Avengers Base, main building conference room.
War Machine, Falcon, and Wanda stood in a semicircle around Nathaniel, their weapons still raised.
The boy sat in a chair, his purple-blue armor helmet resting on the table. He looked exhausted, dark circles under his eyes. On his wrist was a wound so deep it exposed bone, glowing faintly with a dark violet hue under the lights.
Wanda stared at the wound.
Something wasn't right.
There was an extremely faint energy fluctuation around it—not a normal injury.
War Machine lifted his visor.
"You said you're from the 31st century, here to stop a disaster. Then why come here? Why now?"
Nathaniel looked up.
"Because this is the final node. In my timeline, the Council of Kangs completed their first multiversal purge in August 2025. Starting from this point, they erased every timeline that posed a threat to them."
"Why not go to Tony Stark?" Falcon asked.
"Mr. Stark is already dead in my timeline." The boy lowered his head. "I detected an immensely powerful force emerging in this timeline. I believe that force might be able to defeat the Council of Kangs."
Wanda narrowed her eyes.
Everything he said sounded true. His emotional fluctuations were genuine.
But something still felt off.
That wound.
She looked again. Around the edges of the injury were extremely fine runes—almost invisible to the naked eye, but perceptible to her senses.
Not a healing trace.
More like… a brand.
The air suddenly froze.
Everyone felt a massive pressure descending from above. It wasn't killing intent, nor hostility—just pure presence.
Rhodey's suit blared alarms. Sam instinctively raised his shield. Wanda's Chaos Magic automatically formed a barrier.
Nathaniel's face turned pale. His body began to tremble.
The ceiling remained intact. No sound. No visual effect.
Hang simply stood in the center of the room—as if he had always been there.
Dressed in a black robe, twelve laws faintly flowed across his body. The aura of a cosmic overlord filled the entire room.
Rhodey and Sam's weapons lowered on their own. Not by choice—their bodies instinctively recognized the futility of resistance.
Wanda exhaled in relief, her barrier fading.
"You're back."
Hang nodded, but his gaze wasn't on her. It was fixed on Nathaniel.
The boy tried to stand, but his legs gave out, and he collapsed back into the chair.
"Y-you are…" Nathaniel's voice trembled.
"Hang."
He spoke calmly, stepping forward. Each step made the pressure in the room grow heavier.
He stopped three steps away.
Without a word, he raised his right hand.
Golden and silver light intertwined in his palm—the simultaneous activation of the Alchemy Law and Soul Law.
Nathaniel tried to retreat, but the chair was against the wall.
"Wait, I can explain…" His voice cracked.
Hang said nothing.
Light drifted from his palm, forming countless fine threads that passed through the air and into Nathaniel's body.
Not an attack.
An analysis.
The Alchemy Law peeled apart the boy's physical structure—cells, genes, energy core. The Soul Law penetrated his consciousness, reading memories, emotions, thought patterns.
Nathaniel's body stiffened. His eyes widened.
He could feel everything being examined—every thought, every memory since birth laid bare.
Rhodey stepped forward, but Wanda stopped him.
"Don't," she whispered. "He's confirming whether the boy is a threat."
"Will it hurt him?"
"No." Wanda stared at Hang's back. "But if he finds something wrong… that's another matter."
Thirty seconds later, Hang withdrew his hand. The golden threads returned and dissipated.
He turned to Wanda.
"Seal the room. No one gets in."
Wanda didn't ask why. With a wave, Chaos Magic locked down the doors and windows. Red energy barriers covered every exit—even sound couldn't escape.
Only then did Hang speak.
"Most of what he said is true." He pointed at Nathaniel. "He's from the 31st century. He does want to stop the Council of Kangs. His memories and emotions are real."
"Then why seal the room?" Rhodey asked.
"Because he's a trap." Hang's tone was flat. "A trap even he doesn't know about."
Nathaniel's face went even paler.
"What do you mean?"
Hang pointed at the wound on his wrist.
"This isn't a normal injury. It's an anchor for a dimensional beacon. The Council implanted spatial coordinates inside you, disguised with Void energy. You think it's a scar from battle—but it's a locator."
