Li Congxin vs. Ego

As the Any Door crackling with sparks and lightning opened before Gamora, a bald woman with blue skin and a body composed mostly of machinery stepped out, murder in her eyes. Terrifying divine power rippled from the Sword of the Night Sky in her hand.

Gamora knew this woman all too well. Who else could it be but Nebula, the woman who had been adopted by Thanos alongside her, defected from Thanos with her, and yet always loved causing her trouble?

Seeing that Nebula had escaped and somehow appeared right in front of her, Gamora rose from the ground with a grim expression. The muscles throughout her body instinctively tensed as she prepared for battle at any moment.

Nebula was no longer the weakling Gamora could casually beat down. She was now a terrifying enemy wielding an artifact, with strength that surpassed Gamora’s.

Violent divine power flowed across the Sword of the Night Sky. Nebula slowly raised her arm, pointing the blade at Gamora. "Gamora, I’m afraid no one will be able to step forward and help you today. Not even Thanos!"

Gamora sighed and shook her head. "Nebula, you really are impossible to shake off. Do you really want to win that badly?"

"Today, you’ll be the one becoming a ghost!" Nebula roared. She suddenly leaped forward, raised the Sword of the Night Sky high, and brought it crashing down toward Gamora’s head!

Gamora had always been stronger than Nebula. Even after Nebula’s extensive body modifications had greatly increased her strength, she had still never been Gamora’s match.

However, with the Sword of the Night Sky in her hand, the situation was completely different.

In the Marvel universe, the power of an artifact was enough to multiply a person’s strength. When facing an artifact, it was absolutely impossible to turn defeat into victory with mere combat skills.

This was not a wuxia world, after all.

That was because wielding an artifact like the Sword of the Night Sky could simultaneously improve the user’s strength, speed, reflexes, and other overall attributes. It could turn an ordinary person into an excellent warrior, and make someone who was already powerful even more invincible!

The moment they clashed, Nebula unleashed strength far beyond Gamora’s. She overwhelmed Thanos’s carefully trained adopted daughter in every aspect, beating her until she could not fight back at all. Gamora was formidable enough to withstand Nebula’s frenzied assault for more than thirty exchanges, but in the end, the Sword of the Night Sky shattered her weapon, and she finally lost.

Nebula stopped the blade of the Sword of the Night Sky at Gamora’s throat. Her state of mind suddenly changed. The resentment she had accumulated over many years was completely released at that moment, and even the Sword of the Night Sky in her hand seemed to grow several times closer to her. She felt as though she had finally broken free of every restraint and discovered her true self.

Looking at Gamora’s struggling expression as she prepared to close her eyes and await death, Nebula’s expression gradually returned to calm. "Actually, you’ve always been the one who wanted to win. I only wanted a sister."

After saying that, she withdrew the Sword of the Night Sky and calmly looked at Gamora’s stunned face.

Nebula broke through the shackles in her heart and completely opened herself up to Gamora. As for the sisters’ first heartfelt exchange, that was another matter. Elsewhere, Star-Lord, supposedly Marvel’s number-one liability, was facing the greatest crisis of his life.

Having awakened his Celestial genes, Star-Lord’s eyes now connected to the cosmic starry sky as he listened to Ego ramble on about his evil plan to conquer and expand his territory.

He was in a state of confusion, accepting Ego’s brainwashing while his mind was filled with the three great questions of the soul. That continued until he asked about the most important woman in his life—his mother.

"I really did love her. My little Lily knew the lyrics to every song that played on the radio…" As he spoke, Ego seemed to sink into a beautiful memory. "I returned to Earth to see her three times. And I knew that if I went back one more time, I would never be able to leave again."

His tone suddenly changed, and Ego’s expression grew pained. "Then my plan to conquer and expand my territory, along with the meaning of my life, would have been destroyed. So I made a choice I had no alternative but to make. The saddest part of that choice was putting a tumor in her brain…"

Upon hearing this, the deep eyes of Star-Lord suddenly became clear again, filled with hostility. "What—did—you—say!?"

"All right, I know it sounds terrible…"

Before Ego could finish speaking, Star-Lord had already drawn his energy gun and blasted the Ego before him into pieces.

His mother had always been Star-Lord’s greatest taboo. Touch it, and he would become enraged; once enraged, he would kill!

If the person who had harmed his mother was a Celestial, then he would raise his gun and slaughter a god!

If the person who had harmed his mother was his father, he would pull the trigger and kill his father without hesitation!

