"Ten."
Ronan's voice came through the hologram—flat, cold, utterly devoid of emotion.
Like a slab of iron falling straight down.
"Nine."
The deck beneath their feet began to tremble—subtle, but constant. It was the space station groaning under the pressure of an external energy field.
The golden light around Carol flared violently, scorching the air until it warped. She stared at Ronan's projection, knuckles white. Every instinct screamed at her to charge out and smash that arrogant face with her fists.
"Eight."
Talos's face had gone beyond pale—now it was a lifeless gray. He had just found his long-lost family, only to face the possibility that the very next second they'd all be "purified" into cosmic dust. Desperate, he looked to Levi—the only hope left to him.
But Levi didn't even turn his head.
He stood with his back to Ronan, as if he hadn't heard the countdown at all.
"Seven."
"What are you doing?!" Carol finally shouted at Levi's back, her voice tight with fury and panic.
"We have to do something! We have to break out!"
"Relax," Levi replied calmly—so calm it was infuriating.
"Let me finish my business first."
"Six."
Ignoring their frantic gazes—and ignoring Ronan as the count ticked down to "five"—Levi walked straight toward the inconspicuous cargo transfer hatch in the corner of the lab.
"There's nothing there!" Talos nearly broke down. He couldn't understand why, at a moment like this, Levi was focused on an empty corner.
Levi didn't answer.
He stopped at the unremarkable metal floor panel, crouched, and placed his right hand gently at its center.
No force. No prying.
Just a thread of barely perceptible spatial energy, flowing in like liquid mercury.
The next moment burned itself forever into Carol's and Talos's memories.
The ultra-alloy floor was pinched by an invisible hand—and folded inward from the center.
The metal bent into smooth arcs that completely defied physical law. Beneath the folded plates, a softly glowing white portal rippled into existence.
A subspace entrance.
"…This…"
Talos was utterly speechless.
Before he could recover, noise spilled out of the portal—hushed sobs, frightened whispers, the weak cry of a terrified infant.
Then faces appeared.
Green faces—hundreds of them—men, women, elders, children—packed tightly inside the bright but cramped subspace like sardines in a can. They stared out at the unfamiliar world, eyes filled with confusion and fear.
"So-Ra!"
Talos's entire body jolted. His gaze locked onto a woman holding a child. His voice shook so badly it barely held together.
The woman looked up in disbelief.
When she saw Talos, she froze—then tears burst forth uncontrollably.
"Talos!"
"Daddy!"
The little girl in her arms—seven or eight years old—saw him too and cried out in joy.
Talos lost all restraint. He stumbled forward, half running, half falling, reaching toward the family he had dreamed of for years.
In the midst of this chaotic, emotional reunion—
Levi's eyes moved past them.
They locked precisely onto what the girl was holding.
An orange cat.
It yawned lazily, looking like the most ordinary Earth housecat imaginable—sleek fur, plump body, eyes full of that uniquely feline mixture of indolence and disdain.
Levi stood and walked toward the girl.
His movement instantly put the reunited family on edge. So-Ra stepped in front of her daughter, shielding her protectively, staring warily at this unfathomable man.
"Don't worry," Levi said, offering what was clearly an attempt at a friendly smile.
"I just want to look at your pet. It's cute."
The girl hugged the orange cat tighter.
The cat, however, was no longer lazy.
Its round eyes locked onto Levi, and a low rumbling growl rolled from its throat—a sound that made the surrounding air vibrate faintly.
Levi didn't stop.
He ignored the woman's tension and slowly extended his hand toward the cat's head.
"Three."
Ronan's countdown continued—each number pounding like a hammer on everyone's heart.
"Two."
The instant Levi's fingers were about to touch it—
The cat exploded into motion.
Its fur bristled, and its mouth opened wide—but instead of teeth and tongue, there was a yawning abyss, seemingly connected to another dimension, filled with writhing, slick tentacles and countless rows of fangs.
A powerful spatial repulsion burst outward, trying to shove Levi away. It was raw, instinctive force—like two magnetic poles violently rejecting each other.
"Interesting,"
Levi chuckled softly.
A faint, twisting spatial barrier covered his hand, effortlessly neutralizing the repulsion. His movement didn't slow in the slightest.
His palm came to rest on the cat's fluffy head.
In an instant, an immense and exquisitely complex stream of information flooded into his mind.
A completely new way of understanding space.
Before, Levi's spatial control had been brute force—tearing, twisting, crushing space like a demolition crew.
Now, he understood how to weave space.
How to fold one space and tuck it neatly inside another.
