The universe, as it turned out, was far more unpredictable than anyone had imagined.
While civilizations waged their petty wars over resources and ideology, while gods debated philosophy and demons spread chaos, something far more fundamental was unfolding. Three different versions of Marcus had manifested in this reality simultaneously, each one a fragment of a greater whole, each one desperately seeking to become complete.
They shared the same goal: improve their strength, consolidate their power, and if possible, seize the authority held by the others. One-third of the void's control was impressive. Two-thirds would be overwhelming. But all three portions united? That would make them something unprecedented—a being that stood at the level of cosmic abstracts, operating on the same tier as entities like Eternity itself.
The three Marcus fragments understood one critical truth with absolute certainty: this competition would have only one winner. The losers wouldn't simply die—they would be erased. Completely. Utterly. So thoroughly removed from existence that not even Death, one of the five great cosmic abstracts, could find their remains.
So they fought. Each using every tool, every technique, every scrap of cunning they possessed.
And their conflict reshaped the entire universe.
The Age of Three Powers
The void forces represented by karl brought destruction across known space like a plague of entropy. His Void Legion—warriors equipped with technology that could distort reality itself—proved nearly invincible on conventional battlefields. Planets that had stood for billions of years were unmade in hours. Civilizations that had endured countless wars simply... stopped existing, their histories rewritten, their peoples scattered into quantum uncertainty.
The Legion's power stemmed from Black Marcus, the aspect of void that embodied pure distortion. Everything his forces touched became twisted, corrupted, transformed into something fundamentally wrong. Matter lost its coherence. Energy became chaotic. Even spacetime itself warped into impossible configurations around them.
But the Void Legion wasn't unopposed.
From seemingly nowhere, a tide of fanatical believers emerged. They appeared on world after world, spreading their faith with the fervor of the truly converted. And unlike normal religious movements, these believers wielded actual divine power—the ability to assimilate everything they touched.
Where the Void Legion distorted, the believers unified. They turned diversity into homogeneity, transforming all matter, energy, and consciousness into extensions of their god. Those who resisted found themselves absorbed anyway, their individuality dissolved into the collective hymn of worship.
This was White Marcus's work—the aspect of void that embodied pure assimilation. His philosophy was simple: everything should become one. One mind, one purpose, one glorious unified existence singing eternal praise.
The two forces collided across the cosmos, and caught between them, the established civilizations found themselves desperately outmatched.
Angel civilization, Blazing Sun Star, the demonic forces, Earth and the Super Gene—all of them struggled simply to survive. They couldn't fight the distortion power directly; any attempt to engage the Void Legion conventionally resulted in their forces being corrupted and turned against them. And the believers were perhaps worse; a single touch was enough to begin conversion, consciousness rewritten into fanatical devotion.
The leaders of these civilizations looked at the cosmic map with growing horror, watching their territories shrink day by day, wondering how long they could possibly hold out.
Among them, Kesha felt the situation most acutely. She'd received void power from Marcus himself, which gave her unique sensitivity to these forces. Both the Void Legion's distortion and the believers' assimilation felt familiar to her, like different expressions of the same fundamental force she carried within herself.
"It's as though someone took Marcus's balanced void power and amplified only one aspect," she mused aloud during a strategy session with He Xi. "Marcus's abilities include both distortion and assimilation, but they develop in parallel, keeping each other in check. These forces feel like someone split that balance and pushed each characteristic to its extreme."
He Xi listened carefully, silver eyes sharp with analytical focus. "If you're correct—if these are deliberately unbalanced expressions of void power—then somewhere there should be a third force. Something that maintains equilibrium between the two."
"Marcus," Kesha said with certainty. "The original. But where is he?"
They didn't know. None of them did. And with every passing day, the question became more urgent.
Recognizing their desperate situation, Kesha and He Xi threw themselves into research with unprecedented intensity. They worked around the clock developing a new generation of engine—something that could resist both distortion and assimilation long enough for angels to actually fight back.
Morgana made the same choice on her side. Her demon researchers couldn't match the angel civilization's scientific expertise, but she'd built her entire philosophy on freedom and choice. Watching her followers being forcibly converted or twisted into monsters? That went against everything she'd fought for. She would find a countermeasure or die trying.
Earth and the Super Gene followed similar paths. They studied the power of both enemy forces obsessively while using Marcus's lantern furnace to develop new equipment. Every breakthrough, no matter how small, was immediately applied to their soldiers and the Heroic Company.
The Super Gene's research capabilities were formidable in their own right. After receiving the lantern furnace, they'd made rapid progress understanding its principles. Through months of intensive study, they successfully integrated lantern power with their existing technology.
The results were dramatic. Ge Xiaolun and the other super soldiers found their capabilities effectively doubled. The lantern's willpower-based enhancement synergized perfectly with their genetic modifications, creating compound effects that neither system could achieve alone.
Every civilization prepared feverishly, knowing that survival depended on innovation. Because karl's Void Legion and the fanatical believers were genuinely terrifying. Without proper countermeasures, conventional forces had no chance whatsoever.
And Marcus—the one person they all believed could turn the tide—remained frustratingly absent. No one could find even a trace of him, despite searching with every sensor and computational system they possessed.
Under this mounting pressure, the universe gradually divided into three distinct territories. Two large regions belonged to the Void Legion and the fanatical believers respectively. The remaining fragment—a tiny corner of space that shrank every day—became the last refuge of the original civilizations.
