The extermination mission targeting a certain Skrull warlord—one placed on the Kree bounty list—had entered its final phase.
In the current star system, internally designated by the Divine Empress Order as Skrull X22—27, resistance across the primary planet III, resource worlds I and II, secondary planets IV and V, along with multiple militarized celestial satellites and orbital stations, had been largely eradicated.
A war of this scale was precisely the kind that allowed the 117th Strike Cruiser Fleet of the Inquisition's Daemon Judge Chapter—led by Master Chief John—to operate at peak efficiency.
After all, when the high command designed the organizational structure of a strike cruiser fleet, the hypothetical enemy and tactical response standards assumed that it would shoulder operations such as the occupation, suppression, and patrol of single-star or multi-star systems.
This particular Skrull warlord's strength was just right.
Not weak. His primary system governed a prosperous stellar region equivalent in scale to two or three Earth solar systems, with multiple stars, numerous life-bearing planets, fleets, fortifications, population centers, and a relatively advanced interstellar industry.
Such a target could fully mobilize the entire strike cruiser fleet under Master Chief John while simultaneously serving as a live-fire training ground.
Anything below this standard would provide insufficient pressure. The fleet would not even be able to deploy in full formation, nor would it allow the entire army to rotate through combat once. Anything above it, however, would make it difficult to effectively control equipment losses and personnel casualties.
Training the recruits also meant training the veterans.
The former hardened their courage, accumulated experience, and reshaped their mentality. The latter pushed the limits of their physical potential, refined their transformation, and honed their command abilities.
After deliberation among the fleet's senior officers under Master Chief John's leadership, a decision was reached—no distinction between auxiliary forces and servant legions. Every soldier would take command responsibilities.
So long as they returned to the Empire, there was no doubt that the servant troops who had participated in the Marvel Universe campaign would be elevated to auxiliary status. At that time, there would be no ordinary grunts left in the army. Everyone would receive promotion.
"Report. Skrull X22—27 Planet V has been cleared. Usable resources have been transported. The system database has been copied. Landing forces have begun withdrawal. Daemon Judge 5th Company withdrawing. Auxiliary forces and servant legions withdrawing. Mechanized units withdrawing. Drop troops withdrawing. Titan Legion withdrawing. Earth conscription units withdrawing..."
At the rendezvous holding point of the 117th Fleet.
On the edge of a heavy destroyer's combat deck, returning Earth conscripts moved back and forth between rows of instrument panels, enjoying a hard-earned, fleeting rest.
Monitoring screens displayed the overall situation within the star system. Beyond the towering arched viewports, authorized aircraft moved in and out of this region of space like birds returning to their nests. Orderly and precise, the broadcast voice of the servitor AI echoed throughout the deck compartment.
"Unfortunately, Abbott, Elliott, Maras... none of them made it back."
Holding two bottles of functional drinks labeled in an unreadable script—Imperial Common—Wolverine Logan walked over to Cyclops and Phoenix, who were leaning gloomily against the airtight shield railing.
"This isn't your fault."
He handed them the drinks.
"This is war. In this bastard's swamp of blood and mud, nobody knows what will happen the next second. The goddess of fate is a bitch—useless. The friend you spent every day with can turn into mutilated, stinking garbage by tomorrow. It sounds harsh, but Jean, Scott, you'll experience much more of this in the future."
He was comforting the two former teachers of Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters.
There was fortune, and there was misfortune. When mutants fought alongside veterans like Logan on Planet III, the older generation could protect and teach them. But separated elsewhere? If they lost their composure and charged recklessly, death was inevitable.
"Almost all the students in Class G were killed. The few who survived are still in intensive care. Even if their bodies recover, the psychological trauma is..."
"If I were stronger—if I could control that power..." Jean exhaled sharply. "Thank you, Logan. Without your seasoned experience, I don't know how many more students would have died because of my immaturity..."
Pressing her palms against her cheeks as she stifled sobs, Jean Grey took a deep breath, raised her head, and accepted the drink. After forcing herself to steady her emotions, she spoke solemnly.
"Scott and I have talked about it. Logan—we want you to lead us. They all speak highly of you."
"Huh?" Logan froze at her words.
"That's right," Cyclops Scott responded. "Compared to us, you've had years of military experience. In that regard, we're far too green."
When it came to teaching and leading in heroic-style battles, Scott outclassed Wolverine by miles. But this was war. There were no speeches, no theatrics—only kill or be killed. One moment of carelessness meant death, or worse, dragging comrades down with you. He was utterly exhausted.
