Chapter 264. The True Space Stone
After securing the amber glow of the Mind Stone within the reinforced depths of its vibranium container, Noah turned his gaze toward the other artifact resting in his palm. It was the Tesseract—a perfect, translucent cerulean cube that thrummed with a rhythmic, ethereal pulse.
To the uninitiated, this cube was one of the most powerful relics in the cosmos. But Noah knew the truth: the Tesseract was merely a shell, a crystalline sarcophagus designed to house and contain the raw, volatile essence of the Space Stone. To claim the prize within, the cage had to be shattered.
The blue casing was far more than a decorative box. It functioned as a sophisticated conduit, much like the Infinity Gauntlet itself, though far more specialized. Its primary purpose was to dampen and regulate the Space Stone's reality-warping magnitude, allowing even those of lesser constitution to harness its energy without being instantly atomized. It was this protective buffer that had allowed a mere mortal like Nick Fury to handle the artifact without his flesh sloughing from his bones.
Noah rotated the cube between his fingers, the surface feeling unnaturally smooth and frigid against his skin, like a block of ice that refused to melt.
Should I break the casing now? he mused, watching the swirling azure mists trapped within the glass-like walls.
He weighed the decision carefully. In the archives of his memory—the cinematic history of another world—he recalled Thanos crushing the Tesseract with effortless brutality after slaughtering the Asgardian refugees. The Mad Titan, a being of primordial strength and cosmic will, had no need for a safety valve. He desired the raw, unfiltered power.
Noah found himself in a similar position of dominance. Through his myriad enhancements and the tempering of his soul, he had reached a threshold where the unshielded touch of an Infinity Stone was no longer a death sentence, but a challenge to be mastered.
With a sharp nod to himself, he made his choice. The shell had to go.
The Tesseract's casing was an artifact of legend, reputed to be virtually indestructible by conventional means. Noah wondered if Thanos had relied on the sheer violet devastation of the Power Stone to crack it, or if raw Titan strength had been enough.
He closed his right hand around the cube, his knuckles whitening as he exerted a steady, crushing pressure. The Tesseract flared in protest, erupting with a brilliant, blinding light that bathed the room in shades of neon blue. The air hummed with static, and the smell of ozone grew thick, yet despite the groan of protesting physics, the cube remained stubbornly whole.
After a few moments of fruitless exertion, Noah relaxed his grip. He peered at the unblemished surface of the artifact and let out a dry, self-deprecating huff. His body, though forged by the templates of legendary heroes and reinforced by the Rune of Bravery, still lacked the sheer, mountainous physical force required for such a feat of demolition.
«I suppose a template with true, world-breaking physical stats is still on my wish list,» he muttered with a wry smirk. Most of his summoned avatars relied on arcane finesse, specialized weaponry, or tactical brilliance. Even Sett, the most prominent brawler among them, was ultimately a vastaya of limited celestial potential compared to the cosmic entities that roamed the stars.
However, this initial failure was merely a baseline test. His true strength never resided in muscle alone; it lay in the runes.
Noah closed his eyes, drawing his focus inward to the burning hearth of his power. He tapped into the Rune of Bravery. Suddenly, a torrent of golden, indomitable energy surged through his veins, an incandescent tide that amplified his physical form and his magical resonance in equal measure.
«Hah!»
His eyes snapped open, glowing with the radiance of a dying star. A shroud of magical pressure coalesced around him, shimmering like a cloak of white-hot dragon fire.
Once more, he clamped his fist around the Tesseract. This time, the resistance felt like brittle glass. A sharp, crystalline crack echoed through the chamber, followed by a violent shatter. The blue shell disintegrated, its fragments turning into motes of light that evaporated before they could even hit the floor, dissolving into the swirling vortex of energy.
When he opened his hand, the last shards of blue vanished into thin air, leaving behind a small, jagged gem that burned with a concentrated, sapphire intensity.
«There you are... the real thing,» Noah whispered, his voice tinged with awe.
The Space Stone hovered just above his palm, freed from its cage. The aura emanating from it was vastly different now—heavier, more ancient, and infinitely more dangerous. It felt as though the very fabric of the universe was warping around his hand, struggling to contain the stone's presence.
As his skin brushed the gem, he felt a colossal jolt. It was like sticking a wire directly into the heart of a sun. The raw energy of the Infinity Stone flooded his system, a pressure that would have turned a lesser man into a cloud of red mist in a heartbeat. The Tesseract had been a muzzle; the Space Stone was the wolf.
«Well, at least now I can say the Tesseract is gone with a clear conscience,» Noah chuckled, thinking of the inevitable questions from his allies. Technically, he wasn't lying.
The invisible, humming energy of the stone began to weave itself into his being, heightening his existing spatial affinities. His repertoire of movement—Teleportation, Arcane Shift, the harrowing Step into the Void—all felt suddenly sharper, more effortless, as if the distance between two points had become a mere suggestion rather than a physical law.
But the most dramatic evolution occurred within his primary mobility skill: Blink. The stone's sapphire essence merged with the golden thread of his Blink energy, forging a new, hybridized power that shimmered with a regal, violet-gold luster.
«I suspect the days of planting ward-totems for travel are over,» he noted, his mind expanding as he felt the cosmic ley lines of the universe.
Visions flickered across his mind's eye—every location he had ever graced with his presence stood out like a beacon in the dark. He could feel the residual echoes of his own mana left behind in those places, acting as anchors for his new power. Even distant, uncharted corners of the cosmos felt strangely reachable, though he remained cautious. Blind jumping into the unknown was a gambler's game; one misstep could land him in the crushing gravity of a black hole or the freezing vacuum of a dead nebula.
Time to master this, Noah thought, closing his fist around the stone. I will bend this power until it obeys me as naturally as the Rune of Bravery.
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