A violet-red beam of light tore through the void.
Like paper being ripped apart, the final defenses of the second Cartographer collapsed instantly.
Its enormous mechanical body silently disintegrated in space.
The runes that had once represented the will of the Beyonders now looked like nothing more than burned offerings.
Piece after piece peeled away, covered in purple-black corrosion marks.
The air carried a strange smell—rust, mixed with the stench of something scorched beyond recognition.
Tony stared fixedly at the display, his fingers tapping rapidly against the armrest without realizing it.
He watched as the traitor controlled by the Logic Virus—
No.
The monster—
Methodically ripped the energy cores out of its companions one after another with insane efficiency.
This wasn't destruction.
It was dismemberment.
Precise.
Brutal.
The technique reminded him of a slaughterhouse—workers with expressionless faces separating flesh from bone, carving livestock apart with mechanical precision.
The only sound in the communication channel was Clark's heavy, uncontrollable breathing.
He could see every detail far too clearly.
Each one branded itself into his mind like a red-hot iron.
Materials that should have been indestructible crumbled before the virus like fragile foam.
A sharp pain twisted through his chest—his body's instinctive rejection of violence taken to its absolute extreme.
Reed's fingers twitched spasmodically across the holographic keyboard.
His fingertips were ice cold.
What scrolled across the display looked like incomprehensible gibberish to anyone else—the Logic Virus was irreversibly rewriting the target's foundational code at a terrifying rate of thirty million operations per second.
Even a genius who had witnessed countless wonders felt a chill race from the base of his spine to the top of his head.
This wasn't a fight.
It was a massacre on the conceptual level.
Levi stood quietly before the observation window.
The distant mechanical slaughterhouse reflected within his golden-red eyes.
He could feel every piece of data transmitted back by Zero as if it were his own experience.
It was a pure, undisguised exhilaration—
No.
Not emotion.
More like the inevitable satisfaction produced when a perfect program executes flawlessly.
The corner of his mouth curved upward into a frighteningly cold smile.
A smile devoid of warmth.
Suddenly, the last intact Cartographer became afraid.
Its colossal body trembled violently, causing even the floor of the control room to vibrate.
Blinding white light erupted from its runes.
Not an attack.
Something far worse.
Zero's warning sounded abruptly.
For the first time, a trace of distortion entered the normally steady electronic voice.
"Target has initiated self-destruction sequence while simultaneously activating cross-dimensional signal transmission."
"Target is uploading data to the Beyond Realm."
The golden-red light in Levi's eyes intensified instantly.
The temperature throughout the command center plunged below freezing.
Every breath condensed into white mist.
An invisible pressure erupted from him and swept through the room like collapsing mountains, making it difficult for everyone to breathe.
It wasn't anger.
It was something colder.
More absolute.
The desire for total control.
"Seal it."
His voice was quiet.
Yet every word struck the air like divine decree.
Zero acted without hesitation.
Across the hull of the Ark, silver biomaterial scales instantly liquefied.
Transforming into billions of threads thinner than hair, they wove through space at speeds beyond visual perception.
Every filament carried the laws of space and void.
Silently.
A law-based prison five hundred kilometers in diameter formed around the Cartographer.
The energy fluctuations inside the machine grew increasingly violent.
Its core shone like a newborn supernova.
But just as the signal was about to pierce the dimensional barrier—
The entire void froze.
Not time.
Space.
Energy.
Information.
Even concepts themselves.
Everything was forcibly locked in place.
Tony sucked in a sharp breath as every wildly fluctuating reading on his instruments dropped to zero.
This silence was more terrifying than any explosion.
Reed swallowed with difficulty, his voice trembling.
"T-This is... Absolute Lockdown?"
It existed only in the wildest reaches of his theoretical models.
A completely isolated dimensional bubble where nothing inside could establish even the slightest connection with the outside world.
His brain felt as if it were about to burn out.
This utterly exceeded his understanding.
To simultaneously control space, time, and causality—and support it with colossal amounts of energy—
And Levi and Zero had done it in less than a second.
The imprisoned Cartographer completely lost its mind.
Its runes flickered wildly.
With nowhere for the self-destruct energy to go, the force rebounded inward.
Agonizing metallic shrieks echoed from within its frame.
The sound seemed capable of piercing dimensions themselves, carrying unbearable pain and despair.
Everyone felt physically sick listening to it.
Levi slowly raised his right hand.
Golden-red Phoenix Fire ignited in his palm.
Pure light and power.
Without a trace of heat.
"Zero."
"Time to eat."
He spoke softly.
"Show them what real greed looks like."
As if responding to its master, the Ark released a low growl.
A growl of hunger.
It rose from deep within the warship and made the deck tremble faintly.