However, just as Li Congxin had told Rocket Raccoon and the others earlier, the Ego who communicated with people was only a clone. His true body was the planet beneath them!

The destruction of one clone caused Ego no actual loss.

His ruined body steadied itself again. Ego glared furiously at Star-Lord, who had dared defy him, and shouted hysterically, "You overestimate yourself! I worked so hard to mold you into perfection, and this is how you repay me?"

Star-Lord angrily replied, "You killed my mother!"

"It seems you need to mature a little more." As Ego spoke, he prepared to forcibly extract the divine power within Star-Lord. But just as he was about to act, his expression suddenly turned solemn. With a casual wave, a pillar of energy formed from divine power instantly became a cage, trapping Star-Lord securely inside. Then Ego’s figure flashed, and he appeared outside his palace.

In the movie, Rocket Raccoon and Yondu had directly crashed their spaceship into Ego’s clone, but Li Congxin’s arrival had caused Ego to react in advance.

This was not because Li Congxin’s appearance had made the situation worse than before. Rather, his arrival had forced Ego to take the matter seriously.

Ego’s true body was the planet they were standing on, Ego’s planet. It was impossible to land without escaping his notice. But ordinary people were nothing more than fleas to him, and he would only clear them away all at once when he had free time. While handling important business, he certainly would not interrupt himself over a single flea.

Li Congxin, however, was a Cosmic Deity. Even though his strength was suppressed in the material plane, he was still a terrifying existence whose power surpassed Ego’s.

A person could ignore a flea that suddenly landed on him, but he could not disregard a burly man who was charging at him menacingly—especially one taller and stronger than himself!

The Congxin One arrived above Ego’s planet, blotting out the sun and sky. Yet when Ego emerged from his palace, he did not even glance at the enormous spaceship. His eyes were fixed on the handsome young man floating before him.

"Prince Clark!?"

As the saying went, a person’s reputation cast a shadow like a tree. Li Congxin’s reputation for being undefeated throughout the universe was simply too great for Ego not to know him. Combined with the information he had obtained from other forces, Ego had naturally seen images of Li Congxin as well.

He just had not expected this little lunatic to come looking for him today—much less at such an inopportune time.

Ego stared grimly at Li Congxin’s faint smile and spoke first. "Your Highness, I’m in no mood to fight you. If you’ve come to challenge me, then congratulations—you’ve already won. I concede."

"Concede? I’m afraid it won’t be that simple." Li Congxin shook his head, completely unmoved. "Your evil plan involves devouring countless inhabited planets to satisfy your ambition of growing stronger. But you should never have included my homeworld, Earth, in your expansion plan. To guarantee Earth’s absolute safety, I didn’t come here to spar with you today. I came to kill you."

"Kill me?" Ego sneered. "Can you do it?"

"Boom!"

Before Ego’s voice had even faded, Li Congxin had already thrown a punch through the air. It struck Ego’s body and blew his divine-power clone into pieces.

But in the next moment, surging energy erupted from the entire planet. Ego’s voice rang across heaven and earth. "Your Highness, if you truly care so much about your homeworld, I can agree to withdraw the seeds I left there. How about we call it even?"

Though he said that, dense divine power suddenly gathered into reality. It intertwined like countless meridians, forming a gigantic fist that punched upward from below toward Li Congxin in midair.

"Hmph. As expected, you have no sincerity."

Li Congxin had known all along that Ego’s plan could not be stopped once it began. His gaze sharpened, and he threw a punch with his right hand to meet the enormous energy fist.

"Boom!"

The strength of two Celestials collided head-on. Terrifying power truly changed the color of heaven and earth, while Ego’s entire planet shook violently under the tremendous energy impact.

With nowhere to draw strength from, Li Congxin was blasted out of the atmosphere by the force of the rebound. Only then did he barely stabilize himself.

He moved his slightly numb arm and muttered, "Condensing the power of an entire planet… The might is certainly impressive. This fight is worth having!"

As the final word, "fight," left his mouth, Li Congxin once again dove toward Ego’s planet.

As a living planet, Ego possessed equally obvious advantages and weaknesses. Li Congxin was confident he could break through Ego’s divine-power restraints in a short time and land an attack directly on the planet that made up his true body.

Beneath the planet’s surface lay Ego’s brain. Li Congxin refused to believe that even Ego’s brain could withstand his heavy blow!

Just as Li Congxin charged into the atmosphere again, his expression suddenly changed.

Accompanied by a crisp birdcall, an Ego clone wreathed in flames shot into the sky and flew straight toward Li Congxin!