Chapter 120: The Hub World Domain
October 6
The golden portal snapped shut behind me, severing the connection to the ruined Wakandan jungle.
I floated in the center of the Hub World. It was an endless, sprawling nexus of absolute darkness, illuminated only by the faint, pulsing light of billions of floating digital spheres. Each sphere contained an entire, breathing universe—a timeline playing out its own tragedies, wars, and comic-book climaxes.
Before, when I had visited this place after draining Vought's Compound V reserves, I was merely a passenger. I was a user looking at a menu.
Now, the Hub World felt entirely different.
The cosmic energy of the Infinity Stones merged with the Plot Changing System pulsed natively in my blood. I didn't just see the spheres; I could feel the fundamental code holding the nexus together. I could sense the structural integrity of the void. I was no longer a traveler browsing a catalog. I had administrative access. I was the Multiversal Architect.
I looked around the infinite, empty dark. It was a perfect staging ground, but it lacked a certain comfort.
I raised my hand. I didn't need to spend System Points for this, and I didn't need a magic spell. I simply envisioned the architecture and demanded that reality conform to my blueprint.
The void shuddered.
From the absolute nothingness, a massive, floating island of compressed dark matter violently materialized. It spanned for miles, a perfectly flat, indestructible foundation anchored permanently to the center of the Hub World.
With another thought, thousands of tons of sleek, dark gray Nth metal poured out of the ether, weaving together at hypersonic speeds. Towering spires, heavily fortified walls, and sprawling, minimalist courtyards assembled themselves piece by piece. Within seconds, a colossal, unassailable citadel dominated the floating island. It was a fortress built to withstand the collapse of a multiverse.
I lowered my hand, landing softly in the center of the massive, empty central courtyard.
The citadel was perfect. But it was completely barren. I was a god of war, but I was also a man who appreciated a good rack of lamb, aged bourbon, and tailored suits.
I reached out and grabbed the fabric of reality, tearing open a massive, rectangular dimensional rift.
Through the portal, the dark, rain-soaked, polluted skyline of Gotham City appeared. It was exactly where I had left it on Earth-DC.
I didn't step through the portal to pack my bags. I simply extended my Architect authority through the rift, wrapping my telekinetic grasp entirely around the fifty-acre perimeter of the Elliot Manor.
I bypassed the dirt and grabbed the solid bedrock deep beneath the estate.
With a smooth, effortless upward pull, I physically ripped the entire estate out of Gotham. The sprawling brick mansion, the heavy iron gates, the massive pine forest, and Pamela's toxic, mutated gardens were lifted flawlessly into the air.
I pulled the entire fifty-acre plot of land backward through the dimensional tear.
The portal flashed brilliantly as the massive estate materialized inside the Hub World, settling perfectly into the designated Nth metal courtyard of my citadel. The bedrock fused seamlessly with the dark matter foundation.
I closed the portal, sealing Gotham away forever.
The front doors of the mansion burst open.
Selina ran out onto the gravel driveway, her green eyes wide with alarm. She was wearing a silk robe, holding a customized silver pistol. Henri followed closely behind her, holding a cast-iron skillet, looking remarkably composed for a man who had just felt the ground vanish beneath him.
At the edge of the property, Pamela Isley stepped out of the tree line. Her glowing green eyes darted from the dark Nth metal walls surrounding her forest to the infinite, starry void of the Hub World above them.
I walked up the driveway, my hands resting casually in my pockets.
"Put the gun away, Selina," I said smoothly. "And Henri, you can lower the skillet."
Selina lowered the pistol, her jaw dropping as she looked up at the endless sea of floating multiversal spheres hovering in the dark sky. The smog and rain of Gotham were completely gone.
"Victor," Selina breathed, her voice trembling slightly as her brain struggled to process the impossible physics of their new location. "Where are we? What did you do to the sky?"
"We moved," I told her, stopping at the edge of the porch. "Gotham was getting crowded. The Justice League is going to spend the next decade turning over every stone on Earth looking for me. I decided to take us off the board entirely."
