Zero rose to its feet.
Its silver-and-black body reflected an eerie sheen beneath the dim lighting of the control room.
It had no expression.
No unnecessary movements.
It simply stood quietly beside Levi like a perfect statue.
Thor tightened his grip on Stormbreaker.
Lightning ran wild along the axe blade as all six Infinity Stones blazed with dazzling brilliance.
His eyes remained fixed on Zero, filled with both caution and battle intent.
As the God of Thunder and King of Asgard, he had witnessed countless powerful creations.
But this existence felt entirely different.
It was neither life nor merely a weapon.
It was something forbidden that existed between the two.
Tony had barely dismissed the holographic displays and wiped the sweat from his forehead when he noticed Thor already walking toward Zero.
Clark wanted to intervene.
Levi raised a hand and stopped him.
Reed remained behind the control console, fingers hovering above the keyboard, ready to activate emergency containment protocols at any moment.
Wanda held Adam tightly.
Chaos Magic flickered at her fingertips.
She could sense the pure destructive instinct within Zero.
It was more terrifying than any monster.
A monster could feel fear.
A monster could hesitate.
Zero possessed neither.
It only executed.
The golden Eye of Agamotto on Strange's forehead spun at maximum output.
Among the future branches he observed, every movement Zero made was as precise as a pre-written program.
The air in the control room grew thick.
Everyone waited for Levi to speak.
But Levi simply watched Zero.
Within his eyes, where golden-red and silver-white intertwined, was reflected the image of a perfect creation.
He knew the real test was only beginning.
Zero needed combat data.
It needed to prove it was more than a laboratory miracle.
It needed to prove it was the ultimate weapon capable of tearing apart Transcendent Executors across the Multiverse.
Thor clearly understood this as well.
That was why he had stepped forward.
The simplest and most direct method of testing a godslayer.
Thor wasted no words.
He raised Stormbreaker.
Lightning exploded.
The entire control room flickered under the impact of the unleashed energy.
The radiance of all six Infinity Stones merged into a catastrophic torrent.
This was power capable of splitting planets apart.
The full-force strike of the King of Asgard.
The axe descended.
Space itself was torn open by the blow.
Lightning transformed into a roaring dragon that charged directly toward Zero.
Zero did not dodge.
It simply raised its right hand.
Its five fingers spread open.
The silver-black palm faced the incoming lightning.
At the exact moment Stormbreaker was about to split its skull apart, the vortex in Zero's chest suddenly accelerated.
Purple arcs burst outward like a web, spreading across its entire arm.
Those arcs were not defensive measures.
They were the visible manifestation of ultra-high-speed computation.
The Logic Virus had activated.
Thor immediately sensed something was wrong.
The feedback coming from Stormbreaker felt strange.
The lightning.
The divine power.
The destructive energy infused with the essence of godhood.
The instant it touched Zero's palm, it lost control.
It was not absorbed.
It was not deflected.
It was analyzed.
Reed's eyes widened as he stared at the flood of data racing across the monitors.
The Logic Virus inside Zero was scanning the structure of Thor's lightning three million times per second.
It dismantled divine power into its most fundamental energy formulas.
Then it identified paradoxical nodes within the divine framework and forcibly implanted contradictory instructions.
Thor's lightning began splitting apart.
The energy torrent that should have struck straight downward twisted into chaotic patterns.
Countless arcs collided with one another.
Canceled one another out.
And eventually dissipated into harmless sparks.
Stormbreaker's blade stopped three centimeters from Zero's palm.
It could advance no further.
Thor gritted his teeth.
His muscles swelled.
He poured even more divine power into the weapon.
The six Infinity Stones blazed so brightly that they became painful to look at.
The entire control room trembled.
Zero remained motionless.
It stood there and blocked the God of Thunder's full-force assault with a single hand.
Then something even more terrifying happened.
Silver and black light began flickering within Zero's empty eye sockets.
Not emotion.
Not expression.
A signal.
The calculations were complete.
Its other hand slowly rose.
Its fingers curled.
The Void Origin and Logic Virus erupted simultaneously.
A sphere of pure nothingness condensed above its palm.
Countless violet runes shimmered within the black orb.
Every rune had been derived from the divine laws extracted from Thor's lightning.
Only now, their cause-and-effect relationships had been completely inverted.
Zero compressed them.
Restructured them.
Then casually pushed forward.
The black sphere flew out and attached itself to Thor's breastplate.
No explosion occurred.
No shockwave followed.
It simply adhered to the armor.
Thor immediately felt his divine power spiral into chaos.
The energy that had always obeyed his will suddenly became self-contradictory.
Lightning raced uncontrollably through his veins.
It nearly tore his body apart from within.
He staggered backward three steps.
A metallic taste filled his mouth.
Blood spilled from the corner of his lips.
Stormbreaker flew from his grasp.
The axe shot across the room and embedded itself deep within a wall, where it became firmly lodged.
Levi stepped beside Zero and placed a hand on its shoulder.
Instantly, the energy surging throughout Zero's body withdrew.
