Flash took a step forward. The air shimmered. His sleeves began to smoke.
He opened his eyes and smiled.
The core cracked. A sound like the universe sighing escaped. And then—nothing. The harmonic field dissolved. The screen showing Earth flickered—and the Statue of Liberty snapped back to true. Oceans returned to their beds.
“Dale,” he whispered into his cracked helmet comm. Static. Then a hiss.
Flash craned his neck. The VPX Core wasn’t just a power source. It was a reality engine . Ming the Merciless had stolen it from the quantum smiths of Dimension X-47. With it, he wasn’t just conquering worlds—he was rewriting their physics. Earth’s gravity had already begun to stutter. Oceans were tilting sideways.