The chilling pressure slowly faded, and sunlight seemed to return.

But Wanda and Pietro stood frozen, minds blank.

That suffocating brush with death had been all too real.

Yet so was the calm smile now facing them.

They couldn't tell which version of Malrick was the real one.

Maybe this was what it meant to face Superman—someone whose will alone could drag people from heaven to hell or raise them from despair back into light.

Malrick gently patted their shoulders, still smiling.

He hadn't truly meant them harm. What he unleashed had not been killing intent, but rather a concentrated pulse of his willpower.

At his current level, even a mere glance could kill anyone below planetary-tier resistance. The siblings had only tasted the illusion of death, and even that had been due to Malrick exercising extreme restraint.

All he wanted was to remind them—be mindful of your words, and weigh the consequences.

Judging by their expression now, it had worked perfectly.

They looked at him with a strange mix of fear, awe, and... something else. It was almost reverence. Or maybe a touch of something like Stockholm Syndrome.

"It's settled then," Malrick said. "Jarvis will set up work for both of you."

"Anything you want to know, anything you want to investigate, you'll have access to within Stark Industries."

He handed the black card back to Pietro.

"Keep it. This isn't about wiping away your past or demeaning your pain. It's a gesture of respect—for your strength in the face of adversity."

"But…" Wanda started to speak, uncertainty lingering in her voice.

"But what?" Malrick's eyes briefly shimmered with a red glow.

Wanda's hesitation evaporated instantly. "Nothing! It's nothing!"

She took the black card without further resistance, standing stiffly like a schoolgirl who'd just been scolded by a stern teacher.

"Good," Malrick nodded. "If you ever need anything, Jarvis is always online. Just ask. He'll take care of it."

He waved a hand casually. "Go home for now. And don't go talking about revenge until you're ready to accept what comes with it. You two deserve a better future. Don't let hate ruin it."

He knew he sounded hypocritical.

He, after all, had always believed in vengeance over mercy, choosing to risk killing the wrong target rather than letting one guilty person escape.

But that was the nature of power.

Those who hold power control the narrative.

Right now, Wanda was still far from becoming the Scarlet Witch. Her full potential hadn't even begun to awaken.

If she were the reality-warping Wanda from the comics, Malrick would've acted very differently.

Maybe he'd evacuate his entire family to another dimension.

Or lock himself in a separate universe and train in solitude for ten thousand years before returning.

After all, Chaos Magic—magic that could rewrite reality itself—wasn't something you could reason with.

For now, though, the morning sun warmed everything again.

And the siblings who had arrived full of fury, left... quietly.

They never said whether their hatred had truly vanished.

But some things didn't need to be said aloud.

They were people of principle, albeit emotionally wounded.

But accepting the black card—that meant something.

Even if they hadn't admitted it, the direction of their vengeance had shifted.

Tony wasn't really the person they were after anymore.

Malrick turned toward Tony and shrugged.

There. Problem solved.

Tony rolled his eyes with dramatic flair, nearly hard enough to dislocate something.

Thanks a lot.

---

Two days later...

Something unexpected happened.

Wanda and Pietro, instead of vanishing or lashing out again, followed through.

They showed up, as arranged by Jarvis, and reported directly to the Avengers base.

But they weren't there to fight. Or even to work.

Tony had apparently spoken to them for a long time that morning behind closed doors.

Malrick didn't know if that talk involved forgiveness, or if Tony just wanted to make sure they wouldn't bring a bomb to work.

Either way, by that afternoon, the siblings had new roles—college students.

Tony had enrolled them both at Columbia University.

Wanda was placed in the Business School—Malrick's old department—while Pietro got into a Sports Science program.

Malrick couldn't help but suspect Tony was being petty. He probably thought the siblings lacked education and were emotionally underdeveloped. This was his way of "fixing" that.

After all, they'd been off the grid since they were ten. Their views on the world were more emotional than logical, lacking structure or balance.

Still, none of that really mattered anymore.

Because today was far more important.

Today was the birth of Malrick's Blood Sea Clone.

---

Inside the Inner World...

Energy from the Space Stone surged through every corner of his constructed realm.

The world was vast—nearly a million kilometers across. Sky and earth alike were painted in deep blue, saturated with concentrated spatial energy.

At the center of it all, floating high in the heavens, was a crimson giant egg, glowing with pulsing light.

The egg was one hundred kilometers tall.

And all the world's energy was being funneled into it.

Malrick's consciousness watched calmly.

Cracks had started to form.

Thin at first, then widening rapidly.

Crackling sounds echoed like thunder as fractures ran across the shell, a chaotic web of energy and pressure.

Suddenly, the entire shell burst apart.

It shattered into countless fragments, cascading down like a crimson blizzard, flooding the land below in a rain of broken power.

From within that storm of fragments, a colossal figure emerged.

Ten thousand meters tall.

At the same time, Malrick's awareness split automatically into two.

One stream of consciousness observed from outside—watching the newborn titan emerge.

The other was inside the clone, seeing the world from its own eyes.

The Blood Sea Clone had awakened.

Though Malrick's soul remained anchored to his original body, his mind now operated in both vessels at once.

It felt natural. Effortless.

Like he was born to multitask this way.

"Amazing," he muttered to himself.

He moved the clone's arm.

No, not moved—there was no effort.

He simply willed it, and it obeyed. As naturally as breathing.

The arm, nearly forty kilometers long, rose smoothly.

Its skin looked human, flawless and pale like marble. Beneath the surface, faint blood-colored veins shimmered, giving it an eerie elegance.

Malrick admired the massive frame. Rippling abs the size of mountains. Pectorals like plateaus.

There was one... oddity, though.

From his other viewpoint, he noticed something was missing.

The clone was bald, smooth... and completely anatomically featureless.

No hair. No secondary sexual traits. Nothing.

He frowned, reaching down experimentally.

Smooth.

Completely blank.

He let out a long breath. "Guess I've made myself a life-sized 3D mannequin."

Still, that was minor. He hadn't created the clone to model underwear.

What mattered was functionality.

And this clone had plenty of that.

The Blood Sea Clone possessed a gene multiplier of 300x, slightly stronger than Malrick's main body.

Its innate abilities?

Two of them.

Oceanification and Creation.

Oceanification allowed the clone to dissolve into a vast blood ocean, ten times its body height in diameter.

Given its current size—100 kilometers tall—it could form a sea spanning 1,000 kilometers across.

Terrifying.

Creation, meanwhile, let the clone form new life from energy while in oceanic form.

These beings would be unconditionally loyal to Malrick—their creator.

There was a catch, though.

To create any creature, Malrick needed a complete understanding of that organism's genetic code.

Right now, based on his current research, he could only create some basic biological forms.

Still, the potential was limitless.

A sea-sized god-body, capable of birthing an army.

And the best part?

He was just getting started.

---

My patreon link : patreon.com/Zphyr_