I looked over at Pamela. The toxic botanist was running her hands over a massive purple acid-flower. The plant was practically vibrating, soaking in the ambient, limitless cosmic energy radiating from the Hub World.
"Your forest is completely shielded here, Pamela,"you have absolute peace."
Pamela looked at me, a rare, genuine smile crossing her pale face, before she vanished back into her thriving, cosmic-powered garden.
I walked past Selina and stepped into the mansion. "Henri, I'll be in the command center. I won't need dinner tonight."
"Very good, sir," Henri replied without missing a beat, turning back toward the kitchen.
I walked deep into the new Nth metal expansions of the citadel, entering a massive, sleek command room overlooking the void. A colossal, holographic map of the multiverse floated in the center of the room.
I had the powers of an Architect. I had assimilated the Infinity Stones. But the Royal Viltrumite Bloodline—the absolute pinnacle of biological evolution—was still fresh in my veins. The leverage-free kinetic output, the sub-light speed, the total physical density. I wanted to push the absolute limits of my new body.
I looked at the glowing spheres of reality.
"System," I commanded. "Filter realities. I am looking for the genetic origin of my bloodline. I want the Viltrumite Empire."
The map rapidly spun, isolating a single, aggressively violent red sphere.
[Target Reality Identified: Earth-97 (The 'Invincible' Universe)]
[Current Global Event: The Chicago Massacre.]
I tapped the sphere, pulling up the live telemetry of the timeline.
A Viltrumite conqueror named Nolan—Omni-Man—was currently in the process of beating his own half-blood son, Mark Grayson, to a pulp. Nolan was trying to teach the boy a lesson about the absolute superiority of the Viltrumite Empire, completely leveling the city of Chicago in the process. He believed he was the apex predator of his universe. He believed his empire's philosophy of 'survival of the fittest' was the ultimate truth.
(Let's see how fit he really is,) I thought, a cold, predatory anticipation building in my chest.
"Set the temporal anchor," I ordered the System. "Drop me directly into Chicago."
The golden rift tore open in the center of the command room. I adjusted the cuffs of my black shirt, stepped through the gateway, and prepared to show the Viltrumite Empire what a true Emperor looked like.
Chapter 121: The Chicago Interception
October 7
The sky over Chicago was a thick blanket of black smoke, filled with the crushed concrete of a million ruined lives.
The city wasn't a city anymore; it was a mass grave. Skyscraper frames stuck out from the ruined ground like broken teeth. The distant wail of emergency sirens was drowned out by the loud roar of broken gas lines and the groans of collapsing buildings.
In the middle of the mess, Nolan floated a few feet above the cracked road.
His clean white and red uniform was covered in fresh, dark blood. It wasn't his. It belonged to the broken, gasping teenager lying at the bottom of the crater right under him. Mark Grayson—Invincible—was a ruined mess of flesh and torn clothes. His yellow and blue suit was shredded. His face was a swollen, unrecognizable mess of broken bone and dark purple bruises, his eyes barely able to focus on the man who put him there.
Nolan looked down at his son. There was no pity in his eyes. There was just the cold look of an alien soldier punishing a recruit. He really believed this killing was necessary. He was forcing the truth of the Viltrumite Empire into his son's head: humanity was weak, useless, and meant to be conquered.
Nolan pulled his right arm back, his dense muscles tightening up. He got ready to throw a massive punch right at Mark's face—a final hit meant to break the boy's spirit and force him to give up.
A glowing golden tear ripped through the air right behind Mark's body.
I stepped out of the quiet dark of the Hub World and onto the bloody concrete.
I just stepped over Mark's broken body, putting myself right between the father and son just as Nolan threw his fist down like a falling meteor.
I raised my left hand and opened my palm.
Nolan's fist slammed into the middle of my hand.
The hit didn't sound like normal flesh hitting flesh. It sounded like the ground snapping in half. The raw energy of the Viltrumite conqueror had nowhere to go, bouncing off my palm and shooting outward in a massive shockwave.
