"Anyone else?"
The icy voice filled the battle-hardened alien soldiers with fear from the depths of their souls. They began retreating, desperate to escape the monster that had just completed its transformation.
But it was too late.
Mark became a streak of golden lightning as he charged into the enemy ranks. Every punch claimed a life with ruthless precision. He moved so fast that even with the Time Synchronizers, the soldiers couldn't properly track his movements.
High above the battlefield, Nolan narrowed his eyes slightly.
Mark's power really was skyrocketing—but this rate of growth…
It was completely abnormal.
For a young Viltrumite to achieve this kind of explosive evolution usually required decades, even centuries, of battle and hardship.
Mark had done it in minutes.
Someone had to be pushing things from behind the scenes.
Nolan's sharp gaze swept across the battlefield, searching for the hidden figure that might exist somewhere nearby.
But there was nothing.
The other party concealed their presence flawlessly, as though they had never existed at all.
That only intensified Nolan's unease.
Anyone capable of hiding perfectly from him…
…was stronger than he was.
Meanwhile, Mark had already wiped out every soldier on the rooftop and nearby airspace. But when he looked up, the hundred-plus warships still loomed overhead like an insurmountable wall, continuously deploying reinforcements.
Even now, he still couldn't finish them all alone.
Then suddenly, the largest Flaxan flagship blared with piercing alarms.
Without warning, fine cracks spread across the ship's sturdy metallic hull, as though an invisible force were tearing it apart from within. The fractures rapidly expanded, and the entire vessel began shaking violently.
Then it started aging.
The pristine metal corroded, rusted, and crumbled as though thousands of years had passed in mere seconds.
In less than ten seconds, the mighty flagship had become nothing more than drifting scrap metal and metallic dust.
The bizarre phenomenon spread throughout the fleet like a plague.
One warship after another suffered the same fate, disintegrating into cosmic debris amid desperate screams.
The Flaxans descended into total panic, frantically piloting their ships toward the dimensional rift.
But the purple tear in space was shrinking even faster than they could escape.
Soon, it closed completely.
Their final route of retreat vanished.
With nowhere left to run, the alien invaders collapsed into chaos. Mark seized the opportunity and launched his final assault, eliminating the remaining enemies one by one.
When the last ship was reduced to wreckage, the battle was over.
Mark hovered silently in the sky, breathing heavily.
Pain from his reconstructed body still pulsed deep within him, but the overwhelming sense of power surging through his veins made him feel stronger than ever before.
He had become stronger.
Truly stronger.
Nolan slowly flew over to him, studying him with a complicated expression.
"You did it."
Mark met his father's gaze and nodded.
"Yeah."
"What that man said…" Nolan's voice was low, impossible to read. "It was true."
"You really do possess limitless potential."
Mark fell silent.
He sharply noticed that his father's tone carried none of the pride or relief he had expected.
Instead, there was only scrutiny.
And beneath it…
A trace of wariness.
---
Deep within the dimensional void, Levi withdrew his gaze.
Floating in his hand was a fist-sized golden ring—the Time Synchronizer he had casually taken from the Flaxan officer's remains.
Interesting.
The technology itself was crude, but its core principle—creating a localized temporal field that forcibly synchronized the flow of time within it—was highly valuable.
If applied in reverse, it could easily create zones of accelerated or slowed time.
For Levi, who was currently refining his own understanding of temporal laws, this was excellent research material.
He casually stored the ring inside his spatial stomach pocket and looked once more toward Earth in the distance.
That child…
Mark's rate of evolution had exceeded even his expectations.
The explosive potential of Smart Atoms under near-death pressure truly was extraordinary.
And Omni-Man, Nolan, had finally revealed his true cold nature.
Choosing to stand by and force his son into a life-or-death breakthrough was enough to prove that, in Nolan's heart, Mark's value outweighed simple fatherly affection.
Levi's lips curved slightly.
This universe was becoming more and more interesting.
Turning around, his figure melted into the bizarre colors of the dimensional background.
Next…
It was time to meet the Global Defense Agency's director, Cecil Stedman.
Surely the information Levi wanted had already been prepared.
---
Three hundred meters beneath Washington, D.C.
Cecil Stedman held a silver hard drive while waiting in the command center.
As the GDA's highest-ranking director, he had seen enough bizarre things to stop being surprised years ago. Aliens, mutants, insane superhumans—none of it shocked him anymore.
But right now, cold sweat covered his back.
Three days earlier, that black-haired man had appeared like a ghost, casually revealing the truth about Omni-Man punching someone into the Earth's core before proposing a deal:
Sinclair's research data in exchange for Levi intervening if Omni-Man ever lost control.
Cecil had agreed.
Not because he trusted him.
Because he had no choice.
Suddenly, the air thickened.
Cecil's breathing stalled.
That feeling of being watched had returned.
He spun around sharply.
Levi stood three meters away with his hands in his pockets, looking as relaxed as though he were casually visiting a friend's house.
No alarms.
No sensor warnings.
He had simply appeared out of nowhere.
"Did you prepare the materials?" Levi asked.
Cecil raised the hard drive.
"All Sinclair Project data. Twenty years of research notes, experimental records, technical parameters. This is the GDA's highest-level classified information."
Levi took the drive and weighed it in his hand.
"Where's Sinclair himself?"
"You want to meet him?"
"Reading documents is too slow."
Levi tossed the hard drive back.
"I prefer asking directly."
Cecil frowned.
"Sinclair's in Laboratory B. That's a top-secret area—"
Before he finished speaking, Levi vanished.
