As the final pocket universe collapsed, the raw, unfiltered energy of the Cosmic Cube flooded the infinite void of the Soul Stone.
Michael Korvac floated high above the golden fields, his eyes emitting a blinding, dazzling blue light. He looked down at the sprawling army of purple-armored Kang duplicates swarming the ground below. With a gentle, almost dismissive wave of his hand, every single duplicate was instantly erased from existence, vaporized into fine cosmic dust.
He's still here. Korvac's glowing eyes narrowed. His cosmic awareness pierced the veil of the dimension, "seeing" the Prime Kang attempting to hide within a fractured, localized timeline he had created just seconds prior. Korvac reached his hand into the empty air, shattered the temporal barrier like glass, and violently yanked Kang the Conqueror out of hiding.
With a single thought, Korvac annihilated him.
But the spectacle wasn't over. As the assembled heroes watched in stunned silence, a brilliant burst of emerald-green energy flared from Kang's disintegrating remains. The Time Stone aggressively rewound the localized reality.
In a flash of green light, Kang the Conqueror was completely restored, standing exactly where he had been moments before. He had essentially hard-coded a temporal resurrection point into his own timeline.
"Korvac!" Kang roared, raising his bulky energy weapon. "You cannot kill me!"
Korvac didn't speak. He simply raised his hand again.
With a sickening, visceral tear, Korvac violently flayed the high-tech armor and the skin completely off Kang's body, leaving nothing but a bloody skeleton and rapidly collapsing muscle tissue to clatter against the golden ground.
Johnny Storm watched the brutal execution, a cold shudder of absolute dread tingling down his spine.
A second later, the green light flared again.
"Korvac! You cannot kill me!" Kang yelled, reappearing fully intact.
Korvac clenched his fist. The gravitational force around Kang multiplied by ten thousand. The Conqueror was instantly crushed into a dense, bowling-ball-sized sphere of twisted purple metal and compressed organic matter.
The emerald light flashed.
"Korvac! You cannot—!"
The cycle of horrific violence continued. The all-powerful Infinity Stone was locked in a brutal stalemate against the raw reality-warping might of the Cosmic Cube. Kang was repeatedly, relentlessly, and gruesomely murdered in a terrifying one-on-one loop.
A few yards away, the illusion holding Carol Danvers finally broke. She collapsed onto the golden grass, completely bewildered. Mar-Vell, now fully reverted to his true blue-skinned Kree form, rushed over to help her up.
"Michael?" Carol gasped, looking at her husband's alien face, and then at the cosmic slaughter happening in the sky. "I... what is happening?"
"It's a long story. I'll explain later," Mar-Vell said decisively, shielding her with his body and carefully backing away from the epicenter of the battle.
Nearby, Adam Warlock fell to his knees, clutching his head in absolute agony.
"Korvac! This cannot continue!" Adam cried out, his golden skin flickering erratically. "Your power is too immense! The Soul Stone is reaching its structural limit! I am forcing everyone back to reality!"
"Korvac! You cannot kill—"
Kang reappeared just as Korvac completely disintegrated him down to his base subatomic particles. At that exact moment, the golden dimension violently fractured. The sky turned into an endless expanse of pitch black.
Gravity reasserted itself with a heavy thud.
The heroes stumbled, blinking against the harsh Caribbean sunlight. They were back in the real world, standing on the cracked concrete tarmac outside the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico.
Thor Odinson was standing a few dozen yards away. He had his hands on his hips, watching the spot where Mjolnir rested heavily on the tarmac. Hearing the collective gasp of the returning heroes, Thor turned around, a massive, relieved smile breaking across his bearded face.
"Ah! My friends!" Thor boomed, walking toward them. "I can confirm the Conqueror will not be troubling us. I pinned him beneath Mjolnir. He goes nowhere." Thor clapped Peter firmly on the shoulder. "I am overjoyed to see you all safe and sound."
"Uh... thanks, Point Break," Peter coughed, trying to regain his bearings.
"After all," Thor chuckled, "your souls did not appear in the halls of Valhalla, so I assumed you were victorious."
No one knew exactly how to respond to the Asgardian's logic. Instead, every pair of eyes turned upward.
Michael Korvac slowly descended from the sky. The blinding blue aura surrounding him began to dim, his fractured mind finally regaining a semblance of complete, rational composure. His bare feet touched the concrete.
"I think..." Korvac stammered, his voice trembling slightly with the weight of his own existence. "I think I should probably leave. This planet is far too fragile. I could shatter it in the blink of an eye. I have already destroyed countless worlds."
Korvac looked sadly at the assembled heroes. "You will see me again. In some distant future. Yes. I remember everything about my creation now. I was forged by Kang. He attempted to use the Cosmic Cube to conquer all eras of history..."
