Another chapter done. Enjoy, guys, and please spend your power stones. It motivates me to write more.
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In a dark laboratory, many test tubes filled with unknown fluorescent chemicals glistened, dimly illuminating Mesogog, who stood at the center as still as a statue. His eyes were firmly shut, and the only thing illuminating his prehistoric face was the floating tesseract before him.
After almost thirty minutes of standing, his reptilian eyes finally snapped open. His head bobbed backwards a little as he exhaled a breath of turbid air.
Then, with a fanatic gaze, he stared at the tesseract and spoke hoarsely. "Success! I can't believe it worked."
"Although I don't fully understand what happened earlier, the process still profited me in the end." He clenched his fists, feeling the mysterious powers coursing through his veins, and couldn't help but moan in pleasure.
Not quite long ago, due to external interference, the tesseract had moved by itself, rushing towards the sky of his lair, which startled him immensely. Accompanying that movement was a burst of energy released from the tesseract. One he had never seen it display before. But it didn't take long for it to settle back down.
Out of curiosity, he tried to store and manipulate that energy, and fortunately for him, it worked. After the first success, he became bold and attempted to absorb this mass of energy.
And behold, fortune favors the bold, or rather, in Mesogog's case, the mad. He actually succeeded and underwent another transformation, increasing his intelligence, strength, and mental energy by an astonishing degree.
As Mesogog continued to examine himself, he suddenly thought of the cause of this transformation, and an evil smirk couldn't help but form on his face.
He then turned to look at the large tube hovering within the room, and his smile became even more pronounced, making him uglier than he already was.
"I still have to thank you for your 'contribution'. If it weren't for your 'kindness and selflessness', I might have never known the tesseract possessed such means."
The recipient of his words didn't reply. In fact, it was suspended in a large amount of mutagen within the tube. The body of this entity surprisingly brimmed with life, richer than an ordinary human.
Mesogog moved closer to it and continued. "Don't worry, I'll make sure to treat your body well. After all, you are a supreme specimen. A specimen I would put to good use."
"Hahaha Hehehehe…." A chilling laughter rang out from Mesogog, shaking the tubes within his lab.
And the one suspended within the hovering tube of mutagen was none other than Loki, the god of deception and lies.
...…..
Boom!
A figure shuttled through the air, moving at a speed faster than anyone can track. His body radiated boundless might and a mix of ferocity. This aura caused the atmosphere to darken around him.
Bang! Boom!!
With a single swing of his right hand, he punched one of the titans on its head, shattering half of its jaw and leaving it in immense pain.
Rarrr!
It couldn't even make a normal sound as its windpipe had been utterly crushed. All that echoed was a gibberish sound of pain as its alien blood and organs drooped down from its neck. It was an utterly horrifying scene.
The other titans couldn't even react to the attack. They were too slow and stupid, possessing only strength and size.
This became a massive advantage for Zayne, as it made it easy to crush them quickly.
Zayne did not give the titan a chance to stabilize itself; he immediately rushed forward and kicked at its head.
Bang! Splurt! Boom!!!
The giant head burst open like a melon, turning into a mist of blood that rained down but failed to stain the city.
After finishing off another one, Zayne did not slow down his pace at all. He instead increased his speed and rushed towards the remaining seven, with his hands shaped like a tiger's claws charging forward.
A tiger phantom appeared behind him again, merging with his claw-shaped hand, and filled it with immense power.
Slash! Swipe!
Zayne converged the immense powers on his two claws and aggressively pounced at the seven at the same time, leaving phantom images behind as he maneuvered around them. But this time, the titans retaliated; some punched, while others shot out beams from their mouths. Their mindless eyes became even more filled with madness.
Although they weren't particularly intelligent, they still recognized a threat.
And the one before them could threaten their lives. So how could they not defend against him?
Swoosh! Boom!