"Damn it all!" Morgana slammed her fist against a research table hard enough to crack the reinforced alloy. "Why won't these lunatics just die already?!"
She was being driven slowly insane by the believers. Every single day brought the same pattern: either fighting Void Legion forces or combating faith-spreading missionaries. And the believers' devotion was somehow more frightening than demonic corruption.
Demonic gene transformation was rapid and effective, but it required willing hosts or physical contact to implant the modifications. The believers' faith worked differently—you didn't even need to touch them. Just exposure to their presence, hearing their hymns, seeing their miracles... that was enough to begin the conversion process.
Morgana had personally dissected an assimilated demon soldier, hoping to understand the mechanism. What she'd found had chilled her to the core. The transformation was total—genetic, neural, even quantum-level. The individual ceased to exist as a separate entity and became a node in some vast distributed consciousness.
If she hadn't possessed Marcus's void power—if she hadn't had that fundamental connection to the force underlying the assimilation—she would have been converted herself. That realization terrified her more than she cared to admit.
"Hehe, you still can't hold back, sister..." Kesha's voice rang out suddenly, seemingly from empty space.
A massive, ornate throne materialized beyond Earth's orbit, and upon it sat the King of Angels in her full regalia. A wisp of void energy played between her fingers, controlled and precise. Beside her sat another throne—He Xi, the King of Tianji, whose presence radiated equal authority despite being less publicly famous.
The entire angel host had mobilized. Every warrior, every asset, every fragment of power the Melo Heaven could muster.
"Hmph!" Morgana's projection appeared in the space between Earth and the angel fleet, and she raised a particular finger in an unmistakable gesture. "Bitch... don't bother me if you have nothing useful to say!"
But despite the hostility in her words, there was no real venom behind them. Both sisters understood that this wasn't the time for their eternal conflict. If they fought each other now—wasted resources on their ancient grudge—the Void Legion and believers would eliminate them both while they were distracted.
Shortly after the angels arrived, another fleet appeared: ships bearing the emblem of Blazing Sun Star. Even that proud civilization had been forced to bow to reality. Their solar manipulation technology, their proud heritage as one of the universe's great powers... none of it mattered against enemies who could rewrite physics itself.
What's more, the Super Gene on Earth had developed military capabilities comparable to Blazing Sun's own. Pride was a luxury they could no longer afford.
"Everyone," Ducao's projection appeared before the assembled leaders, and his voice carried the weight of someone who'd commanded armies for millennia, "the universe has effectively become a battlefield for those two forces. The only reason we've survived this long is because they haven't had time to focus on eliminating us. But once they finish their conflict—once one side achieves dominance—we'll be destroyed. That's not speculation. That's certainty."
Silence greeted his assessment. No one could disagree.
"So what do you propose?" Kesha asked, her tone flat but not dismissive. "Do we actually have the capability to resist? Or are we just buying time before the inevitable?"
Even with He Xi's new void engine protecting angels from distortion and assimilation, they weren't winning. At best, they could avoid the worst effects long enough to retreat. Actually defeating either force? That remained beyond them.
"I hate agreeing with her," Morgana's voice cut in, "but she's right. We're outmatched. Even combining our full strength, we can't overcome either force, let alone both."
"Blazing Sun concurs." Pan Zhen—Reina's mentor and the actual power behind the throne—nodded grimly. "We can manipulate stars themselves, command stellar energies that dwarf planetary outputs. Against these forces? It's meaningless. They don't operate on the same paradigm. You can't burn assimilation or blast away distortion."
The terrifying power of both forces hung over them like twin mountains, crushing down with weight that made it difficult to even think about resistance.
"Actually," Ge Xiaolun spoke up, his voice carrying more confidence than anyone had heard from him recently, "we do have another option."
Everyone turned to look at the young man who was supposed to become the main god of Shenhe civilization.
"For now, we can still resist both forces. They're powerful, but they're also fighting each other, which divides their attention. That means we can spare some of our strength..." He paused, meeting each leader's eyes in turn. "We can send search parties to find Marcus."
Marcus.
The name resonated in every leader's mind. But the response was uniformly bitter smiles and resigned expressions.
If they could find Marcus, they wouldn't be in this situation. They'd been searching frantically for months, deploying every sensor array and computational system at their disposal. The results? Nothing. Not even a hint of his location.
Although Ge Xiaolun's proposal aligned with what everyone secretly wanted, they couldn't afford to stake everything on finding one person. Before Marcus appeared, they hadn't even known such a being existed. The universe was incomprehensibly vast. The odds of locating him through random search?
Effectively zero.
But they weren't entirely without hope. The search wouldn't be random.
"We'll coordinate the effort," Lianfeng proposed, pulling up holographic starcharts. "Every civilization contributes their stellar computational cloud. We'll use the void power fluctuation data that Kesha provided as our baseline parameter. Calculate probability fields for where Marcus might be located based on void energy signatures."
Each civilization would handle a specific region—every asteroid, planet, star, and black hole within their assigned volume. Nothing would be overlooked. Every anomaly investigated.
Everyone moved carefully, afraid to miss even the slightest hint of Marcus's presence.
The Black Hole Awakens
In the center of a super-massive black hole that had been consuming nearby star systems for months, Marcus finally stirred.
