"There's been a battle here... No, a massacre. Interstellar pirates, marauders... Was it for money, or revenge?"
"I'd guess it was for money."
Having disengaged from superluminal cruise and its high-speed traversal state, Selene smiled faintly, as if sketching a light stroke with her pen. She stood in the void itself, following Karna's vigilant gaze as she surveyed the tragic scene before them.
What a magnificent space graveyard.
Though much time had already passed, the murky region of space still shone as bright as day.
"The Power Stone..."
Countless clusters of violet energy floated like burning miniature nebulae. Sparse arcs of flame twisted and bent under the radiance of nearby stars. Wrecked starships drifted aimlessly, molten fragments of metal turning without pattern.
Whole or shattered, flesh intertwined with flesh. Twisted, charred, frozen corpses cast hellish shadows across this cosmic burial ground—thin traces of gas and scattered transmission mediums allowing faint echoes to linger.
Broken beyond recognition, flickering between light and darkness, severed limbs lay scattered across dozens of kilometers of empty space. Machinery melted by extreme heat and rapidly cooled into iron slag drifted beside them, sketching fleeting apocalyptic abstractions between corpse and corpse.
"For money?"
Beneath translucent white shards of hair, the emerald eyes of the Son of the Sun flickered with a trace of emotion.
It was disgust. Resistance.
His Master's command was one thing. But a hero who grants mercy would naturally loathe such acts.
"Whether it was for money or not, we can just ask. You probably don't enjoy soul-searching or devouring the brains of the dead for interrogation. Hmm... They shouldn't all be dead... I think."
Selene added that last line, then waved her hand, signaling Karna to search the battlefield.
"Asgardians."
She reached out and caught a piece of "space junk" that had been cleaved halfway through by a blade.
A round shield.
Exquisitely crafted, its surface covered in delicate bronze patterns that twisted like the branches of the World Tree in the myths of the Nine Realms, encircling at the center a palace-style cross resembling the Cross of Saint John.
Zzz—
Her claw scraped across it. The rejection feedback of magic was clear.
Technology and sorcery fused into one—distinctive Asgardian craftsmanship... Selene mused, flicking away a helmet adorned with enormous curved horns using the shield. Nothing more than that—the congealed beads of blood and some pale pinkish substance had clearly been roasted through, carrying the fragrance of baked brain matter...
"It seems that for the Hammer God to become a true God of Thunder, this calamity was fated for the Son of Odin... Has the Asgard of the Aesir truly been destroyed by Ragnarok—the Death Goddess Hela and the Fire Giant Surtur?"
Selene released the broken Asgardian shield and lifted her head, scanning this graveyard of the Asgardian people.
She had not followed the distress signals from the Asgardian refugee fleet. The reason she could locate this place so precisely was the mutual resonance between primordial singularities after the activation of a Gemstone's power.
The universe was far too vast.
This was not a film, where a cut of the scene instantly carried you to the other end of the cosmos.
Without universe-level strength, even superluminal travel across the stars was slow. Even if Chief John's 117th Fleet had circled the Nova Empire, Knowhere, Midgard—the Solar System in Asgardian terms—and the Skrull Andromeda Galaxy, fighting life-and-death battles along the way...
Information could spread quickly—or not at all. It depended entirely on whether one was attentive, and whether one had the channels.
Without reaching the Asgardian palace. Without storming the Grandmaster's arena on Sakaar. The Asgardian civil war would not simply cease because a Gorgon Servant descended in the form of a demonic beast goddess.
Selene extended a claw and stirred the ghostly violet gaseous flames.
Fwoom!
The stellar-cancer-like violent energy clusters drifted within the arc of her scythe-like talons.
The nature of the Power Stone—through it, one could command and control nearly all forms of force and energy. One could replicate every physical capability, infinitely amplifying the user's attack and defense.
In theory, if one's mastery were sufficient—if the Gemstone truly acknowledged them, if they could endure the scouring of that primordial singularity power, if their compatibility reached one hundred percent—then they would possess physical strength infinitely vast, equal to the universe itself. Described through the fundamental principles of cosmic operation, one would become the physical universe.
A pity. Such a being had never appeared. If one had, they quickly abandoned it.
Those who could not do it truly could not.
Those who could simply disdained it.
