Every ti she fought Lyon, Carol felt like she had reverted to being an ordinary person.
Because she never had the power to resist him.
Just like now.
Faced with Lyon's reaching hand, she hadn't even had ti to react before her neck was firmly clamped in his grasp.
Ugh..
A powerful sense of suffocation instantly overwheld her. She felt the blood to her brain begin to cut off, her face flushing red.
She struggled desperately to break free, but Lyon used his other hand to restrain both of her arms.
Before Carol could put up more resistance, she was suddenly turned around—forced to face the sea of fire and debris stretching for miles across space from the earlier explosions. Amidst the scattered wreckage, she could see a few remaining spacecraft accelerating away.
A sense of foreboding surged in her heart.
Even though this was the pitch-black, frozen silence of space, where sound could not travel, Lyon's voice suddenly echoed in her mind like a demonic whisper.
"You want to protect the remaining Skrulls, right? Then watch closely—watch and see just how much you can really protect."
Carol hadn't even reacted yet when two scarlet beams of heat vision suddenly burst out from beside her.
The blazing rays sliced through the dark void of space—and then through every remaining Skrull ship. One after another, the ships exploded.
Every burst of firelight marked the death of dozens of Skrull lives. Amid the searing white light, no one survived.
This grand display of fireworks in outer space had finally reached its last piece of the puzzle—and ca to a perfect close.
At that mont, this part of the solar system felt as if it had been split in two.
On one side, the warm sunlight of the sun spilled forth.
On the other, a chain of explosions, drifting wreckage, and cold, lifeless corpses.
And here they were, in the very center of it all, witnessing the extinction of an entire race.
"No… don't…" Carol felt her whole heart sink.
What could be more heartbreaking than watching, with her own eyes, the lives she'd tried to save vanish one after another?
She couldn't save anything. She couldn't protect anyone.
Carol's eyes turned red as she looked at Lyon, fury boiling within her, on the verge of screaming at this butcher.
But Lyon raised a hand to signal: "Hold on a mont."
He turned around and looked at the hundreds of Super Skrulls behind him.
With his telepathy, he transmitted ntally: "All of you under my command - Don't stay on Earth."
"Go out into the universe. Bring back high-level energy treasures and top-grade spirit artifacts. And while you're at it, bring Thanos's head."
"Oh, and don't forget the Skrulls still fleeing across the galaxy. Make sure to reunite them with the rest of your fellow kin. The last thing I want is for them to plot against , so every Skrull should die together in one big, lively gathering."
The Super Skrulls, upon hearing this, responded with imdiate obedience.
None of them showed the slightest objection to Lyon's contempt.
They all ignited their photon energy and shot out of the solar system.
Nearly a thousand streaks of light traveled together, like a teor shower across the sky—truly a magnificent sight.
Carol watched the departing Super Skrull army, feeling sowhat confused.
She had thought these people were all under Lyon's mind control. Otherwise, how could they be so indifferent to their own race's extinction?
But now it seed… weren't they moving freely? Weren't they… just fine?
Could it be these people were actually Skrull traitors who had made so kind of deal with Superman?
Carol's heart was filled with countless doubts and grief, but in the very next mont, all she felt was despair.
Suddenly, a powerful force gripped her neck.
Carol only saw a flash before her eyes.
She had already been brought back to Earth by Lyon.
Before she could even be surprised by Superman's speed, she was casually flung to the ground.
She looked up at Lyon as he walked toward her, his shadow—stretched by the sunlight—casting over her.
Then he spoke coldly:
"Carol, since 1989, when you gained great power from the energy of the Space Stone, until now…"
"In over twenty years, it seems you've gradually forgotten your identity as a human of Earth."
"Perhaps many races across the galaxy are grateful for the help you've given them."
"But clearly, Earth is no longer among them."
"The war between Earth and the Skrulls is a universal conflict. You've repeatedly sided with the Skrulls—that's no different from being a traitor."
Lyon's chilling voice sent a wave of dread through Carol.
She instinctively backed away a few steps. "What are you trying to do?!"
"Very simple—strip you of your power."
Lyon extended his hand, and the energy of the Space Stone surged from the world within his body.
Although it had only been a little over a month since his battle with Dormammu, with the effects of ti acceleration, an entire year had already passed within the internal world of his body.
And within that world, Blood Sea had spent that year comprehending both the Ti and Space Stones.
The Ti and Space Stones were essentially manifestations of the fundantal laws of the universe.
After such a long period, Lyon's mastery of the laws—and his ability to wield the stones—had grown drastically, worlds apart from before.
What's more, Captain Marvel's power originally ca from the Space Stone.
For Lyon, using the Space Stone to extract the source of her power was as easy as lifting a finger.
"No! You can't do this! This is my power—you can't, and you don't have the power to do this!" Carol panicked the mont she heard his words.
She didn't believe Lyon had that kind of ability. But she also didn't dare bet on it.
Terrifying photon energy ignited around her, and torrents of imnse power blasted out desperately as she tried to flee Earth.
But the energy of the Space Stone spread out in an instant, imdiately locking her in place.
That energy bound her where she stood, and under her terrified gaze, it began to bore into her body, spreading into every single cell.
"Why can't I do this?" Lyon held out his palm toward Carol.
"When you played the superhero across the galaxy, I doubt you ever hesitated to interfere in other people's lives—regardless of whether they wanted your help or not."
"I'm only doing the sa thing you've done—so why can't you accept it?"
"Every unfavorable situation simply cos down to one thing: your power isn't strong enough."
"Now that your power is beneath mine, it's only natural that I can do whatever I want to you."
Back in the illusionary realm of the Swallowed Star universe, Lyon had already co to understand one ultimate truth: Power is everything.
He gently flicked his fingers.
The Space Stone's energy, which had already spread to every corner of Carol's body, suddenly surged like a dam bursting—raging outward.
And with that flood of energy ca the very source of Carol's power.
She imdiately felt the change within herself—and began to panic.
"No! You can't do this!"
With every passing second, she could feel her body growing weaker. The photon energy that once flowed so easily through her was rapidly slipping away.
Even the body that had been enhanced by photon energy was now deteriorating at an alarming rate.
She was like a spacecraft carried high into the sky by a rocket—suddenly losing its propulsion, and now accelerating into freefall, returning to the place it truly belonged.
"From this day forward, you will live once more as an ordinary person—tornted day and night—repenting for your betrayal of Earth."
Lyon extracted the final trace of Carol's origin power and looked down at her from above.
"As soone who once possessed extraordinary power, I know you'll never truly repent. In that case—drown in your own stubbornness, powerless and mundane."
Lyon's words struck Carol's mind like thunderclaps.
She clenched her teeth, pointed at Lyon, wanting to say sothing.
—Like how she had overco countless setbacks in the past, and that the one thing she had never learned… was how to bow her head.
But the backlash from losing the very source of her power caused her body to convulse violently, and she collapsed into Lyon's shadow.
She was utterly weakened—her once taut skin began to loosen, revealing scars.
With the loss of her extraordinary origin, her seemingly ageless appearance finally began to erode under the assault of ti.
"No… how can this be… my body… what's happening to ?!"
Carol stared at her own hands in horror, her voice drifting like soone suffering from a long and wasting illness.
______
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