On the desolate planet, dead silence was the only melody.
The Multiverse Marks' remains, like torn dolls, lay scattered across the cold, hard rock surface, their frozen blood congealing into eerie dark crystals in the vacuum.
White Lion panted heavily, his snow-white fur stained with a few drops of blood not his own, standing behind Mark, vigilantly watching the only enemy still standing.
That Old Mark, whose body was wreathed in ominous shadows and whose eyes were murky yellow vortices.
Meanwhile, Bearded Mark, the warrior from Viltrum, was now on one knee, gasping for breath, his white battle suit tattered, revealing bruised and broken skin and bones beneath.
The intense pain and severe overexertion blurred his vision, but he still forced himself to look up at the Universe 9 Mark, who stood before him like a god.
The opponent's power far exceeded imagination; defeat was certain, or rather, it was a complete crushing.
A bitter sense of relief welled up in his heart.
To die at the hands of such a strong opponent might not be too bad.
"Do it."
Bearded Mark rasped, his voice carrying the last dignity of a warrior.
"To die by your fist... I have no regrets."
He closed his eyes, preparing to meet his final destruction.
However, at this very moment...
A sudden change occurred!
The Old Mark, who had been silent, had the shadows writhing around him suddenly turn violent, and countless slimy, pitch-black tentacles, covered in suckers and barbs, erupted from his chest!
These tentacles seemed to possess independent life, moving at astonishing speed, not attacking Mark or White Lion, but like hungry snakes, they lunged fiercely at the scattered corpses and remains of the Multiverse Marks!
Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle—!
A grating sound of corrosion and tearing suddenly erupted.
Those powerful bodies, capable of destroying stars, were like butter under a hot knife before these tentacles, easily pierced, entangled, decomposed, and absorbed.
The tentacles frantically seized the remaining life essence and energy origins from the corpses of their kind, their volume expanding at a visible rate, their color becoming even darker and deeper, and even distorted, painful facial phantoms began to emerge on their surface.
Moreover, one particularly thick tentacle, like a poisonous dragon emerging from its lair, shot straight towards Bearded Mark, who was waiting for death with his eyes closed!
Before the tentacle even reached him, the cold, devouring intent it contained made Bearded Mark's skin feel a bone-chilling coldness and numbness.
All of this happened too quickly, far exceeding normal reaction time!
But Mark's reaction was even faster!
The moment the Old Mark's tentacles burst forth, Mark's molten gold pupils suddenly contracted.
His fist, originally aimed at Bearded Mark, forcefully changed trajectory in mid-air, and his body erupted with an absolute speed that warped space itself.
He didn't even look at the deadly tentacle shooting towards Bearded Mark, but relied on his perception beyond the speed of light and his combat instincts to determine the optimal interception point!
Boom!!!!!
Mark's fist, arriving before the tentacle, like a burning silver star, struck the tip of the tentacle aimed at Bearded Mark with unparalleled precision.
The moment of contact, Mark's brow furrowed sharply!
Something was wrong!
The impact felt from his fist was unusually strange.
It wasn't the sensation of crushing bones or tearing flesh, nor the explosive feeling of destroying an energy shield, but an extremely disgusting, tenacious, and viscous resistance.
It was as if he had punched into a pile of countless slippery, wriggling worms, or struck some kind of living swamp that constantly regenerated and dissipated power.
Although the tip of that tentacle instantly burst apart under Mark's planet-shattering punch, turning into a splash of smoking, black, viscous liquid, its main body was not completely destroyed; instead, it used the force of the impact to rapidly retract and coil, attempting to wrap around Mark's arm!
At the same time, the terrifying kinetic energy contained in Mark's fist was transmitted along the tentacle without reservation!
Thud!!!!
Like striking a huge, rotting drum.
The Old Mark's entire body was violently struck by this indescribable immense force; he was like being hit head-on by a supernova explosion, turning into a twisted black meteor, instantly flying backward.
His speed was so great that he even left a long, eerie green trail of ionized vacuum on the thin atmosphere of the planet's surface!