"...I understand."
After a long silence, Logan tilted his head back and glug—drained the functional drink in one gulp. His scruffy face looked heavy.
"I'll do my best." He crushed the empty can in his hand and gave a bitter smile. "All that damn experience—from being a grunt to a junior NCO. Never thought it'd come in handy like this."
He had fought in World War I, World War II, the Vietnam War—nearly every major modern human conflict. He had been a mercenary, done time in prison. Some memories might fade, but the habits and instincts carved into muscle would not.
Logan had once thought that after entering the twenty-first century, an old relic like him—out of step with the times, dismissed by younger generations—would gradually be forgotten. He never expected to become a leader within the school and the X-Men.
How unpredictable the world was.
"Jean, there's something else you need to watch." Logan's tone grew serious. "That power of yours—you have to keep it under control. On Planet III, when you lost control, you almost affected the ones commanding the battle at the front. If there hadn't been someone assigned to watch you, and if it had caused internal casualties..."
He spoke in his harshest, most brutally honest voice.
"...you might have been dealt with. No—you definitely would have been."
Jean Grey fell silent.
In the fortress street fighting, she had watched as a Skrull blasted a hole through her student's chest right in front of her. Blood had splattered across her body, across her visor. In that moment, her mind had gone blank. She had wanted only one thing—to kill that Skrull.
When she regained consciousness, she saw, through a molten breach glowing with heat and dripping liquid metal, a smoke-filled crimson sky. Two knights stood there, guns in hand. A young woman in purple, and a handsome man with a tear mole beneath his eye. It was he who had pierced the skin of her brow with a crimson rose spear, snapping her back to clarity.
Jean lifted her hand and touched her brow, now healed without a trace.
"Diarmuid... the red rose that breaks enchantments," she murmured.
"I'll request reassignment under his command. His ability—anti-magic—can help steady my mind."
Her voice was firm.
Logan neither agreed nor objected.
Only Cyclops Scott frowned slightly.
He could not quite articulate what felt wrong about it.
Jean was his girlfriend—and his most capable assistant, when she wasn't losing control. If she could go, why couldn't he? As the leader of the X-Men after Professor X's death, he had to remain with this unit composed of former X-Men and mutants from Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters.
That tall, well-built, handsome man with the tear mole at the corner of his eye and the melancholic air about him... he should be fine, right?
"It'll be fine," Jean said to Logan and Scott, her gaze drifting toward the viewport.
"I was just thinking... if I could reach that level of power. Professor X once told me about my potential. If I could attain that kind of strength—if it only required me alone—I would willingly convert to the Divine Empress Order, devote my entire life in loyalty. For the sake of a new homeland for our mutants... do you think that goddess would grant it ahead of time?"
"Then we wouldn't have to keep sending Xavier's students and our companions onto battlefields like that."
She fell silent.
Outside the viewport, violently fluctuating cosmic radiation and luminous particles filtered through layer upon layer of shielding and fell across Jean's delicate face. Reflected in the blaze of distant firelight, it seemed as though a phoenix was spreading its wings within her eyes, shimmering with bright, fervent light.
"Maybe..." Logan muttered heavily.
Bzzzzzz—
Another blinding flare erupted. The fossilized black crust that had dimmed the star cracked open with a sharp krak, crimson flames wrapping around the once-stagnant sun. Like the stirring of a fetus, sunlight began to blaze across the darkened petrified surface.
"Heh... which god is it this time?"
Logan gripped the railing with both hands, his expression a complicated mixture of emotions.
You think the Divine Empress Order treats Earth conscripts like expendable materials and nobody complains? This is the answer.
A silhouette like an abyss tore across the dark void. A crimson vertical pupil hung suspended within it, gazing indifferently upon everything in the star system.
Size was the most direct form of oppression. The abstract, cosmic giant body of that goddess—merged with the universe itself—was larger than the entire Earth by an unimaginable margin... far beyond anything within their understanding of the human world.
"All for some so-called 'trial.' The gods don't act, so we mortals have to crawl through mud and chew blood for it. For a 'trial'? For piety? What a... fucked-up world."
It was terrifying, sure—but there was nothing to be afraid of anymore. They had been watching these 'gods' for days now. Numb to it. Besides, she wasn't attacking them. Even if she devoured a planet alive, what was there to fear?
Logan cursed under his breath and casually tossed the crushed can into the cylindrical hovering cleaning drone along the corridor. He turned toward the medical section.
