After a period of selection, Bai Qi made his decision and would proceed to absorb the Power Stone.
As the bridge was re-established, the energy of the Power Stone flowed into Bai Qi's body.
This time, Bai Qi did not possess the same composure as he had when absorbing the Mind Stone and the Space Stone.
Bai Qi's brow furrowed, and a muffled thumping sound emanated from within his body, his muscles trembling incessantly.
This was not the most terrifying part; the truly horrifying aspect was yet to come.
The dull drumming continued for over ten minutes before abruptly stopping. The next moment, *bang*!
Bai Qi's left arm suddenly exploded, a gory mess, even the bones within shattered. Although Bai Qi's exceptionally strong recovery quickly mended the seemingly horrific injuries, this was merely the beginning.
The first explosion acted like a switch, and then, one after another, they bloomed across Bai Qi's body like flowers. The lighter ones merely tore at his skin and flesh, while the heavier ones pulverized his bones into dust.
This was the symptom of absorbing the Power Stone.
As the most violent of the six Infinity Stones, once Bai Qi absorbed its energy into his body, the rampaging energy surged erratically within him, like an uncontrollable truck barreling forward.
If it were just that, it wouldn't be so bad. But this truck was also loaded with explosives, so even a minor collision would trigger a violent detonation.
Even Thanos only dared to borrow the power of the Power Stone. Absorbing the stone's power directly into one's body, as Bai Qi was doing, would likely not last even a minute.
Fortunately, Bai Qi possessed a degree of immortality. Even though he was not in his home world, this trait was somewhat retained. Coupled with Bai Qi's potent regenerative abilities, his body could quickly repair the damage inflicted by the Power Stone's chaotic energy.
However, as more of the stone's energy entered Bai Qi's body, the explosions became increasingly frequent and violent. Even Bai Qi's nearly monstrous regeneration ability began to strain.
Gradually, the wounds on Bai Qi's body that his regeneration could not keep up with began to multiply. Fortunately, Bai Qi was currently submerged in scorching lava, which could be considered his half-home ground.
Finally, with only his head remaining relatively intact, Bai Qi completed the absorption of the Power Stone's energy.
Looking at Bai Qi's current state, a massive dragon head had collapsed by half. Below it, no flesh and blood could be seen; only less than thirty percent of the dragon's bones stubbornly remained. The surrounding lava was filled with the blood and bone fragments that had splattered outwards due to the explosions.
But none of that mattered. What was important was that Bai Qi had finally completed the absorption, gaining complete control of the Power Stone's power in this world.
Next, he had to repair his broken body.
As Bai Qi willed it, the scattered flesh and bone fragments floating in the lava rapidly converged towards him. Together with newly growing flesh and bone, they formed Bai Qi's new body.
Just as Bai Qi was rapidly healing his mangled form, a new variable appeared outside the volcano.
A portal materialized out of thin air, and from it emerged a zombified Doctor Strange and a zombified Iron Man. Subsequently, more portals appeared around them, and zombified Kamar-Taj sorcerers poured out, swiftly surrounding the volcano where Bai Qi was hidden.
These zombified Kamar-Taj sorcerers did not come alone; they continued to open more portals, teleporting in even more zombies.
However, unlike ordinary zombies, these teleported zombies wore mechanical helmets similar to motorcycle helmets on their heads, and their chests and limbs also bore signs of modification, with large portions of their flesh replaced by machinery.
Without a doubt, seeing these uniformly modified zombies, it was evident they were the work of the zombified Tony Stark.
Indeed, as the number of modified zombies reached a sufficient amount, the zombified Iron Man lightly tapped his ear twice, and a mechanical helmet, about seventy percent similar to the ones controlling the zombies, was donned by Iron Man.
After completing his donning, the zombified Iron Man made a slight adjustment to the armor on his arm, and the chaotic modified zombies instantly became orderly.
With all this done, Iron Man looked at Doctor Strange beside him and said, "Let's begin."
Doctor Strange nodded, clasped his hands together in mid-air, and began drawing circles.
Soon, a portal was completed, and scorching lava began to flow out.
The purpose of their presence here was simple: to interrupt Bai Qi, who was absorbing the power of the Infinity Stone, and seize all four Infinity Stones he possessed.
Some might wonder why Bai Qi's absorption of the Mind Stone went so smoothly before, and why these two suddenly appeared now.
The answer was simple: all of this was due to the intervention of the world's will.
When Bai Qi first arrived in this world, he had probed the world's consciousness. The result, however, greatly surprised him.
Even with his meticulous senses, Bai Qi could not perceive the existence of this world's will.
This situation could only arise from two possibilities: either the world's will was disturbed by some factor and had fallen into a deep slumber, or the world's will was extremely weak, so weak that Bai Qi could barely sense it.
It was precisely because of this that Bai Qi dared to ransack this world's Infinity Stones and openly plunder the world's origins.
As Bai Qi had suspected, this world's will belonged to the latter category, currently in an extremely weakened state.
It was rather interesting; this world's will was in a similar situation to Bai Qi's home world. For some reason, the world was entering a period of decline. Even though the world's will had made numerous efforts to reverse this situation, all had ended in failure, leaving itself heavily injured. Furthermore, there was no entity in this world capable of turning the tide like Bai Qi.
In desperation, the world's will chose to give up on humanity and, with its limited remaining influence, orchestrated events so that Scott Lang, who went to the Quantum Realm to rescue his wife, would bring the terrifying quantum virus back to this world.
That's right, after abandoning humanity, the world's will, in a gamble, chose zombies, which carried extreme risks and were difficult to control, as the capital for its resurgence.
After completing all of this, the world's will, due to excessive interference, had to enter a brief period of dormancy, which was why Bai Qi had not detected its presence initially.
Incidentally, if Bai Qi had not interfered, the terrifying potential of the quantum virus could not only have led to the world's will's resurgence but also had a high probability of the developed zombie civilization eventually invading other worlds on a large scale.