Chapter 294: Void Avengers
Chu Hang stood amidst a dead, grayish-white void.
Fourteen types of Law Powers flowed slowly within him like a silent galaxy. The definition of Greed was silently eroding the foundation of this space.
In the distance, the silhouette of Earth loomed indistinctly behind a Phase Barrier, like an oil painting dipped in water, its colors returning slowly yet stubbornly. But it was too slow. The Phase Barrier was like an incredibly resilient cosmic membrane; the harder he pushed it back into Reality, the more terrifying the rebounding force from the void became.
He sensed something was wrong.
This wasn't a simple contest of strength.
Chu Hang suddenly opened his eyes, his gaze like a swordunsheathed, piercing into the ominous black vortex deep within the void. The young Nathaniel Richards floated at the center of the vortex, his chest rising and falling weakly. That eerie golden coin on his forehead emitted a pulse-like halo, like a sinister heart, driving the rhythm of the entire void space.
That was by no means a simple Causal Anchor. Deep within the coin, a twisted, ancient, and mad will peered coldly from across space-time dimensions.
Kang in White.
That Kang variant, who had deduced his own defeat and Death 137,421 times in the ruins of Chronopolis, would never leave behind something as simple as a weapon.
With a thought, over a hundred Void Avengers surged from the black vortex. Born from the void, each was a monster twisted from the unwilling Souls and obsessions of heroes after their timelines were erased—the most loyal puppets of the Anti-Monitor.
"Boom—!"
Hundreds of pitch-black tentacles condensed from antimatter struck Clark's silver force field simultaneously. That silver radiance, symbolizing absolute order, finally showed spiderweb-like cracks. He could feel the foundation of his own concept being eroded by the void.
Thor's swings with stormbreaker had become sluggish. The lightning storm on the axe's blade was constantly neutralized by the Void Power, and the light of the six Infinity Stones embedded in it grew dim, as if covered by a layer of dead ash.
Jean's face was as pale as paper, the wings of fire constructed by the Phoenix Force behind her nearly transparent. Having just broken free from the corruption of her dark side, her mind and body were nearing their limits. That all-consuming void made her feel a deeper fear than even the Dark Phoenix—an absolute "nothingness" that could swallow the concepts of Life and Destruction alike.
Chu Hang suddenly stopped all his movements.
He withdrew the Law Power he was using to push Earthback into Reality, allowing that dead grayish-white to spread once more, as if giving up resistance.
"Chu Hang?" Thor's battle cry faltered, his eyes filled with confusion.
"Don't stop!" Clark gritted his teeth, the silver bio-field behind him fluctuating violently. "Hold on a bit longer, we're almost there!"
Chu Hang didn't answer. He just slowly looked up at the sky where there were no stars, no sun or moon, only the endless grayish-white flowing eternally.
He smiled, his laughter carrying a hint of cold self-deprecation and bone-deep madness.
"I've been using the wrong method all along."
"The Anti-Monitor dragged Earth into a phase shift to use his home field—the void—to consume our Reality. Meanwhile, I've been using the laws of Reality to fight against an infinite void. This is a war of attrition destined to be lost."
"Even if I want to bring Earth into my Inner Universe, I can't avoid the step of converting the void into Reality."
"In that case—"
Chu Hang raised his right hand. The rune of destruction in his palm began to rotate in reverse. Instead of releasing violent power of destruction outward, it contracted inward toward himself to the extreme.
In the next moment, the entrance to his Inner Universe on his chest burst open! The dark golden vortex was no longer a mere hundred-meter-wide passage; it expanded frantically in a manner that defied the Space Law, blotting out the sky and swallowing the horizon. Ultimately, it became the only canopy of this void space!
A terrifying aura that made all the Void Avengers tremble permeated the air.
It wasn't simple consumption, but a primal... hunger for all things, originating from the birth of the Universe.
"Since you want to use the void to trap Earth."
Chu Hang's voice turned into rolling thunder, echoing throughout the phase space, every syllable carrying an absolute declaration on the concept layer.
"Then I'll take this void as nourishment and eat it along with your concept!"
He spread his fingers, then suddenly clenched his fist!