The blast instantly wiped out the leftover rubble within a five-mile radius, blowing the thick black smoke out of the sky and leaving it clear above us.
When the dust settled, the silence in Chicago was heavy.
My left arm hadn't moved an inch. I stood straight, the cuffs of my nice black shirt untouched by the wind. I hadn't even shifted my feet to brace myself. The density of my Royal Bloodline soaked up the massive punch as easily as a guy catching a tennis ball.
Nolan froze.
The great Omni-Man, the scariest guy on Earth-97, stared at his trapped fist in pure shock. His advanced Viltrumite brain just couldn't process what was happening. He was pushing down with enough strength to crack the planet, and he was being stopped cold by a man who looked human, who wasn't even struggling to hold him back.
"What... are you?" Nolan asked, his deep voice cracking with sudden caution. He tried to pull his fist back.
I closed my fingers around his knuckles, easily locking his arm in place.
"You talk too much, Nolan," I said, my voice quiet, but carrying real weight through the silence of the crater.
I dropped the mental block I used to walk among normal people. I let the raw aura of the Royal Viltrumite Bloodline flare up.
The change in the air was instant and heavy. The air pressure dropped. The suffocating weight of a true predator radiating pure dominance washed over the ruined city blocks.
Nolan's eyes went wide in horror, his pupils shrinking to dots. His heart rate, which had been calm while he killed thousands of humans, spiked into a panicked rhythm.
His Viltrumite genetics recognized the feeling right away. It wasn't magic. It wasn't tech. It was a genetic signal built into the oldest instincts of his species. It was the biological marker of the ancient Emperor Argall. He was feeling the presence of the lost peak of their race—a bloodline that the Empire thought had been dead for thousands of years.
Nolan wasn't looking at a human. He wasn't looking at a superhero. He was staring right at a living god from his own myths.
"The Royal Bloodline..." Nolan whispered, the color draining from his face as his arrogant confidence broke into pieces. "That's impossible. You're dead."
"I am the Architect," I corrected him.
I tightened my grip on his fist. The supposedly unbreakable bones of the elite Viltrumite soldier began to groan and crack under the pressure of my fingers. I looked him dead in the eyes, letting a cold smile spread across my face.
"And your empire is a joke."
Chapter 122: The False Empire
October 8
Nolan didn't quit. He was a Viltrumite soldier. When he felt his bones cracking in my grip, his survival instincts kicked in.
He swung his free left hand right at my throat, moving faster than sound. It was a kill shot meant to take my head off.
I didn't even try to block it.
His hand hit my neck. A loud crack echoed across the ruined city. But it wasn't my neck that broke. Nolan let out a sharp grunt of pain. Two of the fingers on his left hand bent backward, snapped by the dense muscle of my Royal Bloodline.
He stepped back, pulling his right hand free, breathing hard. For the first time in his long life, Nolan of Viltrum looked unsure.
"You think you're strong," I said, taking a slow step forward. "You beat your own son half to death to prove a point about survival of the fittest."
Nolan flew at me again. He didn't hold back. He threw a flurry of punches that could level mountains, aiming for my chest, my ribs, my face.
I just let him hit me.
Each punch sounded like a bomb going off, kicking up clouds of dust and blowing the broken road away. But I didn't move. My feet stayed planted on the ground. His hits felt like heavy rain against my skin. Nothing more.
Nolan stopped, breathing heavy, his knuckles bleeding.
"My turn," I said.
I threw a single, simple punch right into his stomach.
I didn't use all my strength, but I didn't need to. The hit lifted Nolan off the ground. He coughed up a huge splash of blood, his eyes going wide. Before he could fly away, I grabbed him by the front of his bloody uniform and slammed him down into the road.
The ground shook. A new crater formed under his back.
I pinned him down with one foot on his chest. He reached up, trying to push my leg away. I brought my right boot down hard on his left arm.
The sound of his bone snapping was loud and ugly. Nolan yelled, a sound of pure pain that he had just forced Mark to make a few minutes ago.
"Your empire is a joke," I said, looking down at him. "You pretend to be gods. You fly around claiming you're the peak of evolution. But you're just a bunch of thugs running a weak, boring system."