Flurries of dazzling attacks rang out in the sky, with each cancelling out the other. Whether it was Zayne's attacks or the titan's, each one possessed the power to destroy a large town in a single strike. Especially Zayne's, filled with might so powerful that it could alter a part of the city's weather.
"Tiger claw." Zayne's body spun, and his right hand shot forward, aiming straight at the head of one of the titans.
Boom! Splurt!
"Another one down," Zayne murmured as another bloody mist rained down on the city.
His display of strength and ferocity finally gave the remaining titans a scare. They became so frightened that they started to flee.
Zayne saw this scene, and his expression turned comical.
"Am I that scary?" He couldn't help but ask himself. But as he thought of the previous scene, he finally understood why they were so scared of him.
"Oh well, I better end this qui—"
"Hmm?" His thoughts stalled for a moment as he noticed a familiar yet different rune appear at the center of the city. "So, they also intend to participate in the chaos. Good, saves me the trouble of luring them out."
Zayne ignored the rune for a moment and turned back to the fleeing titans. Without delay, he channeled the animal spirit within him, drawing out its power to the maximum.
"Call to the beast inside!" Each word was like thunder, shaking the sky and earth. "Free the Tiger!!"
Boom!!
The surroundings immediately changed before the eyes of the titans, as they stretched and widened to infinity. They wanted to move but found out it was impossible. These low-intelligence beings could only wail and wait for death.
Suddenly, a tiger's phantom in Zord form burst out from Zayne's body and rushed towards them, enveloping their entire perception.
The tiger was impossibly huge as its gaping maw widened and swallowed the six remaining titans in a big gulp, pulverizing them within its body.
Roar!!!
After destroying the titans, it roared, inadvertently clearing the darkened sky. As its mission was complete, it dissipated the next second.
This series of actions seemed slow, but actually happened in a flash. Really fast, the people below and the arriving forces on the battlefield didn't notice anything till after.
Zayne hovered in the sky for a moment, then flashed away in the next, appearing near the newly manifested magic rune. It was several meters wide, easily covering a football field. The lines around it were archaic and eerie, forcing one to look away rather than directly.
With Zayne's powerful perception, he instantly sensed the staggering amount of dark magic contained within each line of the rune.
"I fear half the forces at the first chamber of the pit are going to arrive through this teleportation rune." Zayne thought to himself, then added. "I might as well stay here for a moment and destroy them the moment they arrive. That way, the heroes won't be overpowered when I fight another battle later."
Buzz~ Swoosh~~
Before acting, he switched his ranger form back to Phase One to preserve energy. Though he had a large amount of omni-energy, he'd rather save it for more powerful enemies later than for the arriving small fries.
A full minute passed; the heroes were still battling on the other side, while Zayne floated above the rune silently. Though, surprisingly, no Chitauri or Kelzaks attacked him. It was almost as if Zayne was invisible.
This was not the lack of perception from the invaders, but Zayne doing so as his aura was currently at the lowest, making it impossible for most people to spot him, not to mention mindless creatures.
Buzz!
After what seemed like a long time, the magic rune finally had a reaction, causing Zayne's to gleam beneath his visor.
The dark magic within the runes fully erupted at this moment, covering the entire battlefield, making both heroes and invaders freeze for a moment under the vast pressure.
It didn't stop there but continued like a chain reaction, activating several other smaller runes around the city, which then formed a giant interconnected runic formation. These runes blazed with an eerie light as they covered the entire city in a mighty barrier.
Zayne saw all of this but did not act to stop it. He even encouraged them in his heart.
This series of actions was perfect for him, as it aligned with his goals for this mission. Casting a barrier of limited range yet encompassing both heroes and invaders, who wouldn't be happy about it?
This made his job very easy. This 'cage' had made it simpler for him to destroy every enemy at once, with little to no chance of escape later on.
The most fascinating thing about this barrier was that although its width was limited, covering only New York City, the height was more exaggerated, spanning several kilometers upward as it covered a part of the Earth's pole. This, in turn, made it impossible for any invader from space to escape through the space crack; instead, they were even trapped here.