In other words, if one truly possessed the qualification and ability to completely master and unleash a Gemstone's power, who would entrust their entire existence to an external force? To ascend directly to godhood, to claim supreme power as one's own, to elevate oneself into a law of the universe itself—was that not the path taken by most of the ancient primordial gods of Marvel?
For example, Thanos' ancestor—the Titan, once the supreme leader of the Eternals, Kronos—abandoned his physical body and elevated his consciousness into the embodiment of an abstract cosmic concept: the incarnation of Time itself.
A cosmic god second only to the five primordial creators of the universe. Comparable even to the Celestials.
With an experimental mindset, Selene gathered the violet gaseous flames still lingering in the void, repeatedly attempting to suppress them using the fragmented powers available to her Servant vessel.
Hm... Something green?
While violently dismantling a section of wrecked hull plating and scraping off dense layers of violet fire from warped alloy seams, Selene paused. In a collapsed depression of the lower deck, she saw a flash of green.
She seemed to realize something.
She heard a sound—a faint, extremely faint breathing.
Rip—!
Violet-red cosmic energy flashed. Selene's energy tendrils pierced and tore through the wreckage, dragging out a heavily wounded green-skinned giant.
Humanoid. Bare upper body. A pair of dark shorts. Barefoot. Broad and imposing in build, muscles knotted across his frame.
The Hulk.
But hadn't the horned gatekeeper of Asgard sent him back to Earth via the Bifrost?
And this condition... Tsk. Miserable. His chest had caved in, bone fragments nearly piercing through skin. Both arms were dislocated. Even his skull had been dented inward. One could imagine the brutal beating Bruce Banner had endured while trying to block Thanos.
Unconscious. Sustained only because his brain's self-preservation instinct had transformed him into the Hulk to endure it. If he reverted to Banner, the vacuum and extreme cold of space would kill him instantly.
"Your Majesty, this is what I found..."
At that moment, Karna returned from his sweep of the battlefield, trailing sparks and a blazing storm of flame. Selene turned toward his voice—
Very well. Now she understood the reason.
Clatter...
Several mutilated Asgardian bodies—uncertain whether truly dead—were dragged before Selene atop a slab of armor plating, hauled by Karna.
The nameless ones she did not recognize were ignored automatically. The young man in a black robe traced with green patterns, adorned with touches of pure gold, his complexion purplish-blue, neck twisted at an unnatural angle, medium-length slightly wavy hair flowing around delicate, almost feminine features—that should be the God of Mischief, Loki.
Dead.
The bearded Asgardian with braided locks—the dark-skinned guardian of the Bifrost—was Heimdall.
Selene's gaze lingered on him.
Visually speaking, his wounds were the most horrific.
His spine had been shattered and crushed. His body looked as though it had been brutally cleaved apart by sheer force. The right hand that once wielded Hofund—the sacred sword capable of controlling and activating the Bifrost—had been twisted like a rope, skin split, flesh torn, bones misaligned. Even Hofund had not been spared. Its blade was chipped and curled.
As for the last one—
"Your Majesty, he is still alive," Karna said.
It was a sight that would have made die-hard fans of Earth's Avengers faint and scream.
The so-called strongest Avenger—the God of Thunder—whose body once looked as though it had been cast from steel on promotional posters, was now a mangled mass of blood and flesh. It was as if every inch of him had been ravaged from head to toe. His long flowing hair had been shorn into a flat crop. His entire presence flickered weakly, on the verge of extinguishing.
"Thor, God of Thunder."
Selene regarded him with interest.
The Guardians of the Galaxy had only just finished recuperating on Earth before charging back into the cosmos filled with rage and vengeance. They likely had no time to play vigilante saviors. At the moment, they were probably scouring the universe for information on Thanos, gathering allies, purchasing weapons... Selene was not optimistic, but she did look forward to their unpredictability.
Clink!
The claw of her right index finger extended, gleaming with a chilling light. With the casual air of an intern administering a child's injection, she waited until the carefully modulated stream of energy particles gathered at her fingertip—then, with a wet squelch, she drove the blade straight into the center of Thor's faintly rising chest.
"Now is not the time to sleep, Son of Odin. Wake up!"
Who is calling me?
His consciousness sank into endless darkness.
Thor's ears still rang with the chaotic fury of Thanos' army. The roars of anger lingered without fading. Anxiety, guilt, hatred, rage—they flooded his thoughts until he could think of nothing else.
