Free Web NovelChapter 322: Chapter 322: Molecule Man
Levi stood before the apartment door and placed a hand on the rusted doorknob.
The metal felt cold.
But he could sense something abnormal beyond the door.
Space was twisting.
Matter was rearranging itself.
It was as if something was rewriting the very definition of reality according to its whims.
He glanced back at Wanda.
She nodded.
Adam was still asleep in her arms, but his breathing had grown uneven, as though he sensed a presence that made him uneasy.
Taking a deep breath, Levi pushed the door open.
The scene inside made Wanda suck in a sharp breath.
This wasn’t a normal room.
The walls randomly shifted between solid and liquid states.
Several pieces of furniture floated near the ceiling—a couch, a coffee table, a lamp.
Countless objects drifted lazily through the air as if gravity had forgotten them, only to suddenly crash to the floor without warning.
Even the floor itself was unstable.
One moment it was solid concrete.
The next it became a rippling surface of water.
Entire sections simply vanished altogether, revealing bottomless darkness beneath.
The air carried a scent that was impossible to describe.
It wasn’t foul.
It wasn’t pleasant.
It was simply wrong.
A feeling of disorder somewhere between existence and nonexistence.
Levi raised his right hand.
His Source Authority condensed in his palm.
Golden light spread outward, forming a stable platform beneath their feet.
Wanda quickly realized her magic was nearly useless here.
Not because it was being suppressed.
There was simply nothing to anchor it to.
Chaos Magic rewrote reality.
But the reality inside this room was already being constantly rewritten, reset, and distorted.
There was no fixed point for her power to grasp.
Narrowing his eyes, Levi used the Law of Mind to scan the room.
Deep within the living room sat a lone figure in the only corner untouched by distortion.
An old, worn-out sofa.
The man sitting there looked to be in his forties.
He wore wrinkled plaid pajamas.
His hair resembled a bird’s nest.
His beard was unkempt.
His bloodshot eyes stared blankly ahead.
In his hands was a bowl of expired cereal.
Mechanically, he shoveled spoonfuls into his mouth while staring at the television before him.
The TV displayed nothing but static.
Harsh white noise filled the room.
Yet he watched with absolute focus, as though the static concealed images visible only to him.
Levi could feel it immediately.
The source of every distortion in the room was this man.
Not because he was consciously using his power.
His mere existence was unconsciously rewriting reality.
Like an out-of-control nuclear reactor.
Even if it did nothing, radiation would still leak from it endlessly.
As Levi entered, the floor beneath his feet shifted constantly between solidity and fluidity.
Using his Source Authority, he forcibly stabilized a path.
Golden light stretched behind him like a trail through a chaotic sea.
Wanda followed closely, feeling the suffocating pressure filling the room.
Levi stopped three meters from the sofa.
The man continued staring at the static screen.
His spoon stirred the cereal absentmindedly. The contents had long since become a soggy paste.
Levi spoke calmly.
"Owen Reece."
The man’s movements stopped.
The spoon froze in midair.
Drops of milk slid from its edge.
Halfway down, they suddenly solidified into crystal beads and clinked against the floor.
Slowly, Owen Reece turned his head.
His gaze was vacant.
He wasn’t really looking at Levi.
Rather, he seemed to be staring through him at something invisible.
"You..." he rasped.
His voice was rough and exhausted.
"Are you here to kill me too?"
Levi shook his head.
"No."
"I’m here to protect you."
Owen laughed.
It was an ugly laugh.
Tears slid from the corners of his eyes.
"Protect me?"
He raised his right hand.
The distortions throughout the room intensified instantly.
The walls began melting.
The ceiling transformed into countless metallic fragments spinning through the air.
Cracks tore open across the floor, glowing liquid pouring from every fissure.
Wanda cried out in surprise.
Chaos Magic surged instinctively around Adam, forming a protective barrier.
Yet the glowing liquid ignored the magical shield completely.
It passed straight through and solidified into floating geometric shapes.
Cubes.
Spheres.
Irregular polyhedrons.
Each emitted fluctuations powerful enough to make reality tremble.
Levi didn’t move.
