Chapter 69: Time Management

The next day.

Martin awoke refreshed, his expression calm and satisfied. He rose with the fluid grace of someone who had rehearsed each movement a thousand times, every gesture precise and deliberate as he dressed.

Behind him, the room was a battlefield of torn clothing; shredded garments strewn across the floor like discarded war banners. Most telling among them was a black cloak, now reduced to a dozen tattered strips, silent testimony to the chaos of the night before.

Death lay in the bed, her expression twisted with fury. Her obsidian eyes glared at Martin, smoldering with unquenchable rage.

"I've heard that people see you differently, that your form shifts depending on the viewer. Seems I got lucky."

Martin's lips curled into a cold smirk as he calmly buttoned his shirt. His face radiated smug satisfaction, clearly, he was immensely pleased with what had transpired.

Her form, her voice, her beauty, her presence, it had all been flawless. An experience like no other. No gourmet delicacy could rival that indulgence.

Once fully dressed, Martin stood tall and imposing above Death. In his hand, two Infinity Stones pulsed with cosmic power. Their radiance had only just begun to subside, enough to loosen the suppressive grip that had rendered Death nearly motionless.

"Since the birth of the multiverse," Death said coldly, eyes swirling with necrotic energy, "no one has ever dared to violate me like this…"

Her words summoned a surge of endothermic entropy, an invocation of termination itself, crashing toward Martin like a divine judgment.

But the Infinity Stones shimmered, their glow erupting in an instant, shattering the deathly edict as if it were paper before a flame.

Martin stepped forward and, without hesitation, seized Death by the throat, pulling her close before pressing a punishing kiss to her lips. When he pulled away, his eyes burned with contempt.

"No one dared before because they were cowards, worshipping you like some untouchable goddess. But I'm different. I don't see any essential difference between Death and anything else in this universe. Whether you're divine or mortal, it's all the same to me."

The only variable had been whether he felt like doing it.

And last night, he had.

She had walked willingly into his domain.

Because Martin wasn't some pathetic, simping fool like Thanos, Marvel's poster boy for galactic-grade self-humiliation.

That idiot had wielded the complete Infinity Gauntlet, power that rivaled the Five Cosmic Abstracts, and what did he do with it?

Snap away half the universe just to impress Death?

What a joke.

With the full set of Infinity Stones, Death should've been the one on her knees, completely at his mercy. Instead, that lunatic destroyed half of existence as a gift to her?

Insane.

And don't even get started on the Thanos who obtained the Heart of the Universe, an omniversal powerhouse still drooling over Death like a loyal puppy.

At least Controller Thanos had some backbone. After merging with the One-Above-All, the first thing he did was consume Death herself. Now that was a logical move.

Martin wasn't some masochistic devotee begging for scraps of affection. He had no reverence for Death. And standing before her now, he certainly didn't behave like a man before his divine crush.

He just did what he wanted.

"You need to understand something," Martin said, his voice calm, cold. "You came to me. You offered yourself to me. Why in the hell would I turn that down? Your objective here is complete. You can go now."

Death stared at him for a long moment. The fury in her eyes slowly receded, replaced by something else; curiosity, perhaps. She sat up, her body flawless, moving with the unshakable composure of a being beyond time.

"Martin," she said, her voice low and silky, "you really are something else. Unique. I'll be watching you, closely. You'd better stay strong. You'd better never slip. Because the moment you do, I'll be there to take your soul and lock you away in my eternal grip. And then you'll be the one begging me for mercy…"

Martin chuckled.

"I think it'll be the other way around. You'll be the one kneeling, pleading for my favor. Honestly, that outcome seems far more likely."

Death vanished into the void, and with her, the suffocating aura of decay that had lingered in the room finally dissipated.

Martin sat down, pulled over a chair, and poured himself a cup of coffee. He lifted the mug, inhaled the bitter aroma, and let a faint smile creep across his face.

The bitterness rolled over his tongue, warm and grounding. There was something deeply satisfying about it.

Truly… an exquisite experience. Addictive, even.

"You won't be hoping to visit me again," Martin muttered with a dark smile. "Even if you were one of the Creators themselves, you'd never want a repeat of that."

He laughed quietly to himself. It was time to prepare for what came next.

After a brief moment of contemplation, he downed the rest of the coffee and stood. Stepping out into the open air, he emerged onto the topmost tier of a colossal steel citadel, thousands of meters high. Below, legions of Transformers moved with military precision, their gleaming frames in constant motion.

The wind roared past him. His heart beat higher than the sky.

His grand conquest… was only just beginning.

Martin lifted his gaze once more, eyes piercing the vastness of cosmic vacuum. He watched silently as stars were born and planets died across the heavens.

If a single universe already held such spectacle, then what would the infinite multiverse contain?

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