This was technique.
Talent.
Instinct.
Something innate.
He felt a part of himself connect to an unseen, untouchable independent dimension. With a single thought, he could open or close its entrance.
A perfect pocket dimension.
"One."
Ronan's countdown ended.
"Purification… begins."
As his cold voice fell, the Dark Aster's hull split open along hundreds of launch ports.
No beams. No lasers.
What fired were massive physical warheads—radiating annihilation.
Kree standard armament: Judicator kinetic impact rounds.
They slammed toward Mar-Vell's space station at near-light speed.
The station's energy shield flared to life—a massive blue bubble enveloping the structure. The first wave struck, sending violent ripples across the shield.
Less than half a second later—
The shield screamed and shattered.
"BOOOOM—!!!"
The explosion swallowed everything.
The entire station convulsed, on the verge of tearing itself apart. Enormous spiderweb cracks spread across the transparent dome, and chunks of metal and equipment rained down.
The Skrull refugees screamed in despair. Chaos erupted.
"Protect the civilians!"
Carol roared, rocketing upward, using her body and energy to hold the widening cracks together.
Talos desperately tried to organize his people, but against a disaster of this scale, he was powerless.
Only one person remained perfectly still.
Levi withdrew his hand from the orange cat and slowly straightened. He glanced at Carol struggling overhead, then at the panicked Skrulls—and finally at the blue-glowing Tesseract still floating in midair.
"Time to clear the field," he murmured.
He raised his right hand and opened his palm.
There was no light.
No energy flare.
Instead, a rotating black vortex appeared—bottomless, as if linked to the edge of the universe itself, radiating a terrifying pull.
S-Rank Ability: Subspace Stomach — Activated.
"Inside," Levi said calmly.
His voice wasn't loud, yet it reached everyone.
The Skrulls froze, staring in horror at the black hole in his palm.
Talos reacted first.
He looked at Levi with indescribable awe—and the last shred of hope he possessed. He shoved his wife and daughter forward and shouted:
"Go! Inside! Trust him!"
So-Ra hesitated only a heartbeat, then hugged her daughter and rushed toward the vortex.
Their bodies stretched and warped at the moment of contact—then vanished without a sound.
One after another, the remaining Skrulls followed, rushing forward in a flood, disappearing into Levi's palm.
The scene was profoundly surreal.
Hundreds of living beings being eaten by a man's hand.
In mere seconds, the laboratory was empty of Skrull refugees—along with the orange cat.
Levi turned his gaze to Carol, still holding the collapsing dome together.
"You too," he ordered.
"Take them somewhere safe."
"What about you?!"
Carol shouted back. Behind her, the cracks widened, revealing the cold void and the Kree fleet beyond.
"We leave together!"
Levi smiled.
"Me? I'm going to have a chat with our honored Accuser—teach him some manners."
He gave her no chance to argue.
With his left hand, he seized the Tesseract through space itself, ripping it free of its restraints and compressing it into a fist-sized sphere of blue light that flew into his palm.
Then he clenched his right hand in Carol's direction.
Space snapped tight around her.
An irresistible force bound her and yanked her backward. She didn't even have time to cry out before she, too, was pulled into the black vortex—along with the Tesseract.
The vortex closed.
Levi's hand returned to normal.
Silence fell.
Only the shrill alarms of a dying space station remained.
"BOOOOM—!!!"
Another barrage hit the engine section. The station's structural balance finally collapsed.
The massive transparent dome shattered completely.
Explosive decompression tore through the lab, hurling debris into the void.
Levi stood at the heart of the storm, unmoving.
Vacuum.
Zero gravity.
Extreme cold.
All meaningless to him—no more than a gentle spring breeze.
He lifted his head, gazing through the shattered remains at the colossal black warship beyond.
On the Dark Aster's bridge, Ronan frowned at the monitors.
"Report," he demanded.
"All target energy signatures… have vanished. Including the Tesseract."
"Vanished?" Ronan's face showed confusion for the first time.
"Scan the entire sector! They cannot simply cease to exist!"
"Sir…"
Another officer pointed at the main screen, his voice trembling.
"Look."
Ronan followed his gaze.
At the center of the burning wreckage, a single human figure floated in space.
No suit.
No protection.
Exposed to the vacuum.
The figure looked up—noticed them—then casually raised a hand and waved at the Dark Aster.
Levi rolled his neck, bones cracking sharply.
"Alright," he said lightly, smiling at the monstrous ship before him.
"The trash is cleared."
His eyes gleamed.
"Now it's your turn."
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