When the planet exploded, Star-Lord and the others were already aboard Yondu's spaceship.
As the explosion spread, they quickly attempted to escape the collapsing planet.
Along the way, they also rescued Mantis, who had originally come to meet them with Ego.
The group hurriedly piloted the ship away from the planet.
However, they were still struck by the shockwaves of the planetary explosion.
Chunks of planetary debris slammed violently into the ship.
The impact tore a massive hole in the hull.
Star-Lord and Yondu were thrown out into space.
Even as the planet continued to explode behind them, countless fragments of debris were still rushing toward the damaged ship.
At that moment, Karl and his group appeared in space nearby.
The debris from the planetary explosion passed harmlessly through their bodies.
It posed no threat to them at all.
This time Karl had learned his lesson.
He immediately activated the Time Stone, interfering slightly with the timeline to stabilize the surrounding events.
At the same time, he noticed Star-Lord and Yondu drifting helplessly in space.
With a casual gesture, Karl manipulated nearby debris to form a temporary shield behind them.
The fragments blocked the incoming wave of destruction.
Meanwhile, the familiar emotional scene unfolded.
Neither Star-Lord nor Yondu could survive long in the vacuum of space.
And there was only one breathing mask.
Without hesitation, Yondu placed the mask onto Star-Lord's face.
Then Yondu himself began freezing in the vacuum.
Karl watched silently.
For a moment he remained indifferent.
Finally, he sighed.
A flash of light from the Horse Talisman and the Space Stone appeared.
In the next instant, both Yondu and Star-Lord were teleported back inside their damaged spaceship.
At the same time, Yondu's body was restored by the Horse Talisman's healing power.
As for whether their damaged ship could escape the system—
That was no longer Karl's concern.
Afterward, Karl disappeared from the battlefield together with:
YanBlack PhoenixHela
Inside the damaged spaceship, Gamora and Rocket were stunned when Star-Lord and Yondu suddenly appeared again.
They quickly checked Yondu's condition.
To their surprise, he wasn't dead at all.
Star-Lord soon remembered something.
The mysterious group who had killed his father had been nearby earlier.
And before leaving, they had glanced in his direction.
Since they were also from Earth, it seemed likely that they were the ones who saved him and Yondu.
Only people with such terrifying power could have done it so casually.
Thinking of this, Star-Lord looked toward the area where Karl had been.
But they were already gone.
Rocket then piloted the damaged spaceship away from the star system.
Their destination was Yondu's headquarters.
Meanwhile, Karl returned to Skyblade VII.
Working together with the Vast Knowledge Treasury, he began capturing the remaining stars of the star system and storing them inside his dimensional space.
As the captured stars increased, Karl could clearly feel the stellar energy transmitted into his body growing stronger.
Soon afterward, Karl gave a new command.
"Haohan."
"Set course for Earth in the Milky Way."
"Activate wormhole space travel."
Karl sat comfortably on the sofa in the living room, holding Black Phoenix in his arms.
It was finally time to return.
After all—
His goddaughter Morgan was about to celebrate her first birthday.
With Haohan managing the ship, Karl rarely needed to visit the cockpit.
Only Yan had frequent reason to operate there.
The AI immediately responded.
[Yes, sir.]
[Locating Earth in the Milky Way…]
[Wormhole coordinates locked.]
[Initiating wormhole space travel.]
Moments later, a massive wormhole opened ahead of the warship.
Under Haohan's control, Skyblade VII plunged directly into it.
Once the ship entered the wormhole, the portal closed behind it.
The vessel began traveling through subspace, heading toward Earth.
Meanwhile, the death of Ego attracted the attention of several Single-Universe-level entities across the cosmos.
Although Ego was relatively weak among cosmic beings, he was still connected to the Celestial race.
Now two Celestial beings had been killed within a short period of time.
This made many cosmic powers uneasy.
They all wondered the same thing:
Who was bold enough to hunt members of the Celestial race?
However, because Karl had interfered with the timeline using the Time Stone and the Self Stone, they were unable to observe the events clearly.
Even those who possessed mastery over time were unable to uncover the truth.
Many of them began to feel that the cosmos was approaching a period of chaos.
Meanwhile, Karl himself was completely unaware of the growing storm.
He continued traveling toward Earth aboard Skyblade VII, carefree and relaxed.
Most of his time during the journey was spent flirting with his women.
At the same time, his strength continued increasing every day.
Meanwhile, May, Raven, Helen Cho, Peter, Pietro, and the others gradually began awakening their Kryptonian abilities after absorbing stellar radiation.
This excited Pietro and Peter immensely.
They spent almost every day inside the testing chamber, experimenting with their new powers.
Even Natasha and the others occasionally joined them for practice.
Karl simply watched with a smile.
They needed time to adapt to their suddenly increased strength and unfamiliar abilities.
Karl himself didn't have that problem.
The Celestial Evolution Stone Tablet constantly maintained perfect balance within his body.
Every part of his strength was evenly distributed.
There were no unstable fluctuations.
At that moment, Karl once again visited Yan's private garden.
As usual, he held Yan in his arms and whispered sweet words to her.
Yan couldn't help blushing.
After all, hearing sweet talk from one's lover was very different from simply imagining it.
Meanwhile, somewhere near Ego's destroyed star system, two enormous figures appeared.
They were members of the Celestial Host.
Another member of their race had just died.
They could hardly believe it.
They began investigating the area, hoping to identify the killer.
In the end, they only managed to recover traces of residual energy left behind by Karl's attack.
When they compared it with the energy traces from the previous Celestial's death—
They discovered the same signature.
Someone was deliberately targeting the Celestials.
The two Celestials were furious.
But there was little they could do.
This time, even the temporal observation methods produced no visual record.
They could only collect the remaining energy fragments.
Later, they would attempt to analyze the energy and track its origin.
After gathering every trace of Karl's energy signature, the two Celestials finally departed.
...
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