The silver ripples finally came to a halt, the last ring of distortion fading into nothingness.
As the final strand of liquid metal sank into the hull of the Void Fortress, the entire warship released a long, deep hum.
It felt like a cosmic leviathan that had slept for billions of years finally awakening—drawing its first breath and stretching its lungs.
The sharp-edged metallic structures that once defined the vessel had vanished. In their place stood a colossal entity with smooth, seamless contours, its body gleaming with a cold silver radiance as though forged from the frozen light of countless stars.
It floated silently in the void.
Its surface was covered in a layer of biomaterial scales, thin as cicada wings yet seemingly indestructible.
Beneath every scale, dark halos flowed like living blood. Occasionally, a thread of black light would slip through a crack, only to be instantly reabsorbed—like a subtle breath.
"It's complete."
Zero's voice echoed through the command center, carrying the satisfaction of a creator admiring its masterpiece.
The voice was no longer the cold electronic synthesis it once had been. It now possessed a strange metallic resonance, as though the ship had truly gained a soul.
Zero stood beside Levi, its silver-and-black body nearly blending into the deck beneath their feet.
It was the ship's soul.
With a single thought, it could reach any corner of the vessel.
Tony Stark stared fixedly at the holographic projection of the new warship, unconsciously swallowing.
The corner of his eye twitched.
He considered himself a man who had seen everything, but this thing made him realize just how limited his imagination had been.
The streams of data pouring across the screen made his scalp tingle.
Energy transmission efficiency had increased by four hundred percent.
Spatial jump cooldowns had been compressed from minutes to less than a second.
The defensive systems could effectively intercept relativistic attacks.
"What the hell..." Tony muttered, equal parts horrified and exhilarated as an engineer.
"This thing can't be called a fortress anymore.
It's a living monster that eats planets."
Standing beside him, Reed Richards stared just as intently. Fine beads of sweat had formed on his forehead, and a chill crept down his spine.
As one of the greatest minds in the Multiverse, he understood better than anyone what this ship represented.
This wasn't merely a leap in power.
It was a complete overthrow of the existing rules of cosmic warfare.
From this moment onward, the balance of power across the Multiverse had been forcibly shifted by an invisible hand.
And they stood at the center of the storm.
"Let's call it the Ark."
Levi stepped toward the massive viewport.
His gold-and-crimson eyes were as deep as infernal flames, yet colder than ice.
His gaze seemed to pierce through countless dimensions, locking onto a distant coordinate.
There, a nauseating aura of destruction spread like a plague.
Three Cartographers continued carrying out a cleansing directive beyond the authority of gods.
The lives of an entire universe were being erased at a rate of billions every second.
Levi could feel the final cries of those dying souls.
The despair was so intense that it seemed to transcend dimensions and solidify into something tangible.
"Now that the ship is built," Levi said calmly, raising a hand toward the coordinate, "it's time to test its fangs."
Beneath that calmness burned a fury cold enough to reduce stars to ash.
"Zero. Depart.
Destination: Universe-404.
The hunt begins."
Zero gave no reply.
Yet that silence was more powerful than any answer.
The entire Ark came alive.
The deck beneath their feet began to tremble—not with the rigid vibration of machinery starting up, but with a deeper, living rhythm.
It felt as though the ship's bones were stretching, its muscles tightening, and an immense heart beginning to beat.
Scorching energy flowed through its body like blood.
Thor tightened his grip on Stormbreaker.
He could sense the half-living, half-dead aura emanating from the Ark—an unnatural presence that unsettled even a god who had lived for thousands of years.
Clark's super-hearing picked up countless subtle symphonies within the vessel.
Energy coursed through silver veins with a low hum.
Every power node resonated at precise frequencies.
The ship was like a perfectly tuned instrument playing a song only it could understand.
The melody was ancient and majestic.
It sounded like the arrival of some primordial will.
Clark glanced at Levi.
He wanted to say something.
In the end, he remained silent.
Because Levi's eyes held room for nothing except the dying universe ahead.
Wanda hugged Adam tightly.
Instinctively, layers of scarlet Chaos Magic shields unfolded around her.
She could feel the terrifying amount of power the Ark was drawing upon.
It reminded her of the despair she'd felt when facing Thanos's entire fleet alone.
But this time was different.
This power belonged to them.
They would wield it to hunt those self-proclaimed gods who had once stood above all others.
Reed's fingers flew across the holographic keyboard, leaving afterimages.
He pulled up the coordinates left behind by Doctor Doom.
"Levi, the coordinates are locked," he said urgently. "But using conventional transit, it would still take at least forty minutes to arrive. According to the energy decay models, the collapse rate of that universe is accelerating exponentially. Our window is twenty minutes at most."
Tony examined the same terrifying data and frowned.
"The Cartographers are operating far more efficiently than we predicted. They're not demolishing the house—they're ripping out the foundation. At this rate, by the time we get there, not even a speck of dust will remain."
He paused and looked at Levi.
"We need something faster.
Something completely unreasonable."
"Who said we're taking the conventional route?"
Levi turned around.
A cold, contemptuous smile appeared on his lips.
"Zero.
Show them your true form.
Abandon the dimensional lanes.
Tear open reality itself.
We'll travel from the outside."
Silence filled the command center.
