Ethan realized he had been mistaken about one thing.
Star-Lord did not care about any inheritance. He just wanted to kill Ego.
Fighting to the death in the spiritual world with Ego sounded good, but choosing a more reliable method that could actually kill the guy was better.
This did not affect Ethan much. How Ego died did not really matter to Ethan, and this choice was even more beneficial to him.
If Star-Lord inherited Ego's legacy, Ethan could gain some benefits by teaching him, but it would definitely not compare to directly blowing Ego up and then personally collecting the collapsing and dissipating energy.
Watching Rocket Raccoon and Star-Lord discuss how to blow up this brain, Ethan watched for a few moments before directly pointing his finger and opening a hole in the energy layer.
Ego's brain was surrounded by an energy layer, protecting it inside and making it impossible to attack directly.
In the original plot, the bomb Rocket Raccoon made directly destroyed the entire planetary core, which was incredibly powerful, so it was a timed bomb, giving everyone time to escape.
If the little tree person Groot had pressed the wrong button and chosen to explode immediately, all the members of the Guardians of the Galaxy would have been blown up along with Ego.
The current situation was different from the original plot. Rocket Raccoon had brought many bombs, but none with such great power. He could temporarily make a powerful one, but he did not carry the materials needed for a timing device with him.
He was worried that a less powerful bomb would not truly injure the brain protected by the energy layer, so he did not know how to solve this problem now.
Just then, Ethan opened a hole in the energy layer in front of him and gestured to him. Go ahead.
Rocket Raccoon pouted, and although he was a raccoon, the expression, So what if you can use magic?, was very clear and direct.
While grumbling inwardly, Rocket Raccoon's hands were not slow. He quickly combined several bombs, made a short-delay fuse, and then lifted his hand and threw it in through the hole.
Ego was strong, and the energy he possessed was also vast.
In a head-on battle, killing Ego was very difficult, especially since his life form gave him extremely tenacious vitality.
Yet Ego was also very fragile. His weakness was too obvious. As long as his brain was found, a slightly powerful bomb could kill him. Of course, figuring out how to break through the energy layer protecting the brain was also a difficult problem.
However, for people like Ethan, these were not difficult problems at all.
Mantis, who had suddenly switched sides to Star-Lord, told everyone where Ego's core was, and Ethan had the ability to hold back Ego's outer defenses and break through the final barrier.
Even when Ego realized what was about to happen and wanted to stop it with all his might, he could not. When Rocket Raccoon and Star-Lord decided to blow Ego up directly, Ethan knew the guy would start going crazy, so he went crazy one step ahead of Ego.
Under the full power output of the Space Stone, the violent spatial energy even pushed the arcane energy Ethan had previously scattered to the outermost edge of this space.
The vast spatial energy severely interfered with Ego's energy manipulation, and Ethan had no intention of holding back. While continuously releasing spatial energy, he was also constantly stimulating this energy, and moments later, a terrifying energy storm filled the area.
When the energy storm raged, no one could use energy normally, including Ethan, who could not cast spells casually in this environment. Once the violent spatial energy storm formed, Ethan himself could not stop it. Even if he stopped using the Space Stone to output energy, the storm formed by the current energy would not suddenly dissipate. It could only wait for the energy to calm down on its own.
What he had to do was rely on the Space Stone's characteristics to gain stronger resistance to the storm formed by spatial energy, and tough it out physically... well, not quite. Although casting spells was difficult, Ethan still had ways to protect himself from the storm's damage.
Furthermore, this energy storm would not truly harm Ego. It would only render Ego's energy unable to be mobilized.
Ego's true body was just something like a brain. If he could not use energy, then he could only watch Rocket Raccoon throw the bomb next to him, and after an explosion, Ego would become a thing of the past.
One bomb, while outside the battle was earth-shattering like the end of the world, the one that truly delivered the final blow was just such an ordinary bomb.
Ethan personally witnessed, the scene seen by the mirror clone was transmitted to the main body in real time, how Ego was killed by a bomb.
Regarding this situation, he only felt that having such an obvious weakness was indeed a fatal flaw. This further strengthened his belief in his all-round development method of improvement.
This time, Ego was killed by a bomb that was not overly powerful. It merely blew up the core brain that was his equivalent of a main body, and the entire planet was not severely damaged.