The core rune before Zayne buzzed once more, but this time, it burst with a more intense dark energy. The eerie energy was so vast that it condensed into smoke, which modified the environment within the barrier to sustain the incoming force of dark magic.
"Hmm, dark magic? How did it appear in Midgard?" Thor, being a prince of Asgard, was the first amongst the many heroes to notice the sudden change in the atmosphere.
Asgard had always been against anything that could break the balance of the Nine Realms. Especially Odin and several other godkings who made ancient oaths to protect the stability of the realms, and dark magic was the opposite of this.
This force has been around for eons, longer than many ancient powers. It's birth since the dawn of the universe.
And according to what Odin had told Thor, the dark magic forces were the evilest entity in the Nine realms and must be annihilated at all costs if spotted. Apart from those commands, he said nothing more.
That was also one of the rare moments Thor had seen his father apprehensive about anyone or anything. That day truly opened his eyes about the vast Nine realms and how dangerous it was. Even though he was proud, Thor was still scared of these secret yet powerful forces. It was like a bedtime horror story to him and most of the royalty in Asgard.
Crack! Baam!!!
Thor swung his Mjolnir, propelling himself to the sky, and shattered a large Chitauri behemoth as he flew. His body crackled with lightning as he moved towards the source of dark magic with a grim expression.
"Oh, he's coming over here." Zayne noticed Thor's incoming presence, but did not turn back to look.
He couldn't be bothered to look as he was comprehending the mechanics of the rune.
Zayne was naturally gifted with knowledge, so things like this sparked his interest the most. And in the few seconds he had watched the operations of the rune, Zayne had comprehended more than half of the secrets within it. Both the mechanics and channel of magic had become clear to him. This showed how high his comprehension was.
His intelligence was never this good. It was only after his previous evolution and several other power-ups that his intelligence grew to such an extent, making him an extremely rare genius.
The amount of time Zayne took for this was only a few seconds, and he had already cast away his gaze the next moment.
Several beings finally appeared in the core ruin, with more also coming out of the other secondary runes. These newly arrived forces were extremely ugly, possessing no eyes or nose, just razor-sharp canines that filled their mouth.
On their faceless head were several holes that reeked of decay and dark energy. Their bodies were practically brown and white rusted armor with no signs of flesh. The armor seemed to peel off every moment, staining the ground beneath them.
These strange entities were naturally the forces of darkness, and these soldiers/minions were commonly known as Hidiacs.
Leading them was none other than the Dark Knight himself, Koragg. This time, he possessed an even more powerful aura.
"Omni-beam!" Before the dark forces could figure out what was going on, a large red beam of omni-energy appeared before them.
Boom!
The energy beam pulverized all the Hidiacs on the core rune, leaving only Koragg, who was surprisingly uninjured.
"Who?!" After the dust settled, Koragg roared to the sky in anger, his eyes darting to and fro as he searched for the culprit.
A few moments later, he finally spotted a figure in the sky.
Koragg's eyes narrowed, and the dark magic immediately erupted from his body at maximum. "It's you!"
Seeing the cause of his disgrace and defeat hovering above him, Koragg, who was known for his calmness in most situations, couldn't help but explode in rage.
The sudden outburst of anger made Zayne raise an eyebrow. They weren't enemies in past lives, right? Why so much anger?
"Today I shall slay you and regain my honor." Koragg drew his blade and steadied his wolf shield. He pointed the blade at the awe-inspiring red figure in the sky, ready to fight to the death.
"Then I shall see how you intend to 'slay' me, oh defeated one." Zayne's words were slightly mocking, but Koragg didn't think much of it. To him, Zayne had every right to taunt him; he, after all, was the loser of their last battle.
"Take my blade." Koragg also flew to the sky, charging at Zayne with extreme speed.
"With pleasure," Zayne replied and also punched forward.
Boom!!!
Blade and Fist met, shattering the air around them.