Sixth-grade spiritual pressure.
This was roughly equivalent to a lieutenant at the bottom of the ranks in the Thirteen Court Guard Squads — meaning he had only just mastered the Shikai of his zanpakutō.
Not especially powerful, but in a Marvel universe full of danger, it gave him just enough strength to survive.
Still not enough…
I’m still not strong enough.
Lorde, familiar with how the story played out, knew exactly how dangerous this world could become.
His current strength was nowhere near sufficient.
So, after careful thought, he decided to set a trap.
Everything that had happened that night was part of a plan Lorde had staged in advance — a performance he privately called “The Reaper Appears.”
The two Black men in Hell’s Kitchen hadn’t been chosen by accident.
They were rare humans with high spiritual sensitivity, capable of seeing a Soul Reaper — the perfect witnesses for his plan.
Once their account reached the right ears, it would draw the attention of S.H.I.E.L.D., giving him a legitimate reason to get involved and use the organization’s resources toward his own ends.
Knowing Nick Fury’s personality — his obsession with control — there was no chance he’d ignore a mysterious “Soul Reaper” appearing right under his nose.
“S.H.I.E.L.D., huh…” Lorde murmured, lying back on the bench as he replayed the night’s events, a faint smile tugging at his lips.
“Let’s see how useful you can be to me.”
When he’d first arrived in this world, Lorde — like most people in his position — had planned to quietly build up strength in secret, waiting until he was ready before making any real moves.
But things hadn’t gone according to plan.
Over the past year of hunting Hollows as a Soul Reaper, he’d come to a sobering realization: Soul Reapers had limits.
If he kept grinding away at Hollows and system missions the slow way, by the time Thanos arrived in a few years, he’d be lucky to reach Captain-class strength.
Impressive as that sounded, it wouldn’t be nearly enough against someone operating at Thanos’s level — a being tied to the cosmic forces of the universe itself.
A Skyfather-level opponent would crush a Captain without effort.
He needed to surpass the natural limits of a Soul Reaper entirely.
But time wasn’t on his side.
There was no realistic path to that kind of power alone in just a few years — which meant borrowing strength from others was his best option.
There was also a second, more pressing reason.
Lorde had long wondered why Hollows were appearing in the Marvel universe at all.
Before his arrival, there shouldn’t have been any — yet the moment he showed up, they started appearing.
Strange, considering Marvel already had its own afterlife, with the souls of the dead governed by Death, one of the five Cosmic Entities.
According to the system, the answer lay within him.
The power of the Soul King resided in his body, and as he grew stronger, it began pulling stray souls into a kind of gravitational field centered on him.
In other words, the Hollows were appearing because of him — because he was the Soul King’s successor.
And this was only the beginning.
As his strength grew, so would his influence.
Eventually, every soul across the entire country — the entire world, even the entire universe — could fall under his domain.
Which meant, quite literally, that he was stealing Death’s job.
Death was one of the five Cosmic Entities in the Marvel universe — the living embodiment of death itself, the one true authority over the passing of all things.
What would happen if a being of that magnitude discovered her authority was slowly being siphoned away by some insignificant human from Earth?
The answer wasn’t hard to guess.
If Death ever found out her power had been usurped, his death would be neither quick nor merciful.
And even in the best-case scenario — that Death, governing the entire universe, simply never noticed one small planet — that didn’t mean he was safe.
Earth held a unique position in the Marvel universe.
Even if Death never caught on, there was another, far more immediate threat waiting for him.
The Hell dimension.
Mephisto, one of Hell’s rulers, held dominion over a portion of the souls that passed through Earth — putting him and Lorde, a Soul Reaper, on a direct collision course by nature of what they were.
In other words, whether he wanted it or not, simply being a Soul Reaper meant he’d eventually have to face both Mephisto and Death.
Maybe that was just the price of power — heavy is the head that wears the crown.
As the heir to the Soul King, Lorde stood apart from both of them by default, and a reckoning was only a matter of time.
So, to survive, he had to grow strong — fast.
And to do that, he’d hold nothing back.
“I really can’t wait to see this,” Lorde said, smiling to himself.
“I wonder how S.H.I.E.L.D.
will react once they learn there are Soul Reapers, Hollows, and two entire organizations — Soul Society and Hueco Mundo — operating right under their noses.”
