The instant the three ramming horns pierced the Cartographer's outer shell, the very void of Universe-404 seemed to convulse with a deep, painful shudder.
A low resonance echoed through the Ark as well.
It sounded like some colossal beast sleeping in the deepest ocean lazily turning over in its slumber.
You have to understand—
This wasn't a collision on the physical level.
It was something much deeper.
A form of... conceptual invasion.
The three vicious ramming horns at the Ark's bow were now like venomous fangs sunk into prey, greedily siphoning something from the Cartographer's energy core.
The shriek of tearing metal echoed through the communication channels, scraping repeatedly against everyone's ears.
Mixed within it was a high-frequency electronic wail—
Perhaps this was the first time in history that a creation of the Beyonders had experienced fear.
The instinctive tremor of data on the verge of total collapse.
On the bridge, Zero's figure had vanished.
Only a faint cluster of fading energy remained where it had stood.
Then even that disappeared.
Tony's eyes were practically glued to the monitoring screens.
He watched as countless streams of silver liquid metal surged through the breach torn open by the ramming horns, flooding into the Cartographer's interior.
The metallic substance behaved like a living organism.
It flowed constantly, gleaming with a slick metallic sheen, slipping into every available crack.
Energy circuits.
Rune nodes.
Nothing was spared.
The spread was horrifyingly fast.
Within moments it had already expanded hundreds of meters.
"What is it doing?" Clark asked, his brows tightly furrowed.
His super-vision allowed him to clearly see the metallic fluid spreading through the Cartographer like a virus infecting cells.
Every microscopic structure that had once been considered perfect was being devoured.
He could even see the meticulously crafted rune arrays growing dim after being enveloped by the silver fluid.
Their operations were slowing.
Stalling.
"It's not destroying it."
Reed's voice trembled ever so slightly.
Even he was shaken by what he was witnessing.
The glow of the screen reflected off his glasses, concealing both the shock and fascination in his eyes.
"It's rewriting it."
He swallowed.
His voice dropped lower.
"Zero is injecting a logic virus directly into its internal systems... attacking its foundational existence logic itself."
He paused, struggling to process the horrifying reality before him.
"This... is far crueler than simple destruction."
Before he could finish speaking, the impaled Cartographer suddenly convulsed.
The Ark shook in response.
Equipment throughout the bridge emitted sharp buzzing sounds.
Across the Cartographer's surface, the runes that normally shone with cold white brilliance began glitching wildly.
Their light flickered erratically, like a computer desperately fighting against an imminent system crash.
Then something even stranger appeared.
Purple-black patterns spread across its body.
Like ink dispersing through water, they flowed outward from the damaged breach at astonishing speed.
The patterns resembled cancer cells.
With every inch they consumed, the Cartographer's energy output became more unstable.
Distorted crackling noises echoed through the void.
Its energy systems were collapsing.
Levi stood silently before the viewport.
His golden-red eyes reflected the gigantic being undergoing conceptual death.
Through the Ark, he could clearly feel every torrent of data Zero transmitted back.
It wasn't information.
It was the ultimate paradox constructed from the combined lifetime wisdom of fifty thousand Reed Richardses.
A paradox tearing apart the absolute directives left behind by the Beyonders at tens of millions of iterations per second.
Levi could even sense a faint consciousness originating from within the Cartographer itself.
It was being twisted.
Rewritten.
This wasn't a battle.
It was a one-sided crushing.
Efficient.
And strangely beautiful.
The remaining two Cartographers finally reacted.
Their enormous bodies rotated with unprecedented stiffness.
Countless runes exploded with blinding light.
Two white beams erupted forth, powerful enough to tear apart dimensions themselves, targeting the Ark directly.
Space warped violently wherever the beams passed, like paper set ablaze.
"They're targeting us!"
Thor gripped Stormbreaker tightly.
Lightning erupted across the axe blade with a low growl as he prepared to leap into action.
But Levi merely raised a hand.
His gaze remained calm.
"Don't."
The erasure beams slammed into the Ark's silver biomaterial scales.
There was no explosion.
No deafening impact.
The scales began writhing and restructuring the instant they made contact.
Their smooth mirrored surfaces transformed into countless layers of intricate prism-like structures.
The deadly energy was refracted and broken apart layer by layer.
Even more bizarre—
With every refraction, a portion of the attack's energy was directly absorbed.
Converted into reserves for the Ark itself.
The vessel's energy readings had dipped slightly from the assault.
Now they surged upward at an utterly absurd rate.
Tony stared at the numbers racing across the screen.
His throat felt dry.
"Jesus Christ..."
He couldn't help muttering.
"It's eating their attack."
Wanda tightened her hold on Adam.
She could feel the hunger emanating from the ship.
A pure, undisguised greed.
A ravenous desire.
It was Levi's concept itself, being executed perfectly through Zero.
The Ark wasn't defending.
It was feeding.
The remaining Cartographers clearly realized the hopeless reality facing them.
They ceased firing.
For a brief moment, they hesitated.
Then they seemed to reach a difficult decision.
Instead of targeting the Ark, they turned their weapons toward their infected companion.
Several even larger erasure beams fired simultaneously.
Their purpose wasn't destruction.
It was complete formatting.
They intended to eliminate the contamination before the virus spread any further.
Unfortunately—
They were too late.
The purple-black patterns covering the infected Cartographer suddenly froze.
Every rune across its body extinguished simultaneously.
Its colossal frame fell into a deeply unsettling stillness.
A heartbeat later—
Its energy core erupted with terrifying brilliance.
The light was no longer the pale white associated with the Beyonders.
Instead it became a chaotic, twisted violet-red.
Like an evil flower blooming from the abyss.
The logic virus had seized administrative authority.
That was the terrifying thing about it.
It was called logic.
Yet it obeyed none.
Zero's voice echoed through the command center.
Calm.
Emotionless.
As though reporting something utterly trivial.
"Control authority over target unit acquired.
Executing secondary directives."
The moment the announcement ended, the controlled Cartographer abruptly turned.
Its enormous body carved a strange arc through the void, producing a piercing metallic screech.
Its energy core entered extreme overload.
Every rune reignited.
But this time—
Its weapons were aimed at its former allies.
"My God..."
Tony inhaled sharply.
His voice sounded strained.
"It switched sides."
A violet-red beam erupted from the controlled Cartographer.
It was thicker and more distorted than any attack it had previously unleashed.
The blast slammed directly into the Cartographer on the left, which was still charging its weapons.
The target didn't even have time to fully activate its defenses.
Half its body immediately began disintegrating under the beam's impact.
A shrill metallic scream echoed across the void.
Countless fragments of silver metal scattered in every direction.
The residual Beyonder energy contained within each fragment visibly weakened.
Rapidly fading.
Until it vanished completely.