He'd spent what felt like eternity at the event horizon, where time dilated to impossible extremes. Minutes in the outside universe translated to eons within that crushing gravity well. And in that infinite subjective time, he'd refined his power to absolute limits.
The integration of void force that he'd begun was now complete. Every ability, every technique, every fragment of power he'd collected across dimensions had been perfectly unified. The distinctions between his various capabilities had dissolved entirely—now there was only void, expressing itself through infinite variations.
But when the integration finished, his growth had effectively stopped. He could refine his technique, improve his control, develop new applications... but he couldn't become fundamentally stronger.
Marcus had expected this. He controlled one-third of the void's authority. Power couldn't appear from nothing; if his portion grew, that meant the other two controllers had weakened. And since they were actively fighting to maintain their domains, stealing power from them required direct confrontation.
So rather than chase impossible growth, Marcus had focused on consolidation. He'd integrated all the dimensional authorities he possessed—power from multiple realities, collected across his travels. Individually, any one of those authorities would be enough to elevate someone to dimensional demon-god status.
United? They made him something unprecedented.
Through the black hole's infinite time dilation, he'd finally achieved perfect control over all dimensional powers. Even without his Warframe armor, he could manipulate dimensional forces as easily as breathing.
And the black hole itself—the super-massive gravitational phenomenon he'd become—had devoured enough matter and energy to allow him to manifest every piece of his armor simultaneously. Not as external equipment but as aspects of his being, powers he could call upon at will.
"It's been so long," Marcus murmured, his voice somehow carrying through the absolute gravity that should have made sound impossible. "Time to emerge. I wonder how far they've developed in my absence?"
The super-massive black hole began to collapse.
Not gradually—catastrophically. The entire structure twisted wildly, gravity waves rippling outward with enough force to warp spacetime across light-years. The event horizon flickered, and suddenly all the light that had been trapped for months exploded outward in a blinding cascade.
It was as though someone had opened a gate in the universe itself. Everything that had been consumed—matter, energy, even information—came flooding back out in a torrent of creation.
The change was impossible to miss, especially for civilizations actively searching for anomalies.
The Super Gene's stellar computational cloud couldn't calculate what was happening, but data from their distributed sensor network showed a massive hole in their coverage—an entire region where their algorithms simply couldn't function.
"Something's interfering with our computational models," Lianfeng reported, pulling up visualizations that showed a spherical void in their data. "We can't determine if this represents danger or opportunity, but I recommend investigation."
Everyone felt conflicted. This could be another hostile force emerging—a third nightmare to join the Void Legion and believers. That would mean losing even their last refuge, the tiny corner of space where survivors huddled together.
But it could also be Marcus. The timing, the void-related interference... it all suggested his involvement.
"Let me go," Angel Yan stepped forward before the debate could truly begin. "As Left Wing Guard, I should be at the forefront."
Among all the civilizations present, only angels had deep research into void phenomena. And that research came from Kesha, who'd received void power from Marcus himself. As Angel King, Kesha naturally couldn't risk herself on reconnaissance missions. He Xi, while powerful, was irreplaceable as their chief researcher.
But Yan? She was strong, equipped with a prototype void engine that could resist distortion and assimilation, and expendable in the cold calculus of survival. If something went wrong, her loss would be tragic but not civilization-ending.
After careful deliberation, everyone agreed. Yan would investigate the computational void.
She prepared methodically—checking her equipment, reviewing emergency protocols, saying quiet goodbyes to close friends who might never see her again. Then she launched herself toward the anomaly, carrying the desperate hopes of every surviving civilization.
In his sanctum deep within the Styx Galaxy, karl noticed the movement immediately. Though the surviving civilizations weren't worth much attention individually, old habits died hard. He still monitored his former colleagues from the Super Gene, tracking their activities out of nostalgic curiosity.
"Why would they send their Left Wing Guard on a solo mission?" he mused, phantom fingers drumming against his desk. "And in that direction... toward an area even the Big Clock can't properly analyze."
karl didn't understand what the civilizations were attempting, but he recognized unusual behavior when he saw it. And unusual behavior from desperate civilizations often preceded unwelcome surprises.
To prevent potential complications, karl diverted a squad from the Void Legion to follow Yan. The orders were simple: if she tried to accomplish anything significant, disrupt it. Kill her if necessary.
"Kesha, Morgana... you have nowhere to hide from the Void Legion," karl whispered, smile cold. "Whatever you're planning, it won't matter."
Yan detected her pursuers almost immediately. They made no attempt at stealth, their void-distortion signatures blazing across her sensors like bonfires.
karl's orders, she realized. The God of Death wouldn't normally waste resources hunting a single angel. This was personal attention, which meant he considered her mission threatening somehow.
She needed to move faster.
Activating her void engine at maximum output, Yan channeled the power Marcus had indirectly provided through Kesha's modifications. Void energy wrapped around her form like a second skin, and her velocity multiplied exponentially.
The Void Squad fell behind, unable to match her enhanced speed.
But pushing the engine this hard came with consequences. Yan's divine body wasn't fourth-generation; she couldn't sustain this level of output indefinitely. Already she could feel strain building, systems beginning to overload. If she had to fight—if she had to do anything other than run—her body would collapse entirely.
Just need to reach the anomaly, she told herself. Once I'm there, once I confirm whether Marcus is present, my mission is complete.
Ahead, space itself seemed wrong. She could see it now—a region where reality was twisted into impossible configurations. And floating around that twisted space, perfectly still despite the gravitational chaos...
