struggled to focus.
"You came."
Odin's voice was dry like sandpaper scraping together.
But there was peace in it.
As if he had long foreseen this moment.
Levi looked at him.
The once-mighty All-Father now had almost no divine power left.
His life flickered like a candle about to be blown out by the wind.
Levi could clearly sense the collapse of the laws within Odin's body.
The ancient runes sustaining his life were fading one by one.
"I can feel it," Odin said slowly.
"Your power… is like a boiling ocean."
"But it's chaotic."
Levi said nothing.
Odin wasn't wrong.
The old god tried to stand straighter but failed, sinking further against the dumpster.
"My time is short."
"Loki… that troublesome child… left me here."
He paused.
"My death will release a great problem. One even I cannot handle."
He lifted a trembling hand, as if trying to grasp something.
Then it dropped helplessly.
"After I die, Thor and Loki will come looking for me."
"Tell them… I love them."
"And tell them… stay away from her."
Levi listened quietly.
He knew Odin meant Hela.
For some reason, the chaotic ocean of laws inside him calmed slightly.
He crouched down so they were eye level.
"You mentioned that problem."
"The promise I made to you… I'll handle it."
Odin's eye widened.
He stared intensely at Levi, searching for any sign of bravado.
He found none.
Only a calm deeper than an abyss.
After a long silence—
Odin smiled.
A smile of someone finally laying down all burdens.
"Good."
"Then… I leave it to you."
As the words faded—
Odin's body turned translucent.
It dissolved into countless golden particles drifting into the air.
At the exact moment he disappeared—
A terrifying divine force erupted somewhere in the universe.
Dark.
Oppressive.
Filled with death and conquest.
The seal had broken.
Above New York, dark clouds gathered instantly.
A green, sulfur-scented spatial rift was violently torn open above the alley.
Levi lifted his head—
and looked at it.
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