Nolan gasped for air, his broken ribs shifting under my boot. "Thragg... Grand Regent Thragg will kill you..."
"Thragg is a fake sitting on a stolen chair," I told him.
High above the Earth, in a quiet room at the Global Defense Agency, Cecil Stedman stood frozen in front of a giant screen. The room was dead silent. Dozens of analysts and generals watched the satellite feed.
Cecil had spent the last hour watching Omni-Man destroy Chicago. He thought it was the end of the world. But now, he was watching a stranger treat Omni-Man like a helpless kid. Cecil felt a cold sweat on his neck. They hadn't been saved. The food chain just shifted, and humanity was still at the bottom.
Back in Chicago, I took my foot off Nolan's chest. He didn't try to get up. He just lay there in the dirt, taking wet, rough breaths next to his knocked-out son.
I looked up. I could see the tiny GDA drone floating miles above us in the sky. My Viltrumite vision zoomed in right on the camera lens.
I knew Cecil was watching.
"Send a message," I said, my voice carrying clearly so the drone's audio could pick it up. "Send it out into deep space. Tell the Viltrumite Empire that Earth is taken."
I looked back down at Nolan.
"Tell Thragg the real Emperor is waiting for him."
Chapter 123: The Cleanup
5 days ago
The tiny GDA drone hovered high in the smoke-filled sky for a few more seconds, its camera lens focused right on my face. Then, with a quiet hum, it turned and zipped away into the clouds. Cecil got the message.
I looked back down at the crater.
Nolan was out cold. The pain of his broken arm and the mental shock of meeting a Royal Viltrumite had finally shut his brain off. He lay in the dirt, looking like a regular, beaten old man instead of a conqueror.
A few feet away, Mark groaned.
The kid was in bad shape, but his Viltrumite healing was already trying to knit his broken face back together. He forced his swollen eyes open, looking past his father's unconscious body to stare at me. He was confused, hurt, and running on empty.
"Who..." Mark coughed, spitting a glob of blood onto the ruined road. "Who are you?"
"I'm the guy pulling the weeds out of your family tree," I said smoothly.
Before Mark could ask anything else, the air behind me cracked.
A bright blue circle of light flashed over the broken road. A second later, Cecil Stedman stepped out of a teleporter. He was wearing his usual wrinkled suit, the scars on his face tight with stress. He wasn't alone. A dozen heavily armed GDA soldiers fanned out around him, aiming high-tech rifles right at my chest.
They were shaking. They just watched me fold Omni-Man like cheap laundry, and now they had orders to point guns at me. It was a brave, stupid move.
Cecil held up a hand, signaling his men to hold their fire. He looked at the ruined city blocks, then at Nolan lying in the dirt, and finally at me.
"You made a mess," Cecil said. His voice was steady, but I could hear his heart hammering in his chest.
"I cleaned up yours, Cecil," I replied, crossing my arms. "He was going to beat the boy to death, and your agency couldn't do a thing to stop him. Put the guns away. If I wanted you dead, you wouldn't have had time to step out of that teleporter."
Cecil stared at me for a long moment. He was a smart man. He knew I was right. He made a quick motion with his hand, and the soldiers slowly lowered their rifles, though they didn't take their fingers off the triggers.
"You sent a message to deep space," Cecil said, getting right to the point. "You called out the Viltrumite Empire. You just invited a galactic armada to my planet."
"They were coming anyway," I told him. "Nolan was sent here to soften Earth up. When he failed to report back, they would have sent a squad to finish the job. Now, they'll send the main fleet. And they'll bring Thragg."
"And you think you can take an entire empire?" Cecil asked, his eyes narrowing.
"I know I can." I looked down at Nolan. "Take him. Lock him up in your deepest cell. Run whatever tests you want. He won't wake up for a while, and when he does, he won't put up a fight. His pride is broken."
Cecil looked at Omni-Man, the guy who had been Earth's greatest protector just a few days ago, now lying in the dirt like garbage. "What about you? What's your angle? Do you want to take his place? Rule the world?"