Void Angels.
Yan's hearts skipped beats as recognition hit. She'd seen these entities before, standing beside Marcus on the Giant Canyon. Corrupted angels, transformed by void power into something both beautiful and terrible.
They stood like statues, unmoving, seemingly unaffected by the black hole's pull. As though they existed in a different dimensional framework entirely, observing but not participating in normal physics.
As the void angels remained motionless, a weak void energy fluctuation—sharing the same signature as the angels themselves—rippled outward from where Yan was approaching.
Several of the statue-like beings suddenly moved.
Void power flowed across their twisted metallic bodies, and beams of concentrated entropy lanced through space. Dozens of shots, fired with perfect precision, all aimed at—
Not at Yan.
Past Yan.
At the Void Squad pursuing her.
The universe fell silent as the beams found their targets. The Void Warriors didn't explode or burn. They simply... ceased. Matter and energy both unraveled, erased on a conceptual level, leaving not even quantum echoes behind.
Yan twisted mid-flight to look back, and what she saw made her blood freeze. The powerful Void Squad—warriors who could distort reality itself—had been annihilated like they'd never existed.
This is definitely Marcus's location, she thought, hope surging. But where is he?
Apart from the collapsing black hole and the motionless Void Angels, she couldn't detect anything else. And she couldn't get closer without being pulled into the event horizon. Even her third-generation divine body wouldn't survive that crushing force.
"What should I do?" Yan whispered to herself, floating at a safe distance. "Even the Void Angels won't approach the black hole. How am I supposed to reach Marcus to deliver our message?"
She'd already accepted that she might die completing this mission. But dying before actually accomplishing anything? That was unacceptable. She carried the hopes of entire civilizations. Failure meant everyone perished.
As Yan wrestled with impossible choices, the super-massive black hole suddenly changed.
A sound—impossible, in vacuum—resonated across space. Not heard through ears but felt in bones and consciousness. A deep, reverberating pulse like a heartbeat at the center of the universe.
And accompanying that pulse, songs began. Ethereal voices rising in harmonies that had nothing to do with human vocal ranges. Like the void itself was singing, celebrating something profound and terrible.
Yan's eyes widened as she witnessed the impossible.
The black hole was shrinking.
Not gradually. Not through Hawking radiation or any known physical process. The event horizon simply contracted, grew smaller, pulled inward by forces that had nothing to do with gravity.
And as it shrank, the ethereal singing grew louder. More complex. Building toward some crescendo.
Light from across the spectrum began gathering around a central point. Visible wavelengths, infrared, ultraviolet, gamma rays, even exotic radiations that shouldn't exist outside laboratory conditions. All of it converging, weaving together, outlining a form.
A human figure.
Even having lived for thousands of years, Yan found herself utterly stunned. She'd known Marcus was powerful—had seen him give power to Kesha and transform Morgana with casual ease. She'd understood intellectually that he operated on a level beyond conventional power scaling.
But this? This rewrote her understanding of what "powerful" even meant.
Marcus had been the black hole. Had transformed himself into a stellar-mass gravitational phenomenon. And now he was... reversing the process? Returning to humanoid form? While somehow retaining all that compressed matter and energy?
She tried to look at him directly and immediately regretted it.
Even though Marcus was clearly restraining himself, exerting enormous effort to contain his aura, just existing near him threatened Yan's structural integrity. Her divine body began showing warning signs—minor degradation, quantum instabilities, cellular breakdown.
And this was with him holding back. If Marcus released his full power, even for an instant...
Yan didn't want to imagine it. The entire angel civilization would probably cease to exist. Just... stopped. Erased by proximity to something operating on such extreme levels.
But despite the terror, despite every survival instinct screaming at her to flee, she forced herself to remain. To speak.
"I found you," Yan whispered, though she knew Marcus could hear her perfectly well. "Finally."
The light finished coalescing, and Marcus stood before her in clear form. Still restraining himself, still carefully containing the overwhelming power she could sense beneath his calm exterior.
"Angel... Yan?" Marcus's voice carried gentle curiosity. "If I remember correctly, that's your name."
"Yes!" Yan fought to keep her voice steady. "I'm Yan, Left Wing Guard to Holy Kesha. But there's almost no angel civilization anymore. Almost nothing left at all."
Her eyes flashed white as she transmitted data directly, sending compressed information packets containing everything that had happened during Marcus's absence. The rise of the Void Legion, the spread of the fanatical believers, the slow extinction of civilizations caught between them.
Yan had never seen Marcus's computational engine, but she knew the data transfer wouldn't affect him. His strength was too vast, too absolute. He could process the information or ignore it entirely—the choice was his.
After receiving the data stream, Marcus took a moment to absorb it all. Process the timeline, understand the forces involved, recognize the patterns.
And he smiled.
"I smell the same essence from those strange enemies," he said, almost to himself. "This is convenient. I didn't expect to encounter both of them simultaneously."
His gaze turned contemplative, looking past Yan toward something only he could perceive.
"If these were just ordinary secondary void life, I wouldn't bother intervening. But the entities behind these two forces?" His smile widened slightly. "They're interesting enough to be worth my time. Perhaps I can use this opportunity to gather all void power into one location."
He refocused on Yan, and she felt the weight of his attention like physical pressure.
"You're right—the situation is critical. In a few days, maybe a week at most, the civilizations of this universe will be completely destroyed. The momentum has shifted too far. But..."
