Inside the sanctum, illuminated by the flickering light of hundreds of sacred tallow candles, Olsen knelt before the Emperor's holy visage. He murmured the Litanies of Hate with a devout intensity, his expression carved from the same stone as the statues surrounding him.
The air was thick with the scent of holy oils and incense. On either side of the steps leading to the altar, scrolls of scripture blessed by the Ecclesiarchy were arranged in neat, ritualistic rows.
The candlelight played across the Emperor's features, causing the golden face to recede into shadow and then flare with divine light, but the majestic gaze remained fixed on the eternal distance.
In the rare hours of peace, an Astartes did not rest; he trained or he prayed. It was the reason they were known as the "Monastic Warriors" of the Imperium, and their fortresses were dubbed Monasteries. They were the Emperor's paradox: both Angels of Death and humble monks of the Creed.
Such prayers were the bedrock of their existence. Faith was the only shield strong enough to resist the soul-coroding whispers of the Warp, and the only balm capable of stabilizing a mind after the systematic slaughter of a thousand foes.
A chime broke the silence. Olsen's eyes snapped open. On the ancient, brass-rimmed monitor before him, text in the sharp, angular script of High Gothic flickered into life.
PRIMARY OBJECTIVES:
SECURE THE ARTIFACT [CASKET OF ANCIENT WINTERS] – PRIORITY EXTREMIS.
TERMINATE XENOS LEADERSHIP [DESIGNATION: LAUFEY].
ASSAULT SQUAD COMPOSITION:
Brother-Captain Olsen (Black Watch)
Chief Librarian Marcus
Company Champion Hector
Veteran Battle-Brothers Lancelot and Galahad.
Olsen's expression didn't flicker. "Mission confirmed," he rasped. He finished his final prayer, rose with a mechanical grace, and felt the familiar weight of his power sword at his hip.
Aboard the Helicarrier, Emrys watched the tactical feed. He had deployed the most lethal spearhead he could muster without triggering a full-scale planetary intervention. This wasn't just a squad; it was an executioner's blade.
By sending Olsen and Marcus alongside a Company Champion and two First Company Veterans, he had assembled a force capable of dueling a Greater Daemon. His caution wasn't born of respect for Laufey, but for the Casket. If the legends of Jotunheim were true, that artifact could flash-freeze a world.
If he triggers it, Emrys thought coldly, the Sorcerer Supreme will finally have to get off her throne. To a being like the Ancient One, the squabbles of gods and aliens were beneath her notice—right up until the point the planet was at risk of becoming a dead rock. Emrys was careful to dance right on the edge of that line. He didn't want to conquer Earth; he wanted to secure its assets.
"A pity Krast is still in evaluation," Emrys murmured. "A single Knight-Paladin would have turned this tower into a graveyard in minutes."
On the screens below, the battlefield was shifting. The Wakandan forces, emboldened by their Vibranium-weave armor, were holding the line. Tony Stark had hijacked the military's orbital grid, turning their own defensive missiles into a cloud of fire that suppressed the Chitauri Leviathans.
"Command, the diversionary squad is in the air. Deploying now!"
Steve Rogers, Barton, and Natasha were hurtling through the New York skyline in a tattered SHIELD jet. As the Wakandan ground forces drew the Chitauri's fire, Steve seized the opening.
He didn't wait for a parachute. He didn't wait for a clear LZ. He leapt from the bay, gliding through a hail of energy fire with nothing but his shield and a grim, suicidal resolve.
Barton and Natasha watched in stunned silence. "Is he insane?" Natasha hissed, before following him out into the chaos.
Steve wasn't falling; he was hunting. He adjusted his glide path, homing in on a Chitauri hover-chariot. With a roar, he hurled his shield. The Vibranium disc decapitated the xenos pilot in a spray of purple ichor, and Steve slammed onto the saddle, seizing the controls with his bare hands.
"Move it!" he bellowed at the two agents as they caught up to his path.
"Can you even fly this thing?" Natasha yelled over the wind.
Steve's veins were bulging in his forearms as he wrestled with the alien bio-interfaces. "I'm a soldier! I don't need to fly it—I just need to break it!"
The chariot bucked wildly, careening through the air like a wounded bird before slamming through the reinforced glass of Stark Tower's penthouse. They tumbled across the floor, glass shards tearing at their suits.
Barton groaned, shaking his head clear, only to find a five-meter-tall Frost Giant looming over him, a massive ice-encrusted club raised for the kill.
"Oh... shit."
The club descended. The impact sent Barton skipping across the floor like a stone, slamming into a structural pillar where he slumped, motionless. Natasha scrambled for her stingers, but two more giants were closing in, their footsteps shaking the entire floor.
CRACK-CRACK.
Two heavy thumps echoed through the room. The heads of both Frost Giants evaporated into blue mist.
Natasha spun around. Steve stood there, a SHIELD-issued heavy energy rifle—a prototype usually mounted on vehicles—braced against his shoulder.
"You... you use guns?" Natasha blinked, her eyes darting between him and the smoking barrel.
Steve looked at her with a flat, soldier's gaze. "I'm a veteran of the 107th, Natasha. I was a sharpshooter before I was a symbol. Who told you I only used a shield? Some PR department?"
"The files said the shield was your... your moral compass," she muttered.
"Files don't fight wars," Steve snapped, scanning the room for more threats. "This is a heavy-duty plasma caster. Fury said it stops giants. Why wouldn't I use it? I'm not stupid."
Before she could answer, the temperature plummeted. A layer of frost raced across the floor, turning the penthouse into a frozen tomb. A thin, gaunt figure descended the stairs, radiating a cold so absolute it seemed to swallow the light.
"Captain Rogers," Laufey said, his voice a dry rasp of shifting ice. "My master, Thanos—the last Titan and the architect of the new universe—offers you a choice. Submit, and you shall rule this world as its steward."
"Thanos?" Steve's hand slipped behind his back, gripping the cold metal of the teleportation beacon. "Never heard of him. But I've met plenty of tyrants who thought they were gods."
Steve moved forward, his boots crunching on the ice, closing the distance. "I don't serve masters, Laufey."
He slammed the beacon into the frozen floor. "I serve only humanity!"
The beacon flared with a blinding, golden light.
Space folded. The air screamed. And in a thunderous clap of displaced atmosphere, the Angels of the Black Watch arrived.