Endless stardust.
The God of Deception recognized it instantly.
It was the complete Rune Power—the very energy that should have been consumed by the Shadow long ago, the power he had kept under close watch to prevent Russell from absorbing.
"No!"
His face twisted with disbelief and rage.
"Impossible! I've been watching this power to make sure you never claimed it! Your phantom magic should not be able to deceive me!"
As the God of Deception, one of his most absolute traits was this: he could not be deceived.
Unless it came from an existence beyond the multiverse, deception was impossible.
And yet here it was.
The world itself began to quake.
Russell's calm, mocking voice echoed across the collapsing Shadowland:
"Deception? No, no… my phantom magic was real from the beginning. It wasn't an illusion. It was destiny."
The God of Deception faltered, stunned.
Even in the real world, Sorcerer Supreme Tony Stark froze in shock. Nothing in all his arcane knowledge suggested such a thing was possible.
An illusion was just that—an illusion. Even if it gained form, it was still false.
And yet…
Russell's voice thundered, shaking even the barriers of reality:
"I suppose I should thank someone. A Loki—one who did not belong to this world—arrived here. The power he left behind carried with it the weight of destiny."
"At the time, I didn't understand it. I didn't know why I had been given it, or how to use it. But now, I finally see. Everything has a cause… and this is the result."
"I grafted my destiny onto that phantom. It became me. And because it wasn't a deception, you never saw it."
The God of Deception went rigid.
Destiny.
Such a power was not supposed to exist—certainly not one born from outside this world.
But quickly, his shock gave way to fury.
Deceived. He, the God of Deception, had been deceived.
It was an insult unlike any other—so great that even his Original Divine Power flickered with instability.
He bared his teeth, eyes blazing, and commanded the counterfeit Tribunal:
"Kill him! Past, present, and future—destroy him completely!"
The false Living Tribunal turned its three solemn faces toward the infinite night sky. Its eyes burned, unleashing the overwhelming Power of Judgment.
The colossal eyes of stardust flinched, shrinking as though they might close forever.
Ulobas sneered:
"Heh! Fake is fake. Lies will never become truth."
But then—within those stardust eyes, light flickered. One spark, then a thousand, like galaxies igniting in miniature. At a glance, each eye looked like an entire universe.
And then—
The starlight burst forth, a blinding tide of blue radiance that washed across creation. The Shadow dimension shattered. Reality reasserted itself.
The false Tribunal began to shake violently, cracks spider-webbing across its vast form as though it were about to shatter—
But something unexpected happened.
Its power surged instead, climbing higher, burning brighter.
Ulobas's expression twisted into horror.
Reality itself was growing stronger.
The opponent wasn't trying to destroy the Tribunal with brute force. Nor was he attempting to bypass it and strike at Ulobas directly.
No—he had seen through its weakness. He was letting the truth of destiny unravel the lie from within.
The counterfeit Living Tribunal was splitting apart, cracks tearing through its form, on the verge of exploding—
But at that moment, its three pairs of eyes blazed brilliantly.
Alive.
And worse—aware.
At that moment, one of the Tribunal's eyes suddenly turned toward the God of Deception, its gaze cold and merciless.
Ulobas—who had been preparing to cover it all with yet another lie—felt a terror he had not known in countless eons. His spirit shrieked, shattering inward, and for the first time in ages cold sweat beaded across his rigid body.
In his vision…
The Living Tribunal he had fabricated was no longer false. It had come alive.
A terrifying will descended into the vessel that was moments away from collapse.
Time and space froze solid.
From the true void, the Tribunal's eternal body took shape—vast, star-forged, as if galaxies themselves had been woven into its form.
And then a voice thundered from the nothingness:
"The trial begins."
"The one being judged: Ulobas, God of Deception."
"You repeated Ragnarök endlessly. You devoured energy. You are guilty."
"You deceived your companions—consuming the God of War, the Storm God, the Mother Goddess, and the God of Knowledge. You are guilty."
"You deceived time and reality, forged my body, and wielded my power as your own. You are guilty."
"Three sins united. The sentence… is death."
The Tribunal's vast head turned. Its eyes locked on Ulobas.
No!
Ulobas screamed within, but his body would not move. Not even a spark of his Original Divine Power answered his will.
The Living Tribunal—an existence that could effortlessly crush multiverses—passed judgment.
And before his eyes, the God of Deception's body withered to ash, disintegrating completely, along with all the stolen divine power he had consumed.
The judgment was absolute.
When the sentence was carried out, the Tribunal's attention lifted. Its three faces turned toward the vast, starlit eyes that lingered in the deep void.
No words were spoken. Only a long, heavy gaze.
Then the Tribunal's false vessel dissolved into fragments of light, scattering into nothingness.
The lower dimensions healed. The Realm of Thought realigned, returning to its rightful order.
From the void, Russell stepped forward, his form returning to that of a man. He stared at the space where the Tribunal had vanished, still shaken.
He had intended to unleash his true power to obliterate the God of Deception. He had never expected the actual will of the Living Tribunal to descend.
And the most terrifying part—Ulobas had been executed with nothing more than a glance. That will, Russell realized, had most likely been the Tribunal's true M-body itself.
An entity that could stand among the second echelon of Marvel's cosmic hierarchy.
To be honest, when the Tribunal's gaze had finally turned upon him, Russell's heart nearly froze. To say he hadn't panicked would have been a lie.
Thankfully, it had only looked at him… and then departed.
The multiversal battle was over. He had survived. He had won.
And as the balance of death shifted, a cold, mechanical voice echoed once more within him—
The system had spoken.
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