Chapter 546: Chapter 546: Dormammu Interferes

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Tony Stark’s brain was running so fast it practically felt ready to smoke.

He had no interest whatsoever in whatever debt his teacher owed this cosmic heavyweight.

Acting purely on instinct, he simply hurled the Void and its pursuer straight toward Dormammu.

Of course Dormammu recognized the Void immediately.

He had already "watched" the humiliation suffered by the other dimensional gods earlier.

The moment those two insects entered the Dark Dimension, Dormammu instantly invoked the authority of its ruler, intending to end this endless farce once and for all.

Nebulae and planets within the Dark Dimension surged into motion, blocking off the Void’s escape route.

It was both a display of dominance and a declaration that Earth—the delicacy laid upon the table—belonged to him.

"You two. Stop at once!" Dormammu commanded.

"Don’t block my way, you idiot!" the Void roared furiously as he saw every route ahead sealed shut.

The Void’s greatest weakness had always been Robert Reynolds.

Because Robert Reynolds—a drug addict and thief—had never possessed especially strong willpower.

As a result, weak will remained the greatest flaw shared by both Sentry and the Void.

Physical injury alone was not what truly frightened the Void.

What terrified him was the sheer madness of the thing chasing him.

Now that Dormammu stood in his path, the Void didn’t think about counterattacking the pursuer behind him, nor about exploiting the situation strategically.

Instead, he simply gathered all his strength and unleashed everything forward in one desperate blow.

That punch shattered countless planets.

Even the nebula-body composing Dormammu itself became sparse and unstable where struck.

Dormammu had never expected to take such a hit.

Nor had he expected that after attacking, the Void would not flee—

—but instead dive directly into the still-healing wound in Dormammu’s body.

The red-and-blue figure flying after him amidst eerie laughter was intercepted by another "hand" Dormammu extended.

That hand fared even worse.

It was sliced apart like butter beneath a hot knife.

Yet instead of entering through the opening the Void had created, the pursuer tore into another intact area closer to the Void’s presence and forced its way inside directly.

Dormammu naturally did not panic because of this.

The entire Dark Dimension could essentially be considered his body.

This visible form was merely an external manifestation.

At most, the energy concentrated within this "body" was denser than elsewhere.

Compared to the pain of being torn apart physically, what truly wounded Dormammu was the utter disrespect with which those two monsters rampaged through his domain.

At the level of beings like Dormammu, emotional fluctuations were not merely psychological phenomena.

Their emotional and conceptual states directly affected the strength of their existence.

Without question, the actions of the Void and his pursuer constituted severe damage to Dormammu.

And the Lord of the Dark Dimension had not forgotten that the Ancient One was still watching nearby.

Without hesitation, Dormammu isolated the region where the two were fighting and severed it completely from the Dark Dimension!

"GET OUT! DON’T COME NEAR ME!" Dormammu bellowed furiously.

Then—just like the other crippled dimensional gods before him—

he fled in humiliation.

If he allowed two tiny insects to continue trampling his dignity, his followers across countless worlds would lose faith in him. Other cosmic powers would seize his territories and soul-harvesting domains.

A demon lord who maintained authority through fear and greed feared humiliation more than anything else.

The severed fragment of world left behind immediately became irresistible prey in the eyes of countless dimensional entities.

Yet none dared touch it.

It was like poisoned pork laced with arsenic.

No matter how delicious the meat looked, the poison remained deadly.

Compared to the berserk pursuer, the Void better understood how to exploit such fragments.

He even attempted to create Kryptonite—the weakness of comic-book Superman.

Unfortunately, although Sentry/the Void possessed the ability to rearrange matter at the molecular level through willpower, he could not create a completely unknown fictional substance out of nothing.

He didn’t possess true reality-warping powers.

Only molecular manipulation.

Without an actual sample to reference, how could he possibly know what Kryptonite truly was?

The Void even attempted to create a green sun in the sky.

But during such massive matter restructuring, he encountered resistance from two unexpected forces.

Both possessed power levels close to his own and resisted the distortion of reality itself.

Though the Void believed he would ultimately win in a prolonged struggle against those two forces, he lacked the time to pursue it.

And the opponent battling him certainly wouldn’t stand by and watch.

This scale of manipulation was impossible while distracted during combat.

He tried several times.

Each attempt ended with him eating devastating punches.

If he failed to dodge the next blow, the fight would simply end.

Thus the Void could only be dragged back into his opponent’s rhythm while desperately searching for another opening.

Manipulating the world fragment, the Void transformed it into a cage.

Combined with the countless Mirror Dimensions Tony Stark generated, the battlefield became a constantly shifting kaleidoscope meant to imprison the pursuer within.