I laughed softly. It wasn't a mean laugh, just amused. "Earth is too small for me, Cecil. I don't care about your governments or your cities. I'm just using your front yard to pick a fight with some old enemies."
"Patch the kid up," I said, gesturing to Mark. "He's going to need a lot of therapy. And when the sky turns dark and the Viltrumite warships show up... don't get in my way."
I didn't wait for Cecil to answer. I stepped through the golden portal. The tear snapped shut behind me, cutting off the smell of smoke and blood.
I was back in the main courtyard of my dark metal citadel. The air was cool and clean. I took a deep breath, feeling the limitless cosmic energy of the World humming in the background.
Right on cue, the golden interface of the Plot Changing System flashed in front of my eyes.
[CANON EVENT SHATTERED.]
[Hostile Entity 'Omni-Man' Defeated and Humiliated.]
[The 'Earth Conquest' Narrative Terminated.]
[Viltrumite War Timeline Drastically Accelerated.]
[Calculating Harvest...]
[Reward: 25,000,000 System Points.]
[Current Point Balance: 674,885,000 pts.]
Twenty-five million points. Not bad for a few minutes of work. It wasn't a cosmic-level payout like Thanos, but Nolan was just the appetizer. The real payout would come when I wiped out the entire Viltrumite Empire in one go.
I swiped the screen away and walked toward the massive front doors of Elliot Manor, which sat perfectly in the middle of my alien courtyard.
I pushed the heavy oak doors open. The smell of roasted garlic and seared meat filled the air.
Henri stepped out of the dining room, wiping his hands on a clean white towel. "Welcome back, sir. I kept the lamb warm. Any trouble?"
"None at all, Henri," I said, rolling down the sleeves of my black shirt. "Just setting the bait."
Chapter 124: The Call to War
New
4 days ago
Deep in space, a massive Viltrumite warship drifted through the dark.
Inside the main command hall, Grand Regent Thragg sat on his heavy metal throne. He was a huge man with a thick black mustache and eyes that looked like cold stones. He ruled the Viltrumite Empire through fear and pure strength. To him, weakness was a crime.
A soldier walked into the quiet hall. He looked nervous. He stopped at the bottom of the steps and bowed his head.
"Grand Regent," the soldier said, his voice shaking a little. "We just picked up a strange broadcast from Sector 314. The planet Earth."
Thragg frowned. "Nolan's assignment. Did he finally take over the planet? He is behind schedule."
"No, sir," the soldier said, swallowing hard. "You need to see this."
The soldier tapped a keypad on his wrist. A blue hologram popped up in the middle of the room. It showed the ruined streets of Chicago.
Thragg leaned forward, resting his chin on his fist. He watched the screen. He saw Nolan, one of his best and most loyal generals, throw his hardest, bone-breaking punch at a stranger.
Then he saw the man in the black shirt catch the punch like it was a slow-tossed ball.
Thragg's eyes narrowed. He watched the man break Nolan's arm with a single stomp. He listened as the stranger called the Viltrumite Empire a joke.
Then the man in the video looked right up at the camera.
"Tell the Viltrumite Empire that Earth is taken," the man on the screen said, his voice calm and steady. "Tell Thragg the real Emperor is waiting for him."
The hologram clicked off. The hall went dead quiet. The nervous soldier didn't dare to breathe.
Thragg didn't yell. He didn't throw a fit. He just gripped the armrests of his throne. The thick, alien metal groaned and snapped like dry wood in his hands.
He knew what he just saw. Normal people didn't stop a Viltrumite punch without moving. Other aliens didn't have that kind of raw density. That was the Royal Bloodline. It was the old myth of Emperor Argall—the bloodline Thragg had spent his whole life trying to wipe out so he could keep his stolen throne.
He thought they were all dead. He was wrong.
"Call the fleet," Thragg said, his voice low and dangerous. "Call every warship, every soldier, and every general. Pull them back from their current targets. We are going to Earth. I am going to rip his head off myself."
Back in the Hub World, things were quiet.
