An unnamed small island in the North Pacific.
This was Cul's base of operations.
The God of Fear sat upright on Namor's Coral Throne, narrowing his eyes in enjoyment.
At this moment, his shriveled skin was gradually becoming plump, like a water-soaked sponge slowly expanding.
His dull complexion also gradually regained some of its luster.
His withered muscles filled out once more, and his bones let out faint cracking sounds, like machinery that had slept for thousands of years restarting.
Within his originally cloudy and dim pupils, an eerie green light flickered faintly.
Though weak, that light carried a bone-chilling coldness.
"How long has it been..."
He muttered in a low, hoarse voice, which carried an almost intoxicated satisfaction.
"How long has it been since I last tasted such pure fear..."
"Seven thousand years, a full seven thousand years!"
"My dear brother locked me in the dark, sunless Black Tide, preventing me from tasting even a single shred of fear. But now..."
He slowly opened his fingers, looking at the dark green light swirling in his palm.
"It's endless."
Sin knelt by his side. Listening to his rambling, she couldn't help but raise her head and ask cautiously:
"My Lord Cul, how much of your strength has recovered?"
Cul pondered for a moment.
Feeling the power inside his body—which, although surging, was still a World away from his peak—he gave a staggering answer:
"About... one-twentieth."
Sin secretly thought to herself how ridiculous this was.
The fear generated by submerging over forty coastal cities and leaving hundreds of millions of people homeless was only enough to restore one-twentieth?
Just how exaggerated was this guy's power?
If fear could cover the entire globe, plunging seven billion people into panic at the same time...
At that time... even the grand Arbiter would be nothing more than a slightly larger ant, right?
At this thought, a flattering smile quickly formed on Sin's face:
"My Lord Cul, since the second step of our plan has been completed."
"Then I think... it is also time to proceed with the third step."
"By then, the speed of your strength recovery will increase by at least tenfold."
Hearing this, Cul slowly opened his eyes.
Those eerie green pupils shone blindingly in the darkness, a sharp light flashing within them:
"You are right. It is indeed time!"
As he spoke, Cul suddenly stood up from the reef, raising the scepter in his hand high.
At this moment, the aura around him climbed frantically!
A domineering pressure that spanned heaven and Earth radiated outward from this small island.
The seawater within a hundred miles was forcefully pressed by this aura into a vacuum area several kilometers in diameter.
The clouds in the sky began to rotate counterclockwise with him as the center, forming a massive vortex.
The terrifying momentum even caused heaven and Earth to change color!
And then...
Buzz~!
A black light shot out from the snake head of the scepter, rushing straight into the sky and piercing the exact center of the cloud vortex.
A moment later.
New York, London, Tokyo, Moscow, Paris, São Paulo, Cairo, Seoul...
Cul's projection appeared in the skies all over the World.
An old, gloomy, and distorted face floated in the air.
The face was so large that it almost covered half of the sky, its eerie green pupils staring coldly at everyone on the ground.
Everyone stopped what they were doing.
Those who were fleeing stopped in their tracks.
Those who were crying forgot to cry.
Those who were praying stopped praying.
Everyone's gaze was involuntarily drawn to that face looming over the sky.
And then...
That massive, aged face spoke.
This... was their "using their own methods against them" plan!
Cul wanted to use The Arbiter's method—a global live broadcast—to push fear to its absolute limit!
A low, hoarse voice descended upon every corner of the Earth at the same time, like an echo from the abyss, every syllable wrapped in a power of fear that made the soul tremble:
"Listen to my voice... ants of Midgard."
"I am Cul... the God of Fear, the true ruler of the Nine Realms."
Seven billion people across the globe heard the same voice at the exact same second.
There was no need for translation.
There was no need for subtitles.
Cul's words were poured directly into everyone's minds in a way that transcended language, allowing everyone to clearly understand every single word he spoke.
"At this moment, I officially announce to you..."
He paused for a second.
Just this one second of silence caused countless hearts to skip a beat.
"The game has begun!"
A game.
He called it a game.
To a god, the survival of a civilization... was nothing more than a game.
"The Arbiter? The Avengers?"
Cul's tone even carried a hint of amusement and disdain.
"Let me see what you are made of!"
"Tomorrow morning, I shall set out from South America to launch a general offensive against America. At that time..."
His gaze swept across the masses of living beings beneath the sky.
"I hope you ants... can keep me entertained!"
The moment his words fell.
The projection dissipated.
The sky returned to its original color.
But everyone knew—the sky was no longer the sky they were familiar with.
Silence.
A long, suffocating silence.
It was as if the entire World had been paused at this moment.
And then...
The entire American continent fell into utter chaos!
The Argentines and Chileans were driven nearly insane!
They were located at the southernmost tip of South America, which meant that after tomorrow, they would be the first to face the onslaught of the God of Fear!
Fighting a god?
With what? Guns? Armies? Or the cross of the Virgin Mary?
Such a thing was simply a fantasy!
Not just them, but Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia... all the people of South America were similarly plunged into endless panic.
On the streets of Buenos Aires, people fled in all directions like startled ants.
Supermarkets were looted clean within ten minutes.
Lines kilometers long formed at gas stations. Some got into physical fights over line-cutting, while even more simply abandoned their cars and fled on foot.
The airport terminal in São Paulo was packed to the brim, with all flights completely booked. Those who couldn't buy tickets rushed straight onto the tarmac, attempting to cling to plane wings to leave this land that was about to become a battlefield.
What was even more despairing was that only one thought remained in everyone's mind:
Escape!
Escape to America!
Reaching America didn't guarantee survival, but staying where they were meant certain death!
And so, people began packing their bags like mad.
Countless families were torn apart in the chaos.
Children cried, looking for their Mama, the elderly were knocked down by the crowd, and the youth ran while looking back at the sky behind them that was about to be swallowed by fear.
An unprecedented mass chaos ensued.
And chaos was precisely the best breeding ground for fear.
Hundreds of millions of people were dominated by the exact same fear at the exact same time.
That fear gathered into an invisible torrent, surging frantically from every corner of the Earth toward the North Pacific and pouring into Cul's body.
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