While the Ancient One was lost in thought, Thor, who lay motionless on the bed, suddenly opened his eyes.
"No—ah!"
A hoarse shout burst from his throat as agony tore through his body. Every nerve screamed at once, as if his insides were being shredded from the inside out.
Thanos's attack had never been meant to merely defeat him. It had been a killing blow.
Although the Ancient One's magic had healed his external wounds, the violent, destructive energy left behind was still rampaging through his body, chewing away at him without mercy.
Hearing his cry, Gu Yi immediately withdrew her consciousness from the Time Stone. She stepped forward and said calmly, but with unmistakable concern, "Lie down. Don't move. I can't remove the energy inside you—it's too deeply entrenched. All I can do is let time slowly wear it down."
Thor clenched his teeth, sweat beading on his forehead. He forced himself to focus on the woman standing beside him and asked urgently, "Who are you? Where am I? Where is my father?"
Gu Yi shook her head. "I am the Ancient One, guardian of Earth. As for Odin… I don't know."
At those words, memories slammed into Thor like a hammer.
His mother. Her desperate expression. Heimdall's final glance before the Bifrost light swallowed him whole.
She must have saved him at the last moment, ordering Heimdall to send him to Earth.
No. I can't stay here.
I have to go back. The battle isn't over.
Thor struggled to sit up and raised his right hand, instinctively calling for his hammer.
Mjolnir was a divine weapon forged from a star's core, an endless well of power. With it, he could suppress the destructive force tearing him apart. He needed it—now more than ever.
Seconds passed.
Nothing happened.
Only then did reality hit him.
Mjolnir… was gone.
Shattered by Thanos.
His fingers slowly curled into a fist. Without his hammer, his combat strength had dropped by at least half—maybe more. For the first time in a long while, the God of Thunder felt truly unarmed.
He shut his eyes and began calling out to Heimdall in his mind, pouring everything into the plea, urging him to open the Bifrost and bring him back.
Again and again, he called.
But there was no response.
It wasn't like Heimdall was ignoring him.
It was more like… there was no one on the other end at all.
Like dialing a number that no longer existed.
The thought struck him like a blade.
Could it be…?
His eyes darkened, grief flooding in before he could stop it. His chest felt heavier than the injuries tearing through him.
The Ancient One noticed the change in his expression and asked quietly, "What happened in Asgard? Why were you injured so badly?"
After a long moment, Thor exhaled and said hoarsely, "We were invaded. An enemy beyond anything we expected. I was defeated… and gravely wounded."
Then he lifted his head, fixing his gaze on the bald mage before him—mysterious, composed, and clearly powerful.
"My father is still fighting," Thor said firmly, almost as if convincing himself. "Do you have a way to send me back?"
Heimdall was probably only seriously injured. That had to be it. Thor refused to believe otherwise unless he saw the body himself.
Gu Yi shook her head slowly. "I'm sorry. I can't help you."
Though she possessed the ability to open portals across vast distances, she didn't know the precise coordinates of Asgard.
The universe was not static—it was expanding, moving, shifting constantly. Coordinates that were valid today might be completely wrong tomorrow. That was precisely why Thanos had once struggled to locate the Milky Way.
Teleportation within a star system was manageable. One only needed to calculate distance and relative position.
But teleporting across different stars—across galaxies—was another matter entirely.
One needed the position of the galaxy's central black hole, the trajectory of the target star, the orbit of the planet… an absurd amount of data, usually handled by supercomputers.
Even the Ancient One, powerful as she was, couldn't calculate all of that instantly.
And portals demanded absolute precision. A slight error might mean appearing in open space—or worse, inside a star.
That was not a mistake she could afford.
Hearing this, Thor slowly lay back against the bed. The destructive power within him continued to gnaw away at his strength, and for the first time, despair seeped into his heart.
He didn't know what awaited Asgard.
He didn't know if his father was still alive.
Seeing his silence, Gu Yi chose not to press him further. Grief needed time—and Thor had already lost enough.
…
In Asgard.
