The five beams of light hadn't even fully faded before the battle began.
The Kang in the gold-and-white armor raised a hand.
All five moved simultaneously.
Heavy-Armor Kang charged straight at Thor. Every step blasted craters into the ground as twin particle cannons extended from his shoulders and fired at the God of Thunder.
Speed Kang turned into a blur, energy whips lashing toward Natasha and Clint.
Techno-Rune Kang formed seals with both hands, rings of machinery fused with magic locking onto Strange.
Time Kang wore no armor at all. Temporal energy flowed visibly beneath his skin, thickening the very air around him. His eyes fixed on Wanda.
The gold-and-white armored leader remained still, staring only at Levi.
"Devourer."
The voice echoed directly in Levi's mind. "The Council has rated you as an SSS-level threat. Today, I'm here to verify that assessment."
Levi didn't move.
He was observing.
The five Kangs coordinated flawlessly. Heavy-Armor Kang tied down Thor. Speed Kang suppressed the ordinary Avengers. Techno-Rune Kang countered Strange. Time Kang restrained Wanda.
And the leader was reserved for him.
Divide and surround. Eliminate one by one.
A textbook strategy.
Unfortunately—
Their intelligence was outdated.
Thor raised Stormbreaker. All six Infinity Stones blazed brilliantly.
The particle cannons slammed into him without even disturbing his cape.
"That's your attack?" Thor grinned savagely. "Let me show you what real power looks like."
He swung the axe downward.
The Space, Power, and Reality Stones activated simultaneously. Heavy-Armor Kang's liquid-metal armor tore apart like paper, his body and the earth beneath him split cleanly in two.
Three seconds.
Speed Kang blurred across the battlefield, whipping his energy lash toward Natasha's throat.
Wanda raised a hand.
"Your whip never existed."
The energy whip vanished.
Not broken.
Not destroyed.
Erased from the source itself.
Speed Kang froze, staring at his empty hand.
"Impossible! My weapons exist in a quantum-entangled state—"
"Theory?" Wanda tilted her head, scarlet light deepening in her eyes. "Before me, there is no such thing as theory."
She raised her hand again.
Speed Kang's armor twisted grotesquely. The intricate machinery transformed into a pile of colorful balloons.
He stood there in the middle of them, expression blank.
Elsewhere, Techno-Rune Kang faced Strange.
"Your magic is borrowed," Rune Kang sneered as glowing sigils surged forward. "My runes are calculations of universal law."
Strange said nothing.
The Eye of Agamotto opened on his forehead, golden radiance pouring forth.
The intricate runes disintegrated beneath the light like snow under the sun. Rune Kang desperately poured more energy into the system.
It was useless.
"In the past, my power was borrowed," Strange said calmly. "Now things are different."
He raised his right hand. A simple magic circle formed in his palm.
No complex structure.
Only pure order itself.
"Because now… I am the source."
The magic circle pushed forward gently.
The rune system collapsed instantly. Those elaborate constructs crumbled like paper before true order.
Rune Kang was blasted backward, smashing into the ground as his armor shattered and blood sprayed from his mouth.
Time Kang's expression darkened.
He stopped hesitating. Temporal power erupted fully from beneath his skin, transforming him into distorted light as he lunged at Wanda.
"I'll accelerate your time until you die of old age in a second!"
Wanda turned toward him, smiling faintly.
"You want to kill me with time?"
Her eyes were swallowed by scarlet.
Chaos Magic spread into a domain. The instant Time Kang entered it, his acceleration failed.
Not countered.
Rewritten.
"In my world," Wanda whispered, "time does not exist."
Time Kang's body froze.
He tried to retreat—
But couldn't move at all.
His time had been frozen—not halted, but stripped of its very right to flow.
The gold-and-white armored leader stood in the distance, watching his four companions get utterly crushed within seconds.
The arrogance on his face vanished.
In its place was deep caution.
"This isn't right," he muttered. "According to the database… they shouldn't be this strong."
He looked up toward the flagship in orbit and made a decision.
"Activate the main cannon," he transmitted through quantum communications. "Target: North America."
The flagship moved.
The three-kilometer-long warship opened at the bow, revealing a cannon barrel five hundred meters wide. Blue energy gathered into a spiraling vortex.
"Data collection complete," Leader Kang said coldly. "Target strength exceeds projections. Initiating B-Class Eradication Protocol."
"Confirmed," the flagship replied. "Timeline Erasure Cannon fully charged. Target locked: North American continent."
Thor felt the energy fluctuation and looked up.
His pupils contracted sharply.
"What the hell is that?"
Levi looked up as well.
His senses were sharper than anyone's. That energy wasn't physical.
It targeted the timeline itself.
If it hit, all of North America would be erased from history as though it had never existed.
"Everyone, evacuate!" Strange shouted, his hands already weaving spells.
Too late.
The blue beam descended from the heavens.
Over a kilometer wide, carrying causality-rewriting power, it slammed toward Earth at lightspeed. Wherever it passed, clouds vanished.
Not vaporized.
Erased from existence itself.
Wanda's Chaos Magic trembled violently before that force.
"I can't stop it."
Thor tightened his grip on Stormbreaker. The six Stones blazed desperately. Even the Infinity Stones couldn't construct a defense in time.
