We followed Yondu to the bridge in Sector 3.

Then suddenly, Kraglin voiced his complaint to Yondu.

"Honestly, I don’t get why the captain keeps doing that. You keep protecting Quill even though he keeps stabbing you in the back. We don’t even matter to you!"

Then Yondu said to Kraglin.

"You grew up under me along with Quill. If it had been you instead of Quill, I would have done the same."

At that, Kraglin, looking like he was about to cry, pounded his fist to his chest and gave the Ravager salute.

Since Yondu was stingy with praise, Kraglin seemed quite moved.

"Kraglin, once we leave, pick out the decent ones and head to Knowhere. If you tell them that friend (me) sent you, they won’t kick you out."

"Captain, do I abandon the rest?"

"Yeah, I’ve taken in too many useless guys."

"That’s true... Alright, Captain."

He was probably talking about the ones rallying around Taserface.

With that settled, with Kraglin’s help, we separated Sector 3 from Yondu’s family’s ship.

Sector 3 by itself was one massive spacecraft.

We sat in the ship’s pilot seats.

Then Nebula asked.

"Where to now?"

Rocket manipulated the ship’s controls and said.

"Ego’s planet, obviously. Hurry up and give me the coordinates."

Since Rocket said that, I immediately entered the coordinates.

"Alright, let’s go!"

But suddenly Yondu looked at the coordinates and urgently tried to stop Rocket.

"Wait!!!"

But Rocket had already pressed the button, and suddenly the space around the ship began to churn and warp.

People’s bodies stretched and shrunk in an instant, bizarrely deforming, and their faces grew large then small, turning into ridiculous shapes.

"You idiot! If we go there in one jump, our bodies won’t hold up!"

"I know!"

"What do you know!! There are 700 jump points!!"

Only then realizing the seriousness of the situation, Rocket’s expression hardened.

The ship entered hyperspace and began passing through hundreds of tunnels in succession, and the spatial distortion grew even worse.

"Uwaaaaaah—!!"

"Aaaaaah—!!"

"I—a—m—Groo—t!!"

Everyone screamed with their faces oddly squashed and stretched, and even in the dire situation, seeing those faces made me laugh involuntarily.

’Oh, did I just see Stan Lee...’

It was only a brief moment as the ship passed through multiple spaces, but I saw Stan Lee waving at us in one of them.

In the original, he just stared, but waving seemed like a greeting, and at the same time, it felt like he was cheering us on.

Good thing I’m on good terms with the creator god of the Marvel world.

We only managed to stop the spatial distortion after arriving at Ego’s planet like that.

Having experienced severe spatial deformation, they couldn’t gather their wits for a moment.

"Ugh... What the hell was that!"

Yondu forced himself to hold back the urge to throw up and glared at Rocket.

Rocket shook his head to regain his senses and said.

"Ugh... You said it yourself! Ego’s a scary guy and we need to save Quill. I’m gonna show that I’m better than him!"

But upon hearing that, Yondu stood up and burst out laughing.

"Why are you suddenly laughing and making a fuss!?"

"You might fool others, but not me. I know exactly who you are!"

However, Rocket snapped.

"What do you know, spouting off like that!?"

"I know you very well! You always act like a jerk and act tough, but the truth is, you’re just a scared coward!"

"Shut up!"

As the atmosphere turned tense, Nebula stood up to try and stop them, but I grabbed her shoulder and shook my head.

Then Nebula also left them alone and sat back down.

"You push away the people who stay by your side and treat you well. Because if you feel even a little love, you realize there’s a huge hole inside you!"

"Shut up!"

"The scientists who modified you didn’t care about you at all!"

"Be quiet!"

"Just like my damned parents who sold me out! They handed me over as a slave when I was a baby! I know who you are, because you’re just like me!"

Being healed by love is a natural and common thing.

But if you’ve never received love, you might not even realize that what you’re going through is abuse.

For Yondu and Rocket as well, during the time they were abused, they had no standard to compare it to.

However, as the two began to meet various people and gradually regain a happy daily life, they came to realize that their past lives were actually a time of hell.