The next morning, an exhausted Agent Coulson, accompanied by Agent May, was dispatched to Hell’s Kitchen to investigate the previous night’s incident.
“Is the report ready yet?” Coulson asked, approaching the technical team as he surveyed the cordoned-off street.
“This is unbelievable — an entire street, wiped out.”
“The whole block’s a mess,” Agent May observed, standing nearby with her arms crossed, frowning at the wreckage.
“Whatever caused this, the damage pattern looks almost surgical — like it was cut clean through by something sharp.”
“Sharp?
Cut through?” Coulson repeated under his breath.
“Some kind of high-tech weapon, maybe?”
“No,” one of the technicians said, walking over.
“No energy residue on-site.
Whatever did this, it wasn’t tech-based.”
“That’s odd.” Coulson crouched down, examining the fracture lines along the pavement.
“These edges are too smooth.
Almost like they were sliced by a blade.”
“A blade?” May let out a short laugh.
“Come on.
This street is over a hundred meters long.
What kind of blade could do that?”
“Hmm.” Coulson said nothing for a moment, a strange glint in his eyes.
“Let’s not rule anything out just yet, May.
This isn’t the first time we’ve run into something we couldn’t explain.”
May didn’t argue the point.
Another technician spoke up.
“We pulled the surveillance footage.
Looks like there was a survivor here last night.”
“A survivor?” Coulson’s eyebrows rose.
“Good — maybe we can finally get some answers.”
“Don’t get your hopes up,” May said with a shrug.
“Survivors from scenes like this rarely have anything useful to say.”
Inside a sealed interrogation room, Jack — still recovering in a hospital bed just hours earlier — had been pulled out by a team of men in black suits claiming to be FBI, and brought here without explanation.
“Who are you people?” Jack shouted, straining against the restraints binding him to the chair.
“Where am I?
Why am I being held?
Let me go!”
“Good morning, Mr.
Jack.” Coulson entered in a crisp suit and took a seat across from him, unhurried.
“I have a few questions for you.
I’d appreciate your cooperation.”
“Who are you?” Jack thrashed against the chair.
“Let me out of here!
This is illegal!”
Coulson folded his arms, smiling faintly.
“Mr.
Jack, there’s no need to panic.
We’re with the FBI.
We just need to ask you a few questions.”
“Screw you!” Jack spat.
“FBI or not, I’m not saying a word.
I’ll sue you for unlawful detention!”
“By all means.” Coulson calmly lifted a file, scanning it before reading aloud.
“Jack Mores.
Male, twenty-two.
Low-level associate of the Penguin gang.
Served three months for assault.
Since your release, you’ve been tied to drug trafficking and kidnapping.
Sound about right?”
“You…
you can’t—” Jack stammered, momentarily speechless.
Coulson set the file down, his tone flat.
“If we pursued charges for all of that, Mr.
Jack, you’d be looking at serious time.
But if you cooperate with us today, I’m prepared to forget I ever saw this file — and let you walk.”
“…Really?” Jack swallowed hard.
“Really.” Coulson leaned back, unbothered.
“Frankly, small-time criminals like you aren’t worth the FBI’s time.
Cooperate, and this never happened.”
“I’ll talk!
I’ll tell you everything!” Jack’s resistance crumbled, his face pale.
“Just ask — I’ll answer anything.”
“Excellent, Mr.
Jack.” Coulson smiled.
“Trust goes both ways — I’m glad you understand that.
So, tell me: what exactly happened last night?”
“Last night…” Fear flickered across Jack’s face, and a visible tremor ran through him.
“Last night…
I saw…
I saw the God of Death.”
Coulson emerged from the interrogation room, his expression unusually grim, and made his way through a series of checkpoints to the highest levels of S.H.I.E.L.D.
headquarters.
“Director.” He entered Nick Fury’s office with a heavy tone.
“There’s something urgent I need to report.”
“Again?” Fury swiveled in his chair, rubbing his temples with two fingers, sounding thoroughly worn down.
“Go ahead.
What is it this time?”
“Last night, a battle broke out in Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan — an entire street was destroyed.
We tracked down a survivor, and what he told us during questioning…” Coulson paused.
“It’s significant.”
“Oh?” Something in Coulson’s tone told Fury this wasn’t a routine matter.
“What kind of intelligence are we talking about?”
Coulson took a breath before answering.
“It concerns something called…
a ‘Soul Reaper.’ And ‘Hollows.'”