London had barely registered their arrival.
The Dark Elf fleet slipped into position above the city, their ships cutting through the clouds like shadows with teeth. At the center of it all, Malekith stood aboard his flagship, the weight of centuries lifting from his shoulders.
He had awakened to a universe that had already begun to yield.
Asgard was gone. Fled.
And now, all that remained was to reclaim the Aether.
Victory felt inevitable.
Then something hit.
It came without warning.
A distortion—air, liquid, force—compressed into something that barely qualified as matter anymore. It tore through space with impossible speed, slamming into the fleet before anyone could react.
The sky ignited.
For a fraction of a second, London vanished behind a light brighter than anything human eyes were meant to endure. Heat surged outward, violent and absolute, turning the upper atmosphere into a roaring inferno.
The shockwave followed.
A deep, crushing detonation rolled across the sky, shaking the city to its foundations.
Inside the flagship, Malekith felt reality twist.
Light swallowed everything. Sound became a continuous scream. The world spun, tore, collapsed—
And then the storm took hold.
The fleet was dragged into a spiraling maelstrom, winds howling with enough force to tear steel apart. Ships were yanked from formation, spinning wildly as if caught inside a cosmic centrifuge.
Several vessels—too close to the initial impact—didn't even last that long.
They disintegrated.
Not damaged. Not crippled.
Gone.
Below, London trembled.
Defensive systems activated instantly, energy barriers flaring to life across the city. For a brief moment, they held.
Then the storm hit them.
The shields fractured, buckled, and began to collapse under the pressure.
It would have been enough to wipe the city clean.
But it didn't.
At the last second, an unseen force spread outward, wrapping around London like an invisible shell. The storm broke against it, diverted, contained.
The city survived.
Barely.
High above, Noah Vale watched the aftermath.
The storm churned, dragging what remained of the Dark Elf fleet through its center.
"Huh," he murmured. "A couple of them might actually make it."
He considered finishing the job.
Then paused.
A different idea took shape.
In an instant, golden light flickered.
The surviving ships vanished.
The storm collapsed almost immediately after, winds dying down as if someone had flipped a switch. What remained of the destroyed fleet fell from the sky in scattered debris, burning as it descended.
Thousands of miles away, above Antarctica—
The damaged warships reappeared.
They dropped straight into the middle of the battlefield.
Below, chaos was already in full swing. Explosions, energy blasts, and close-quarters combat collided across the massive arena. Fighters dodged incoming fire from neighboring zones while trying to finish their own battles.
Then the shadows hit.
Several competitors looked up at the same time.
"What the—"
Massive, broken ships were falling out of the sky.
"Move!"
Combat dissolved instantly as people scattered, abandoning fights mid-strike to avoid being crushed.
The ships slammed into the ground with catastrophic force, carving trenches into the landscape.
For a moment, there was silence.
Then the shouting started.
"Are you kidding me?! Now they're dropping spaceships on us?!"
"Is that from the weapons division too?! What are they even using over there?!"
No one had answers.
Then a voice cut through everything.
It echoed across the entire battlefield.
Clear. Calm. Familiar.
Noah Vale.
"These are alien ships I just took down," he said. "Figured I'd share."
A pause.
"Clear them out. Top five kill counts get an automatic pass. You're done—no execution."
Another pause, almost casual.
"Oh, and if someone takes down their leader—Malekith—that's an extra slot."
For half a second, the battlefield froze.
Then—
It exploded.
"I'm done fighting you idiots—get the aliens!"
Every competitor pivoted at once.
Eyes lit up. Targets shifted.
Why struggle against enhanced opponents backed by entire regions when a fresh, unexpected opportunity just dropped from the sky?
Within seconds, fighters from nearby zones started pouring in. Some abandoned their matches entirely, crossing into the area without hesitation.
Compared to the monsters they'd been fighting—
These aliens looked manageable.
Inside one of the damaged ships, Malekith struggled to steady himself.
His head pounded. His vision swam.
"What just happened…?"
Then the noise reached him.
Impact after impact against the hull.
He pulled up an external feed—
And froze.
They were everywhere.
Hundreds—no, thousands—of humans rushing toward the ships, eyes locked in, movements sharp and aggressive.
Not soldiers.
Not civilians.
Something else.
Something worse.
His expression twisted.
"So that's it," he muttered. "That's why Asgard left…"
Not fear.
Relocation.
The hull buckled.
A massive figure launched into the air, crossing an impossible distance in a single leap. His fist drew back—
And vanished.
It reappeared embedded deep in the ship's side.
The impact split the vessel clean in two.
Mahivacha landed hard, the ground cracking beneath him as the ruined halves of the ship collapsed behind.
"Victory's ours!" he roared.
He didn't get to enjoy it.
A flash of light swallowed him whole.
A nuclear detonation bloomed where he stood.
Because while the superhuman division had gained new targets—
The weapons division had followed.
And they didn't hold back.
...
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