People sometimes laughed when they were utterly helpless.
After seeing Hogg reveal his true colors, Ancient One was devastated—or rather, Natalie was devastated.
That villainous speech, delivered with all the smugness of someone whose scheme had succeeded, immediately reminded Natalie of the extradimensional Chaos God her teacher had told her about. Every gift came with its price already marked; all that remained was for some unlucky fool to bite the bait. And she was obviously that unlucky fool!
As a powerful being capable of using the Infinity Stones to forcibly carve out a little pocket of space in the void, Natalie didn't give up, even after losing her energy source. Instead, she used her powerful soul to commune with the world around her, hoping to guide its power into a counterattack.
"Shameless fiend, I'll never make peace with you!"
Her powerful soul began to surge. After shouting her defiant challenge, Natalie didn't stand and fight. Instead, she made a show of thunder with no rain, pulling a disappearing act and hurling herself into the Warp in her spiritual form.
When she saw that Hogg hadn't followed her and was still standing there like a fool, Natalie, now in a spiritual state, mocked him:
"Ha ha ha! Bet you didn't see that coming! I was prepared for you all along. This is my escape route, y'know!"
Watching Natalie vanish into the void, Hogg smiled without a word. He neither pursued her nor berated her. Instead, he caught her limp body as it collapsed from the loss of its soul, all while maintaining his air of detached wisdom.
This bizarre reaction left Natalie utterly baffled. She had no idea what Hogg was doing. She'd already escaped—shouldn't he be furious?
But in the very next instant, as Natalie forcibly linked her soul to