Void energy dissipated from Marcus's eyes, and suddenly Yan could breathe again. The overwhelming pressure vanished, replaced by something that registered as barely above human-normal.
Around them, the scattered Void Angels began merging back together, their numbers returning to the original two that had accompanied Marcus when he first appeared in this universe.
"Let's go," Marcus said simply. "It's time to return."
He gestured, and a void crack tore through space. Blue-white energy crackled along its edges—pure, concentrated void force held in perfect stability.
Outside the solar system, every surviving civilization had mobilized for what they all recognized as their final battle. Warriors from dozens of species, ships from countless worlds, all gathered in desperate unity.
Behind them floated a massive vessel, and at its center shone the lantern furnace—Marcus's gift, still providing power even in his absence.
This was their last refuge. Their final line. If they fell here, intelligent life in the universe would effectively cease to exist.
BUZZ—
Space trembled. Reality warped. A rift of pure light opened in the void, void power pouring out in a controlled stream.
"Alert status!" someone shouted across command channels. "Unknown energy signature! Prepare for possible hostiles!"
A humanoid silhouette emerged from the crack, backlit so severely that details were impossible to make out. Terrifying void power spread from the figure instantly, and many defenders felt their souls wail in response to that overwhelming presence.
"Whoever you are," a voice called out—Ducao, trying to maintain authority even as fear crept into his tone, "identify yourself or—"
"Ha!" The silhouette laughed, warm and genuinely amused. "It seems I arrived just in time!"
As the voice resonated through everyone's minds—not through sound but through direct mental contact—the light faded enough to reveal the speaker's identity.
Marcus.
The Marcus they'd been desperately searching for. The Marcus they'd pinned all their hopes on.
Relief crashed through the assembled forces like a tidal wave. Some people actually collapsed, legs giving out as tension they'd carried for months finally released.
Behind Marcus, the void crack pulsed again. More light emerged.
Two of those lights condensed into the familiar forms of Void Angels—twisted metal beings that stood motionless but radiated immense power.
The final light was Angel Yan, though she looked terrible. Unconscious, floating limply, with void-corrupted metal spreading across her armor and skin like crystalline infection.
"Hmm?" He Xi immediately moved to examine her, wings flaring. "The secondary void is still a massive threat to angels equipped with sub-biological engines. The reaction is severe."
Marcus had already noticed Yan's condition. The void rift he'd opened connected directly to true void—not the secondary void that most civilizations encountered, but the real thing. Yan couldn't resist that level of exposure, even with her enhancements.
But she'd been fortunate. The void transformation had begun rather than simply annihilating her. That meant she could be saved.
Marcus raised one hand toward Yan's floating form. Void power flowed from her body like water responding to gravity, converging at his fingertips in a sphere of contained entropy. As the corruption was drawn out, Yan's physical form stabilized. The metallic growths receded, leaving normal angel flesh behind.
In seconds, she was back to normal—just unconscious from the strain.
"Let her rest," Marcus said. "She's earned it."
Then he turned his attention to the assembled civilizations, really looking at them for the first time since emerging.
They'd changed significantly during his absence. The lantern furnace's power had made them all stronger—he could see that immediately. Almost everyone had found ways to integrate its energy with their existing abilities. The combinations were clever, often inspired.
But he was most interested in Kesha and Morgana.
Kesha had fully mastered the void power he'd given her, wielding it as naturally as her own angel abilities. And Morgana's fallen angel transformation had stabilized beautifully, the corruption and purity balanced in perfect harmony.
These two were the key to the surviving civilizations' resistance. Their power eliminated the influence of the Void Legion's distortion and the believers' assimilation, creating safe zones where normal combat was possible.
"Considering your current strength," Marcus said approvingly, "your performance has been excellent."
He gestured, and countless points of light flew from his hands—thousands of tiny crystals that shot through space to individual warriors. Every person present received one.
"These will help you resist the influence of those powers," Marcus explained. "The void corruption, the faith assimilation—these crystals will shield you from both. The rest..." He smiled. "Leave it to me."
He was looking forward to meeting the other void controllers. His power had reached its natural limits within the one-third authority he possessed. To grow further, he needed to claim the remaining portions.
Originally, he'd thought finding them would be difficult. The void was infinite, after all. Searching through that endless expanse could take eternity.
But fortune had placed both of them in this single universe. And better yet, they were already fighting each other, weakening themselves through constant conflict.
This was the perfect opportunity.
And Marcus had advantages the others lacked. Behind him waited the Dark Aster—now transformed through Will's tireless work into a genuine cosmic fortress. And populating that fortress were Kryptonian warriors, bred using void-enhanced technology.
Having been born in void environment, every one of his Kryptonians possessed innate secondary void manipulation. They were vastly superior to the corrupted warriors serving the Void Legion or the converted faithful following the believers.
As long as the other two void controllers didn't intervene directly, destroying their mortal forces was simply a matter of time.
The light crystals settled into warriors' hands across the fleet, condensing into palm-sized cards. Everyone could feel the power contained within—stable, protective, designed specifically to shield them from the threats they'd been fighting.
"Is there anything we can help with?" Ducao asked. He spoke for all the leaders, all the civilizations. They'd pinned their hopes on Marcus, yes, but that didn't mean they wanted to hide while he fought alone.
Pride mattered. These were leaders of great civilizations, warriors who'd built empires. Sitting back and letting someone else save them stung, even when that someone was functionally a god.