[Concept of Greed: Full Outbreak]
In an instant, the Inner Universe vortex that had become the sky erupted with irresistible gravity. The grayish-white void was no longer just a background; it turned into a bursting flood, forcibly pulled from'stasis' into 'flow,' frantically pouring into the dark golden 'hunger' abyss at Chu Hang's chest.
The first to be hit were those hundred-plus Void Avengers.
A figure wearing a twisted iron armor had just raised its energy cannon when the grayish-black matter forming its arm peeled away like a sand painting, turning into pure void energy and being sucked into the vortex. It let out a silent roar, trying to struggle, but its entire body disintegrated at a visible speed—armor, flesh, bone, and finally, even the twisted Soul core was torn out by that unreasonable gravity.
A cold light flashed in Chu Hang's eyes, and he reached out with his left hand.
[Soul Law]
Countless slender golden threads shot out from his fingertips like the most precise scalpels, sweeping through the shredded Soul fragments to carefully peel away a faint but pure and unyielding light.
It was the remnant of Tony Stark's true Spirit, from some ruthlessly erased timeline.
With a thought, Chu Hang sent it into the Law of Lifenourishment pool deep within his Inner Universe, allowing this wandering heroic Spirit to sleep in peace.
This was only the beginning.
Over a hundred Void Avengers wailed and struggled under that 'hungry' sky before irrecoverably collapsing. Chu Hang's left hand traced elegant and swift arcs in front of him, the golden Soul net casting over every collapsing body,'salvaging' those heroic Spirits that should never have been so desecrated.
Captain America's will of justice, Black Widow's resilient Soul, Hawkeye's heart of protection, Hulk's purest source of rage... even a fragment of the Scarlet Witch's Chaos Magic.
These true Spirits should have returned to the source when their timelines were erased, but they had been imprisoned and twisted by the Anti-Monitor to be made into puppets of slaughter.
Now, Chu Hang was going to bring them all home.
Clark felt the terrifying suction behind him, strong enough to tear a Planet apart; the Silver Superman's bio-field nearly went out of control. He turned around in horror, only to see the dark golden vortex at Chu Hang's chest that had already become the entire sky, his pupils shrinking suddenly.
This guy... is crazy! He's not attacking, he's not defending—he's devouring the void itself!
"Do you want to swallow the entire phase space?!" Thortightly gripped stormbreaker, lightning flashing all over his body as he barely managed to stabilize himself in this cosmic-level flood, his voice full of disbelief.
Chu Hang was oblivious; his entire mind was locked onto Nathaniel deep within the black vortex.
The Void Avengers were just the appetizer. The real feast was the void source corrupted by the Anti-Monitor and the core maintaining the entire phase shift—that causal coin.
The grayish-white void was receding at an alarming rate. The land regained its color, the details of buildings became clear, and the figures on the street who had been mechanically repeating actions gradually regained the light in their eyes.
But it wasn't enough. As long as that coin remained, the Anti-Monitor could restart everything at any time.
It must be rewritten!
Chu Hang's consciousness turned into a golden torrent, ignoring spatial distance and charging boldly toward Nathaniel suspended in the black vortex. The black chains coiled around him seemed to come alive, automatically launching a counterattack; dozens of chains turned into pitch-black blades, piercing straight toward Chu Hang's conscious origin.
[Alchemy Law]
The golden conscious torrent instantly decomposed mid-way, weaving into an incredibly complex three-dimensional formation. The moment all the pitch-black blades' attacks passed through the formation, their composition, energy, and concept were instantly analyzed, decomposed, and reconstructed, eventually turning into harmless Life energy that poured back into Nathaniel.
The boy's face visibly improved, and his chest's rising and falling became more forceful.
Chu Hang's consciousness finally touched that golden coin.
The moment he touched it, an indescribable torrent of information, like a bursting sea of stars, crashed into his mind.
This wasn't an attack; it was the Death memories of countless 'Kangs.'
Pharaoh Kang's despair before being swallowed by the void, Black Armor Kang's wails of collapse during Dimensional Backlash, Data Kang's unwillingness when being completely formatted, Time Lord Kang's last curse before sacrificing himself... The defeats and grudges of all Kangs gathered into a twisted will strong enough to crush the mental barriers of multiversal deities, striking at Chu Hang's mental walls.
But what truly shook his Soul was the secret hidden in the deepest part of the coin.
It was a multiversal-level Causality Formation! Kang in White had spent thousands of years connecting the Deathcausality of all his variants to construct a countdown trigger!