Led by Hela herself, Thanos entered Odin's vault.
Even he paused for a moment.
Before him lay countless treasures, relics gathered over untold ages—spoils of conquest, diplomacy, and blood. The Box of Ice. The Eternal Flame. The Dwarven Hammer of the Holy Light. The Claw of Hell. Artifacts whose names alone carried weight across the Nine Realms.
And then, most importantly, he saw it.
The Infinity Gauntlet.
A glove forged entirely of gold, its surface etched with ancient runes and strange, flowing patterns that seemed to shift when viewed from the corner of the eye. Six empty sockets lay across the knuckles and palm, perfectly shaped to receive the Infinity Stones.
Thanos stepped forward and lifted it.
The moment it left its pedestal, the gauntlet began to change—metal creaking softly as it expanded, growing larger, heavier, adjusting itself to his size as though it had been waiting for him all along.
A heartbeat later, he slid it onto his hand.
Then he produced the Mind Stone.
As he set the glowing gem into its socket, the vault itself seemed to shudder. A surge of blinding energy rippled outward, the runes on the gauntlet igniting one by one as the stone locked into place with absolute finality.
Thanos inhaled slowly.
Power flooded his mind.
His perception exploded outward—ants crawling along the marble floor, dust motes drifting lazily through the air, blood coursing through veins, spiritual energy humming beneath flesh and bone. With a mere thought, his awareness could narrow further still, down to the level of cells dividing, dying, renewing themselves in endless cycles.
It was intoxicating.
And yet, he remained calm.
This was not his own strength. It was borrowed power, granted by the gauntlet and the stone. Useful—but not something to become enslaved by.
With one last glance at the remaining treasures, Thanos turned and left the vault without hesitation.
A pity the timeline hadn't reached Thor: Ragnarok yet. Otherwise, he wouldn't even need to bother searching for the Space Stone.
The Tesseract was still on Earth, in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s hands… right?
…
By then, the war across the universe was all but decided.
No matter how fiercely the Asgardian warriors fought, valor alone could not bridge the vast gulf in technology and raw power between the two sides. Warships were torn apart one after another, their wreckage burning as it fell from the sky. Countless Asgardians died in the void, their bodies drifting silently among the stars.
Even the most stubborn gods understood the truth.
They had lost.
A final explosion tore through space with a deafening roar as the last warship bearing Asgard's insignia was obliterated.
Moments later, Thanos's army descended upon the continent of Asgard itself.
Landing craft rained down from the heavens, slamming into cities with bone-crushing force. Firestorms erupted. Towers collapsed. Amid smoke, flame, and mangled corpses, the pods burst open, and members of the Dark Order poured out like a living tide, charging the few remaining defenders without mercy.
On that day, Asgard became a grave.
Gods fell by the thousands. Lakes and rivers ran red with blood. Even the artificial sun hanging in the sky flickered—and then went dark, plunging the world into endless night.
Yet the most ruthless slaughterers were not Thanos's forces.
They were Laufey and the Frost Giants.
Odin had broken their race long ago, crushing them beneath Asgard's heel. That hatred had never faded—only festered. So when the chance for revenge appeared, Laufey did not hesitate for even a second to stand beside Thanos.
Caution? Fear of betrayal? None of it mattered anymore.
After Loki's return, the Frost Giants committed fully, their entire race throwing itself into the massacre with cold, methodical fury.
Three days passed.
In just seventy-two hours, the Asgardian population—once numbering over a hundred billion—was reduced to ten thousand.
All of them newborn infants.
Thanos allowed them to live.
Partly, it was a concession to Hela. Having just subdued her, erasing her entire race in front of her eyes would have been… inelegant.
But there was another reason.
Thanos coveted Asgardian genetics.
Their resilience. Their longevity. Their divine adaptability.
He left the infants behind as seeds—resources for the future. If fragments of Asgardian power could one day be incorporated into the Dark Order, strengthening it beyond its already terrifying limits…
That would be a gain worth far more than gold or relics.
.....
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