The instant Gravik's demands hit the broadcast, every representative inside the United Nations Assembly Chamber turned pale as marble.
Viewers across the globe who had been celebrating wild victory only seconds prior felt their smiles freeze solid on their faces.
Thirteen nuclear warheads.
Every single one placed beneath the soil of a major nation's capital!
If those warheads were detonated, the aftermath would be beyond catastrophic. Beyond the hundreds of millions of immediate civilian casualties, the economic, societal, and existential devastation to human civilization would be completely absolute!
"He's lying, right? Please... someone tell me he's lying!"
"We're finished. Humanity is actually finished..."
"How do you even break a checkmate like this?!"
"Break it?! The detonator is in his hands! Even if the Arbiter is a god, can his physical movement outrun a thumb moving half a millimeter?!"
A cloud of total despair blanketed the internet, while total pandemonium erupted across the physical streets of the thirteen targeted capitals.
Even though everyone knew a nuclear blast left zero room for escape, survival instincts triggered widespread riots and panic. Stampedes broke out across multiple cities before a single warhead was even primed.
On the battleground of Chernobyl, the superheroes halted their assault against the remaining Skrull battalion.
The heroes exchanged tense glances, reading the exact same realization in one another's eyes:
This move is as dirty as it gets.
And on paper... it's entirely unanswerable!
While the rest of the world lost its collective mind over Gravik's ultimatum, Peter's calm voice echoed out once more:
"So... what exactly do you plan to do?"
"I'll admit that letting you detonate those nukes isn't an ideal outcome. But I doubt you want every single Skrull on this planet wiped out of existence either."
Hearing this, Gravik erupted into another fit of wild, unhinged laughter:
"What do I plan to do?!"
"I want you to drop to your knees right now on live worldwide broadcast, give me three full kowtows, and prepare an interstellar transport to ship me and my soldiers off this rock!"
"If you dare try a single trick while doing it..."
He pressed his thumb down another half-millimeter over the red trigger:
"...I'll make hundreds of millions of humans go down into the grave with me!"
Silence fell over Chernobyl.
All combat ground to a complete standstill. Gwen, Tony, Sif, Wanda... every pair of eyes locked onto Peter.
The global audience held its breath so tightly the chat feeds went completely dead!
Billions of people silently cursed Gravik's wretched, cowardly tactics, yet not a single person dared to type the words "Don't agree to it!"
Those were hundreds of millions of living souls! That number carried far too much weight—no single human being could bear the guilt of that sacrifice!
Seeing the Arbiter remain completely silent and motionless, Gravik felt a rush of absolute euphoria. He had won!
The pale, sickly bloodlessness on his face vanished, replaced by his signature, insufferable arrogance:
"Arbiter, my patience has absolute limits!"
"I am giving you thirty seconds. When the countdown hits zero, I will make those capitals rain ash!"
"30!"
"29!"
"28!"
Gravik's countdown echoed across every corner of Earth like a death knell.
Viewers outside the thirteen target zones braced themselves in suffocating terror, while those inside the targeted capitals broke down completely, screams and sobs echoing through every street.
Desperate comments flooded the live chat:
"Please, Arbiter... just kneel down... I'm begging you..."
"Kneeling won't kill you! Just save us, and I'll worship you as my god for the rest of my life!"
"Are you people idiots?! Do you really think an alien who plants nukes under capitals is going to keep his word after he kneels?!"
"Easy for you to say when your city isn't sitting on top of a nuclear warhead!"
"20!"
"19!"
"18!"
Gravik kept reading the numbers, soaking in the godlike euphoria of the moment.
He was thoroughly enjoying every single second of this—watching the untouchable guardian of Earth pushed into a dead end, feeling seven billion people cower beneath his thumb out of pure terror.
This was the true taste of absolute power.
"12!"
"11!"
"10!"
Seeing that Peter still hadn't made a move, a fine sheen of cold sweat broke out across Gravik's forehead, and the speed of his countdown involuntarily slowed.
No way... Is this lunatic really going to let hundreds of millions of humans die just to keep his pride?
Isn't he supposed to be Earth's guardian deity?! Is he really this selfish?!
Slowing his count to a crawl, Gravik kept his eyes fixed on Peter, desperately waiting for the moment his knees bent toward the dirt.
Finally, Peter moved.
It wasn't the desperate surrender Gravik anticipated.
The human simply let out a faint, casual chuckle.
It was that exact same relaxed, unbothered smile that Gravik despised to his very core—as if his apocalyptic threat hadn't even registered as a minor inconvenience.
"Here I thought you had some game-changing card hidden up your sleeve."
Peter lifted his hand off Mantis's shoulder, uttering a line that sent Gravik's blood pressure spiking to critical mass:
"And after all that grandstanding... this is it?"
The smirk froze on Gravik's face, the veins on his forehead bulging wildly.
This guy... really isn't taking the bait?!
"Arbiter, are you seriously going to stand there and watch those humans be buried alongside me?!" His voice rose an octave in sheer disbelief:
"I am NOT joking! The second I press this butt—"
Before he could finish his sentence, a clear, crisp female voice echoed across the quiet field:
"What button?"
The speaker was none other than Wanda!
Her tone was remarkably light, laced with an airy, almost innocent sense of pure curiosity.
Gravik froze upon hearing her question, and in the next instant... a skin-crawling sense of absolute dread washed over his spine.
Because he suddenly noticed a detail that made his stomach drop into a bottomless pit.
Wanda had transformed!
It wasn't just a shift in posture or aura—it was a physical, visible metamorphosis taking place right before his eyes.
Her pupils had shifted from natural brown into an incandescent, abyssal scarlet. The cut of her clothing shifted into a flowing, majestic crown-like tunic.
And hovering above her brow was a sharp, dark-crimson tiara forged entirely from raw Chaos Magic, every single edge radiating a terrifying, reality-warping magical aura that made the atmosphere curdle.
Sensing that suffocating magic, Gravik's heart skipped a beat.
What the hell is this?!
Why did this woman suddenly transform like this? And what did she mean by that question?!
Gravik's instincts screamed at him that something was catastrophically wrong.
He instinctively looked down at his right hand.
And as his eyes landed on his palm, his pupils shriveled down to the size of pinpricks.
Because the high-tech nuclear detonator in his grip... was gone.
In its place sat a plump, bumpy-skinned, warty toad, sitting comfortably in his palm.
"Ribbit~"
Meeting his terrified gaze, the toad offered Gravik a friendly little croak.
And with that single croak, Gravik's sanity shattered into a million pieces...