When the countdown reached zero, the Death energy of all Kangs would be detonated at the same instant. The resulting energy would be enough to tear through the barriers of the Multiverse and open a passage for some even more ancient and terrifying existence to descend.
Chu Hang's pupils contracted sharply.
Kang in White, that madman! He never intended to submit or win from the beginning. Those 130,000-plus deductions weren't to find a way to live, but to calculate how to make his exit in the most magnificent way!
This coin was his 'final gift' to the entire Multiverse—a time bomb destined to explode.
The countdown: seventy-two hours remaining.
But for now, this wasn't the time to deal with that.
Chu Hang forcibly suppressed the surging waves in his heart, and the Alchemy Law fully unfolded. Countless golden runes crawled over the surface of the coin like living things, beginning to dismantle and reconstruct this causality bomb at the conceptual level.
He didn't choose to forcibly dismantle it, as that would only detonate it immediately. He changed his approach—since this was a bomb that collected 'Death,' he would transform it into a database that collected 'knowledge'!
The essence of the Alchemy Law is equivalent exchange and material reconstruction, and at this moment, Chu Hangwas redefining the 'purpose' of this coin at the conceptual level.
A silent war broke out inside the coin. The golden Alchemy Formation and the black causality patterns clashed and annihilated each other frantically. Every collision was like a miniature reenactment of a Big Bang.
Nathaniel's body began to tremble violently, blood seeping from his seven orifices as he endured the massive backlash of causality being forcibly rewritten.
Just then, a Soul-shaking roar came from deep within the black vortex that served as the background.
The Anti-Monitor had sensed Chu Hang's intentions!
A pitch-black giant hand that blotted out the sky boldly reached out from the vortex. Its five fingers were as towering as mountain ranges, and its fingertips burned with Void Fire that could erase existence itself.
The giant hand lunged straight for Chu Hang, the space along its path disintegrating inch by inch, everything turning into nothingness under its shadow.
Clark tried to intercept it, but the pressure emitted by that hand made him feel like his Superman concept was trembling, like an ant facing a rolling wheel. Thor roared and threw stormbreaker; the six Infinity Stones shone brilliantly, turning into a thunderous dragon that pierced heaven and Earth, but the moment it touched the giant hand, it was swallowed without a trace by that Void Fire. Jean's Phoenix Force turned into a golden-red flaming divine bird, crashing into the palm of the giant hand with a mournful cry, only making it pause for a negligible moment before being completely crushed.
Seeing the giant hand about to seize Chu Hang, Clark let out an unyielding roar. His Silver Superman power burned to the limit, turning into a pure silver stream of light as he resolutely crashed into the giant hand.
But Chu Hang was faster.
He slowly raised his head, a cold glint of disdain flashing in his eyes.
Defense? Not needed.
Concept of Greed, erupting once more!
The gravity of the Inner Universe vortex on his chest, which had become the sky, suddenly increased tenfold! The terrifying suction swept through the entire void, even twisting and pulling at time and space.
That pitch-black giant hand's movement suddenly stalled less than three meters from Chu Hang's body.
It wasn't blocked; it was being 'bitten' hard by that 'hungry' abyss!
Clark reacted with lightning speed. Instead of continuing his futile collision, he instantly turned and pressed his hands hard against the thumb joint of the giant hand, pouring in the purification power of the Silver Supermanconcept without reservation!
The silver radiance, like a holy tide, poured in frantically, suppressing the Void Fire on the surface of the thumb and revealing the black matter beneath, composed of twisted remnants of countless timelines.
Now!
Chu Hang reached out with his right hand, the Law of Destruction condensing at his fingertips into a tiny, constantly collapsing singularity.
He didn't throw a punch; he just gave the purified joint a gentle squeeze.
"Crack—!"
A crisp sound, as if the World were shattering. The giant hand's thumb snapped off! At the break, there was no blood, only endless grayish-white void energy gushing out like a volcano.
However, as soon as this violent energy gushed out, it was entirely swallowed by Chu Hang's Inner Universe, becoming nourishment to strengthen himself.
"Roar—!!!"
For the first time, the Anti-Monitor let out a roar filled with emotion. It was no longer a high-and-mighty declaration, but a roar of primal rage and pain.
