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*****
Once Fini closed the portal behind them, he turned around and saw Tony releasing a swarm of small, folded drones from the arm of his armor. Walking over with an inquisitive look, Fini asked, "What are those?"
"Micro-drones," Tony explained. "They're configured for automated environmental telemetry and basic geological sampling." He paused, looking around at the bleak expanse of Svartalfheim. "So, those Dark Elves you mentioned actually live in a place like this?"
Fini shook his head. "A long, long time ago, they did. But the Dark Elves vanished countless millennia ago. This world has been a hollow, abandoned wasteland for longer than anyone can remember."
"Then where are they lurking now?"
"No idea," Fini replied, shaking his head again.
If he actually knew the coordinates of the Dark Elves' current coordinates, he wouldn't even be bothering to set up an ambush here. He would have raided their fleet and slaughtered them all while they were still trapped in stasis.
"Then how can you be so certain they'll come looking for you?" Tony asked, slightly bewildered by Fini's absolute lack of intelligence on the enemy.
"Because the weapon I'm planning to intercept was originally engineered by them," Fini sighed. "There was an era when the Dark Elves ruled over the Nine Realms. They weaponized that artifact to plunge the entire cosmos into primordial darkness."
"Eventually, Asgard defeated them in a brutal war. But because the weapon itself was virtually indestructible, they had no choice but to seal it away in a hidden pocket of space. The impending Convergence is going to expose that hidden chamber, so I intend to claim it first."
"The artifact shares a biological anchor with the Dark Elves. The moment I take it, they will track it down—and by extension, track me down."
Hearing Fini's explanation, Tony nodded understandingly. Throughout their entire conversation, Fini had meticulously avoided revealing what the weapon actually was. Tony could tell the sorcerer was intentionally skirting around the specific nature of the artifact, so he chose not to pry any further.
With their objective clear, the duo got to work. Fini took to the sky, scouting the mountainous terrain to locate the most optimal vectors for the missile trap, while Tony flew alongside him, utilizing his swarm of micro-drones to survey the surrounding geological anomalies.
An entire day slipped by in a blur of aerial reconnaissance. Fini covered a vast amount of ground but struggled to find a configuration that met his tactical requirements.
It wasn't until the second day, after Tony utilized the data aggregated by his drones to render a comprehensive topographical mapping of the terrain, that they finally located the perfect battleground.
The chosen location was a massive, natural basin completely encircled by steep, towering peaks, creating a flawless, bucket-shaped kill-zone. Looking down at the terrain, Fini felt incredibly fortunate to have brought Tony along. Without the billionaire's technical analysis, it would have taken him far longer to isolate an environment this strategically flawless.
As a seasoned veteran in weapons engineering, Tony understood the precise performance metrics of his payloads. After cross-referencing the environment with his telemetry, he advised Fini seriously:
"You can anchor the missile launch platforms along the ridges of these mountains. The local gravity, atmospheric drag, and thermal dynamics here are remarkably close to Earth's parameters. From that height, it will take roughly five seconds from ignition to total detonation. Make sure your timing is flawless, and be extremely careful."
"Understood," Fini nodded. He had tasked Tony with manufacturing a massive stockpile. A concentrated bombardment of several hundred high-yield conventional missiles was a terrifying volume of kinetic force; even with Incursio fully manifested, Fini wasn't entirely certain he could tank a blast of that magnitude head-on.
With the location finalized, the next phase was deployment. While Fini lacked the specialized technical knowledge required for advanced munitions installation and calibration, he had Tony Stark—a master engineer who could adapt any platform on the fly—right beside him.
Ultimately, hundreds of cutting-edge, high-tech missiles packed with advanced smart-tracking arrays were brutally retrofitted into a primitive, single-button detonation system. The crude modification caused Tony visible psychological pain.
Simplifying the deployment system to a single trigger mechanism carried a distinct tactical downside: it meant Fini only had one shot. If the Dark Elves detected the trap prematurely, the entire payload would be rendered entirely useless.