Inside the dining room of Elliot Manor, the fire popped in the stone fireplace. Henri set down a silver tray with a perfectly cooked rack of lamb and roasted potatoes. The warm smell filled the room.
I sat at the head of the long wooden table. Selina sat next to me, wearing a simple black dress, sipping a glass of red wine.
"So," Selina said, putting her glass down. "You moved our house into a floating dark space, left me with a killer plant lady in the yard, and took off. Care to tell me what you were doing all day?"
I picked up my fork and cut a piece of lamb. "I had to tie up some loose ends. Picked up a few rocks, broke a guy's arm, and invited an alien army to a fight."
Selina rolled her eyes. "You couldn't just go to the store like a normal person."
"Normal is boring," I said, taking a bite. The lamb was great. Henri always knew how to cook it.
"This alien army," Selina asked, resting her chin on her hand. "Are they going to be a problem?"
"No," I told her, taking a sip of my bourbon. "They think they rule the stars. They think they're the strongest things alive. I'm just going to show them they're wrong. But they won't find us here. This place is off the map."
I looked out the big window of the dining room. Beyond the dark metal walls of my new base, the glowing spheres of different universes floated in the endless dark.
I pulled up the golden screen of the System in my mind.
[Current Point Balance: 674,885,000 pts.]
I had a huge pile of points to spend. I had the power to change reality whenever I wanted. The Viltrumite Empire was coming to Earth, bringing thousands of super-strong soldiers right to my front door.
It was going to be a great harvest.
Chapter 125: The Golden Wall
New
3 days ago
Dinner with Selina wrapped up. She took her wine and a book into the living room, happy to ignore the crazy multiverse stuff for a while. I left the dining room and walked down the dark metal halls of my new base until I reached the command room.
The giant map of the universes was still glowing in the middle of the dark room.
I pulled up the System menu in my head. I had over 674 million points. Being an Architect meant I could bend reality on my own, but I was about to fight an entire army of flying brawlers.
Thragg wasn't stupid. If he saw he was losing a fistfight, he would just tell his ships to shoot the planet from space or crash into it. I couldn't let them blow up Earth-97. If they destroyed the planet, there goes my audience, and there goes the fun. I needed them to come down and fight me face-to-face.
"System," I said out loud. "I want to lock down Earth-97. Give me a shield for the whole planet. Something that stops lasers, ships, and bombs, but lets me control who comes in and out."
The golden text popped up right away.
[Planetary Lockdown Shield. Blocks all outside kinetic and energy attacks. Cost: 50,000,000 System Points.]
"Buy it," I said.
[Transaction Confirmed. Deducting 50,000,000 Points.]
[Current Point Balance: 624,885,000 pts.]
Down on Earth-97, Cecil Stedman was standing in a bright white hospital room at the Global Defense Agency. Mark Grayson was lying in a bed, covered in thick white bandages. Mark's face was still swollen and bruised, but his Viltrumite healing was working fast. He was awake, looking up at the ceiling.
"They're coming, aren't they?" Mark asked, his voice rough and dry.
Cecil nodded, rubbing his tired eyes. "Deep space radar just lit up like a Christmas tree, kid. Thousands of targets moving faster than light. They'll be here in minutes."
Suddenly, the red alarms in the hospital started blaring. Cecil grabbed his radio, ready to shout orders. But it wasn't an attack.
High above the clouds, the sky flashed bright gold for a second. A huge, clear wall of energy wrapped around the whole planet, locking Earth inside a safe bubble. On Cecil's screens, the threat warnings changed. The planet was sealed tight.
"What did he do now?" Cecil muttered, staring at the screen.
Up in space, right outside that new gold shield, I floated in the dark. The cold, empty space didn't bother me. I didn't need to breathe. I just crossed my arms and watched the stars.
A second later, the stars stretched out into long white lines and snapped back.
A giant fleet of gray warships dropped out of lightspeed. There were thousands of them, blocking out the sun. They parked right at the edge of the gold shield, swarming like angry hornets.
The front doors of the biggest warship slid open.