"Speaking of which, I do need your help," Marcus said, surprising everyone.
What he wanted was infiltration—to quietly erode both enemy forces from within while letting the void controllers continue their battle. If he could position himself perfectly, he could wait until they'd exhausted each other and then claim both portions of authority in one move.
To accomplish that, he needed the surviving civilizations. They were natives of this universe, familiar with its politics and cultures. When they resisted, it would seem natural. Even the void controllers wouldn't find it suspicious.
Soon, the civilizations launched their counteroffensive.
They fought with renewed vigor against both the Void Legion and the fanatical believers. Their increased strength surprised both enemy forces, but not enough to truly concern them.
After all, these civilizations were on the brink of extinction. A final surge of desperate resistance was expected. It wouldn't change the ultimate outcome.
But hidden within the defending forces, the Kryptonian warriors had begun their work.
They'd infiltrated both sides, replacing fallen soldiers, mimicking powers, gradually spreading through the enemy armies like a virus. During battle after battle, the Kryptonians studied their opponents' abilities—learning to replicate void distortion, mastering faith-based assimilation.
The defending civilizations pretended to weaken, acting as though they were running out of resources and will. They made strategic retreats look like routing armies, creating the impression that final collapse was imminent.
To both enemy forces, this seemed perfectly natural. The civilizations were on their last legs. Seeing them begin to crumble was expected, even inevitable.
What neither side realized was that the civilizations had long since developed immunity to their corruption. Marcus's protective crystals ensured that void distortion and faith assimilation no longer worked. Everything the defenders did was performance—calculated acting designed to cover the real operation.
The Kryptonian warriors steadily replaced soldiers on both sides. Stealing identities. Assuming positions. Waiting for the final command that would reveal just how thoroughly they'd infiltrated.
Time passed. Days became weeks became months.
And gradually, almost half of both armies were Kryptonian.
In the Styx Galaxy, karl stood in his laboratory surrounded by data streams, completely unaware of the rot spreading through his forces.
"Angels, demons, Blazing Sun... hah. Stubborn fools," he muttered, reviewing reports from the front. "Obstinance only leads to extinction."
He'd used the Big Clock to scan the universe repeatedly, searching for the surviving civilizations' bases. Every calculation came back negative. They'd vanished completely—presumably retreated to some hidden redoubt where they were making their final stand.
karl felt no concern. The Big Clock was the greatest celestial computer in the known universe. If it couldn't find them, they were either very well hidden or already dead.
And there were only a few beings in existence who could avoid the Big Clock's detection—entities like Black Marcus, who operated on such extreme power levels that normal analysis simply failed.
"They're finished," karl declared with satisfaction. "Let them cower in whatever hole they've found. When we're ready, we'll dig them out and finish this."
He remained immersed in his void power research, still drunk on the abilities Black Marcus had granted. The distortion force was incredible—capable of rewriting reality itself, breaking fundamental laws, turning physics into a suggestion rather than a rule.
Even the Big Clock couldn't properly calculate true void phenomena. It could analyze secondary void effects, build models of how distortion propagated, but the core force remained beyond its comprehension.
That made karl's Void Legion the most powerful force in the known universe—aside from the believers, who wielded comparable but philosophically opposite power.
He felt a touch of regret when thinking about the dying civilizations. They'd coexisted for tens of thousands of years, after all. Shared knowledge, traded technology, built networks of commerce and culture.
But progress required sacrifice. The old order had to fall before something new could rise. karl was simply facilitating that inevitable transition.
What he didn't know—what he couldn't have guessed—was that the civilizations he believed destroyed were actually orchestrating his downfall. Hidden within his own forces, the Kryptonian warriors waited with perfect patience.
More time passed.
The stalemate between the Void Legion and the believers became absolute. Both sides held roughly equal territory now, and neither could gain permanent advantage. Battles raged constantly, but the front lines barely moved.
This was Marcus's influence, carefully balancing the scales. Ensuring neither side achieved dominance. Keeping them locked in eternal conflict while his infiltrators consumed their forces from within.
Eventually, both sides stopped even trying to expand. Territory didn't matter anymore. Troop numbers were irrelevant. This had become a contest of void controllers, and the mortal armies were just pieces on that cosmic board.
The atmosphere throughout the universe grew oppressive. Everyone—on all sides—could feel that the final confrontation was approaching. The real battle. The one that would decide everything.
"Both sides have ceased fighting," Lianfeng reported during a strategy session. "Our infiltrators have no more opportunities to act. Any movement now would be too obvious."
"We've done all we can from the shadows," Ducao agreed. "The next phase belongs to Marcus and his forces."
They'd successfully positioned Kryptonian warriors throughout both armies. Roughly half of each force was secretly loyal to Marcus now. When he gave the signal, that advantage would become overwhelming.
But they needed the void controllers to reveal themselves first. To commit to direct confrontation. Only then could the trap be sprung.
The seemingly silent universe erupted without warning.
Holy light blazed from the believers' territory—radiance so intense it could be seen across galaxies. The illumination spread like a living thing, flowing across space, and everything it touched began transforming.
Matter assimilated. Energy unified. Void-corrupted metal spread like crystalline growth, reflecting that terrible light outward to infect even more territory.
The speed was visible to the naked eye, and it was horrifying.