The giant hand struggled frantically, trying to break free from Chu Hang's devouring field, but the more it struggled, the deeper it sank and the tighter it was 'bitten.'
Index finger, middle finger, ring finger, pinky... Under the cooperation of Clark's conceptual purification and Chu Hang's Law of Destruction, they were snapped and crushed one by one, finally dragged into that dark golden hungry abyss and completely digested.
Chu Hang could clearly feel the void source within him growing rapidly. Under the catalysis of the new energy, the fourteen laws were producing a marvelous resonance, as if about to give birth to a fifteenth—a brand new law never seen before.
At that same moment, the golden coin on Nathaniel's forehead finally finished its ultimate rewrite.
The causality countdown was completely erased, replaced by an 'Omniscient Database' storing all of Kang's legacy.
The boy suddenly opened his eyes, which had turned pure gold, as if countless timelines were being born and extinguished within them. He opened his mouth, and a series of ancient and complex languages surged out uncontrollably—Time Lord Kang's deathbed incantations, Pharaoh Kang's formulas for deducing the future, Black Armor Kang's permission codes for dimension erosion... All of Kang's legacy converged on him at this moment.
He became the only true body to master the concept of 'Kang.'
With the rewriting of the coin, the entire phase shift space lost its core support and collapsed.
The grayish-white void receded like a low tide, and Earth's original colors returned in a magnificent display. The azure sky reappeared overhead, and warm sunlight bathed the streets of Manhattan.
Those trapped in the gaps of time regained consciousness one after another, looking around in confusion, completely unaware of the World-ending catastrophe they had just experienced.
Chapter 295: The Concept of antimatter
Chu Hang stood atop the ruins of the Avengers Base; beneath his feet, the last wisp of nihilistic dust was quietly dissipating.
Earth was back.
The streetscape of Manhattan regained its color, the flow of traffic and the sounds of people as if they had never been interrupted, but he had no heart to appreciate this recovered clamor.
His gaze pierced through the sky, falling upon the disintegrating remains of the Void Avengers in the distance—after being devoured by the Concept of Greed, they emanated a Strange and pure energy fluctuation.
That was not ordinary Void Power, but conceptual fragments of the Anti-Monitor's origin.
Clark flew silently to his side, his Kryptonian suit still bearing the dim traces of void erosion, clearly having consumed a great deal of energy, but those azure eyes remained as clear as ever.
He looked at the reborn city, his eyes weaving together relief and a trace of imperceptible worry.
Not far away, Thor approached while supporting Jean Grey, the tip of stormbreaker plowing a deep furrow into the ground, as if carrying the weight of a fierce battle.
Jean's face was pale, and the Phoenix Force within her that could incinerate all things had already withdrawn, leaving only gentle embers.
Nathaniel Richards floated in mid-air, the golden coin representing Kang's legacy on his forehead having completely merged into his skin, turning into a slowly rotating mysterious rune.
His temperament had undergone an Earth-shaking transformation; no longer was he the lost youth swept away by the torrent of fate, but a true controller who had begun to grasp the authority of time.
At that very moment, Chu Hang felt the invisible shackles within his body quietly crumble.
The seven-day cooldown was over.
He closed his eyes, his consciousness like a dragon in a deep abyss, sinking into the vast Inner Universe.
Fourteen Law Powers that had reached the concept layerwere operating in sequence like stars, and in the gravitational gaps between these law stars, those antimatter concept fragments stripped from the Void Avengers were being drawn by some instinct, slowly aggregating.
A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
The Anti-Monitor's core authority—[antimatterAnnihilation], a power capable of negating "existence" itself from its root. At this moment, it was scattered in his Inner Universe in its purest fragmented form.
If he missed this time, the next time he wanted to touch it, he might have to face that Destroyer of the Multiversedirectly.
Without the slightest hesitation, his will locked onto those fragments.
"Copy."
The superpower copier emitted a hum from the depths of his Soul.
Pain, an unprecedented pain, erupted violently from the deepest part of the conceptual origin.
Greed intended to devour all that exists; antimatter aimed to annihilate everything.
Two absolute and incompatible concepts fought fiercely within his Inner Universe.
Every collision caused the entire Inner Universe to vibrate violently, as if the sea of stars were overturning.