Thragg flew out into the dark space. He looked exactly like the comic books—huge, angry, and sporting a thick black mustache. He was wearing his white and red Grand Regent uniform. Right behind him, a hundred of his best fighters flew out, forming a wall of muscle and angry glares.
I just floated there, waiting.
Thragg looked at the giant gold shield covering the planet. Then he looked at me. There is no sound in space, but Viltrumites can talk to each other on a special frequency. I heard his voice loud and clear in my head.
"You're the one who sent the message?" Thragg yelled. He sounded like a guy used to people bowing to him.
"I am," I said back, keeping my voice calm. "I told you to come to Earth. But I didn't say you could bring your toys."
Thragg's eyes narrowed. He looked at my face, feeling the same old genetic signal Nolan had felt. He knew who I was supposed to be. But he didn't care. He had an empire to run.
"You think a shiny wall and a dead bloodline will save you?" Thragg sneered. "I killed the true heirs. I will kill you, and then I will burn this planet to ash."
"You can try," I said, dropping my arms to my sides. I gave him a small, cold smile. "But the shield stays up. If you want to fight the Emperor, you do it with your bare hands."
Chapter 126: The Meat Grinder
New
Yesterday
Space is dead quiet, but the Viltrumite telepathy channel was loud.
Thragg floated a few dozen yards away from me, his white cape drifting in the zero gravity. Behind him, his hundred elite guards formed a tight wall of muscle and angry glares. Behind them, thousands of massive gray warships blocked out the stars.
"You think you can challenge an empire by yourself?" Thragg's voice echoed in my head. He sounded annoyed, like I was a bug he had to step on before getting back to work.
"I'm not challenging an empire," I answered. "I'm firing the management."
Thragg didn't smile. He just raised his heavy hand and chopped it forward.
The hundred elite fighters shot toward me like missiles.
They were fast. To a normal person on Earth, they would just be a blur of red and white. But my brain was running on Royal blood and the assimilated Time Stone. To me, they looked like they were swimming through thick syrup.
The first soldier reached me and threw a heavy right hook aimed at my jaw.
I didn't bother blocking. I stepped inside his reach and drove my fist right into his chest. My hand went straight through his dense alien armor, broke his ribs, and punched clean out his back. I pulled my arm out and kicked his lifeless body away.
The rest of the squad didn't slow down. They swarmed me from all sides.
I could have used the raw power of the Infinity Stones to snap them out of existence. But that would be boring. The System rewarded me for breaking the story, and the Viltrumite story was all about who hits the hardest. I had to beat them at their own game to really break their spirit.
A female soldier grabbed my left arm, trying to lock my shoulder. I grabbed her wrist, squeezed until her thick bones snapped, and swung her like a baseball bat. I smashed her into three other soldiers flying in from my right. They all crashed together in a messy pile of broken limbs and dented armor.
Another guy tried to put me in a chokehold from behind. I spun around, caught his head in both hands, and twisted. A sharp crack vibrated up my arms, and he went totally limp.
It wasn't a fight. It was a meat grinder.
I moved through the dark space, throwing simple, heavy punches. Every time my fist connected, they didn't just get bruised. They shattered. I broke jaws, crushed chests, and snapped spines. They hit me back, landing punches that could level cities, but they just bounced off my skin.
Fifty down. Seventy down.
In the zero gravity, their blood turned into little red, frozen marbles floating in the dark. Pieces of white armor and broken teeth drifted slowly toward the giant gold shield protecting the Earth below us.
In less than two minutes, all one hundred of Thragg's best fighters were dead or knocked out. They just floated there, a field of broken bodies drifting in the quiet dark.
I hadn't even started breathing hard. My black shirt didn't have a single tear in it. I flicked a few drops of frozen blood off my knuckles.
I looked past the floating bodies, right at Thragg.
The Grand Regent was still hovering in front of his flagship. His face was pale. The arrogant sneer was entirely gone. He just watched a guy in a dress shirt butcher his personal guard without taking a scratch.
For the first time in his long, brutal life, Thragg looked scared.