He simply raised his left hand.
His Source Authority erupted at full strength.
Golden light exploded outward, creating an immense domain of laws in the center of the room.
The instant it formed, the chaos froze.
The glowing liquid hung motionless.
The walls stopped melting.
The cracks in the floor ceased spreading.
Silence filled the room.
Owen’s eyes widened in disbelief.
"Y-you... how did you do that?"
Levi didn’t answer.
He could feel the energy raging within Owen’s body.
It wasn’t ordinary power.
It was a fragment of a Beyonder’s source essence.
A terrifying force capable of rewriting reality from its very foundation.
And it was completely out of control.
The stronger Owen’s emotions became, the more violent the power grew.
The more violent the power became, the worse the distortions became.
At this rate, Rabum Alal wouldn’t need to kill him.
Owen would eventually detonate himself and drag the entire universe into oblivion.
Levi took a deep breath.
The white divine power he had devoured in the World Library began circulating through his body.
It merged with his Source Authority.
The result was a new kind of power.
The pure destructive nature of the white divine power.
Combined with absolute control.
He raised his right hand.
Golden and white light intertwined in his palm.
Seeing it, Wanda’s heart tightened.
She could sense the horror contained within that power.
It was a force capable of erasing existence itself on a conceptual level.
Yet Levi controlled it so perfectly that it resembled a surgeon’s scalpel rather than a nuclear weapon.
Step by step, Levi approached Owen.
With every inch he advanced, the distortions weakened.
Owen tried to retreat.
He couldn’t move.
Invisible chains seemed to bind his body.
He could feel the nature of the power inside Levi.
It shared the same origin as the Beyonder essence within himself.
Yet it existed on a higher level.
"W-who are you?"
Owen’s voice trembled.
Levi stopped directly before him.
Golden-white eyes met Owen’s gaze.
"This game has gone on long enough."
His voice remained calm.
"I’m here to clean up the mess."
Levi placed his palm against Owen Reece’s forehead.
Instantly, golden-white light burst forth from the point of contact.
Countless threads of light drilled into Owen’s body, reaching the core of his consciousness.
Owen screamed.
His entire body convulsed violently.
He could feel the power raging through him.
Not destroying.
Organizing.
Reconstructing.
Suppressing the out-of-control fragments of Beyonder essence.
From behind, Wanda could clearly see the changes.
Glowing patterns appeared beneath Owen’s skin.
Intricate lines spread through his body like impossibly complex circuitry.
Each line connected to tiny energy nodes.
This was the Beyonders’ handiwork.
A perfectly ordinary man had been branded and transformed into a walking doomsday weapon.
Closing his eyes, Levi sank his consciousness into Owen’s mental world.
Memories unfolded before him.
Thirty years earlier.
An ordinary maintenance worker repairing a transformer in a basement.
A golden cube had fallen from the void.
When he touched it, it exploded.
Beyonder source energy flooded into his body.
His cells.
His genes.
His soul.
All transformed simultaneously.
The agony lasted three days and three nights.
When he awoke, he discovered he could reshape matter at will.
Reconstruct molecular structures through thought.
Turn stone into gold.
Solidify air into diamond.
At first, he thought he had gained superpowers.
He thought he could become a superhero.
Then he discovered the truth.
The power wasn’t under his control.
Whenever his emotions fluctuated, reality twisted around him.
If he became angry, furniture vaporized.
If he grew nervous, walls turned into flowing sand.
If he cried, entire rooms froze solid.
He sought help.
S.H.I.E.L.D.
The Xavier Institute.
The Sanctums.
Everywhere he went, he received the same answer.
The power was too dangerous.
Nobody could help him.
They could only imprison him.
Or kill him.
So he hid.
Cutting himself off from the world.
Living in this decaying apartment.
Watching television static every day.
Using meaningless noise to occupy his thoughts.
Because whenever he thought too much, the power spiraled out of control.
Recently, however, things had become worse.
He began hearing voices.
Countless voices.
From every corner of the multiverse.
The dying screams of other Owen Reeces.
Other Molecule Men.
He could feel alternate versions of himself being hunted down one by one.