Nathaniel stared at his wrist. The wound was growing warm.
"That's impossible… I scanned myself with 31st-century tech. Nothing showed up…"
"Because it only activates under specific energy fields," Hang said. "Like mine."
The moment he finished speaking, the wound lit up.
Dark violet light surged from within, spreading rapidly up Nathaniel's arm. He screamed and fell from the chair.
Wanda rushed forward—but Hang blocked her with a spatial barrier.
"Don't touch him. You'll be marked too."
The violet light spread to Nathaniel's shoulder. He convulsed on the ground.
The air in the room began to distort.
Rhodey's systems screamed warnings. Sam stepped back, shield raised. Wanda's barrier thickened.
Hang remained still.
He raised his right hand.
Twelve laws condensed into a fist-sized sphere—gold, silver, purple, cyan, red, black, white, green, orange, gray, brown, blue—intertwining and rotating.
Space began to crack.
Not explode. Not tear.
Fracture—from within.
A fissure opened three meters above Nathaniel, unstable spacetime turbulence flickering at its edges.
A hand emerged.
Encased in silver-white armor, fingertips equipped with micro energy emitters, wrist-mounted temporal stabilizers humming.
Then a second hand.
A third.
Three figures stepped out, floating midair.
Uniform high-tech armor. On their chests—the emblem of the Council of Kangs: a distorted clock with reversed hands.
They landed. The room's temperature dropped—not physically, but temporally, as time itself slowed.
Rhodey's movements became ten times slower. Sam's breathing turned viscous. Wanda's Chaos Magic froze midair like translucent red crystal.
Only Hang remained unaffected.
The lead executioner spoke, voice cold and mechanical:
"Temporal anomaly located. Target: Hang. Codename: The Greedy One. Threat level: Multiversal extinction. Council directive: Immediate erasure."
Hang didn't respond. He glanced at Nathaniel, still convulsing.
The second executioner raised a hand.
"Beacon complete. Remove host."
A silver beam fired.
Hang flicked his hand.
Space warped. The beam deflected inches from Nathaniel, vaporizing part of the ceiling.
"He's innocent," Hang said calmly.
"Innocent?" the third executioner scoffed. "There are no innocents in the multiverse. Every existence is a variable. Every variable risks collapse."
"And you?" Hang asked. "Slaughtering timelines—what does that make you?"
"We are executors of order," the leader replied. "The Council has seen the end of the multiverse. Infinite timelines devouring each other, collapsing into Void. The only solution is unification."
"So you kill anyone who resists."
"Not kill. Correct."
Energy built in their palms.
"And you, Greedy One, are the greatest error."
They attacked simultaneously.
Six beams shot from all directions—each at early Skyfather level—forming a net.
Rhodey and Sam could only watch. Wanda struggled against the temporal suppression.
Hang didn't move.
At the moment the beams struck, he lightly clenched his right hand.
Alchemy Law activated.
Golden runes burst forth, forming a complex array—the fundamental logic of equivalent exchange.
The beams froze.
Not blocked.
Not absorbed.
Redefined.
Their structure was dismantled, converted from destructive energy into harmless photons. The six beams dissolved into glowing motes, drifting like fireflies.
The executioners stepped back.
"Impossible…" one muttered. "Energy conservation—broken…"
"Not broken," Hang said, eyes reflecting golden runes. "Redefined."
He stepped forward.
Golden patterns spread across the floor.
The executioners tried to retreat—but their armor began to crack, metallic shrieks echoing.
"Your prized technology," Hang said calmly, "is still just matter."
He snapped his fingers.
The armor disintegrated.
Not exploded. Not melted.
Deconstructed into base elements—atoms, electrons, meaningless quantum states.
In three seconds, three sets of Skyfather-level armor collapsed into scrap.
Three exposed figures remained—young, barely thirty, each bearing the mark of the Council.
Hang raised his hand.
Space lifted them, suspending them midair.
"I won't kill you," he said. "You're useful."
Golden threads of Soul Law entered their foreheads.
This time—not analysis.
Tracking.
Following the beacon's spacetime signature, piercing layers of dimensions—
Locking onto a forward outpost of the Council of Kangs.
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