However, Fini had never placed the entirety of his chips on the missiles alone. Compared to conventional weapons, he placed far greater trust in his own evolving power. Setting an ambush beforehand was merely a calculated measure to guarantee a flawless victory.
The Dark Elves had been drifting in the deep voids of space for thousands of years, yet their technological tier remained exceptionally advanced—a fact proven by Asgard's complete inability to track or detect their flagship in the original timeline. Therefore, regarding the missile trap, Fini maintained a realistic perspective: it would be fantastic if it worked, but it wouldn't be surprising if it failed.
By the time the entire battlefield was rigged, more than a week had slipped past. The primary reason it took so long—aside from the work being limited to just the two of them and a handful of automated construction drones—was Fini's desire to remain undetected. Heimdall regularly cast his all-seeing gaze across the Nine Realms, forcing Fini to strictly limit their active construction windows each day to avoid drawing Asgardian suspicion.
By the time their preparations were complete, the celestial alignment was right on their doorstep. Fini could feel the dimensional fabric of Earth growing noticeably thinner by the hour.
For a sorcerer who relied heavily on spatial manipulation, this environmental shift was a double-edged sword. On the positive side, tearing open portals became significantly easier, a phenomenon experienced by every sorcerer within Kamar-Taj.
Take Jonathan Pangborn, for example. As his latent mystical aptitude began to gradually surface, he had successfully cultivated his own pool of mystic energy. Though his power wasn't yet strong enough to fully restore his physical mobility to normal standards, he had already begun practicing the Sling Ring—one of Kamar-Taj's most fundamental foundational spells.
While Jonathan's aptitude for sorcery was vastly superior to Fini's—who had famously spent an entire year just trying to conjure a single spark—it was still nowhere near the absurd talent of Doctor Strange. Under normal conditions, it should have taken him quite a while longer to successfully manifest a gateway. Yet, just yesterday, he had managed to open his first functional portal.
However, the location he manifested didn't quite align with the coordinates he had mentally targeted. And that was the dangerous side of the phenomenon.
While the Convergence thinned the spatial barriers of the Nine Realms, it also induced severe environmental distortion, causing planar pathways to drift off-course. The spatial variance was so unpredictable that even Fini found it difficult to maintain absolute control over his destinations. Consequently, over the past few days, he refrained from using portals for routine transit, choosing instead to travel like an ordinary human.
Time slipped by as Fini waited in a state of hyper-vigilant anticipation. With only a few days remaining before the cosmos bore witness to an alignment that occurred only once every five thousand years, Fini sought out Jane Foster once again. This time, he didn't reveal his presence, choosing instead to observe her quietly from the shadows.
Despite the structural ripples his presence had caused throughout the timeline, Thor still hadn't summoned the resolve to return to Earth. The prolonged separation had left Jane sliding deeper into a state of profound melancholy and disappointment. Driven by a desire to break the cycle of longing, she had finally decided to attempt moving on by going out on a date.
However, while Thor could be undeniably simple-minded at times, he was ultimately a literal god—a warrior prince whose presence turned heads across the golden halls of Asgard. An ordinary mortal man stood absolutely no chance of matching that standard. Furthermore, an intense romance with an immortal entity wasn't something a person could simply put behind them, especially for someone as meticulously analytical as Jane, who had never received closure or an answer.
Though she was actively attempting to utilize a new relationship to sever her attachment to the past, the effort only succeeded in amplifying her longing for Thor.
Consequently, even though she was currently seated in an upscale restaurant with a perfectly courteous gentleman sitting directly across from her, her focus was completely detached. She stared blankly at the menu, her mind drifting entirely back to Thor.
She thought about the frantic nature of their first encounter, wondered why he had abandoned her without a single word, and questioned how she would even react if he suddenly materialized before her today.
Watching the agonizing interaction unfold from a state of total invisibility, Fini couldn't help but feel a wave of intense awkwardness for the man sitting across from her, accompanied by a faint sense of genuine sympathy.