He had lost his father. He had indirectly killed his own sister. He had personally unleashed the fire giant to destroy Asgard. And now, before his very eyes, Loki had been killed by Thanos. His dearest friend Heimdall had been beaten to death. Even the charge his father entrusted to him—"The people are Asgard"—he had failed to protect.
Add to that his mother, murdered by the Dark Elves four years ago.
He had lost everything.
There was nothing left.
Endless pain consumed all sensation.
Let me drown in the darkness to atone.
I deserve this... I'm sorry, Mother. Forgive me, Father. I failed you...
"Wake up, Son of Odin."
Before he could sink too deeply into self-pity, a beautiful yet strangely enchanting female voice echoed within his mind. Brilliant and blazing, like a great sun suspended in the heavens, its searing radiance dispelled all darkness.
Heat.
Scorching heat.
Burning—and pain.
That was all he felt.
"Haah!"
Thor's eyes snapped open. A figure loomed above him. Pure white vulture wings spread like those of an angel. Her fair skin seemed almost luminous. Golden scales along her neck shimmered coldly against that translucent flesh, etched with intricate violet-gold patterns that were dazzling to behold.
"You..."
He tried to respond, to question her—but the next instant he doubled over, a sharp agony ripping through him like a surge of lightning. Every nerve in his body screamed. He could not breathe.
"It seems the effect is good. I haven't developed healing powers yet, so I can only be a bit rough... Accelerate the fulfillment of your potential. Fight violence with violence. Let me see whether the blood of Odinson is boiling!"
Selene was experimenting.
The passage of time only made an Asgardian stronger. It was a special constitution of the Aesir beyond their basic physiology—the older they grew, the greater their divine power.
Truly, Marvel offered her far too many opportunities for experimentation, trial and error, and patching her shortcomings.
Only then did Thor realize that strange violet-red motes were spreading across every inch of his skin. Wildly mixed energy invaded each of his cells. His body no longer felt like his own. It was breaking apart, piece by piece.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Bones reformed. Shattered muscle knitted itself whole. Thor clenched his fists and pounded the plating beneath him again and again to vent the pain. His eyes were bloodshot, veins bursting. Pink mist sprayed from his capillaries, as though he were being dyed into a man of blood.
"AAARGH—!"
His face twisted hideously as he let out a roar that was neither despair nor fury, but something in between.
At that moment, a shriek like the rending of mountains suddenly erupted. A brilliant, multicolored beam shot toward Selene—who appeared ready to dissect Thor with her claw.
"Thor!"
A Valkyrie in white armor and blue robes charged through the void atop a winged eight-legged white steed. Seeing the horrifying scene before her, she cried out sharply.
"You will pay for this!"
"Stop."
With a thunderous surge like the main cannon of a battleship firing, the Son of the Sun thrust forward. Solar wind roared as his spear scattered the rainbow beam. Gripping his golden lance, his expression turned cold as he barred the sole surviving member of the Asgardian Valkyrie corps. His tone was calm, yet suffused with natural killing intent.
The Valkyrie paid him no heed. The Asgardian sword in her hand hummed softly. The magical affinity granted by uru divine steel surged violently, stirring cosmic energy into a turbulent quake.
"Stand down, Valkyrie!"
Just as they were about to collide, lightning erupted from the ground. It dispersed her gathered energy. Thor stepped in front of her.
"Our enemy is not them," he said.
...
"So it was Thanos—the mad Titan who likes to kill half and spare half—and that Black Order who attacked you?"
The Valkyrie sat upright upon her eight-legged steed, seemingly staring straight into Thor's eyes. Yet the muscles on her face twitched stiffly from time to time. The corner of her eye kept 'accidentally' flicking toward the terrifying figure off to the side, who was busy with her own calculations and thoughts.
This woman is dangerous. No less than that madwoman Hela.
"I... I'm not good with words. I'm grateful to you and your companion for saving me."
Thor looked heavily at the gathered corpses that Karna had arranged.
"And thank you for collecting my brother's body. For saving my friend. You will always be a friend and benefactor to me and to Asgard. But... forgive me. I cannot repay you yet. There is something I must do." He suppressed the fury in his voice.
"Thanos?"
Selene spoke. Her voice carried an inexplicable magic that calmed one without reason.
"What a coincidence."
"We have already declared war upon Thanos. Avenger burdened with hatred—will you join us? If so, a war on a cosmic scale awaits you."
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