Yondu’s expression ’the huge hole inside you’ likely refers to that state as well.

These experiences ultimately became trauma and seemed to affect how Yondu and Rocket formed relationships with those around them.

I think that’s why they showed contradictory behaviors—pushing away friends who accepted their nasty personalities, yet on the flip side, making forced excuses to stay by their sides, unwilling to leave them.

After hearing Yondu’s words, Rocket, who empathized with them, was speechless for a moment, then asked Yondu.

"So then, what the hell are we?"

"Crazy bastards going to fight a planet right now."

"Wait, fight who?"

"I told you. Ego is the planet itself."

Then Rocket sighed and said calmly.

"Yeah... Well, it’s what we always do."

From space, Ego’s planet had a different vibe from an ordinary celestial body from the start.

The entire planet had a reddish hue, and its surface seemed to writhe bumpily, like living tissue.

Particularly noticeable was a massive landform on one side of the planet.

Mountain ranges, canyons, and sunken plains were strangely clustered together, forming the outline of a giant face.

The sunken basin looked like an eye, the long canyon resembled a nose, and the dark valley below was gaping like a mouth.

It looked like a giant face, and that alone made it clear at a glance that this was no ordinary planet.

However, unlike its outward appearance, once we transferred from the main ship to a smaller craft and entered the planet’s interior, a scene like paradise unfolded.

Colorful flowers and trees grew thickly all around, and looking at the gently glowing lake made it feel like we had stepped into a vast, meticulously tended garden.

"I see a strange castle. Is that it?"

When Nebula asked, Yondu said.

"Yeah, that’s it. Everyone get ready!"

"Huh? For what?"

Yondu curled the corner of his mouth and said.

"It’s obvious what guys like us do!"

"What do you mean!?"

Then Yondu silently increased the ship’s speed.

"Hey, wait!!!"

CRASH!!!

"Hello, you son of a bitch!!"

THUD!!!

As we crashed the ship into the building, Ego was holding Quill with multiple energy tendrils.

At that moment, Yondu’s ship rammed straight into Ego without hesitation.

With a massive impact, Ego’s body was crushed and destroyed, and the energy-formed tendrils also lost their power and dispersed.

Quill, freed from the bindings as the tendrils disappeared, quickly boarded the ship.

Then the other members, who had appeared late after watching the situation from nearby, also boarded the ship one by one.

Among them was ’Mantis’, who had newly joined.

"Oh, Yondu??? And Jin’s here too!?"

Quill seemed extremely surprised to see us as soon as he boarded the ship.

"Came because we thought you might need help, kid!"

"Why are you here?"

"Your friend was going, so I couldn’t stay out of it. I may be an idiot, but I’m not a total piece of trash."

At that, Quill said sarcastically.

"Oh great... Is that considered noble among Ravagers?"

"You’ve got issues, Quill."

Yondu and Quill were bickering the moment they met.

But their bickering didn’t last long.

While they were at it, energy tendrils rose from the ground again, wrapping around the ship and beginning to squeeze or shake it violently.

Then Yondu tried to maneuver the ship by adjusting various controls.

At that moment, Nebula urgently asked Yondu.

"Didn’t you crush him earlier?"

"I told you before we came! Ego is the planet itself!"

At that, Quill explained Ego’s true nature.

"Ego definitely told us he was a Celestial."

Then Gamora, frustrated, urgently asked the main point.

"So how do we kill a Celestial!"

But before she could even get an answer, the ship’s metal began to screech.

It didn’t seem like it would hold much longer.

Screeeech—!

"Yondu, do something!"

"Hang on tight!"

Ziiiiing—!!!

Yondu gritted his teeth and pushed the ship’s output to maximum.

The ship, still caught in the energy tendrils, slowly began to push forward.

One tendril that had been holding tight gave way first, and using that opening, the other tendrils also lost their strength one by one and came loose.

Finally, when the last tendril released, the suppressed thrust burst forth and the ship shot forward like a bullet.

Ego expanded his body into a massive energy form to stop it, but the ship that had already gained speed was faster.

CRASH!!!

The ship smashed through the giant window of Ego’s castle and escaped outside.

