Drex Valen had only begun mastering conceptual-level power after becoming a god.
That said, even before then, his control over power had completely eclipsed anything the Void could manage.
The Void still relied on conventional methods of transmitting force through air, water, or physical contact. Once the battle moved into a near-vacuum environment, he was reduced to little more than throwing punches.
The problem was obvious.
Even if those punches traveled faster than light, they still had to connect before their destructive force could be released.
And during that tiny window?
Drex could attack hundreds of times.
Energy blasts were even worse.
To Drex, they felt almost primitive.
An outdated approach he'd abandoned long ago.
In fact, the Void had never possessed the qualifications to challenge him in the first place.
Even the Drex of years ago, back when he had only just reached the threshold of Single-Universe power, could have beaten the Void into the ground.
The creature possessed immense power but lacked the knowledge, technique, and understanding required to use it properly.
What frustrated Drex most was that the Void had access to the Sentry's superhuman brain.
Why hadn't he learned?
Why hadn't he studied?
Why hadn't he armed himself with knowledge?
"You can manipulate molecular motion to regenerate faster than your own healing factor," Drex said, genuinely puzzled. "So why haven't you figured out something as basic as transmitting force through molecular movement?"
To the Void, the question sounded like mockery.
He didn't answer.
Instead, he punched.
This time, the blow landed.
And accomplished absolutely nothing.
Drex didn't even move.
The force seemed to vanish upon contact.
"Molecular-level force transmission and defense?" Drex chuckled. "I stopped playing with children's tricks like that a very long time ago."
He smiled.
The Void exploded.
The very force he'd used to attack Drex had been redirected back into his own body.
Instantly.
Effortlessly.
The Void reformed again.
For the first time, he began to understand.
He couldn't dodge.
He couldn't defend.
The difference between them wasn't merely power.
It was an entirely different level of existence.
Crimson-gold flames erupted from his body.
The energy became almost tangible as it flooded outward.
Gamma-radiation storms surged across space.
A torrent of heat capable of vaporizing matter engulfed Drex completely.
It was like standing inside the heart of a star.
Solar flares.
Solar storms.
Unimaginable thermal energy.
Everything should have been burned away.
Everything should have ceased to exist.
"Interesting," Drex's voice echoed from within the inferno. "I compliment you once, and you immediately become stupid again."
The Void stared.
Then exploded.
Again.
"You seriously thought ten billion degrees of thermal radiation would kill me?" Drex asked dryly. "I'm not one of those villains who dies after being shoved into the Sun."
The Void regenerated.
This time, he didn't attack.
Instead, he searched.
Desperately.
He dug through every memory belonging to Robert Reynolds.
Every experience.
Every fragment of knowledge.
Anything that might help him defeat Drex.
The results were disappointing.
Robert Reynolds had spent much of his life as an addict.
Formal education wasn't exactly a priority.
After becoming the Sentry, things hadn't improved.
Why study when your fists solved every problem?
Why learn when every enemy fell effortlessly?
The Sentry even had a perfectly reasonable excuse.
If he spent time studying, that was time he couldn't spend saving innocent people.
From his perspective, using that time for heroics was the morally superior choice.
The logic was difficult to argue against.
Unfortunately, it left the Void with very little useful information.
The most impressive feat he found in the Sentry's memories involved temperatures of fifteen million degrees Celsius.
Hot enough to destroy almost any known form of life.
Yet the Void had just unleashed thermal radiation measured in the billions of degrees.
And Drex hadn't suffered the slightest injury.
Worse, he'd blown the Void apart immediately afterward.
How?
The question echoed endlessly through his mind.
Meanwhile, Drex was rapidly losing interest.
The Void regenerated.
Exploded.
Regenerated.
Exploded again.
Over and over.
Yet he couldn't detect Drex doing anything.
The man simply sat there eating fried chicken.
The Void couldn't perceive an attack.
Couldn't sense any movement.
Couldn't identify any mechanism.
Even his emotionless consciousness began to feel something dangerously close to panic.
I can't see him move.
I can't sense him attacking.
I can't dodge.
Even traveling faster than light isn't enough.
I can't escape.
I've crossed dimensions, fled through alternate spaces, and the attacks still follow me.
I can't defend.
The Void had already wrapped every inch of his body in layers of protective energy.
It didn't matter.
He continued exploding.
He increased his body's density.
He reinforced every particle.
He transformed himself into something harder than any known substance.
Nothing changed.
Eventually...
He broke.
"MILLION!"
The Void's voice shook the stars.
"SUNS!"
His mental defenses collapsed completely.
If he couldn't win...
Then he would take everything with him.
"EXPLODE!"
The unimaginable power inside him erupted.
A supernova was born.
Not merely the death of a star.
Something greater.
A cataclysm comparable to a gamma-ray burst detonating inside the core of a sun.
Light blazed across the cosmos.
The depths of space trembled.
Heat capable of melting worlds poured outward.
The resulting storm raged for what felt like an eternity before finally subsiding.
When the last traces of energy vanished, Drex casually gathered the pile of chicken bones beside him.
The Void's self-destruction hadn't even been powerful enough to erase his leftovers.
The gap between them had been absurd.
Still, a Single-Universe-level soul was a respectable addition to his collection.
From beginning to end, the Void had never realized one simple fact.
The battlefield wasn't even a meaningful part of the Black Hole Dimension.
It was merely a tiny corner.
A single pixel on an impossibly vast image.
An image so detailed it would make entire universes look insignificant.
The Void's treasured power, the energy of a million exploding suns, hadn't even illuminated that single pixel.
The Black Hole Dimension was simply too large.
A single "pixel" contained space comparable to an entire universe.
After the Void's defeat, Earth didn't immediately recover.
The world had spent too long living beneath the Sentry's rule.
People were terrified.
More importantly, they'd seen his power.
To them, the Sentry was invincible.
A few days of absence wasn't enough to convince anyone otherwise.
No great rebellion emerged.
No worldwide uprising followed.
Even this universe's Captain Marvel had been broken and turned into one of the Sentry's enforcers.
If someone as powerful as her had fallen, what hope did ordinary people have?
As a result, resistance remained nearly nonexistent.
This wasn't one of those absurd universes populated by monsters like the Dark Phoenix, Blue Marvel, Hyperion, or Nova.
Even if they had been present, they probably would've struggled against the Void.
There was only one exception.
Franklin Richards.
A walking absurdity who'd entered existence already operating on a multiversal scale.
Even now, Drex couldn't help feeling a little jealous.
At his current level, he finally understood why Franklin had come looking for him all that time ago.
The kid had ulterior motives.
He hadn't been seeking help.
He'd been trying to introduce Drex to Susan Storm.
Franklin had apparently possessed enormous confidence in his mother's charm.
His plan seemed obvious now.
Make Drex curious.
Bring him closer to Susan.
Get them together.
And somehow ensure Franklin's own future existence.
The problem was that Franklin had completely misjudged his target.
Drex had never been interested in Marvel's female heroes.
Too many relationships in that universe resembled train wrecks waiting to happen.
Affairs.
Betrayals.
Love triangles.
Entire crises seemed to start because somebody couldn't remain faithful for five minutes.
Drex preferred to keep a healthy distance.
Several miles, if possible.
Three feet certainly wasn't enough.