But the Void Legion didn't remain passive. Dark purple energy—the color of bruises and decay—erupted from karl's domain. It met the holy light at countless intersections, and wherever they collided, reality broke.
The light-touched regions twisted, their perfect unity corrupting into chaos. The spreading void metal began growing erratically, branching in impossible directions, taking forms that hurt to perceive.
Warriors caught at the intersection of both energies underwent grotesque transformations. Constantly assimilated and constantly distorted, their bodies couldn't maintain coherent form. They became something like the Void Angels—beings that existed in states of permanent flux, both unified and fractured, ordered and chaotic.
"Those transformations..." someone breathed in horror, watching the sensor feeds. "That's how Void Angels are created?"
The hidden civilizations watched from the territory borders with shock and revulsion. They'd survived the assimilation and distortion thanks to Marcus's protection, and now they witnessed the true horror of what would have happened without that shield.
Marcus himself stood at the exact intersection of both energy types, carefully analyzing their properties.
The other two void controllers were powerful—as strong as him, individually. But they'd become extreme, unbalanced. One embodied pure assimilation, kindness taken to the point where individual identity ceased to matter. The other represented pure distortion, corruption so complete that nothing could maintain stable form.
"Are these two completely insane?" Marcus muttered to himself. "Why would void controllers become so philosophically extreme? I'm chaotic in methodology but still fundamentally balanced. These two have gone completely off the deep end."
He didn't understand how they'd reached this state, but it didn't matter. They were enemies regardless of motivation. This was a zero-sum competition—only one void controller could survive.
The energy surge didn't last long. Both sides pulled back after that initial display, conserving strength.
Then two concentrated beams—one of holy light, one of purple distortion—lanced across space and collided.
The void controllers had engaged directly.
A storm erupted where the beams met. Void energy in its rawest form, unconstrained by physical law or dimensional boundaries. Space-time itself tore apart, and through those tears, glimpses of other realities flickered.
No one could see what was happening deep within that storm. The forces involved were too intense, operating on scales that sensors couldn't measure and consciousness couldn't fully process.
But Marcus saw. His connection to void let him perceive what others couldn't.
He saw the truth: they were evenly matched. Neither could gain advantage. They'd destroy each other before either achieved dominance.
Perfect.
Marcus immediately gave the signal. "All Kryptonian warriors—activate. Usurp their power anchors. Now."
Throughout both armies, warriors who'd seemed perfectly loyal suddenly turned on their fellows. Void heat-vision lanced through formations, precise and devastating. The Kryptonians revealed themselves en masse, and chaos erupted.
Both armies found themselves being destroyed from within. Soldiers they'd fought beside for months suddenly became traitors, cutting through their ranks with powers that seemed immune to corruption.
A massive percentage of both forces died in the first minute. The Kryptonians had been perfectly positioned, and their surprise attack was brutally effective.
karl, monitoring the battle remotely, felt ice crystallize in his core. "What?! They're not my warriors! They're not the believers either! Where did this third force come from?!"
He immediately ordered a counterattack. "Eliminate them at any cost! I don't care what it takes!"
The believers' commander made the same decision. These infiltrators had to be destroyed, regardless of losses.
But they'd miscalculated catastrophically.
The Kryptonian warriors were void-adapted from birth. The secondary void powers that the Void Legion and believers wielded? They didn't just fail to harm the Kryptonians—they made them stronger.
Every distortion attempt they absorbed. Every assimilation they consumed. The attacks literally powered up the enemy, improving their combat capabilities in real-time.
Instead of destroying the Kryptonian warriors, the counterattack turned into a massacre. Both armies began collapsing as their strongest abilities became weapons against them.
Marcus took advantage of the chaos to make his move.
He transformed into pure void—consciousness without fixed form—and merged with the storm raging between the two controllers. His essence spread through their battlefield, connecting with both opposing forces simultaneously.
The power they wielded felt familiar because it was familiar. Same source as his own, just expressed differently. He began weaving them together, forcing the opposed energies into unified structure.
They resisted, naturally. But the process continued anyway, inexorable as entropy.
Time passed. Hours, maybe days—hard to tell when you're operating in void-space where time has no consistent meaning.
The two controllers remained locked in stalemate, completely focused on each other. Neither noticed the third presence infiltrating their battle until it was too late.
Marcus struck.
He erupted from the void storm with both hands extended, and tendrils of power lanced out to grab both controllers simultaneously. The connections spread rapidly, covering them, binding them, pulling them toward him.
They fought back desperately, but they'd already exhausted themselves. The prolonged battle, the infiltration of their forces, the constant drain on their power—it had all been calculated to bring them to this moment.
Weakened. Vulnerable. Perfect targets.
"Another one of me?" one controller gasped.
"We're... fragments?" the other realized.
Marcus could see them clearly now. Black Marcus, embodying distortion and corruption. White Marcus, representing assimilation and unity. And himself—balanced between them, containing both principles in harmony.
"The other two aspects of myself," Marcus said, understanding crystallizing. "Not separate beings. Not rivals. Just different expressions of the same consciousness."
He thought back to when his timeline had been reversed—that incident with Chronoa, when past and future had collided. The temporal paradox had split him, separated his unified nature into three distinct fragments.
Black. White. And himself, maintaining balance.
"We were always one," Marcus continued, certainty growing. "This war was meaningless. We're just fighting ourselves."