"Fuck. What a fucked up universe."
...
The stirring of the Phoenix Force required regularization.
Diarmuid would be an excellent executor.
Within the void, Selene—who had separated a thread of her consciousness to monitor high-value targets—withdrew her awareness.
"Your Majesty, the evacuation shuttle formation has exited the planet's gravitational capture range and entered safe orbit."
Hearing this, Selene held a militarized celestial satellite before her. Her Gorgon-like divine body at this moment bore the unmistakable aesthetic of a Marvel cosmic entity—an abstract, dark-toned existence without face or form, only an outline. Extending another clawed limb, she lightly flicked the satellite with a slender blade-like finger.
The planet's crust began to hum and rumble.
"Heracles. Continue breaking it."
Within the shattered asteroid belt that had once been Skrull X22—27 Planet III, upon a fragment of a mountain range—what had once towered into the clouds was now nothing but bare rock. Twisted cities showed no trace of life. Endless forests had vanished, leaving behind scorched earth and powder-fine deserts.
At Selene's command, a towering man—no shorter than an Astartes, hair and beard flaring, muscles knotted like coiled steel—let out a thunderous roar.
"Hahhh—!"
Like the repulsive shockwave of a nuclear detonation, the great hero launched himself skyward, charging straight toward the descending satellite Selene had hurled.
The violent recoil force caused the continent-sized asteroid fragment beneath him to disintegrate instantly.
Roooooooom—!
At the instant of impact, the collision was almost imperceptible, too subtle for mortal eyes to catch. Yet in the next heartbeat, the planet's surface was torn open by colossal fissures. Lava beneath the crust burst forth like demons unleashed, vivid and blazing against the darkness of the void—like celestial flowers scattering—before solidifying again within moments.
This—this was the true Heracles.
Watching as, under her relentless tempering, he first swung mountains, then shattered continents, then smashed continental shelves, Selene nodded in satisfaction.
Behold the posture of this mighty man—a living recreation of a classical Greek statue. Pure internal magical power, worthy of being called cosmic energy, overflowed through muscle and blood alike. With mere presence, he dominated everything around him. A few seconds of movement alone were enough to inspire awe in any witness.
The true Heracles.
Simply by standing there, he brought about violent changes—even the vacuum itself seemed disturbed. And contrary to the crushing aura born of his strength, the great hero carried himself with the composure of a gentleman and a noble bearing.
Her efforts had not been in vain.
Over the past few days, Selene had allowed Heracles to practice his strikes upon Skrull mining worlds while awaiting the Empire's complete purge of each planet. From time to time, she would manifest and save someone here or there.
Once a planet's value had been thoroughly extracted, she would seize it, dismantle it, and hurl it toward Heracles.
That Heracles would be battered and bloodied under Selene's regimen was inevitable. She wanted him to break through himself at the very edge of death—again and again.
The size of the meteors she dropped increased step by step. From reef-sized fragments, to islands, peninsulas, tectonic plates, continental masses, planetary remnants—and now, entire planets crashing down upon him.
Even after days of witnessing it, the Earth conscripts within the 117th Fleet could not help but fall silent.
Using celestial bodies as punching bags. Good lord. Whatever rebelliousness they once harbored had long since vanished. Even hardened ex-convict soldiers now behaved like obedient children.
"Your trial ends here, Heracles. As you are now..." Selene's gaze swept across the surrounding void, and she smiled faintly. "This star system can no longer withstand your destruction."
"As for how you unlock the potential of your 'Limiter'—that is your own task. Accompany the army. Teach the younger generation. Take on hunter assignments in the field..."
Remember this. Master Chief is the root of our manifestation in this world. Protect him well.
Leaving those words within Heracles' heart, Selene's abstract form gradually dissolved, melting into flowing light before vanishing from the now-emptied star system.
Heracles pondered briefly, then turned his gaze toward another intact planet. There, his junior disciple was still undergoing his own trial. He decided to assist him—strengthen his 'training.'
"Yo, busy Empress... finished already?"
When Selene reconstituted her human form and returned to her private chamber, a communication from Esdeath came through almost immediately after.
Selene, who had just been organizing her thoughts and preparing to visit the Kree Empire, rolled her eyes at Esdeath's casual tone before nodding and glancing at the projection. "Speak."
"Wow. Not even giving me a chance to build suspense... Fine. It's news from Merlin. One piece of bad news—and two pieces of good news."
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