However, after Ego's death, the entire planet was also shaking, although it was not very obvious yet, both Star-Lord and Rocket Raccoon felt something was wrong.
"This planet was continuously absorbing energy and gathering surrounding matter condensed by Ego over countless years. With Ego's death, the energy maintaining this planet lost control, and the matter originally condensed at its core will gradually collapse."
In short, this planet was going to be finished.
Rocket Raccoon and Star-Lord exchanged glances and immediately prepared to leave.
But Ethan's mirror clone called out to them.
"Going out now is not a good idea."
"What's wrong?"
"To stop Ego so you could kill him, I unleashed a powerful move. Now the outside is filled with a raging energy storm, and it will take a while to calm down."
The subtext was that if they went out now, they would die, but hiding here, they could rely on the protection of the surrounding rock layers and be safe from the energy storm's threat.
Only then did Star-Lord and Rocket Raccoon understand why they could so calmly throw a bomb at Ego's brain. It was because the opponent was being held back by Ethan and had no way to stop them.
It is just... an energy storm? Wasn't that a bit exaggerated?
"You all know a bit about Ego's strength. If it was not a big scene, how could he be controlled?"
If it were not for a cheat like the Space Stone, it would not have been easy for Ethan to hold back Ego. Maybe he could still do it, but it would inevitably consume a lot of magic power and he might even get injured.
Unlike now, where at most he wasted some mental power and some Arcane Spring, his own magic power was almost undepleted.
After waiting for a while, Ethan, who was outside, saw the spatial energy gradually stabilize. Following the principle of not wasting anything, he took out a container and began collecting the energy as much as possible.
In the Marvel universe, mobilizing such a vast amount of energy was simple for him, but leaving here, it would be impossible to unleash so much energy using the Space Stone again. Even if it were possible, he would not dare to do it, as that would mean a large amount of energy suddenly breaking through this universe and flowing to other planes, and who knew what kind of beings that might attract to trouble him.
There was no such worry about mobilizing energy in this universe. This vast energy still remained in this universe. Although Ethan collected some, the amount was not enough to attract the attention of certain beings, as it was just a small part of a large amount of energy, which could be considered consumed.
He notified Star-Lord and the others to come out through the mirror clone. At the same time, Yondu and others, who were blown to the periphery by the storm when the energy storm erupted and were not significantly harmed, also rushed over.
Looking at Ego's planet, which was already showing signs of collapse, everyone directly boarded the fighter jets. They planned to return to the surface first to retrieve Star-Lord's Milano, and then leave the planet together. It would not be long before Ego's planet would cease to exist.
There were no obstacles along the way. Ego was dead, and the only intelligent life on this planet besides Ego was Mantis, who had already joined their side.
Mantis, who had nowhere else to go, had decided to follow Star-Lord. Star-Lord was happy to have one more companion, as long as it was not the blue-skinned woman who always seemed to want to fight Gamora.
"Now we can talk about your commission."
After two space fighter jets left Ego's planet, they continued to fly a distance away, stopping only after confirming they would not be affected by Ego's planet's collapse.
Star-Lord wanted to leave this area directly, but was stopped by Ethan. It was only then that Star-Lord realized that the one who got on the ship with them was Ethan's clone.
"Your main body... is not still on Ego's planet, is it?"
"Yes."
"Damn it."
"Do not worry about me. Ego's planet is not a star, there will not be any energy burst when it collapses. After Ego dies, this planet's gravity is even disappearing, and the gathered rocks and other matter will just slowly scatter into debris floating in space."
There would be no explosion and certainly no black hole. Ego's planet's death was this peaceful, not at all dramatic.
"What are you doing staying there?"
"Did you forget the inheritance I mentioned? The energy Ego collected over countless years is an unmissable treasure for a mage like me."
Since Star-Lord did not want it, Ethan would not be polite. Although this energy had Ego's mental imprint, only those with his bloodline could freely mobilize it.
But Ethan was not planning to consume all the energy. He could make some selections and perform some cleaning.
Although doing so would waste more time and cause most of the energy to completely dissipate in the process, any benefit gained for free was a profit, so why demand so much?
(To be continued.)
***
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