Then it went straight up into space.

"Phew... Now I can relax..."

As Drax said that, Quill sat next to Yondu and began asking what he was curious about.

"Weren’t you supposed to take me to my father?"

"I never said that. I just said that bastard told me to bring him an Earth kid. I just kept my mouth shut."

"Why? Because if I was skinny, you were going to leave me on that planet."

Quill said this for a reason.

In the past, when Quill was first kidnapped by Yondu’s family, they often joked that they should ’fatten him up and eat him.’

So Quill brought up that memory and said that.

"I found out what happened to the other kids. I couldn’t let that happen to you. He may be your biological father, but he’s not your daddy."

Quill heard that, thought for a moment, then lowered the control stick in the co-pilot seat.

The ship immediately began descending again.

Then Yondu asked Quill.

"Hey, aren’t you off course?"

"No, we’re going the right way! We need to kill that bastard. Rocket!"

"Roger that!"

When Quill called Rocket, Rocket seemed to understand Quill’s intention and immediately began manipulating various things from the back seat.

The laser drilling devices attached to various parts of the ship moved and fixed into position at the front.

They planned to dig into the canyon side of Ego’s planet and strike the core directly.

Zing—! Zing—! Boom! Crunch!

Normally, planets are filled inside due to gravity.

But Ego’s planet was not like that.

There were many empty spaces here and there—to put it in an analogy, the entire planet was like a sponge.

So the ship was able to use the laser drilling devices to bore tunnels and destroy obstacles fairly easily as it went deeper into the planet.

Honestly, I’m not sure why he made it this way, but I could guess that Ego might have done this to prevent his brain from being compressed by excessive gravity.

From our perspective, it made it easier to dig through, so we could consider ourselves lucky.

While drilling down for a while, Rocket said.

"We don’t have a bomb. I don’t know what’s in the core, but it might be indestructible."

In the original, they easily made a bomb using two Anulax batteries stolen from the Sovereign.

But whether they had sold the Anulax batteries to me and sold the rest off, they didn’t have a single one left.

"I’ll make the bomb. Don’t worry."

I thought this was actually for the best.

If I made a timed bomb using my [Energy Bomb] ability, I could naturally land the final blow myself.

So I stood up, went to the back of the ship, and used [Matter Creation] to produce a square block of metal.

Then I used [Energy Bomb] to fill it with energy, creating a bomb, and coated it with mana so it wouldn’t go off easily.

After that, I attached a timer and wrapped it tightly with repair tape.

This way, it would look like a hastily made device and avoid suspicion.

"Done. This should be enough. It’ll explode 5 minutes after pressing the button."

"What did you even make that out of?"

"I used the Anulax batteries you guys sold me. So I’m the one taking a huge loss here!"

Rocket was suspicious, but when I emphasized my loss, Rocket smirked and seemed to let it slide.

"You’re no merchant. Giving help while taking a loss."

"Of course, Jin’s an honorary Guardian of the Galaxy!"

Quill agreed with Rocket and said that, but honestly, I found it a bit absurd.

’For a guy who tried to screw me over when selling the ship, he sure talks big.’

Still, since the mood was going in a cheering direction, I didn’t say anything.

"We’re almost there. That looks like the core."

After traveling inward for a while, we reached a wide-open space.

In the center was a massive spherical orb, and its surface was connected to numerous lines like nerve bundles.

The lines extended to all parts of the planet like arteries, and along those lines, waves of light could be seen moving as if flowing.

It was like sending signals throughout the entire planet.

Just then, a communication came through to the ship.

It was from Kraglin, who had remained on Yondu’s ship.

—"Captain, big trouble! Taserface thinks you betrayed him and contacted the Sovereign."

"Wha—what!? What about the others?!"

—"Except for the ones following Taserface, they escaped safely and are heading to Knowhere."

"At least that’s a relief."

—"But because they were delayed escaping, we don’t know when the Sovereign warships might head your way."

"We’ll handle that. Good work."

With the communication over, Yondu said to us.

"You heard that? We don’t have time."

Hearing that communication, I thought it was fortunate.

Now I could deal with Taserface without any hesitation.