The core of the barren planet wailed.
Mark's galaxy-shaking punch slammed the mutated Old Mark deep into the mantle, triggering a global super earthquake.
Lava spewed like blood from the planet's wounds, briefly illuminating the dim cosmic space.
But this destructive blow did not bring an end.
Just a few breaths later, the figure that should have been crushed by the combined pressure of the Earth's core and Mark's immense power, tore through the boiling lava and fractured earth, soaring into the sky with an even more violent and twisted appearance!
His body was larger than before, and the bony exoskeleton on his surface glowed with a dull, blood-colored metallic sheen, covered in grotesque bone spikes and constantly writhing tentacles.
The wounds inflicted by Mark had long since healed, even becoming thicker and harder, and his murky yellow swirling eyes now burned with a pure, irrational flame of destruction.
"ROAR!!!!!!!"
A non-human roar, twisting even space, transformed into a tangible sonic cannon and fiercely blasted towards Mark!
Mark hovered in the air, his molten gold pupils contracting slightly.
He could clearly feel that the opponent's aura seemed to have grown stronger again!
The battle erupted once more!
This time, Old Mark's speed and strength had reached an entirely new level.
He no longer relied on strange tentacles, but purely on his evolved body, which crushed physical laws, to engage Mark in the most savage and primitive clash.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
Each of their punches was no longer a simple sonic boom, but triggered spatial fault lines and dimensional ripples!
At the point of impact, matter was directly annihilated, releasing gamma-ray bursts comparable to supernova explosions.
They fought from the planet's surface to its nearby orbit, and the occasional stray punch that swept across the surface could instantly create continent-spanning abyssal rifts!
The planet beneath them could no longer withstand such god-like power; its core was completely detonated!
In a silent yet exquisitely dazzling expansion of energy, this giant rocky planet was reduced to cosmic dust.
Mark and Old Mark had already surged out of the explosion's range, their battlefield shifting to the cold depths of outer space.
The Alliance's spaceship struggled to maintain a stable position beyond the safety distance, a deathly silence filling the cabin.
White Lion gripped the control stick tightly, his golden pupils filled with unprecedented shock and worry, while Bearded Mark slumped in the co-pilot's seat, his face pale.
He finally understood that Mark of Universe 9 had probably not even used one percent of his strength when fighting him earlier.
And that monster… was completely beyond his comprehension.
"Activate all deep-space telescopes! Mobilize all observable resources! Force the signal… force the signal to connect to the interstellar public network!"
The spaceship's communications officer shrieked his orders, his voice trembling.
"Let all civilizations see! See what Lord Mark is fighting for!"
Soon, blurry images from distant galaxies, through various means, began to appear on the screens of command centers in countless capital stars, on the light screens of passenger lounges on interstellar routes, and on the emergency channel of Earth GDA Headquarters…
Director Cecil's coffee cup had long since fallen to the ground, shattering, but he was oblivious, staring intently at the two figures clashing like mythical titans on the screen, each confrontation making his heart almost stop.
Allen and Eve clasped their hands tightly, their nails almost digging into their flesh, their faces pale, silently praying for their comrade countless light-years away.
On Earth, in Mark's home.
Debbie sat alone in the living room, the television broadcasting the flickering battle footage from a distant galaxy, constantly interrupted by interference.
Her hands were tightly clasped, her knuckles white.
Finally, she could no longer sit still, rising unsteadily, grabbing a coat, and driving to Nolan's grave.
Before the cold tombstone, this strong mother finally succumbed to tears. She caressed her husband's name on the stone, her voice choked.
"Nolan… bless our son… please… bless him to come home safely…"
However, the situation on the cosmic battlefield was sliding towards the worst possible outcome.
Old Mark's evolutionary ability was simply inconceivable!
Each time he was destroyed by Mark's immense power—shredded, blasted into atoms, or banished into a star's interior—he would reassemble and revive in an extremely short time, becoming stronger, harder, and more adapted to Mark's attack methods!
After dying dozens of times, his physical strength had reached a desperate level.
Mark's heavy blows, capable of blowing up a planet with a single punch, could only leave shallow white marks on his dark red bone armor, no longer able to penetrate and destroy him.
Not only that, he began to develop various bizarre abilities specifically targeting Mark.
Crystalline structures that could deflect photon energy vision, active skin that could absorb and reflect biological force field impacts, high-frequency psionic pollution waves that could interfere with Mark's hearing and vision, and even the ability to briefly open miniature spatial rifts to divert some of Mark's attack energy into unknown dimensions!
Mark began to suffer losses.
In one unexpected spatial refraction, Mark's own heat vision was deflected back, grazing his shoulder and drawing a streak of golden blood!
In a clash of power, Old Mark's arm bone spikes suddenly lengthened and sharpened, like the most vicious spear, instantly piercing Mark's blocking arm, leaving a gushing, bleeding Penetrating wound!
"Ugh!"
Mark grunted, retreating sharply, blood scattering in the vacuum.
Cosmic radiation and the energy of distant stars surged into his body, and the wound healed rapidly, but the speed was clearly no match for the opponent's almost instantaneous, perverse recovery ability.
With one gaining and the other losing, the scales of battle began to tip!
Finally, after a fierce collision exceeding the speed of light, Old Mark took a punch from Mark aimed at his head, his bone armor shattering and scattering, but his mutated blade-like arm simultaneously slashed fiercely into Mark's chest!
Rip—!
Mark's body, immune to nuclear explosions, was easily torn, a huge, bone-deep wound stretching from his left shoulder to his right abdomen, blood gushing like a waterfall!
The immense impact sent Mark flying backward like a meteor, shattering three floating asteroids in succession, finally slamming hard into the rock layers of a desolate dwarf planet, kicking up a sky full of dust.
"Lord Mark!!"
"Mark!"
Inside the Alliance spaceship, everyone gasped in alarm.
Across the interstellar public network, all civilizations watching the battle instantly fell silent, a cold despair beginning to spread.
On Earth, Mark's relatives and friends' hearts were in their throats!
Old Mark hovered in space, the bone armor shattered on his head regenerating furiously, even becoming thicker and more grotesque.
He seemed to have completely lost his last shred of reason and intelligence, leaving only the purest instinct for slaughter and evolution.
He let out a roar of victory, sensing the direction of Mark's fall, and his figure blurred again, rushing towards the dwarf planet at a speed almost like a spatial jump!
Deep within the dwarf planet's impact crater, Mark struggled to his feet from the rock layers.
He coughed violently, spitting out a few mouthfuls of blood.
The terrifying wound on his chest was slowly healing, but the intense pain and sense of power loss were very real.
He glanced at the distant, expanding, approaching meteor of destruction, and instead of fear, a more intense fighting spirit burned in his molten gold pupils.
He took a deep breath, as if to draw all the energy of the entire starry sky into his lungs; the radiant light of distant stars became visible to the naked eye, flowing into his body like a giant current.
He wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and took a battle stance.
"Come!"
A new battle, on this unnamed dwarf planet, began again!
And this time, the shouts of the entire universe seemed to grow faint, leaving only boundless shock and deathly silence.
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