"How… how is this possible?" Ego stared upward in disbelief.
Under his command, more Celestial tentacles erupted from the ground, whipping toward Peter with lethal speed.
But the moment they neared him, an invisible barrier pulsed around Peter's glowing body… and the tentacles dissolved like smoke, unable to touch him.
"Impossible!" Ego hissed.
But the others felt something very different.
Gamora's fear shifted into astonished relief. Rocket's ears shot up and even Drax, still struggling to stand, stared stunned.
Peter wasn't dying.
Soren watched calmly from the air with a glimmer of approval in his eyes.
Peter's dormant Celestial core within him had fully activated.
And with it awakened… Ego's plan was finished.
"Peter." Soren called from above, voice steady and crisp, "Get them out of here. Leave Ego to me."
Below, entire mountain ridges cracked and shifted. The energy threading through Ego's world surged toward collapse.
Peter snapping out of his trance-like state. He looked at Ego… twisted by desperation and a flash of pain crossed his face.
His father.
He nodded.
Peter's newly awakened Celestial aura flared, creating a massive protective field. The writhing tentacles shattered against it like brittle glass.
He enveloped the Guardians within the glowing barrier, ushering them toward the battleship.
"Soren! Are you sure?" Freyja called as she backed toward the ship.
"That energy coming off Ego… is overwhelming."
Soren descended briefly, touching her hand with a reassuring calm. "If he were truly my equal… he wouldn't be losing control."
"…" Freyja then nodded.
She trusted him and left with the others.
Watching his tentacles fail to touch Peter, Ego's fury reached a breaking point.
All of this, every failure led back to one man.
Soren.
If not for him, Peter would be drained. Ego's divine power would have skyrocketed. His plan to consume the universe would already be in motion.
"AAAAAHHHH!" Instead… he was losing everything.
Ego screamed, hatred distorting his features as new tendrils, hundreds of them, erupted from the ground, ripping through the planet's crust and converging on Soren.
Ego unleashed everything.
But Soren blurred, instantaneously sliding through the storm of tentacles. None could touch him.
In the next heartbeat, he passed straight through Ego's humanoid avatar.
BOOM!
Ego's body exploded into a cloud of blue Celestial energy, scattering like mist.
But Soren didn't relax, he felt deep beneath the surface at the heart of the planet, was the true source.
A vast, monstrous power pulsing like a star about to go supernova.
To kill Ego, he would have to go deeper.
…
The battleship broke through Ego's atmosphere and shot into open space. Through the viewport, Star-Lord and the others finally saw the planet from a distance and their faces instantly paled.
Ego no longer looked like a world. Its surface contorting into a massive, snarling human face.
The spot they had just escaped from had become a gaping mouth large enough to swallow a fleet whole. Without Soren… none of them dared imagine what would've happened.
Peter's uneasy breathing fogged the glass.
"Freyja… Soren's okay, right? If he hadn't awakened my Celestial blood, I wouldn't have understood any of this. I just… I owe him."
"He'll be fine." Freyja's gaze stayed hard and steady.
Inside the planet, Soren faced an onslaught.
Ego's energy tentacles lashed out from every direction. He cut them down again and again, only for new ones to regenerate instantly. Even Ego's power seemed endless.
Enough. Soren's eyes narrowed.
His form blurred and vanished.
When he materialized again, he was deep within Ego's star-core.
The hollow chamber pulsed with cerulean light. Countless luminous filaments stretched from the walls toward a huge, radiant sphere suspended at the center… Ego's true heart. His origin.
A roar trembled through the chamber as Ego fully awakened. Energy surged, forming a colossal face right before Soren, its expression twisted with fear and anger.
Ego had sensed exactly where Soren stood.
"Soren!" The planet's voice shook, literally. "I didn't provoke you! I even let Peter and the others go. We can talk, we don't need to fight!"
For the first time, Ego sounded frightened.
He knew if Soren unleashed any spatial destruction here, even a Celestial like him would cease to exist forever.
"I warned you." Soren only stared coldly. "You made your choice, now you live with the consequences."
"NO!"
A blade of pure space tore into existence and shot forward.
It pierced straight through the massive energy-face and struck the core's outer shell. The metallic layer almost indestructible, still cracked under the cut. A chunk of it dissolved into nothingness.
"STOP!" Ego shrieked in terror.
"Soren! Please, whatever you want, I'll give it! Just~ just state your terms! I will meet them, no matter what they are!"
That hardened shell was Ego's last protection. If Soren cut through it again, he'd reach the Celestial origin itself.
"It's too late." Soren didn't hesitate.
Dozens of space blades bloomed around him like a storm of silver light and rained down. The star-core's armor collapsed into shards that disintegrated into the void.
What remained was a single, perfect orb of brilliant blue… beautiful and deadly like a newborn star.