Chu Hang clenched his teeth, the veins on his temples bulging, yet a near-maniacal smile spread across the corners of his mouth.
Pain?
It's worth it.
Deep within the Inner Universe, a concept-level war was unfolding. The antimatter fragments followed their instinct for annihilation; wherever they passed, countless miniature stars turned into nothingness, physical rules were stripped away layer by layer, and even the flow of time fell into chaotic disorder.
Meanwhile, the Concept of Greed transformed into an invisible giant mouth, counterattacking wildly, attempting to turn these poisons into its own nourishment as well.
The two forces fell into a terrifying balance, neither able to overwhelm the other.
Forcing a fusion would only result in his Inner Universe and the concepts returning to silence together.
He needed a medium, an existence that could understand and transform these two extreme concepts.
His gaze swept across the fourteen brilliant law stars in the Inner Universe, finally settling on the [Alchemy Law].
Equivalent exchange, material reconstruction.
Greed is endless "taking," and antimatter is total "negation." Alchemy, its essence is precisely "transformation"—building a bridge between "being" and "nothingness."
With this thought, Chu Hang immediately mobilized the Alchemy Law, constructing an unprecedented transformation array at the core of the Inner Universe. He used Greed as the engine, antimatter as the fuel, and the Alchemy Law as that vital converter.
A perfect cycle was thus formed: Greed devours all things, transforming them through Alchemy into the pure Concept of antimatter negation; and the moment this negation concept annihilates, it is captured by the Alchemy Law and transformed back into the most primordial matter and energy, feeding back into the entire Inner Universe.
This was not a simple stacking of power, but a sublimation at the conceptual level.
As the last rune fell into the core of the array, the entire Inner Universe erupted with unspeakable light. Countless stars were ignited at the same instant and extinguished at the same instant. The cycle of birth and destruction completed billions of reincarnations in a single moment.
A brand-new power was quietly born at the end of this cycle of birth and death—it transcended devouring and annihilation, an authority capable of directly defining "whether a thing exists."
[antimatter Annihilation (Concept Level)] copied successfully.
However, the evolution did not stop.
Under the catalysis of the Alchemy Law, antimatterAnnihilation and the Concept of Greed began to fuse deeply, and finally, a brand-new ability emerged—[Existential Displacement].
It could swap the "existence" and "void" of any object, turning entities into abstract concepts, and also allowing abstract concepts to condense into real objects.
Chu Hang opened his eyes; in the depths of his pupils, a wisp of dark gold and a trace of pitch black intertwined and flowed, finally returning to a profound depth.
Clark was the first to notice the change. That aura made even him, as Silver Superman, feel an instinctive shudder, and he actually took half a step back unconsciously.
That was not fear, but a kind of awe from one Life form toward a higher-level existence.
Thor's hand gripping stormbreaker trembled slightly; the bloodline of the Asgardian God King was sending him a warning—the man before him had touched a domain that even Odin had never fully understood.
The Phoenix Force within Jean fell into an unprecedented state of restlessness; this will of the cosmic origin was transmitting a warning, yet it was also mixed with a trace of... curiosity.
She bit her lip, forcibly suppressing that fear rooted in biological instinct, and chose to believe in the companion before her.
Chu Hang slowly raised his right hand, and above his palm, a black sphere the size of a fist quietly emerged.
That was not a condensation of energy, but a manifestation of a concept—"Void" itself was forcibly dragged by him from the abstract level into the Reality dimension.
The surface of the sphere had no luster, as if it were an absolute black hole capable of devouring all light and hope; even the surrounding space was collapsing and curving toward it.
"This is antimatter Annihilation." His voice was terrifyingly calm. "Any object touched by it—its history, causality, and even the traces of being remembered by others—will be erased altogether."
With a light flip of his wrist, the black sphere rotated silently. He casually tossed it toward a distant abandoned building that had survived the battle.
The sphere's flight speed was not fast, yet it traced a heart-stopping, eerie arc.
Wherever it passed, there was no fluctuation in the air and no refraction of light, as if that piece of space along with the trajectory it traced had never existed.
The sphere touched a corner of the building.
No explosion, no collapse, not a single sound.
That thirty-story grand building, starting from the point of contact... disappeared. It didn't turn to dust, it didn't decompose into molecules; rather, the concept of its "existence" itself was completely erased.
