BOOM—!
The moment Ego appeared before Rocket and the others, he raised one hand.
A surge of blue cosmic energy blasted outward, instantly sending Rocket and Gamora flying backward.
Without their protection, Star-Lord was quickly captured.
Energy tendrils erupted from the ground and wrapped tightly around him.
Star-Lord glared at Ego.
But Ego ignored his gaze completely.
To him, Peter was nothing more than a tool.
Ego floated slowly in front of Star-Lord.
He raised his hand and pressed it against Peter's forehead.
A stream of energy began flowing into Star-Lord's body.
Soon, white light started shining from Peter's eyes.
BOOM—!
Just as Ego began tightening his control—
Rocket struggled to his feet.
He grabbed his weapon and fired at Ego from behind.
The blast disrupted Ego's energy transmission.
Star-Lord immediately regained control of his body.
After rolling across the ground, Peter grabbed his own weapon and opened fire wildly.
However, the attacks had no effect whatsoever on Ego.
Ego looked down at him calmly.
His eyes were cold and indifferent.
It was the gaze of someone looking at a dead man.
Ego had never considered Star-Lord his son.
To him, children were disposable.
If one died, he could simply create another.
But his cosmic expansion plan existed only once.
And it had to succeed.
Ego's ultimate goal was to spread his living planetary consciousness across the universe.
He had planted seeds of his power on countless inhabited worlds.
Once activated, those seeds would consume entire planets and transform them into extensions of his own existence.
However, Ego alone did not possess enough energy to activate all the seeds.
He needed someone who inherited his Celestial bloodline to amplify the power.
In the original timeline, Ego had learned something important.
When Star-Lord touched the Power Stone on Xandar, he did not explode.
That alone proved something extraordinary.
No ordinary human could survive direct contact with an Infinity Stone.
The only explanation was that Peter had inherited part of Ego's Celestial bloodline.
He simply didn't know how to use it.
Otherwise, it would have been impossible for him to survive touching the Power Stone.
Ego had originally ordered Yondu Udonta to retrieve the child for him.
But Yondu never delivered Peter.
After years of waiting, Ego became suspicious.
Eventually he decided to search for the child himself.
When he finally brought Peter to his planet, he confirmed his suspicion.
Star-Lord had indeed inherited Celestial bloodline power.
In the following days, Ego began carefully preparing his plan.
At the same time, he tried to keep Star-Lord and the others under control.
Now, he launched another attack.
Energy tendrils surged across the battlefield.
Everyone was restrained:
GamoraRocketDraxEven the small Baby Groot
Ego then began hypnotizing Star-Lord, while simultaneously invading his mind with cosmic energy.
He explained his grand plan.
Under Ego's hypnosis, Star-Lord's resistance began weakening.
But then—
Ego revealed something else.
He admitted that Star-Lord's mother's cancer had been caused by him.
When Ego fell in love with her, he noticed that his power began weakening.
Emotion threatened his cosmic ambitions.
So he planted a tumor inside her brain.
The tumor would not kill her immediately.
It would take several years to grow—just long enough for her to give birth to Peter.
When Star-Lord heard this—
Everything changed.
Rage exploded inside him.
White cosmic energy erupted from his body.
The energy tendrils restraining him shattered instantly.
Peter floated slightly above the ground.
White energy surrounded him.
His eyes glowed with brilliant light.
For a brief moment—
His Celestial bloodline abilities awakened.
However, the power faded quickly.
The energy around him dissipated.
Ego smiled when he saw this.
He wasn't worried.
Even if Peter awakened some power, he was still inexperienced.
Ego attacked again.
The ground itself rose up to form stone constructs that attacked Gamora and the others.
At the same time, Ego instantly appeared in front of Star-Lord.
He grabbed Peter by the throat with one hand.
His intention was clear.
He would force Star-Lord to cooperate with the plan.
And then—
BOOM—!
A golden attack descended from the sky.
The blast destroyed Ego's attacks instantly and shattered his energy avatar.
After regaining their freedom, Star-Lord and the others looked up.
Floating in the sky were four figures.
Three women.
And one man.
The man wore golden armor embedded with six Infinity Stones.
Gamora recognized him instantly.
It was the same man they had seen earlier on Xandar.
But now the armor was even more terrifying.
Seeing the six Infinity Stones embedded in his armor left Gamora completely stunned.
She also remembered something else.
Her father Thanos had once led a massive fleet toward Earth.
But shortly afterward, news spread across the galaxy.
Thanos.
And his entire fleet.
Had been destroyed.
These people had once said they came from Earth.
Could they be the ones responsible?
Gamora didn't feel hatred.
Only relief.
She had never loved Thanos.
She had only feared him.
At that moment—
The ground beneath them began trembling violently.
A massive blue sphere of consciousness erupted from the planet's surface.
This was Ego's true consciousness form.
Karl and the others slowly descended until they were about ten meters above the ground.
Karl looked at the enormous blue energy sphere.
A faint look of disdain appeared on his face.
Its aura was only Celestial level.
Karl suddenly remembered something.
In the Marvel comics, Ego was not truly a member of the Celestials.
He was simply a unique living planetary consciousness.
Only the MCU version categorized him among the Celestial lineage.
Remembering that made Karl even more unimpressed.
BOOM—!
Karl threw a punch directly toward Ego's consciousness.
Meanwhile, Star-Lord, Gamora, and the others began running away from the battlefield.
If they were caught in the shockwaves of this fight—
They would be killed instantly.
At that moment, a small spaceship descended nearby.
Inside it was Yondu Udonta.
He had come to find Star-Lord.
The reason Yondu had never handed Peter over to Ego was simple.
He already knew Ego's plan.
Every child Yondu had delivered to Ego before…
Had died on this planet.
Yondu refused to let the same thing happen to Peter.
When he heard that Ego had taken Star-Lord away, he immediately realized something was wrong.
So he flew directly to Ego's planet.
Perhaps because of Karl's butterfly effect, Yondu had not suffered a mutiny from his crew.
But this time—
He still came alone.
...
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