Nobody spoke.
Everyone understood the insanity behind the order.
Abandoning the stable dimensional corridors and smashing directly through the barriers between universes.
It was no different from driving a sports car off a cliff with your eyes closed and hoping you'd somehow land safely on another mountain.
A calculation error of even a thousandth of a second would send the entire vessel into the meat grinder of dimensional turbulence, shredding it into fundamental particles.
Zero, however, showed no hesitation.
As if this impossible command was exactly what it had been waiting for.
Its body dissolved into billions of silver particles and merged with every corner of the Ark.
The next instant, intricate black patterns ignited across the hull.
They slithered over the silver armor like living creatures before converging at the bow.
There, they formed a bottomless vortex.
At its center was pure nothingness.
Not darkness.
Not emptiness.
But an absolute void where even concepts themselves could not exist.
Tony gripped the edge of the console so hard his knuckles turned white.
The energy readings surged beyond every theoretical safety limit.
Alarms screamed.
Yet he knew they were meaningless.
The power Zero was wielding had already surpassed the understanding of the instruments themselves.
On Reed's display, the surrounding space twisted violently like wet cloth being wrung dry.
An invisible hand tore open the dimensional barriers, revealing a chaotic abyss beyond.
Without warning, the Ark suddenly dropped.
Then it was hurled forward.
This wasn't acceleration.
It was something far more terrifying.
No engines.
No exhaust trails.
The entire vessel seemed to be forcibly removed from reality itself before instantly appearing at the entrance to the void passage.
Thor felt as though his organs had been tossed into a blender.
His body seemed to disassemble into countless pieces before being haphazardly put back together.
Clark's Kryptonian physique allowed him to remain standing, but every cell in his body screamed in protest against this absurd method of travel.
The moment Wanda's Chaos Magic barrier touched the passage, it emitted a shrill scraping sound.
She saw what floated beyond the corridor.
The corpses of countless universes.
Some still burned.
Others had long since gone cold.
They drifted in eternal darkness like the skeletal remains of primordial beasts.
Each had once possessed life and civilization.
Now they were discarded garbage.
Even worse were the indescribable creatures writhing between dimensions.
They fed upon shattered universes.
Every movement left behind trails of reality-corroding filth.
They were cancers of existence itself.
The Eye of Agamotto on Strange's forehead blazed with golden light.
He had intended to assist with navigation.
Soon, however, he gave up with a bitter smile.
His mastery of space magic felt like a stream before an ocean when compared to Zero.
The dimensional storms that could tear anything apart had become as docile as trained beasts under Zero's control.
And suddenly he understood.
Zero wasn't navigating.
It was carving a path.
Using the power of primordial void itself to tame chaos and create a safe road through an absolute storm of death.
Thirteen seconds.
Yet it felt like an entire century.
When the Ark burst out of the void passage, everyone sucked in a sharp breath.
Universe-404—
Once vibrant and full of life—
Was already on its deathbed.
The sky wasn't black.
It was a sickly gray-white, like a rotting burial shroud.
Countless planets hung motionless in space as if time itself had been paused.
More horrifying still, those worlds were gradually becoming transparent.
They broke down into primordial particles and were absorbed into three colossal shadows.
At the far edge of sight stood three Cartographers, each the size of an asteroid.
Like silent gravestones erected at the center of the universe.
Their bodies were covered in dense runes glowing with blinding white light.
Every flash erased another planet.
At the center of each Cartographer floated a massive sphere of energy.
These were the extracted origins of the universe itself.
They radiated an aura of death and finality capable of freezing souls.
Tony looked at the scans, his voice tightening.
"The energy output of any one of them exceeds Thanos's entire fleet."
He didn't finish.
The combined number had become meaningless.
Reed's face had gone pale as paper.
He knew that in only a few more minutes, the universe itself would cease to exist.
Levi stood quietly before the viewport.
The three universe-devouring giants reflected clearly in his crimson-gold eyes.
There was no fear.
No rage.
Only absolute, deathly coldness.
He didn't issue a command.
He merely raised his right hand.
Phoenix Force energy ignited silently within his palm.
The blazing flames illuminated his profile like a god delivering judgment upon creation.
Zero instantly understood.
Billions of scales across the Ark's hull shifted and reorganized.
The vessel's silhouette became razor-sharp.
Three massive black ramming horns wrapped in void energy extended from the bow, as though prepared to pierce through reality itself.
"Zero."
Levi's voice was soft.
Almost a whisper.
"Show them..."
He paused, staring at the Cartographers still carrying out their mission.
A cruel smile devoid of warmth appeared on his face.
"...what true devouring looks like."
"Command confirmed."
Zero's voice held no emotion.
Only iron resolve.
The Ark moved.
This wasn't a jump.
It wasn't transit.
It was the most primitive and savage charge imaginable.
The entire warship transformed into a silver streak that tore through reality itself, rushing toward the nearest Cartographer at a speed beyond the concept of speed.
Distance vanished instantly.
The target's defensive systems didn't even have time to activate a single rune.
The Ark's three black ramming horns—
Like the claws of death itself—
Had already plunged cleanly and effortlessly into its core.
The shriek of tearing metal echoed through the void.
It sounded like the dying scream of an ancient god.
The hunt had begun.
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