The vortex in its chest stopped spinning.
The glow inside its eye sockets faded.
It returned to its original state.
The image of a perfectly obedient creation.
At the same time, Levi raised his other hand.
Golden-red Phoenix energy enveloped Thor.
Using brute force, Levi redirected the chaotic divine energies back into their proper pathways.
Thor could feel the pain gradually fading.
But cold sweat had already soaked his hair.
He raised his head and stared at Zero.
The look in his eyes had changed.
The battle hunger was gone.
What remained was profound wariness.
Tony returned to the control console and reviewed the combat data.
The numbers on the screen made him suck in a sharp breath.
From the moment Thor attacked to the moment Zero completed its counterattack, less than 0.3 seconds had passed.
Within those three-tenths of a second, Zero had completed seventeen million logical calculations.
It had analyzed the combined energy structure created by Stormbreaker and all six Infinity Stones.
It had identified thirteen paradoxical nodes within Thor's divine power framework.
And then constructed an entire counterattack strategy.
What was even more frightening was that Zero had not relied on brute force.
Its attack had occurred purely at the conceptual level.
It had directly rewritten the definition of Thor's divine power, causing the power itself to become contradictory.
Reed stared at the data.
His throat moved several times before he finally managed to speak.
His voice trembled.
It was the instinctive fear one felt when confronting the unknown.
The creation was too perfect.
Perfect beyond comprehension.
It was not simply a weapon.
It was something from a higher dimension.
A conceptual assassin designed specifically to destroy the Transcendents.
Thor slowly stood.
He shook his head vigorously.
At last, his divine power returned to normal.
Looking at Levi, he forced out a bitter smile.
He accepted defeat completely.
This thing truly deserved to be called a godslayer.
If even the King of Asgard could not withstand a single strike, then the Cartographers would likely fare even worse.
They might not even get a chance to resist.
Levi nodded.
Then he turned toward everyone present.
His voice remained calm, but carried unquestionable authority.
Zero's test had been passed.
Now it was time to begin the real plan.
The Ark Protocol.
The entire Void Fortress would be transformed into the ultimate warship.
A vessel capable of traversing the Multiverse.
No longer would they remain on the defensive.
They would take the initiative.
They would hunt down the Transcendent Executors hiding in the shadows.
Upon receiving the command, Zero moved without hesitation.
It walked toward the massive energy core at the center of the control room.
As it approached, its silver-black body began liquefying.
Countless streams of silver fluid spread outward through the fortress's energy conduits.
The liquefaction process was even more complete than expected.
The silver fluid did not merely coat the energy core.
It infiltrated every energy circuit.
It penetrated even the law-runes responsible for stabilizing space itself.
Tony stared at the monitoring screens.
The fortress's energy transmission efficiency was increasing by three percent every second.
Energy nodes that once required constant manual adjustment began optimizing themselves.
The entire fortress seemed to come alive.
It was actively adapting to Zero's presence.
Reed's fingers froze above the keyboard.
He realized he could no longer interfere.
Zero had taken over everything.
With an efficiency far beyond human understanding, it was reconstructing the fortress from the foundation upward.
The changes outside were even more astonishing.
The fortress's cold metallic exterior began rippling with silver waves.
The ripples moved like living organisms.
Independent armor plates merged together into a unified organic structure.
Standing before a viewing port, Levi watched mechanical arms and defensive batteries become engulfed by liquid metal.
A moment later, they regrew in sleeker and more efficient forms.
These new weapon systems no longer required complicated energy conduits.
Zero itself had become the ultimate energy distribution network.
Clark activated his X-ray vision and looked through the fortress.
He discovered that the internal structure no longer possessed traditional layers or divisions.
Every section of the fortress was connected by silver veins.
The veins pulsed constantly.
Like the blood vessels of some colossal living creature.
Wanda retreated into a corner with Adam in her arms.
She could feel the aura of the entire fortress changing.
It was no longer merely a cold structure.
It now possessed a disturbing sense of life.
Adam whimpered softly.
His tiny body instinctively released traces of Void Origin in an attempt to resist the unfamiliar pressure.
Unexpectedly, the silver veins reacted to his energy.
They deliberately avoided Wanda's area.
An absolutely safe isolation zone formed around her.
Even while transforming the fortress, Zero maintained absolute obedience to Levi's commands.
It knew exactly who must never be harmed.
Suddenly, the ceiling of the control room split apart.
Not from damage.
From deliberate restructuring.
Silver liquid metal poured from the opening and gathered into a gigantic holographic projection.
It displayed a three-dimensional model of the entire Void Fortress.
The model was changing before everyone's eyes.
Reed's pupils contracted violently.
A realization struck him.
Zero was not modifying the fortress.
It was evolving it.
Transforming an inanimate structure into something entirely new.
Something that existed between machine and life.
Tony noticed it as well.
Scale-like defensive structures were beginning to grow across the fortress's hull.
Each scale could automatically alter its density and angle according to incoming attacks.
They were smarter than any armor humanity had ever designed.