When Malrick returned, he deliberately chose a later time.
It was afternoon when he had left to gather the Infinity Stones. Now evening had already settled over the city.
The wedding in Central Park had lasted all day. From morning until now, the sunlight had cast a warm, reddish glow over the trees and lawn.
New guests kept arriving — even when all the seats were taken, some stood on the grass, glass in hand, shouting their blessings from afar.
On the wedding stage, dancers performed.
There had been a cheerful opening act in the morning, and now, near the end, a closing performance was underway.
A drunken Thor was clumsily dancing on stage with Mjolnir in hand, clearly having drunk all morning.
Loki, dressed in a dark green suit, stood before him, singing an Asgardian song.
Together they had planned this comedic finale.
Despite Thor's drunken antics, Loki maintained a professional smile, though it was forced.
Malrick found Tony at the main table and slipped in beside him.
"Hey! Malrick, you're finally back!" Spider-Man greeted him, surprise in his voice.
He was seated right next to Tony, and his Spider-Sense had been the first to detect Malrick's arrival.
"You got all the Infinity Stones then? We can go after Thanos once the wedding's over!"
He had already removed his suit jacket and changed into a black suit with white lining.
His cheeks were a little flushed from the drinks he'd been having — he looked happy, as though a regret of his past had been resolved at last.
In the original timeline of the films, Peter hadn't been able to attend Tony's wedding.
Now, that regret seemed to have been erased.
Watching Thor and Loki's performance on stage, Peter looked overjoyed.
"You didn't just collect the Infinity Stones, did you?" Tony's voice echoed quietly from the side.
He glanced at Malrick with what seemed like casual disinterest — but everyone knew better.
Tony was being stubborn.
Only Malrick really understood him.
Whether it was concern, curiosity, or just Tony wanting to fight Thanos himself, he must have been itching to hear how Malrick had taken care of the threat.
Malrick didn't give details.
Instead, he picked up a bottle of red wine and poured himself a drink.
As he poured, he said, "That's right. Because I didn't bring certain backup, the battle ended up going surprisingly smoothly."
"It's true?" Peter looked incredulous.
"You already neutralized the Thanos threat!?"
"Yes," Malrick replied plainly.
"Oh my God! How did you do it? Were there multiple Thanos? Did you gather Avengers from different universes?"
"No," Malrick answered.
"I found the first Thanos directly. All the others came afterward."
He watched Thor and Loki's performance on stage, then slowly began recounting how he had dealt with Thanos.
At the table, Tony pretended not to care, but his ears had definitely perked up.
By the time Malrick finished, Thor and Loki's performance had ended.
They had been the grand finale.
Now Tony and Pepper walked on stage to thank the guests, as a final curtain call.
As Thor was led off stage by Loki, Pepper rose from the table among high-ranking guests and moved to Tony's side.
"Peter." Tony stood, adjusting his lapel.
"Next time you face Thanos, come to me. The Anti-Superman Armor I made is no weaker than the real thing."
With that, Tony walked onto the stage holding Pepper's hand.
"These last few minutes of today," Tony's voice rang over the venue through the sound system, "I want to say one final thing."
"I have done two things in my life with a less than one percent chance of success.
One was — in a cave, building an Arc Reactor with my bare hands and implanting it into my chest without dying.
Because I survived that, I became Iron Man and built these armors."
As his voice trailed off, a shower of flames erupted in the sky above the venue.
They fell like meteors and landed near the stage.
Each flame revealed itself as a suit of armor — more than thirty suits, all varying models Tony had developed over the years.
The leading suit, dazzling and pink, caught Malrick's attention: it was the Mark 1 armor he had once spray-painted as a joke.
"How has it been preserved? Didn't Tony say he was going to repaint it?" Malrick asked, slightly stunned, off stage.
The Mark 1 still bore the engraving "Tony has a pink heart."
He hadn't expected Tony to keep even that.
The suit looked sleek and well-maintained, clearly not neglected.
That was very different from what Tony had said years ago about having J.A.R.V.I.S. repaint it.
Tony's hypocrisy wasn't surprising to Malrick.
He smiled, a little.
On stage, after the armors appeared, Tony pointed at Pepper.
