Chapter 576 - 577: Descent of the Black Order, A Divine Artifact Untouchable by Mortals
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Piercing air raid sirens wailed mournfully across the New York sky.
The rift hovering above the city was expanding at a maddening rate.
Chitauri chariots poured from the depths of the wormhole like a plague of locusts.
Asgard's Berserkers continuously spilled out from another blue spatial door, tumbling into the streets.
The Avengers, Asgardian Princes, a monster security guard from Foosha Village, the Goddess of Death, and alien armadas.
This city had been completely reduced to a slaughterhouse.
Loki huddled by a ruined car, hugging the Tesseract so tightly his arms were nearly numb under its blinding blue glow.
He was trying with everything he had to close the portal.
But the Tesseract was violently resisting him!
More accurately, an unseen hand was reaching from the absolute depths of the cosmos, maintaining a vice grip on this spatial fluctuation.
Loki was far too familiar with this suffocating sensation.
It definitely wasn't Hela.
Hela's power was brutal and straightforward—she wanted to chop everything to pieces.
But this power made him sick to his stomach.
It carried absolute command, judgment, and the ultimate arrogance of treating all life as nothing more than dust beneath its feet.
A massive shadow suddenly blotted out the sky.
A small, black landing craft glided out from the edge of the rift like a ghost.
It wasn't nearly as massive as a Chitauri warship, but it made Thor's face instantly drain of color.
The hatch slowly opened.
Four figures descended from mid-air.
The first to appear was a tall, gaunt, gray-skinned man.
He hovered in the air like a god, his robes draping downward and his hands clasped behind his back. The surrounding rubble and shattered rebar orbited him in dead silence, drawn by invisible threads.
Ebony Maw.
The leader of the Black Order under Thanos.
In this universe, he didn't need a bounty. His name alone was a free pass for slaughter and conquest.
He gazed down at the crowd in the streets, his tone even, yet laced with nauseating oppression.
"Mortals, gods, and monsters."
"You seek to lay hands on a divine artifact that does not belong to you."
"Kneel, and hand over the Space Stone."
"You might yet earn the Titan's mercy."
Tony Stark—billionaire and core Avenger—instantly raised both hands, locking his repulsors dead on Ebony Maw.
"Sorry, gray-skinned geezer!"
"New York isn't accepting alien cult solicitations today!"
Ebony Maw's indifferent gaze flicked toward Tony.
A heavy street sign was instantly ripped from the ground, slashing toward Iron Man like a guillotine blade.
Tony fired his thrusters, banking hard to dodge by a hair. The sign roared past his gold-and-titanium armor, cleanly cleaving the door off a scrapped car behind him.
"Alright!"
"Looks like your door-to-door proselytizing comes with aggressive sales tactics!"
Captain America, Steve Rogers, held his shield high, standing resolutely in front of a convoy of civilian vehicles.
He was covered in soot and blood, the edges of his shield marred by the scorched scratches of undead spears.
But he didn't take a single step back.
He watched helplessly as three other terrifying monsters slammed into the ground.
Supergiant, possessing a telepathy that could shatter sanity; Proxima Midnight, wielding her hunting spear; and Cull Obsidian, dragging a massive battle-axe wider than a city bus!
The moment Cull Obsidian slammed into the pavement, the asphalt spider-webbed and exploded beneath his feet.
Roaring, he swung his giant axe, cleanly cleaving a bus stranded in the middle of the road entirely in half!
Glass and twisted metal exploded into the air.
The civilians in the convoy let out screams of pure despair, scrambling backward in a panic.
Captain America screamed a command.
"Everyone, fall back immediately!"
"Natasha, get them out of this sector!"
Black Widow, Natasha, didn't waste time on words.
She raised her gun, accurately shattering the helmet of a charging Chitauri soldier, then spun to forcefully shove an old man behind the cover of a police cruiser.
Hawkeye, Clint, took the high ground. His bowstring hummed as he rapidly fired three specialized arrows.
The explosive arrow blasted back the charging Berserkers.
The EMP arrow drove perfectly into a Chitauri chariot, detonating its engine and sending it nosediving into a storefront.
The third, lethal arrow drove straight for Proxima Midnight's throat!
Proxima casually swept her spear upward, instantly deflecting the arrow.
She looked up at Hawkeye on his perch, staring at him as if he were already a corpse.
"Lowly archer."
"I will grant you a painless death."
Hawkeye drew his bowstring back to a full moon once again.
"Thanks for the offer!"
"But I guarantee you'll be deeply disappointed!"
On the other side of the battlefield, Loki's situation had plunged into the abyss.
The Tesseract vibrated violently against his chest, practically trying to tear itself free!
Blinding blue light poured through his fingers, illuminating his pale face like a phantom.
Hovering in mid-air, Ebony Maw merely extended a single finger.
Rubble defied gravity.
Thick rebar bent like wet noodles.
The asphalt street violently peeled back, and several sharp stone spikes erupted from beneath Loki's feet, wrapping tightly around his arms and torso, forcefully dragging him into the air!
Loki screamed hoarsely.
"This is an Asgardian spoil of war!"
Ebony Maw's voice remained level, yet exuded absolute control.
"Now, it belongs to the Titan."
Loki frantically channeled his magic, attempting to cast an illusion.
But the stone spikes squeezed him until his bones popped, and the pulling force of the blue light was borderline insane!
He felt like his finger bones were going to be ripped off!
This utter helplessness instantly awakened his deepest nightmare—the extreme humiliation of being crushed beneath Thanos's boot and forced to kneel!
That bone-deep memory was far more nauseating to him than the physical tearing of his flesh!
Just then, Thor burst out of the rubble like a raging lion!
He didn't have Mjolnir.
But his iron fists were wrapped in blinding, berserk lightning!
BOOM!
The lightning slammed into the stone spikes, shattering Loki's restraints into dust.
Loki stumbled miserably back to the ground, clutching the Tesseract as he staggered backward.
Thor stood before him like a mountain, the gruesome wound on his chest still weeping blood.
Loki gasped for air, his tongue as sharp as ever.
"Don't expect a thank you!"
Thor was panting just as heavily, roaring back without even turning his head.
"I don't have time for your nonsense anyway!"
The two brothers stood back-to-back.
One surging with wild lightning.
The other gripping the Tesseract like a lifeline, his face looking as if he'd swallowed a bottle of poison.
Ebony Maw looked down at them with cold eyes, tilting his head slightly, his tone dripping with mockery.
"What touching brotherly affection."
"Brief, fragile, yet it always manages to give lower lifeforms like you such unrealistic delusions."
Tony interrupted inappropriately from mid-air.
"Hey, old man! Before you speak, could you stop reciting poetry like a third-rate villain?"
Standing in the ruins, Kaido had already had enough of this preaching!
He currently had Hela's black blade jammed squarely into his shoulder!
The dragon scales on his abdomen were brutally peeled back, and thick blood continuously dripped down his thigh.
Yet, the look he leveled at Ebony Maw burned with a violent bloodlust far more manic than when he was slaughtering the Chitauri!
He hated this kind of trash more than anything in the world.
Hovering high above.
Speaking at a leisurely crawl.
Acting like the entire universe should be on its knees licking the dirt off his boots—it made him sick!
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