The Serpent was in a state of half-hunger, half-satiation, urgently craving sustenance. Adam made this assessment.
His judgment was spot-on. The Serpent Cul was in a foul mood.
Imprisoned by Odin for tens of thousands of years, Cul had endured torment in the Eternal Prison. Now, rekindled with purpose, he sought vengeance against Odin, spreading fear across Earth-616 to feed on the terror of countless humans.
With billions of humans as his sustenance, it wouldn't take long for him to reclaim his peak, a privilege of his mantle as the God of Fear. He had chosen Earth precisely for its teeming population.
Numerous, weak, and easily terrorized, humans were the perfect source of endless fear. No better prey existed.
But Mephisto's summons had disrupted everything.
"Demon, you'd better have a good explanation, or I won't hesitate to crush you." Cul growled.
The god-king emerged, radiating fury. His disheveled black hair veiled his face, but his bloodshot eyes blazed with boundless savagery and bloodlust.
He fixed a ferocious glare on Mephisto.
"Heh, God-King, you should thank me for bringing you here." Mephisto said, his tone coaxing. "This is a blue ocean. You know how messy the main universe is. Why struggle there when you can restore your peak in a parallel universe, then return to challenge Odin? He's amassed power over millions of years. Facing him unprepared is a gamble."
Cul knew Mephisto was using him, but the demon spoke truth, untainted by lies.
A glance at this Earth confirmed it, teeming with human life. Cul needed time and numbers to grow strong enough to confront the main universe's Odin.
Adam interjected, "That demon can be vile, but he's right. Challenging Odin now would leave you a broken husk. When you were locked in the Eternal Prison, Odin claimed the throne and waged wars for millions of years. Even aged, he's no easy foe."
As Asgard's former god-king in Earth-616, Cul had been defeated by Odin and confined to the Eternal Prison.
Odin had bested his own brother to seize the crown.
Even then, Cul was no match for Earth-616's Odin, let alone now, in his weakened state.
Cul's cold gaze settled on the speaking Xenomorph, then shifted to the swarm surrounding it.
He'd never encountered such creatures. Ordinarily, insignificant species wouldn't register, but Xenomorphs were different. He sensed several among them capable of a fight.
Some humans even bore traces of these beings.
At this level, they barely warranted attention from a god-king like Cul. Confident in his power, he regarded these unseen parallel-universe foes with innate superiority.
Mephisto, however, commanded more of his wariness.
"These are what you couldn't handle, so you called me?" Cul sneered. "Pathetic. Your reputation far outstrips your competence."
Mephisto brushed off the insult insult. Why rage at a tool serving his ends?
Knowing Cul's volatile nature, Mephisto had sought him in Earth-616's Mariana Trench, where he was imprisoned, and swayed him with promises. All to make Cul his enforcer.
"Now, Cul, it's time to do what you do best, spread fear across this parallel universe." The Mephistos cackled. "The human controlling these Xenomorphs is Adam. Know why he's siding with me, urging you to stay? Because only if you remain here can he capture you, forging you into his finest weapon."
The Ancient One struck, unleashing a barrage of spells that struck each emaciated Mephisto with precision.
Countless magical chains surged, swiftly binding them.
"Careful not to kill too many." Adam said, his tone almost friendly, confusing anyone unaware of his stance.
"No promises." The Ancient One replied, seizing a chain and yanking the demons back. "These devils, weakened by the 'Singson Banishment' sacrifice, won't surrender or die easily. It's tricky."
Crack, crack, crack! Prismatic barriers materialized as she tried dragging the demons into the Mirror Dimension to deal with them one by one.
Letting them rampage across the world risked Mephisto's next scheme.
The surging magical particles obliterated the villas in an instant. Against Mephisto, the Ancient One held nothing back.
Cul merely stood, sneering, a glacier exuding malice yet radiating molten terror.
The god-king cared nothing for Mephisto's fate. He'd escaped the Eternal Prison to kill Odin because he wanted it.
After Odin, Cul would consider crushing the meddling Mephisto. Hell's great demon wasn't unkillable.
"Your little pets are peculiar." Cul said, eyeing the Xenomorphs. "Never seen them in the main universe. Freaks forgotten by the multiverse? Using symbiotes as weapons… disgusting."
One glance told him their bodies were built for war, every curve honed for combat, as if meticulously engineered.
Clearly artificial, but it didn't matter. Cul's true grievance was the absence of fear in these Xenomorphs.
Without fear, the God of Fear gained no sustenance, no strength.
How could such things exist?
Madness surged within Cul. He resolved to slaughter them all.
"Don't let him escape." Adam's command echoed in every Xenomorph's mind.
A cadre of elite Xenomorphs launched a relentless assault on Cul.
Single combat was for Xenomorph heroes testing their mettle, not this.
Facing a formidable foe from the main universe, it was time for a team assault.
In an instant, powerful Xenomorphs scattered across the globe converged on the scene.
"Cul, your arrogance is your downfall." Adam's voice echoed from every Xenomorph. "Don't assume your main-universe origin makes you vastly superior to others."
"Hmph, doesn't it?" Cul retorted.
As Asgard's former god-king, Cul wasn't ignorant of parallel universes. Asgard's ancient records chronicled such knowledge.
