The countless statues embedded throughout the quarry walls had all once been living beings.
Their hands were pressed desperately against the stone, fingers outstretched as if they had been trying to climb free until the very last moment.
The Infinite Witches floated beside Drex.
"Everyone you see here came seeking power."
"Over the past 13.8 billion years."
"They entered the Cemetery of Gods hoping to claim what lies beneath."
One witch smiled.
"You are number 100,763."
Drex had intentionally kept his distance from the quarry.
Every instinct he possessed warned him not to get too close.
Unfortunately, the quarry had other plans.
Without warning, an overwhelming force erupted from the abyss.
The gravitational pull was so powerful that even Drex had no time to react.
The world lurched.
Then he was dragged directly into the pit.
The moment he crossed the boundary, the attraction multiplied.
His power remained intact, yet he found himself unable to fly.
Unable to escape.
The force dragging him downward ignored conventional physics entirely.
Drex slammed a hand into the stone wall and held on.
The rock beneath his fingers was impossibly hard.
For several seconds, he resisted.
Then he noticed something alarming.
His hand was becoming stiff.
Gray-white discoloration spread across his fingertips.
Stone.
His flesh was turning to stone.
The petrification spread rapidly through his body.
Within moments, he had become another statue embedded within the quarry wall.
Yet despite losing control of his body, his mind remained perfectly awake.
Then the world changed.
A bustling city appeared before him.
Traffic flowed through crowded streets.
People of every ethnicity walked the sidewalks, chatting and laughing.
Drex blinked.
"New York?"
He recognized it immediately.
But not his New York.
The New York from the Marvel universe where he had first arrived no longer existed. It had been destroyed long ago and transformed into the headquarters of S.W.O.R.D.
This city was different.
A reconstruction.
Or perhaps an illusion.
Then he heard the voices of the Infinite Witches.
"In the Gods' Quarry..."
"Only those who understand who they truly are..."
"Can claim its power."
Their words echoed through the dreamlike world.
Drex felt his thoughts becoming clearer.
So they were helping him.
Giving him hints.
A little favoritism from the guardians of the quarry.
That was useful.
The real question was much harder.
Who exactly was he?
Drex frowned.
That answer wasn't as simple as it sounded.
He wasn't someone like the original Zod.
He wasn't driven by absolute cruelty or domination.
Trying to become that person would only lead to failure.
But he wasn't Captain America either.
Selfless heroism wasn't who he was.
Pretending otherwise would be equally false.
A strange realization settled over him.
Perhaps that was the curse of someone who lived between extremes.
When the moment finally arrived to define himself, he discovered he had never bothered assigning himself a label.
"Hey, Drex."
A woman suddenly wrapped her arms around him from behind.
His body tensed instantly.
For one terrifying moment, he nearly reacted on instinct.
Had he actually thrown an elbow, the resulting shockwave might have erased the entire Solar System.
Fortunately, he stopped himself.
Turning around, he froze.
The woman looked remarkably similar to Wonder Woman.
Diana?
Wait.
This wasn't even the DC Universe.
The next thing he knew, he was sitting in a bedroom.
The woman lay sleeping beside him.
Drex stared at the ceiling in silence.
After sorting through the memories supplied by the illusion, he finally understood.
She wasn't Diana.
She simply looked like her.
In this reality, she was his girlfriend.
They had been dating for half a month.
The scenario was absurd enough that he almost laughed.
"The immersion is a little difficult with that face."
Drex rubbed his forehead.
It wasn't that Diana wasn't attractive.
Quite the opposite.
The resemblance simply made the entire illusion feel surreal.
According to the memories, his appearance and charisma had worked wonders.
The relationship had escalated quickly.
Very quickly.
The illusion practically treated them as inseparable.
Unfortunately for the quarry, it had chosen the wrong bait.
First, Drex knew this world wasn't real.
Second...
His heart already belonged elsewhere.
Specifically, to the collection of custom-made waifu figures he had painstakingly created over the years.