Half-formed portals around Strange shattered instantly. The energy disrupted all spatial magic.
Then—
A figure shot skyward.
Levi.
He didn't dodge.
He flew directly toward the beam.
"You're insane!" Thor roared.
Levi gave no reply.
Around him, twelve laws activated simultaneously, forming a domain a hundred meters wide.
This time, the domain's core wasn't defense.
It was a massive vortex.
Greed.
His concept. His essence.
The desire for power.
The hunger for abilities.
Boundless greed for everything.
When a concept became tangible, it transformed into a bottomless abyss—a black hole capable of devouring all things.
The blue beam collided with the vortex.
Everyone held their breath.
The beam neither pierced through nor exploded.
Instead, it was swallowed inch by inch.
Like a colossal river vanishing into a drain, the continent-erasing energy was being devoured by Levi's domain.
Leader Kang's face changed drastically.
"Impossible! The Timeline Erasure Cannon attacks directly at the causality level! No defense can block it!"
Yet reality stood before him.
Levi floated in midair, arms spread wide, allowing the beam to slam into his domain.
His body trembled violently. Cracks spread across his skin—
Only to heal instantly under his Healing Factor.
The devouring continued.
Ten seconds.
Twenty.
Thirty seconds later, the kilometer-wide beam vanished completely into Levi's domain.
The sky became calm once more.
Levi lowered his head, looking at his hand.
The twelve laws churned violently within him. The devoured timeline-erasure energy was being dismantled, transformed, and absorbed by his Concept of Greed.
He could feel himself becoming stronger.
Not slightly.
A massive leap.
"Thanks for the meal," he said with a smile, looking toward the flagship in orbit. "Now it's my turn."
He raised his right hand and clenched it into a fist.
Twelve laws gathered around it.
Space.
Power.
Time.
Reality.
Life.
Death.
Mind.
Alchemy.
Phoenix.
Devouring.
Darkness.
Light.
Every one of them pushed to the extreme.
Then—
He punched.
There was no light.
No sound.
Only a visible distortion left in the air.
The distortion shot upward at unimaginable speed, piercing through the atmosphere and space itself before striking the flagship precisely.
Its shields tore apart like paper.
A five-hundred-meter hole exploded through the center of the vessel.
An explosion bloomed in space.
Silent.
Magnificent.
On the ground, everyone stood frozen.
Thor gripped Stormbreaker, mouth hanging open.
Scarlet energy drifted around Wanda as shock filled her eyes.
Strange's Eye of Agamotto remained open, yet even he couldn't speak.
Leader Kang stood motionless, his expression shifting from shock to fear—
Then from fear to strange excitement.
"As expected," he muttered. "The Council's judgment was correct. You truly are an SSS-level threat."
He raised his hand. His armor's communications activated.
"This is Kang-2099 requesting retreat. Target strength exceeds all projections. Recommend activating A-Class protocols."
Silence answered him for several seconds before a deep voice responded.
"Request acknowledged. Data recorded. Retreat authorized."
Kang-2099's body began turning transparent.
"We'll meet again, Devourer." He looked at Levi meaningfully. "Next time, it won't be scouts like us."
Before the final word fell, his body vanished completely, recalled by a force beyond the timeline.
In orbit, the remaining fleet began retreating as well, disappearing one after another into temporal rifts.
The battle was over.
But Levi knew—
This was only the beginning.
He turned toward the Avengers on the ground, then toward Nathaniel Richards standing in the distance.
The boy from the future wore an extremely complicated expression.
Fear.
Awe.
And something Levi couldn't understand.
As though he were looking at a destiny long since decided.
Levi lowered his fist and gazed at the exploding flagship overhead.
That punch had consumed considerable energy, but devouring the Timeline Erasure Cannon had yielded gains far greater than the cost. He could feel the laws within him becoming denser, more refined. The coordination between all twelve powers had grown smoother as well.
This was the true essence of the Concept of Greed—
Turning every attack into nourishment.
On the ground, the battle had already ended.
Thor stood beside Heavy-Armor Kang's corpse, blood still staining Stormbreaker. The glow of the six Infinity Stones slowly dimmed, though their oppressive aura remained.
The scarlet energy around Wanda gradually settled too. She stared at her own hands, disbelief lingering in her eyes.
"Just now… I only waved my hand casually…"
The Eye of Agamotto on Strange's forehead had closed, though golden patterns still flowed beneath his skin. His gaze lingered on the fading Kang-2099.
"Did you hear what he said?" Strange asked heavily. "He said those were only scouts. The next wave will be stronger."
Thor shrugged dismissively.
"So what? One comes, I kill one. Two come, I kill a pair."
"The problem isn't the numbers," Levi said as he descended from the sky and landed among them. "The problem is that they gathered our data."
Wanda turned toward him.
"You mean they'll build weapons specifically against us?"
"Not just weapons." Levi looked toward the now-empty orbit beyond the clouds. "The Council of Kangs aren't ordinary enemies. They possess cross-timeline technology. They can gather resources from countless parallel universes. The five we fought today may have been nothing more than probing pieces."
Silence spread among the group.
Then a voice sounded from afar.
"You're right."
Everyone turned.
Nathaniel Richards stood at the edge of the ruins, his expression extraordinarily complicated.
He looked at Levi with something in his eyes Levi still couldn't understand.
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