The bricks, steel bars, glass windows—every atom that composed it—seemed as if they had never appeared in this World.
Three seconds later, that area became completely empty, the ground as level as before, with not even a trace of the foundation left behind.
Clark's pupils shrank suddenly; he subconsciously activated his super vision, trying to discern what exactly had happened in that space, but he only saw an absolute blank.
"This is too crazy..." Thor's voice was somewhat dry. "If the Anti-Monitor were to cover the entire Universe with this power..."
"That is the essence of the Multiverse Crisis." Chu Hangwithdrew his hand, and the black sphere in his palm dissipated. "He intends to annihilate the entire positive matter Universe with antimatter, dragging all Reality into eternal void. And now, I at least have the qualification to use his spear to counter his shield."
Before he could finish speaking, Nathaniel nearby suddenly let out a muffled groan, the golden rune on his forehead spinning wildly, and his body began to tremble violently.
A series of ancient and obscure syllables poured from his mouth; those were the whispers of time, the last words and data streams left by countless Kangs across different space-times.
Chu Hang's figure flashed, appearing beside him in an instant, his palm pressing on his shoulder.
The Law Powers supported by fourteen Single Universe level forces poured in like a gentle tide, stabilizing his consciousness that was about to be crushed by the infinite flood of information.
"How are you?"
"The Omniscient Database... has been activated... by your power..." Nathaniel gritted his teeth, struggling to spit out the words, "It is... searching for lost coordinates..."
A sharp light flashed in Chu Hang's eyes; instead of stopping him, he increased the input of Law Power, using the grand volume of his own Inner Universe to help Nathaniel carry that vast amount of data from countless timelines.
The golden rune floated out from Nathaniel's forehead, expanding in mid-air into a vast and boundless 3D spacetime map.
Countless timelines intertwined and tangled like a spiderweb, covering the structure of the entire Multiverse.
On this giant web, several nodes were flashing violently—those were the coordinates of their separated teammates!
Chu Hang's gaze swept quickly, locking onto one of the light points with the most violent and chaotic fluctuations.
That coordinate was located deep within an independent dimension completely shrouded by crimson Chaos Magic, surrounded by countless twisted, aberrant timeline fragments that were like nightmares.
Wanda.
"Found her."
He made a light stroke in the void with his right hand, and a Spatial Rift leading to that dimension opened in response.
Opposite the rift was not a normal cosmic starry sky, but a World completely constructed of crimson magic, filled with pain and madness—the sky was flowing with backward-flying blood-colored tears of rain, the Earth was breathing as if in spasms, and every rise and fall was accompanied by the wails and rewritings of Reality's rules.
Countless phantoms of Wanda were crying, roaring, and tearing themselves apart in that space, repeatedly re-enacting the moment of losing her beloved.
Clark was about to follow, but he was stopped by Chu Hang raising his hand.
"I'll go by myself." His voice left no room for doubt. "You stay here and help Nathaniel locate the others. Tony, Starlight, Strange... they are scattered in different spacetime turbulences and need you to pick them up."
He looked toward that crimson World of madness, his eyes becoming complex and determined: "On Wanda's side... it's not a problem that power can solve. That is a cage built of sorrow and self-punishment."
Any forced intervention from external forces would only intensify her pain.
But now, he had a gentler and also more domineering method.
The power of laws operated to the limit under his will, all forces forming a resonance within the Inner Universe, finally converging at a single point.
The entrance to the Inner Universe on his chest slowly opened; this time, it was not for devouring, but for projection—to forcibly overlay the concept of his own existence onto that chaotic domain.
The Spatial Rift before him suddenly expanded, turning into a giant vortex capable of devouring stars.
Chu Hang stepped in, his figure instantly vanishing into the endless crimson.
The rift closed accordingly, leaving only a trace of scorched air in the atmosphere after Reality had been corrected.
Thor gazed at the direction where the rift had disappeared, gripped his battle-axe tightly, and a thousand words finally turned into silence.
He turned around, and together with Clark and Jean, cast his gaze toward the constantly flashing spacetime map in front of Nathaniel.
There, besides Wanda's coordinate which had already dimmed, four more light points were waiting for rescue in different dimensions—Tony and Starlight were trapped deep within turbulences filled with time paradoxes, while Strange and another blurred coordinate were deep within some unknown Dark Dimension.