"Alert! Intruder in Laboratory B!"
Shrill alarms rang throughout the base.
Cecil immediately grabbed a communicator.
"Nobody move! Repeat, nobody move!"
---
Laboratory B.
Sinclair was examining the corpse on the operating table.
Its chest cavity had been opened and stuffed with machinery and electronic components like a dismantled radio.
"Neural conduction efficiency is still too low," Sinclair muttered while adjusting his glasses. "Increase voltage by another fifteen perc—"
A hand suddenly landed on his shoulder.
Sinclair froze.
He hadn't heard footsteps.
He hadn't heard a door open.
Yet that hand was undeniably there.
"Don't move."
A calm voice sounded beside his ear.
A massive force instantly flooded Sinclair's mind, as though invisible hands were flipping through a book.
And that book was his memories.
He tried to resist.
Tried to scream.
But his body refused to obey him.
Three seconds later, the hand released him.
Levi stepped back.
The anticipation on his face slowly transformed into disappointment… then disgust.
"That's it?"
He glanced at the grotesquely modified corpse on the operating table, then at the knowledge inside Sinclair's mind, and shook his head.
"Using electrical currents to stimulate nerves. Replacing muscles with mechanical skeletons. Chips simulating brain commands…"
Levi's tone carried naked mockery.
"This isn't resurrection."
"It's puppetry."
Sinclair finally regained control of his body and staggered backward against the wall, pale as paper.
"Who are you? How did you get in here?"
Levi ignored him.
Walking to the operating table, he looked down at the corpse. Its cloudy eyes slowly moved under mechanical control.
"What is life?" Levi murmured to himself.
"Cell division? Neural conduction? Or… the soul?"
He extended a finger and lightly tapped the corpse's forehead.
Golden light flashed.
Sinclair's eyes widened.
Every mechanical component inside the corpse rapidly disintegrated.
Metal turned to dust.
Wires became ash.
Chips shattered into microscopic particles.
In less than two seconds, the golden light faded.
Only an ordinary corpse remained on the operating table.
"Your technology," Levi said while turning toward Sinclair, "can only create walking corpses. You haven't even touched the essence of life."
"To me, it's all garbage."
The laboratory doors burst open.
Cecil rushed in with heavily armed soldiers, countless weapons aimed at Levi.
But when Cecil saw the corpse on the operating table, his expression changed instantly.
That had been the Sinclair Project's core achievement.
Twenty years and tens of billions of dollars had gone into creating that Reanimen prototype—a weapon powerful enough to battle ordinary superhumans and one of the GDA's trump cards against rogue superheroes.
Now, in two seconds…
…it had reverted to an ordinary corpse.
"What exactly are you?" Sinclair finally managed to ask.
Levi ignored him again and turned toward Cecil.
"I don't want the data anymore."
"Why?"
"Because this thing," Levi said while pointing at the corpse, "is garbage."
Sinclair's face flushed red, yet he couldn't utter a single word in response.
"Your technology only manipulates dead flesh. It never touches the source of life. Electricity imitating nerves, machinery replacing muscles, chips copying the brain—it's all superficial nonsense."
Levi walked up to Cecil and looked down at him.
"Do you know what life is?"
Cecil said nothing.
"Life isn't a pile of cells. It isn't a combination of organs. And it certainly isn't something replaceable with machine parts."
A faint gleam flashed through Levi's eyes.
"Life is law. A concept. An existence beyond matter itself."
"Your technology hasn't even touched the threshold."
Cecil remained silent for a long moment.
"Then what do you want?"
"I need a smarter brain," Levi replied. "Someone who can understand the essence of life instead of merely tinkering with machine parts."
"You mean…"
"Robot."
Levi cut him off.
"The one from the Teen Team. I know he isn't actually a robot—just a special being hiding inside a mechanical shell."
Cecil's pupils contracted violently.
Robot's true identity was among the GDA's highest-level secrets.
How did this man know?
"You don't need to know how I know," Levi said, reading his thoughts effortlessly. "You only need to tell me where he is."
Cecil hesitated briefly before finally speaking.
"The Teen Team headquarters is located…"
After hearing the answer, Levi nodded.
"Good."
His body gradually blurred like ink dissolving into water.
"Wait!" Cecil called out. "What about our deal?"
"The deal still stands."
Levi's voice echoed from the void.
"When Omni-Man loses control, I'll intervene. Until then, don't bother me."
Then he vanished completely.
Silence swallowed the laboratory.
Sinclair collapsed to the floor, his face devoid of color. Twenty years of work had been dismissed as garbage in a single sentence.
Cecil stood motionless, eyes dark with thought.
Was this man an ally…
…or an enemy?
---
At the Grayson family dinner table, the atmosphere was tense.
Debbie served roasted meat, trying to ease the mood with food.
But Nolan merely chewed mechanically, his eyes distant.
Across from him, Mark hesitated repeatedly before finally speaking.
"Dad…"
He gathered his courage.
"What that guy said about Smart Atoms… was it true?"
Nolan stopped chewing.
"What Smart Atoms?"
"He said my powers come from some kind of particles inside me. That they have limitless potential… because of Mom's genes."
Nolan slowly set down his utensils and looked at his son.
"Mark, don't believe a stranger's words. That man is manipulating you. He wants you to doubt me."
"I…" Mark wanted to argue, but no words came.
"Your power is strong," Nolan continued, "but not because of some atoms. It's because you're my son. The bloodline of the Viltrumites itself represents power."
Mark fell silent.
Looking at his father's familiar yet strangely unfamiliar face, an indescribable feeling rose within his heart.
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