Boom!
Another deafening explosion echoed through the depths of the Arctic ice cap.
This time, however, once the sound faded, no further noise came from the frozen wasteland.
Mike stood quietly at the edge of a massive crater he had created with a single punch and looked down.
The crater was several meters across.
The ice at the bottom had split open, and seawater was pouring in through the cracks.
Malekith’s corpse lay embedded at the bottom, his limbs sprawled loosely around him.
Beside his body rested the black longsword that only the king of the Dark Elves had the right to wield, now broken cleanly into two pieces.
Before long, the seawater flooding into the crater completely submerged Malekith’s body.
And with that, Malekith, king of the Dark Elves, was dead.
He had died just before the Convergence of the Nine Realms was about to begin.
Mike raised his head and looked toward the sky.
Above the Arctic ice cap, the heavens began to distort.
The gray-blue sky seemed to wrinkle as though an invisible pair of hands were twisting it out of shape.
The clouds spiraled inward toward a central point, rapidly forming an enormous, slowly rotating vortex that spread across the sky.
Several spatial rifts suddenly opened above the ice.
Different colors shone from within them.
Some glowed a dark red reminiscent of molten lava in hell, while others carried the deep blue of the ocean’s darkest depths.
Mirage-like scenes appeared within those rifts.
One showed the Golden Palace of Asgard.
A damaged version of it, naturally.
Not long ago, Malekith and the Dark Elves had attacked Asgard, killed Queen Frigga, and severely damaged the Golden Palace.
Another rift revealed Muspelheim, a realm consumed by roaring flames.
The land of the Fire Giants.
A freezing wind suddenly swept across the Arctic ice cap.
It passed through the spatial rifts with a long, low howl, almost as if all Nine Realms were breathing in unison.
When the wind brushed past Mike, he caught several distinct scents carried with it.
There was the sorrow that seemed to permeate all of Asgard, the heavy stench of sulfur from the realm of the Fire Giants, and the endless aura of lifeless silence that hung over the land of the Dark Elves.
Then Mike raised an eyebrow and looked toward the depths of the sky.
A pillar of rainbow light suddenly descended from above and struck the Arctic ice roughly a kilometer away.
The moment the rainbow beam touched the ground, the entire ice cap trembled.
A perfect circular scorch mark appeared on the surface, covered in countless intricate runes.
Before the rainbow light had even fully faded, a furious roar erupted from the center of the mark amid flashes of blue lightning.
“Malekith!
Come out and face your death!” With that deep, grief-filled roar, Thor leaped high into the air with Mjolnir in hand.
He had searched Svartalfheim for Malekith without success, only for Heimdall to inform him that Malekith’s presence had been detected on Earth.
Thor had immediately ordered Heimdall to send him there through the Bifrost.
Then Thor saw Mike.
He froze for a moment, but almost instantly changed the direction of Mjolnir and swung it toward the area beside him.
Countless bolts of lightning struck the ice like writhing serpents, blasting the frozen surface apart and hurling snow and shattered ice high into the air.
From the moment the rainbow beam appeared to the instant Thor attacked and lightning exploded all around him, Mike never moved from where he stood.
Thor landed heavily in front of him and frowned.
“Who are you?
Where is Malekith?” Mike didn’t answer.
Instead, he looked toward the spatial rift showing the Golden Palace of Asgard, which was already beginning to shrink as the brief window of the Convergence started to close.
He was considering whether he should use this chance to enter Asgard, find Loki—who had merely been imprisoned there—and tear his head off before placing it in front of his adoptive parents’ graves.
The reason Mike had changed his mind and reclaimed his identity as a Saint from his second life was because Loki had killed his adoptive parents.
But Mike wasn’t stupid.
Odin was still in Asgard.
Even when Malekith had attacked the realm, he had first used his people to create a diversion and draw Odin away before infiltrating the Golden Palace.
Malekith himself understood perfectly well that even at his peak thousands of years ago, with the Reality Stone supporting him, he had still been unable to defeat King Bor.
Now he had only recently awakened from his long sleep and hadn’t even reclaimed the Reality Stone.
If even Malekith had to be cautious, Mike had even less reason to take such a risk.
He had just killed Malekith, but only by burning his Cosmo at full strength.
If he entered Asgard now, there was only one likely outcome.
He probably wouldn’t even get close enough to see Loki before Odin ran him through with Gungnir, the Spear of Destiny that never failed to draw blood once thrown.
Forget it.
Mike had already waited more than a year.
Waiting a little longer didn’t matter.
Once he awakened his Sixth Sense and became a true Saint, and once Odin finally died, there would no longer be anyone capable of protecting Loki.
It was just as Mike had told Malekith earlier.
If Malekith hadn’t been after his Reality Stone, then as enemies of the same enemy, the two of them might actually have become friends.
The same logic could apply after Odin’s death.
Once Odin died, he would no longer be able to maintain the seal imprisoning his eldest daughter, Hela, the Goddess of Death.
Perhaps when that time came, Mike could form an alliance with her.
With those thoughts in mind, Mike finally looked away from the shrinking rift.
Then he glanced at Thor, who claimed Loki wasn’t truly his brother yet protected him more fiercely than anyone.
Mike spoke calmly.
“What Malekith did in Asgard—how is it any different from what Loki did on Earth last year?
You locked Loki away, but you wanted Malekith dead.” Wasn’t that the truth?
Was there any fundamental difference between Malekith invading Asgard and killing Queen Frigga, and Loki’s actions on Earth the previous year?
No.
Once again, it was simply a double standard.
Thor froze when he heard him.
He stared at Mike’s cold expression, his voice dropping lower.
“Who are you?” “Loki killed my parents.” Mike had no intention of abandoning his revenge just because he might someday want to befriend Thor, nor did he feel any need to hide what he wanted.
He looked directly at Thor.
“Who do you think I am?” Thor immediately thought back to everything Loki had done on Earth the previous year.
“The Chitauri invasion.” “Exactly.”