The result was utterly unsurprising.

Everything shattered instantly.

The man in the red-and-blue suit—dressed like Superman but wearing the face of a grotesque clown—once again appeared within Earth’s reality.

At this point, even Chthon and Mephisto had fallen silent.

At their level, defeat carried enormous consequences.

A failed proxy, a consumed pawn, a ruined plan—those were trivial.

But if their true selves intervened and still lost?

That was entirely different.

The former represented only temporary failure on Earth.

With eternal lifespans, they could always recover later.

But defeat of the true self affected their influence across all inhabited worlds.

Their power fluctuations became impossible to conceal.

Those who sought power from them were always drawn to strength.

One failure alone could drive countless followers elsewhere.

Dimensional gods did not focus solely upon Earth.

Earth was merely one corner of their vast cosmic chessboard.

If it were truly the only prize worth contesting, they would already be assaulting Earth’s magical barriers nonstop around the clock.

Instead, the opposite occurred.

For a brief moment, unprotected Earth became cleaner than ever before.

Not a single dimensional god dared approach.

And it wasn’t only Tony Stark hurling the combatants into nearby dimensions.

The panicked Void had also realized dimensional gods could slow his pursuer down.

Thus he repeatedly fled into accessible dimensions himself—

until every dimensional ruler completely sealed off their worlds and retreated far from Earth.

With nowhere left to run, the Void finally shouted in fury:

"What the hell are you?!"

"The thing that kills you."

The red-and-blue figure answered with chilling laughter.

At last deciding on one final desperate gamble, the Void abandoned his humanoid form entirely, transforming into endless black shadows and dragging his opponent into a metaphysical mental world.

Previously, the Void had glimpsed into the other’s heart and shattered the chains called "reason," unleashing this indescribable monster.

Now he intended to invade the other’s psyche once more and search for the weakness needed to break the current deadlock.

Like racing through a tunnel of darkness, the Void pursued the source of a distant light.

At impossible speed, he crossed through the multiverse itself.

Ahead stood a mysterious wall.

The Void didn’t slow down in the slightest.

He smashed through it like glass and reached the other side.

In truth, the resistance was far greater than expected.

But because he had followed the path connected to the pursuer’s inner heart, some strange causality rendered the barrier unnaturally fragile, allowing him passage.

Before him lay an entirely new universe.

And Batman sat upon the Mobius Chair.

A man dressed in black-and-white tights and cape floated nearby, an enormous "S" emblazoned across his chest.

No grotesque makeup stained his face.

Instead, he radiated solemn righteousness.

He glanced toward the Void and asked:

"Who’s this? Trouble?"

The question clearly wasn’t directed at the Void.

Batman, seated upon the chair, replied:

"Not enough to be trouble here. But the laughter behind him might be."

"Send him back where he came from, Superman. This problem doesn’t belong to our world."

"I—I’m the Sentry! I possess the power of a million exploding suns!" the Void bluffed loudly.

"So?"

"Does someone who constantly boasts about his upper limit really deserve my fear?"

The final exchange between Superman and Batman felt like a verdict upon the Void’s fate.

Superman casually threw a punch.

Yet that punch seemed infused with the will of the entire universe itself.

Absolutely unstoppable.

The Void was blasted backward uncontrollably.

Driven straight toward the hole through which he had entered.

And from the opposite side—

another fist was already coming.

The two punches collided directly through the barrier between worlds—

—with the Void’s head trapped squarely between them.

The outcome had nothing to do with which punch was stronger.

It was simply a natural law.

Like water flowing downhill.

The Void was rejected by this universe—

while accepted by the other.

Thus he was naturally drawn back toward the world that welcomed him.

He never got the chance to witness the seven gods of the Justice League assembled upon their divine thrones.

When Sentry finally opened his hazy eyes again, he saw New York’s skyline and Manhattan’s nightscape.

Along with splitting headaches and agony throughout his entire body.

Golden blood flowed from his wounds—

only to rapidly fade into ordinary dark red.

His injuries, which should have healed instantly, remained exactly as they were.

And if he looked carefully, he would notice an unknown force eroding them further, the wounds even worsening slightly.

The sensation resembled withdrawal symptoms after long addiction.

Everything felt wrong.

Then Sentry suddenly realized something.

He had regained control of his body.

The Void had retreated.

The man in the red-and-blue suit walking toward him clearly did not know this.

At that moment, Sentry resembled Robert Reynolds once more.

Wiping blood from his face, he raised one trembling hand defensively and said in panic:

"I’m not the Void. He’s gone."

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