He knew what the Royal Bloodline was supposed to be. He had read the old history files. But seeing it up close, watching his unbeatable soldiers get treated like wet tissue paper, was a hard wake-up call.
I floated forward, pushing a dead Viltrumite out of my way.
"Your turn, Thragg," I said, making sure my voice carried across the telepathy channel for the whole fleet to hear. "Come show me why you think you deserve to sit on my chair."
Chapter 127: The New Emperor
New
An hour ago
Thragg didn't have a choice. His whole army was watching. If he backed down now, his own soldiers would tear him apart. That was the rule of his empire. The strong rule. The weak die.
He let out a silent roar that I could feel in my teeth through the mind link.
He shot forward. Thragg was fast. Way faster than Nolan or the guards. He didn't look like he was moving through syrup; he looked like a real threat. He closed the gap in a blink and threw a massive right hook right at my temple.
I didn't block. I let it hit.
Smash.
The hit pushed my head to the side. It actually stung. For a split second, I felt a dull ache in my jaw. Thragg was the boss of their race for a reason. He hit like a falling moon.
But my head only moved an inch. My body stayed right where it was.
Thragg's eyes went wide. His fist was still pressed against my face.
"Good hit," I said in his head. "My turn."
I grabbed his wrist before he could pull back. I twisted it hard. A loud pop carried through the bones of my arm. Thragg grunted, his face twisting in pain, but he didn't quit. He threw a left cross right at my throat.
I caught his fist with my open hand. I squeezed. The thick bones in his hand ground together and cracked.
"You think you earned this throne?" I asked, keeping my voice calm in the mind link. "You spent thousands of years killing your own people just to sit in a stolen chair."
I pulled him in close and drove my knee right into his chest.
The sound of his ribs snapping was loud even without air. Thragg coughed up blood. It froze into little red ice drops floating between us.
He tried to headbutt me. I didn't move. His forehead smashed against mine. The hit split his own skin open. Frozen blood drifted around his face like a dark halo.
"You are nothing!" Thragg yelled in my head. He swung wild, angry punches with his broken hand. "I am the Grand Regent! I saved the empire!"
"You ruined it," I said.
I let go of his hands and hit him with a simple, straight punch to the stomach.
The hit folded him in half. His eyes bulged out. He couldn't breathe. Before he could float away, I grabbed him by the thick collar of his white uniform. I spun around and threw him as hard as I could toward the giant gold shield covering Earth.
He slammed right into the gold energy wall. The hit sent a huge ripple of bright light across the whole planet.
I flew after him, pinning him against the glowing shield. I put my hand around his thick neck.
Thragg grabbed my arm, trying to pry my fingers off. His grip was getting weak. He looked over my shoulder at his giant fleet of warships. Thousands of ships, millions of soldiers. None of them moved. They just sat in the dark and watched. They followed strength, and right now, Thragg was the weakest guy in the room.
"Look at them," I told him. "They know it's over."
Thragg looked back at me. His angry, arrogant stare was gone. There was only fear. He finally understood he wasn't the top of the food chain anymore.
I didn't give a big villain speech. I just tightened my grip.
The heavy bones in his neck snapped. His eyes rolled back, and his hands fell to his sides.
I let go. The dead Grand Regent of the Viltrumite Empire drifted away, bumping gently against the gold shield like a piece of space trash.
The golden text of the System flashed in my eyes, bright and fast.
[CANON EVENT DESTROYED.]
[Hostile Entity 'Thragg' Executed.]
[The Viltrumite Empire Narrative Conquered.]
[Calculating Supreme Harvest...]
[Reward: 200,000,000 System Points.]
[Current Point Balance: 824,885,000 pts.]
I swiped the screen away. Two hundred million points was a nice payday.
I turned around, putting my back to Earth. I faced the massive, silent fleet. Millions of angry, super-strong soldiers were staring at me through the windows of their gray warships.
I crossed my arms over my chest.
"I'm the Emperor now," I broadcasted to every single ship in the fleet. "Who wants to argue about it?"