Yet the Xenomorphs' strength caught him off guard.
Elite Xenomorph heroes launched their attack without hesitation. At Adam's command, they would face any foe, no matter how terrifying, and fight to the death unless ordered otherwise.
They knew Cul was a deadly threat, yet none faltered.
Cul was struck by their resolve. Why would a race bred for battle, in an obscure universe, pledge loyalty to a mere human? It was a waste of potential.
The humans and gods bonded with Xenomorphs further piqued his curiosity.
"Thor? This universe's Thor serves you too?" Cul's gaze locked on Jane Foster, specifically her Mjolnir.
He knew his brother Odin had passed the hammer to Thor, his nephew, who was deeply tied to Midgard, fighting for it time and again.
Apparently, this unknown parallel universe was no different.
"This universe's Odin is just as foolish, squandering Asgard's power to appease Midgardians." Cul scoffed.
He quickly discerned that Foster lacked Asgardian blood, a pure Midgardian.
This only fueled his rage. Mjolnir in a human's hands? How could such absurdity occur?
This universe's Odin was as idiotic as Earth-616's.
He wondered about his own counterpart here, whether he, too, had been betrayed and sealed by this universe's Odin.
Waves of divine power erupted, intertwining with magic to form a vast web that shook the planet and pierced the heavens.
The affluent district's villas crumbled to ash. The ground was torn asunder, flung skyward, and pulverized into dust.
For a Skyfather-level being, manipulating molecules and atoms was basic, dismantling or reshaping matter with mere energy expenditure.
Their mastery of energy was equally extraordinary.
For a typical Skyfather, this was standard. For Cul, a former high-tier Skyfather, overpowering multiple Skyfathers single-handedly was expected.
But not now. Far from his millions-year peak, he'd been summoned by Mephisto only to face a horde of formidable enemies.
The baseline combatants were triple-digit Dracula Xenomorphs.
Though mass-produced, hundreds of Dracula Xenomorphs swarmed the battlefield, cautiously dodging the explosive energy surges. A direct hit from Cul's divine power could shatter them, survival hinging on luck.
Yet they seized every opening, striking at Cul or sacrificing themselves to create opportunities.
Their mechanical, self-sacrificial coordination stunned even Cul.
A single Dracula Xenomorph was no match, he could crush one effortlessly, but their numbers posed a slight nuisance.
Killing them all would drain him, yet sparing enough power left him unable to dispatch the charging Xenomorphs in one blow. Their original host, Dracula, was an ancient being with undeniable prowess.
"Cul, you should feel honored." Adam's voice rang out. "Since my first strike, no enemy has warranted such a deployment of my elite forces."
The lineup besieging Cul was staggering: Reynolds, Foster, Sunspot, Deathlok, Hyperion Xenomorph, Ikaris Xenomorph, Namor Xenomorph, Abomination Xenomorph, Speed Xenomorph, and Eternals, alongside evolved Mutant Xenomorphs.
Even second-generation Xenomorphs joined, like the Hyperion II Xenomorph, birthed by the Hyperion Queen after Adam's experiments. Its abilities fell short of the original Hyperion Xenomorph, slightly below Ikaris Xenomorph, but it was close enough to serve as a pseudo-Superman Xenomorph.
The clash tore the starry sky, ripping gaping holes in the atmosphere. Cascading destructive forces escalated exponentially.
Cul's furious punch nearly killed Deathlok, who'd been clawing at him, only to watch her wounds heal rapidly. Even her half-shattered Adamantium ribs slowly reformed.
Seizing the moment, other Xenomorph heroes unleashed heat vision, super strength, lightning, and more, hammering Cul with a barrage of attacks.
Roaring, Cul unleashed a divine hurricane, leveling everything around him. But as the dust settled, Deathlok, fully healed, charged again.
Cul raised a hand to cast a spell, but Reynolds barreled in, knocking him back with a punch, followed by heat vision. Sunspot converted sunlight into flames, scorching Cul, while Ikaris Xenomorph, Hyperion Xenomorph, and others fired heat rays.
The concentrated beams seared Cul, a burning sensation he hadn't felt in ages.
What drove him to rage was the Laufey Xenomorph, hidden among the Dracula Xenomorphs, striking at the opportune moment.
After searing heat came biting cold, ice divine power sapping Cul's vitality, inflicting excruciating pain.
He unleashed an abyssal roar, billions of divine rays surging. His towering humanoid form twisted, transforming in onlookers' eyes into a colossal green serpent.
"Ugly lizard." Adam remarked. "But this form won't let you harvest humanity's fear. It's a dead end."
Far in Asgard, Odin donned his armor.
"Thor, guard Asgard." He commanded.
"Father, you don't need to go yourself. I can, "
"No." Odin interrupted. "I sense the Yggdrasil's tremors. It's unnatural, tied to the otherworldly intruder Adam's targeting. Something deeper is at play, and I haven't uncovered it."
His single eye gleamed, his aged frame bracing for what might be his final battle.
At the least, he would unravel the truth, why the Yggdrasil resonated so fiercely with a god from another realm.
"Thor, do your duty." Odin said. "As I taught you, as a king."
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