Mike actually felt that he and Malekith could have been friends.
After all, they shared a common enemy.
Asgard.
Malekith wanted to destroy Asgard and return the Nine Realms to an age of darkness, while Mike wanted to kill Loki and avenge his adoptive parents.
But if Mike went after Loki, Thor would never stand by and let it happen.
Even Odin would probably side with Loki.
It didn’t matter that Loki had taken so many lives during the Battle of New York.
Humans didn’t care how many ants died because of them.
By the same logic, Odin and Thor wouldn’t care how many people on Earth had died because of Loki.
If Odin truly regarded every life in the Nine Realms equally, then he wouldn’t have dealt with Loki by simply locking him away.
That was why Mike genuinely thought he and Malekith had something in common.
Provided Malekith stopped coveting his Reality Stone.
It was only because of the Reality Stone that Mike’s Cosmo could manifest in this universe.
And that manifestation wasn’t permanent.
If he lost the Reality Stone, he would lose his Cosmo as well.
The only exception would be if, one day, he awakened the Eighth Sense and advanced from a Gold Saint capable of rivaling the gods into a true divine being.
Once he reached that level, his existence would become eternal and unique, and even losing the Reality Stone would no longer cause his Cosmo to disappear.
But that was something for the future.
For now, the Reality Stone was absolutely not for sale.
Malekith stared at the Aether flowing through Mike’s palm and laughed when he heard him say that.
“The Aether is not something a life-form of your level can control.” “Seems like I’m controlling it just fine.” Mike smiled as well.
Under Malekith’s gaze, the Aether continuously shifted and changed shape above his palm.
“Pretty good, isn’t it?
I’d say I handle it even better than you did.” The Reality Stone was different from the other Infinity Stones.
Its power depended on its wielder.
When Jane Foster possessed the Reality Stone, she had no idea how to use it properly and could only trigger it through instinct and emotion, like the time she sent several London police officers flying with a wave of her hand.
Even then, Jane had immediately passed out afterward.
The Reality Stone required energy to use.
If its wielder had no energy to spare, it would consume their life force instead.
And it would keep consuming it.
So Malekith wasn’t wrong about one thing.
The Reality Stone was not something an ordinary person could handle.
But Mike could.
In fact, he was certain that the Reality Stone could display far greater power in his hands than it ever had in Malekith’s.
Malekith possessed dark energy, but even his reserves were not endless.
Mike, on the other hand, had Cosmo.
And Cosmo could continuously replenish itself.
He had no fear of the Reality Stone draining his energy.
Whatever power it consumed would be restored almost immediately by the Cosmo within him, which circulated in rhythm with his breathing from the moment it awakened.
Anyone familiar with the nature of Cosmo understood the principle.
Cosmo was like an infinitely large reservoir.
The amount of water you could draw from it at once depended entirely on the strength of the pump.
In other words, the reservoir was limitless, but the rate at which you could burn Cosmo depended on the level you had reached.
That was why Mike had no reason to fear the Reality Stone continuously draining his energy.
Could Malekith say the same?
No.
Unfortunately, none of that changed Malekith’s desire to reclaim the Reality Stone and use it to return the Nine Realms to an age of darkness.
Once he realized that Mike had no intention of handing it over, Malekith stopped wasting words.
He stared at Mike for several seconds before turning toward the Kursed warrior standing beside him like a statue.
In Malekith’s eyes, even a Midgardian who had somehow obtained the Aether was still only a lucky Midgardian.
And what did Midgardians amount to in the eyes of the other races of the Nine Realms?
To put it simply, Midgard had separated itself from the rest of the Nine Realms long ago, and its people were looked down upon by the inhabitants of the other realms as backward outsiders.
If anything, the contempt was even stronger than that.
So as far as Malekith was concerned, one mere Midgardian was hardly worth his personal attention.
His Kursed warrior would be more than enough.
The Kursed warrior understood the signal from his master.
Without saying a word, he stepped forward and shattered the ice beneath his foot.
There was no warning.
He simply charged straight at Mike like a black mountain set loose across the ice.
Mike didn’t move.
As the Kursed warrior came rushing toward him, Mike slowly drew his right fist back to his waist.
Blood-red Cosmo began blazing inside his body, and within moments, a similarly crimson layer of light covered him from head to toe.
The Kursed warrior roared and swung a massive fist, the force of the blow sending shards of ice spraying through the air.
Mike shifted slightly and turned his body aside, avoiding the punch by a hair.
The ice beneath his feet exploded.
Instead of retreating, Mike shot forward and appeared directly in front of the Kursed warrior’s chest, despite the giant standing more than half a body taller than him.
Then Mike drove his right fist upward.
A blood-red pillar of light erupted into the sky, tearing a visible path through the clouds above the Arctic ice cap as the cloud layer rolled violently away from it.
That single punch split the Kursed warrior’s heavy chest armor straight down the center and bent his entire body backward, lifting both feet from the ground.
Mike didn’t stop.
The moment the Kursed warrior was launched into the air, Mike rose with him.
His left elbow came crashing down from above and struck the back of the warrior’s neck, folding the massive body into a sharp arc.
Both of them began to fall.
In midair, Mike twisted his body and abruptly halted his descent for the briefest instant.
That tiny pause was enough.
His right leg came down like a meteor and smashed into the Kursed warrior’s chest.
Mike immediately bent his knee, pinning the warrior beneath him as the two of them plunged toward the ice below.
They crashed down with devastating force.
Boom!
The entire ice cap shook violently.
Cracks spread outward from the impact point in every direction, making the surface look like a shattered mirror.
Dark seawater surged through the fractures and pushed apart the broken slabs of floating ice.
The Kursed warrior lay embedded at the center of the crater, his limbs twisted at unnatural angles.
Cracks had spread across his helmet until they covered nearly the entire faceplate.
He didn’t move again.
Mike stood at the edge of the crater without even breathing hard.
He took one last look at the fallen Kursed warrior, then turned toward Malekith.
The Dark Elf king’s expression had clearly changed.
Mike looked at him and spoke.
“See?
Your man wasn’t good enough.” Then he raised his gaze fully to Malekith.
“Come on.
You’re next.”