Some burned to ashes.
Some torn apart.
Some erased conceptually as though they had never existed.
The terror shattered what little control he had left.
Levi opened his eyes.
The golden light within them intensified.
Now he understood.
Owen wasn’t merely a living bomb.
He was a node.
A node in a resonance network designed by the Beyonders.
Every Molecule Man throughout the multiverse was connected through Beyonder source energy.
Together they formed a multiversal sensory network.
Whenever one Molecule Man died, all the others felt it.
Fear spread through the network.
And fear became a catalyst.
The remaining Molecule Men were already unstable.
This only pushed them closer to detonation.
This was the Beyonders’ acceleration mechanism.
Fear creating more fear.
Death fueling more death.
Until the entire multiverse collapsed in a chain reaction.
Levi clenched his jaw.
Every power within him surged simultaneously.
Source Authority.
Phoenix Force.
White divine power.
Fourteen Laws.
All activated together.
He wasn’t trying to suppress Owen’s energy.
He intended to redefine its very nature. fɾēewebnσveℓ.com
Golden light exploded inside Owen’s body.
Countless tiny chains emerged from the depths of his genetic structure.
They wrapped around the rampaging fragments of Beyonder essence.
Binding.
Stabilizing.
Suppressing.
Owen’s screams gradually weakened.
His trembling ceased.
The fragments still struggled desperately.
But the combined power of the white divine force and Source Authority held them firmly in place.
A ticking bomb was transformed into a sealed energy core.
Several minutes later, the fluctuations finally stabilized.
The distortions vanished.
The walls returned to ordinary plaster.
The ceiling stopped melting.
The cracks in the floor sealed shut.
The floating furniture drifted gently back to the ground.
Everything returned to normal.
Levi withdrew his hand.
His face had become slightly pale.
Wanda immediately stepped forward.
Crimson Chaos Magic flowed into him, helping stabilize his depleted source power.
Owen collapsed into the sofa, breathing heavily.
Fear still lingered in his eyes.
But the madness that had threatened to drag the world down with him was finally gone.
He raised his hands and stared at them.
His voice shook.
"I... I can’t hear them anymore."
Levi nodded.
"I placed a conceptual barrier inside you."
"It severed your resonance with the Beyonders’ source network."
"In the multiversal sensory network..."
"You no longer exist."
Owen froze.
Tears rolled down his cheeks again.
"You mean..."
"I’m free?"
Levi shook his head.
"Only temporarily."
With a wave of his hand, a projection appeared.
It displayed the real-time condition of the energy nodes inside Owen’s body.
Golden chains tightly restrained countless violent points of light.
But the fragments still writhed beneath their restraints.
"That’s Beyonder source energy."
"It won’t disappear so easily."
"I’ve only suppressed it."
"If a stronger external stimulus appears, the seals could collapse at any time."
Owen’s face instantly turned pale.
"What do I do then?"
Levi remained silent for several seconds before turning toward Wanda.
Suddenly, Adam opened his eyes.
Golden-red and crimson light intertwined within the infant’s gaze.
He raised a tiny hand and pointed toward Owen.
Soft babbling sounds escaped his lips.
Wanda’s eyes widened.
Instinctively, she held her son tighter.
"Adam, you—"
A small sphere of void energy appeared in Adam’s palm.
The sphere drifted toward Owen and gently touched his forehead.
Instantly, the Beyonder energy within Owen erupted.
But this time it wasn’t losing control.
It was resonating with the Void Source inside Adam.
Levi’s pupils contracted.
He could clearly see what was happening.
Adam’s Void Source was actively devouring the Beyonder energy.
Not violently.
Not destructively.
But gently.
As though savoring a delicious meal.
Absorbing.
Digesting.
Assimilating.
Owen stared in shock.
The energy that had tormented him for thirty years was rapidly diminishing.
Or more accurately—
It was being smoothed away by a power even more overwhelming.
Several seconds later, Adam withdrew his hand.
His eyes closed once more.
He peacefully fell asleep in his mother’s arms.
Levi and Wanda exchanged a glance.
A complicated emotion flickered in both their eyes.
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