But even knowing that, even understanding the truth, he couldn't stop. Because only one consciousness could survive. The fragments had to reunify or be destroyed—there was no middle ground.
"Is this when the future was reversed?" he asked, though he was really asking himself. "Is this the price of temporal paradox?"
Marcus pulled harder on the connections binding his fragments. The power linking Black and White Marcus to him spread faster, covering more territory, sinking deeper into their essence.
"The void has unified..." a voice whispered from beyond the multiverse.
In a space outside all dimensions, in the realm where cosmic abstracts contemplated eternity, a figure turned to address someone seated nearby.
"My brother," Eternity said, "your past has unified. Now it's your turn."
The figure beside Eternity—another Marcus, but subtly different—nodded. "I've been waiting for this moment for a long time. My past self will unite the void, and I'll merge with him. The void can only have one master."
This Marcus was paradox made manifest. He was Marcus's past and Marcus's future simultaneously. He shouldn't have existed—when Marcus's timeline merged into singular continuity, becoming the only version, this fragment should have dissolved.
But instead, he'd been born from the void sea itself. A being free from the void's laws while still composed of void energy. An impossibility that existed anyway.
"I belong to the void," the paradox Marcus said quietly. "But the void doesn't belong to me. I'm outside the system. And now I'm going to return—merge with my past and future, become truly complete."
BOOM!!!
A shockwave rippled across the entire universe.
At the center of space, where the three void controllers had battled, a cocoon appeared. It was woven from pure void energy, pulsing with power that made reality itself flinch away.
"That is..." someone whispered, but couldn't finish the sentence.
Everyone felt it—the power emanating from that cocoon was enough to annihilate the universe. To unmake everything and everyone, return all matter and energy to primordial chaos.
The three armies—Void Legion, believers, and the hidden civilizations—all stopped fighting. Stood still. Watched the cocoon with expressions of awe and terror.
Time passed. Impossible to say how much. The cocoon beat like a heart, and each pulse sent waves of void power washing across the cosmos.
CRACK.
A fissure appeared in the cocoon's surface. Then another. Then dozens, hundreds, the shell splitting apart as something inside pushed toward freedom.
A figure emerged, composed entirely of void energy. Not darkness—not light—something that was both and neither, all possible states superimposed.
"So that's how it is," the figure said, Marcus's voice carrying new understanding. "No wonder Eternity calls me brother..."
He stepped into the universe, and every footstep left infinite worlds in its wake. Not metaphorically—literally. Each place his foot touched, new realities blossomed into existence, entire cosmologies spinning up from void-stuff and stabilizing into permanent dimensions.
Marcus had become the void itself. Not controlling it, not channeling it—being it. The distinction between Marcus and void had dissolved entirely.
He was creation and destruction. Order and chaos. The beginning and the end.
Epilogue: The Multiverse Academy
Years passed. The universe healed from the void war's devastation. Under Marcus's indirect guidance—he rarely intervened directly anymore, preferring to let civilizations develop naturally—the various species rebuilt and eventually flourished.
The Super Gene underwent a profound transformation. With Marcus's blessing and resources, it expanded its scope beyond a single universe. It became the Multiverse Academy, recruiting students from countless realities floating in the void sea.
Every year, graduates from the Academy returned to their home dimensions as heroes. Champions. People who'd been trained by some of the greatest minds across multiple realities, who'd learned to wield powers that bent physical law.
On Playground Number 642sd551 of the Academy's Magic Department, a portal opened with a shower of sparks.
"Peter, are you sure this will work?" a nervous voice called through the gateway. "Your superpowers are from mutant genes, but this is magic. And I'm a firm materialist! I don't even believe in—OH MY GOD!"
The portal stabilized, and a young man in a Spider-Man suit stepped through. Peter Parker—one of countless Peter Parkers scattered across the multiverse—turned back to encourage his friend.
"Come on, Ned!" Peter called. "We're best friends! Would I lie to you? I even told you I'm Spider-Man. If you want to be a superhero too, you need to study here. Besides..." He gestured at the portal. "You already opened a mystical gateway. Pretty sure that proves magic is real."
Encouraged, a heavyset teenager poked his head through the portal. Ned Leeds stared around with wide eyes, his carefully constructed worldview crumbling and reforming in real-time.
His best friend was a superhero. Magic was real. And he—Ned, ordinary Ned—had just opened a portal to another dimension.
"Welcome!" Another voice called out. A figure swung down on energy-construct webbing, landing beside them with practiced grace. "Welcome to the Multiverse Academy, founded by subordinates of the Void Lord Marcus. I'm your guide—Magic Spider-Man Peter Parker!"
Ned blinked. Looked at his Peter. Looked at Magic Spider-Man Peter. Looked back at his Peter.
"There are multiple Spider-Men?" he asked weakly.
"Oh, there are thousands of us," Magic Spider-Man said cheerfully. "The Spider-Verse is vast! But don't worry—you'll get used to it. Now, let me show you around your new school..."
As they walked away, chattering about curriculum and magical theory and the various Peters scattered across dimensions, the camera pulled back. Out of the playground, out of the Academy, out of the universe entirely.
To show Marcus, floating in void-space, watching everything with ancient eyes and a satisfied smile.
He was the void. And the void was infinite.
His story would never truly end, because endings were just new beginnings in different forms. The cycle continued. Creation and destruction, again and again, forever.
And Marcus would be there for all of it.
Watching. Guiding. Protecting.
Being.
[THE END]