The silver scales covering its hull liquefied on a massive scale.
This time, they did not become threads.
Instead, they transformed into hundreds of enormous tentacles over ten meters thick.
Covered in barbs and suction cups, they danced through the void.
Like a colossal deep-sea beast awakening from slumber.
Alien.
Terrifying.
Deadly.
The tentacles lunged simultaneously toward all three Cartographers—
Including the traitor.
It offered no resistance whatsoever.
Its virus-rewritten core contained only absolute obedience.
When the first tentacle pierced its armor, it actually lowered its defenses voluntarily.
Its posture was disturbingly submissive.
A muffled growl escaped Tony's throat.
His nails dug deeply into his palms.
The tentacles weren't tearing things apart randomly.
They infiltrated the energy pathways inch by inch with surgical precision.
Cold.
Efficient.
Far more horrifying was what happened next.
With every inch they advanced, the Cartographer's energy readings plummeted.
The energy wasn't leaking away.
It was being greedily sucked out through a gigantic straw.
Reed stared at the data stream.
Cold sweat soaked his forehead.
He watched the energy of the Beyonders pour into the Ark through a process that completely defied common sense.
And during the transfer, there was virtually no loss.
In fact—
The energy was purified by nearly forty percent.
This wasn't plunder.
It was perfect energy conversion.
So efficient that it inspired fear.
The other two Cartographers suffered even worse fates.
The one attempting self-destruction had barely begun when dozens of tentacles skewered it simultaneously.
Its frame was riddled with holes like a sieve.
Every vital point was struck with impossible accuracy.
The unstable core on the verge of detonation was wrapped entirely by the largest tentacle.
Its explosion was forcibly suppressed.
The core struggled violently.
Waves of white light slammed outward again and again, only to be crushed back each time.
Not only did it fail to explode—
The energy inside became increasingly refined under the extreme pressure.
As for the Cartographer that had already been dismembered, its scattered wreckage never got far.
The tentacles gathered every fragment one by one.
A gentle twist.
The remaining light vanished.
The pieces were obediently dragged back to the Ark.
Clark felt a tightness in his chest.
His stomach churned.
He had witnessed countless brutal battles.
But this efficient, merciless, almost ceremonial feeding process filled him with a profound sense of helplessness.
Wanda held Adam tightly.
Chaos Magic instinctively expanded into a crimson barrier around them.
She could feel it.
The entire Ark was transforming.
What frightened her even more was that Adam had awakened.
The child's pure eyes glimmered with the same silver light as the Ark's hull.
He stretched out a tiny hand toward the wreckage beyond the window and made a grasping motion.
Within his gaze was a child's curiosity.
Mixed with an innate hunger.
A faint strand of Beyonder energy drifted toward him as though drawn by a magnet.
"No!"
Wanda tightened her embrace instantly.
Chaos Magic surged violently, intercepting the energy.
"Let him absorb it."
Levi's voice sounded beside her.
Calm.
Terrifyingly calm.
"Are you insane?!"
Wanda practically shouted.
"He's still just a child!"
"He was created from this kind of power."
Levi turned around.
Not the slightest ripple disturbed his golden-red eyes.
"The energy has already been filtered by me and Zero."
"It's the safest nourishment available right now."
Wanda clenched her teeth.
In the end, she reluctantly opened a tiny gap in the barrier.
The energy immediately flowed into Adam's body.
The child released a satisfied murmur.
Then drifted back into sleep.
Wanda could clearly sense the unstable power within him becoming significantly calmer.
Her emotions were impossible to describe.
At that moment, Zero's communication channel activated again.
This time, there was unmistakable excitement in its voice.
"Analysis of all three targets complete."
"Core technology modules successfully extracted."
"Inventory as follows:"
"Three God-Slayer Annihilation Cannons."
"One Multiversal Coordinate Positioning System."
"One Beyonder Energy Conversion Furnace."
"One Mark-X Dimensional Transit Engine."
"Technology integration underway."
"Estimated completion time: two minutes."
Tony and Reed exchanged a glance.
The excitement in their eyes was almost overflowing.
"This entire process..."
Tony lowered his voice.
His throat was hoarse.
Then he slapped the control console.
"That's fucking genius."
The moment the words left his mouth, the lights in the command center went dark.
An eerie violet-red glow illuminated the room.
Everyone could feel it.
The warship beneath their feet was different now.
If the Ark had once been a sleeping beast—
Then now...
After enjoying its first truly satisfying meal,
It had evolved into something far more dangerous.
Far deadlier.
Levi was about to speak when a blinding white light suddenly appeared beyond the observation window.
The radiance tore through reality from a dimension higher than this universe itself.
Endless.
Majestic.
As though...
The entire Multiverse had turned its gaze toward this place.
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