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Arthur hadn't held much hope that Loki would immediately grasp or accept his complex intentions.
But to his surprise, Loki quickly accepted the inevitable, albeit with an air of immense grievance. "Fine. So what, precisely, do you need me to do?"
"Maintain a lie," Arthur stated. "And you'll likely need to maintain it for nearly three years."
"Three years of constantly living under that threat?" Loki was appalled. "I haven't even been the King of Asgard for a full year…"
(To be precise, it hasn't even been six months yet…) Arthur silently noted, before continuing aloud. "At least you have one reassurance, in those three years, you won't be in danger. It will most likely be extremely boring. Though, it might not necessarily be boring. If things go well, you'll have many companions spending that time with you."
"The more you elaborate, the more completely unreliable this sounds…" Loki looked at Arthur with profound suspicion.
Thor clapped his brother on the shoulder with unnecessary force. "Trust me, brother. He is someone worth trusting."
In Loki's view, his brother possessed absolutely zero capacity to judge character. Thor's skull was filled with nothing but damn, overdeveloped muscles, and he always insisted on using those muscles instead of his brain, a habit he never seemed to tire of.
After silently composing and delivering a thousand scathing complaints in his mind, Loki finally accepted his fate with surprising calm.
In truth, he had already devised a counter-plan.
At this moment, no one truly knew the full truth of the situation, and as long as Arthur didn't explain everything explicitly, there was still room for maneuver.
Therefore, there was no need to engage in a futile, head-to-head confrontation with Arthur right now. With Thor already fully convinced, any argument wouldn't earn him aid, and with his own thin arms and legs, there was no way he could withstand Arthur's massive might.
The most realistic option was to stabilize the current situation, go to the location, assess the reality firsthand, and then scheme a way to shift the outcome in his favor.
With these thoughts settling his nerves, Loki calmly followed Arthur and Thor. Together, they summoned all their companions, who had only just arrived in Asgard and hadn't even finished admiring the scenery, boarded the ship, and set a course for a remote, desolate corner of the universe.
This time, they did not use the Bifrost.
Even Heimdall was unable to clearly locate that distant sector of space. Positioning was extraordinarily difficult, just a tiny deviation could send them thousands of light-years off course, so to ensure their safety, Arthur chose to navigate the journey using precise star charts.
The result was an agonizingly slow journey.
Based on rough estimates, the trip would take a minimum of two months.
Even Arthur felt intense frustration. He considered using the Tesseract to teleport directly to the destination and then contacting Heimdall to use himself as a "coordinate beacon" to bring everyone else there.
But the moment the idea was suggested, everyone immediately rejected it.
No one could guarantee that Arthur would be safe or even able to contact Heimdall after such a massive, unguided jump, and any risk, no matter how small, was unacceptable.
Two months was a wait they could afford; exchanging Arthur's safety just to shave two months off the travel time was a terrible bargain, no matter how one calculated the cost.
Inside his private chamber on the vessel, Arthur sat on his bunk. After generating a protective barrier of cosmic energy around him, he retrieved the Tesseract.
He had studied its function under the Ancient One and later with the Heavenly Empress. The former taught him how to draw the power of the Tesseract into his own body; the latter, how to forcibly extract energy from it to strengthen himself.
Thus, every so often, he would take out the Tesseract, absorbing its power while simultaneously attempting to use his own innate strength to completely control it.
But the latter task remained an immense struggle.
Even now, despite his strength increasing at a tremendous, unimaginable pace, when faced with one of the six fundamental Infinity Stones, the Space Stone, he still had very few effective ways to truly dominate it.
After learning to wield cosmic energy, he had tried again. The results were certainly better than before, but still far from ideal.
"To think I could fully control the Tesseract's power with my own strength… It's like trying to use the water of a single river to command the entire ocean."
After countless failures, Arthur had gained a much clearer, humbling understanding of the Tesseract's nature.
And he realized another core truth: by relying solely on his own power, by attempting to overpower it, he would likely never fully master the Tesseract.
He could draw energy from it, and draw endlessly if he wished.
But that wasn't a testament to his strength; it was because the Tesseract itself contained infinite power.
A finite being attempting to control something infinite with finite strength was, in itself, a ridiculous fantasy.
Arthur studied the glowing blue cube resting in his palm. After hesitating, he let out a quiet breath. Recently, he had been considering a truly radical possibility.
The Tesseract's power was infinite, but it was missing one crucial element.
Will.
Only when guided by a conscious will could such limitless power be truly directed and unleashed.
The Tesseract lacked such a will. And so, its boundless strength existed like an inexhaustible treasure vault, waiting for whoever could unlock it to take whatever they wished.
If the Tesseract, if the Space Stone, possessed consciousness and the ability to act on its own, then that vault would instantly transform into something capable of devouring life itself.
"So what if I forcibly implant a consciousness inside the Tesseract, to guide its power? What would happen?"
This was the dangerous path Arthur had been contemplating.
The risk of this action would be extreme, and the outcome completely uncertain.
Besides, because of the Disassembler, he still held a lingering belief that once the device reached its highest level, it would be able to break down the Tesseract…
But why? Where did that deeply ingrained confidence come from?
There was no proof. The only basis was his failed attempt aboard Red Skull's plane all those years ago…
That singular failure seemed to hint that the Tesseract could indeed be disassembled.
Arthur rubbed the cool, smooth surface of the Tesseract and finally let out a sigh. "It seems… there's no need to take such a devastating risk right now. Maybe… Should I wait? Test the limits step by step?"
(End of chapter)