That attachment might have sounded ridiculous to anyone else.
To Drex, it was simply the truth.
"Why would I cheat on my own creations?" he muttered.
The woman stirred awake.
"Drex?"
She smiled and reached toward him.
Drex sat up.
"We should break up."
The words landed like a meteor strike.
The woman froze.
"...What?"
Drex considered his reasoning.
If the purpose of the trial was to remain true to himself, then suppressing his genuine thoughts would be a mistake.
If he disliked something, he should reject it.
If he wanted something, he should pursue it.
No pretending.
No compromises.
No masks.
He reached into a nearby drawer and produced a bank card.
"There's five hundred thousand dollars on this."
"My entire savings account."
"The PIN is my birthday."
He placed it in her hand.
"It's all yours."
Then he stood.
"We're done."
Without waiting for a response, he walked out the door.
The woman stared after him in complete confusion.
At some instinctive level, she felt something terrifying lurking beneath the surface.
Approaching him seemed like a very bad idea.
Meanwhile, Drex wandered through the city.
He didn't have any grand revelation.
He simply observed himself.
If he saw someone hurting others, he stepped in.
That much came naturally.
But becoming a full-time superhero?
That wasn't him.
Drex had no objection to doing good.
He simply had no desire to dedicate every waking moment to saving people.
Likewise, he had little interest in becoming a villain.
He was, at his core, a former shut-in.
And honestly, that was probably for the best.
Someone with his power and a different personality could have become far worse than the Sentry ever was.
The Sentry had indulged every desire.
Drex wasn't built that way.
His idea of happiness was much simpler.
A private space.
Unlimited entertainment.
His favorite hobbies.
And, of course, the companions he had created himself.
He could literally build life-sized, living versions of his favorite figures.
As far as he was concerned, that was already a winning strategy.
Why complicate things?
So he stopped resisting the truth.
The illusion shifted.
He settled into a comfortable life.
A secluded home hidden somewhere within the city.
The most powerful gaming computer imaginable.
The fastest internet connection available.
Shelves packed with food and drinks.
Every game console he could want.
An endless library of games.
And the company of his beloved creations.
To Drex, it looked suspiciously like paradise.
Then everything shattered.
A sharp chime echoed through reality.
Ding.
The city cracked.
Buildings fractured like reflections on disturbed water.
The streets rippled.
The sky dissolved.
The entire illusion fragmented into countless pieces.
Drex calmly looked around.
New York vanished.
The apartment vanished.
The dream vanished.
He was standing inside the quarry once more.
The petrified walls surrounded him.
He had passed.
Suddenly, a vast torrent of cosmic source energy erupted from the depths of the quarry.
It surged upward like a celestial tsunami.
Then it slammed directly into him.
Every pore.
Every cell.
Every fragment of his being.
The energy poured inside.
The sensation was indescribable.
Like a man dying of thirst finally tasting water after decades in a desert.
Drex couldn't stop the sound that escaped him.
A deep, involuntary roar of exhilaration echoed across the quarry.
Power flooded every corner of his existence.
Some of it overflowed.
The excess condensed around his body.
Layer upon layer accumulated until it formed a suit of armor.
The armor was matte silver-white.
Its appearance resembled metal, though it was clearly something far more profound.
Countless symbols were engraved across its surface.
Runes.
Concepts.
Fragments of divine authority.
Destiny.
Reversal.
Manifestation.
Negentropy.
Concealment.
And countless others.
Each symbol represented a concept once governed by a fallen cosmic god.
The armor was their legacy given form.
Of course, Drex had absorbed only a tiny fraction of the quarry's total power.
His current body could not contain the entirety of the Cemetery of Gods.
No being below a far higher level could.
Still...
The power coursing through him was staggering.
Drex slowly raised his hands.
The silver-white armor gleamed with quiet radiance.
He examined the intricate symbols covering its surface.
Every rune contained enough power to reshape worlds.
And together...
They formed something far greater.
"Now this..."
Drex stared at his armored hands.
"...is power."
...
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