He crashed through countless towering craters, penetrated kilometers of thick crustal rock, and finally disappeared beyond the distant horizon, flying an unknown distance.
However...
Mark hovered in place, slowly retracting his fist; his molten gold pupils, far from showing relief, flashed with an unprecedented solemnity.
He glanced at his fist, which was stained with a few drops of pitch-black, viscous liquid attempting to corrode his biological force field; he merely shook his hand slightly, and it completely evaporated.
That punch just now, the feel was definitely off.
He had indeed hit it, and he had indeed sent the opponent flying, but the feedback of power was far lower than expected, as if most of the immense power of his full-force strike had been swallowed or transferred by something.
"Uh..."
Bearded Mark opened his eyes, still in shock, looking at Mark who had saved his life, and then at the trail of destruction extending to the horizon in the distance, his face filled with disbelief and confusion.
White Lion also let out a wary growl, moving closer to Mark; he could sense that something was wrong with the atmosphere.
Just then, on the distant horizon, in the direction where the Old Mark had disappeared, an indescribable, heart-pounding wave of evil energy suddenly erupted like a tsunami!
A twisted, writhing black pillar of light shot up into the sky, connecting heaven and earth!
Within the pillar of light, a figure slowly floated up.
It was the Old Mark!
But his form at this moment had undergone a terrifying mutation!
His chest was filled with countless wildly dancing, merging, and regenerating pitch-black tentacles, thicker than those he had released before, their surfaces covered with constantly opening and closing eyes and dripping, slimy mouths, emitting maddening whispers.
And other parts of his body also showed terrifying distortions.
His arms had mutated into huge, mantis-like bony blades, their edges glowing with a faint light that seemed to cut space; his back had split open, extending several pairs of broken, insect-like wings covered in a viscous membrane; his legs had fused into an arthropod-like reverse-jointed structure, gripping the void firmly.
Even more terrifying, his body had swelled to more than double its previous size!
The energy level emanating from his entire being was escalating exponentially, as the energy from the remains of the Multiverse Marks he had devoured and absorbed underwent some evil catalysis and fusion within his body.
He hovered in the air, his murky yellow vortex eyes fixed on Mark; there was no longer the previous chaos and madness, but instead a cold, greedy, inhuman malice and satisfaction.
He slowly raised one arm, mutated into a blade, and pointed it at Mark.
A layered voice, like the buzzing of a billion insects, rang directly in Mark and White Lion's minds.
"Thank you... for helping me... complete..."
"Now... let us... truly begin..."
Before he finished speaking, the damaged membrane wings on his back suddenly vibrated!
Boom!!!!
The entire continental plate beneath his feet suddenly shattered like a cracker, and his figure had already vanished!
The next second, Mark felt an extremely sharp force, containing both corrosive and devouring properties, appear before his chest as if teleported.
Its speed was so swift, even more rapid than any attack he had encountered before!
Mark didn't hesitate, crossing his arms to block!
Clang!!!!!!
An ear-splitting sound of tearing metal exploded.
Sparks flew!
Mark's body, capable of withstanding stellar explosions, was actually shaken backward several hundred meters by this terrifying force! His feet plowed two bottomless furrows in the rock layer.
He lowered his slightly numb arms and saw that his forearm's biological force field had been marked with two shallow white imprints, and subtle black energy, like a living thing, was attempting to corrode inward.
Mark looked up, facing forward.
The mutated Old Mark was hovering in the position he had just occupied, one bladed forelimb still in a slashing posture, the other strangely twisted, its tip still dripping tiny Sui Xie (Debris) of energy that had just been scraped from Mark's force field, which its tentacles greedily absorbed.
Its speed, strength, and the strangeness of its attacks were now a world apart from before!
After devouring the corpses of those Multiverse Marks, it had evolved!?
White Lion let out an angry roar, wanting to pounce, but Mark stopped him with a raised hand.
Mark slowly adopted a combat stance; in his molten gold pupils, an unprecedented seriousness and blazing fighting spirit ignited.
"It seems."
Mark's voice was cold and calm, yet it contained a power capable of shaking stars.
"The warm-up is over."
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