"But we won, right?" Peter stepped forward, pulling his mask off. "You're from a future where we eventually defeated Kang. That's why you came back to find the Avengers. To ask us to help you get home."
"Yes... and no," Korvac said softly, floating an inch above the tarmac. "Kang is unique. He possesses the ability to alter history without naturally creating branch timelines or parallel universes. There is a path where you defeat him. And I did come from that timeline. But Spider-Man... the key is whether or not you can seize that specific path."
"Well, can't you just tell us what it is?" Johnny Storm grumbled, crossing his arms.
"I cannot," Korvac shook his head. "Kang is capable of observing the entire timestream. If I speak the solution aloud here, he will hear it, and he will alter his tactics to avoid it. But you must be careful, Spider-Man. Beware the arrival of his reign. The Kang Dynasty will bring absolute chaos before—"
"Watch out! Kang has escaped!"
Thor's furious roar cut Korvac off. The thunder god had turned back toward Mjolnir, only to find the hammer resting on empty concrete. Kang had used the Time Stone to reverse his own position, slipping out from under the Uru metal the moment they returned to reality.
Korvac's eyes instantly flared blue, preparing to completely vaporize the time-traveler the second he showed his face.
But this time, Kang didn't attack Korvac directly.
"Korvac! The Great Kang demands your immediate surrender!"
Kang materialized directly behind Carol Danvers. Before anyone could react, Kang lunged forward. His armored hand brutally pierced straight through Carol's chest, exiting her back in a shower of blood.
Carol gasped, her eyes going wide with shock as her knees buckled.
Kang held her upright, his other hand leveling the heavy, rift-sealing pistol directly at Korvac. "My Time Stone can easily reset this woman's physical state. As long as you allow me to destroy you and seal your spatial rift, I will bring her back to life."
Peter's Spider-Sense didn't buzz. It went completely, terrifyingly cold. He took a slow, deep breath, perfectly centering his focus. With a subtle flex of his bio-electric field, Peter activated his camouflage, turning completely invisible.
"If you attempt to kill me, anomaly," Kang warned Korvac, his emerald chest-plate glowing, "I will ensure this woman dies permanently with me." Kang didn't turn his head, but his voice dripped with smug superiority. "And Spider-Man? Do you honestly believe I cannot track your bio-signature?"
A few yards away, Peter materialized out of thin air. He offered Kang a mock, two-fingered salute.
"Alright, Kang. You caught me," Peter said, his voice deadly calm. "But I didn't come over here alone. I brought a friend."
Peter looked past Kang. He had quietly patted Gwen Stacy's shoulder moments before cloaking. Gwen had understood the assignment perfectly.
Let's say hello.
A massive, liquid-black tendril shot from Gwen's arm. The Venom symbiote launched itself entirely off her body, flying through the air and slamming directly onto Kang's purple armor. The alien biomass instantly hijacked Kang's motorized suit, violently jerking the Conqueror backward and ripping his bloodied arm out of Carol's chest.
Venom forced Kang to stumble wildly to the side, completely exposing him.
Korvac didn't hesitate. A devastating beam of pure blue cosmic energy blasted Kang the Conqueror, instantly vaporizing him into ash. The symbiote expertly peeled itself off the armor a millisecond before the blast hit, slithering safely back across the tarmac toward Gwen.
Carol collapsed.
"You must leave, Korvac!" Reed yelled, sprinting to Carol's side.
Reed didn't wait for a medic. He dropped to his knees, his own fingers elongating and shifting, stretching into microscopic, pliable tubes. He drove his fingers directly into Carol's horrific chest wound, using his own elastic biology to act as artificial veins and arteries, desperately clamping her ruptured heart to maintain blood circulation.
"Kang's primary target is you!" Reed grunted, sweat beading on his forehead as he focused on keeping the military officer alive. "As long as you are here, and as long as he holds the Time Stone, this battle will never end! He will just keep rewinding!"
Korvac floated down to the bloody concrete. He looked at Carol, then at Reed, his glowing eyes filled with profound sorrow.
"I... I understand," Korvac whispered. "I am sorry."
Korvac's entire body erupted into a blinding, soothing blue light. A concentrated stream of cosmic energy drifted downward, washing over Carol's chest. The reality-warping power completely bypassed biology. Under Reed's hands, Carol's shattered ribs, torn heart, and shredded skin perfectly knitted themselves back together. Even her blood-soaked uniform was entirely repaired.
Korvac slowly drifted upward, the gravity of Earth releasing its hold on him. He looked down at the heroes who had fought so desperately for his fractured mind.
Goodbye, my friends. I will see you in the future.
With a final, silent flash of brilliant blue light, Michael Korvac vanished into the cosmos, leaving only the quiet rush of the Caribbean wind behind.
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