"And the second thing I accomplished when success seemed unlikely," he said,
"was convincing the woman beside me — the one who could dismantle all my suits with her bare hands — to marry me."
Laughter and applause filled the venue.
Guests believed Tony was simply elevating Pepper's status, showing their union wouldn't be lopsided because of wealth.
But only Malrick and a few others knew Tony spoke the absolute truth.
"You have no idea how hard this decision was," Tony continued.
"But now…"
He raised Pepper's hand high.
"I will never regret it!"
Thunderous applause followed, a long, heartfelt outpouring.
As Tony and Pepper gave their thanks, the wedding officially ended.
Guests began to depart, one after another.
The Avengers left last.
Malrick handed the two time tablets back to Peter.
"Do me a favor. Return Deadpool's tablet and tell him to stop bothering J.A.R.V.I.S."
Peter's smile immediately shifted as he looked at J.A.R.V.I.S., and he took the tablets.
His brows drooped slightly.
Then he returned to the main universe.
Meanwhile, Tony donned his armor and flew into the clouds with Pepper.
As soon as Malrick saw them leave, Wanda grabbed his arm and said softly,
"Is there something else you haven't told me?"
"What do you mean?" Malrick replied.
"Let's go. We'll talk slowly after we get back and the lights are off."
A few days later, inside Malrick's inner world, the Rege Duo Clone floated high in the sky.
His body pulsed with terrifying, tide-like waves of light.
Pure energy spread layer by layer, filling the entire inner realm.
The world itself expanded wildly.
Then, in an instant, all the light converged.
The clone — once radiating a god-like aura — suddenly became calm and inscrutable.
Malrick guided his body down slowly.
"The feedback was too massive," he muttered.
"It took days to fully process."
"Twenty-four Thanos, each bent on destroying the universe and breaking the timelines."
He paused, looking around at the expanding realm.
"Defeating them was like saving twenty-four separate universes."
Each universe sent back a surge of power, slightly weaker than cosmic level.
Malrick sensed his state.
It was beyond anything describable; it was unimaginable.
Twenty-four powers layered together.
Now with a single thought, his Ultraman psychic ability could spread to every corner of the universe.
With another thought, he could alter the laws governing the entire reality.
Destroying the universe would be trivial.
"This is just from the clone," he realized.
"Without the Infinity Stones, my main body remains at a system-lord level.
But the clone…"
His expression hardened.
"How can a system compare to an entire universe?"
With that thought, the Rege Duo Clone instantly shifted.
In the blink of an eye, it appeared in the Ultraman world, drifting among the stars.
Countless energies converged within him.
"In the Ultraman universe, I may no longer be just an abstract entity,
but the power within me hasn't changed.
It's still super-cosmic."
Despite the vast distance between universes, his consciousness remained intact — the same as his main self in the Marvel world.
Only continuous energy input allowed the connection to stay alive after crossing universes.
Suddenly, a figure appeared before him — the original Rejedo.
Though sixty meters tall under normal circumstances, he now looked like a child compared to Malrick.
Rejedo scrutinized him, nodded once, then disappeared without a word.
He didn't even give Malrick a chance to reply.
"Rejedo…" Malrick whispered.
He could already sense Rejedo's strength.
In the Ultraman universe, his power ranked between super-cosmic and multi-cosmic.
Clearly, even Rejedo was taken aback by Malrick's sudden rise.
More importantly, Malrick had grown stronger not through domination but through justice and order — consistent with his promise when he left.
He had not misused Rejedo's power — and he had barely used it at all.
He didn't pursue Rejedo.
Instead, he activated his universe-traversing ability and returned to the Marvel world.
"Now that my strength has broken the single-universe threshold, I can sense it:
I am becoming a true abstract entity."
His eyes glowed brighter.
The Rege Duo Clone's body began to fade, becoming ever more illusory.
An abstract entity can take two forms: one conceptual, the other physical.
Previously, when he saw Eternity, Malrick noticed it existed in a state between the two.
Now, he was reaching that state himself.
"When in conceptual form, an abstract entity becomes immune to all physical and energy attacks.
Only attacks wielding cosmic rules can harm them.
If I choose to become physical again, then I may be vulnerable."
Malrick closed his eyes and focused.
He felt the power grow within him.
He had taken the first step toward becoming a being beyond universes.
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