Chapter 310. Empty
A lone shadow streaked across the vast, bruising sky of South Dakota, its passage cutting a jagged line through the high-altitude mists. Below, the world opened up into a breathtaking tapestry of gold and amber—the Great Plains, the rolling heart of the American Midwest. These were the prairies of legend, an endless ocean of grass that served as a sanctuary for the wild and a cathedral for those seeking the quiet majesty of the earth.
Noah drifted through the heavens, his eyes tracking the undulating waves of the landscape.
His morning had begun with a hunt in the concrete canyons of New York, seeking the two Eternals he had once marked. He had hoped to use them as a thread to unravel the rest of their hidden kin. But the trail had gone cold; the pair had fled across the Atlantic to London. Whether they were drawn there by the pull of destiny or simply sought refuge from the chaos he had unleashed in the Big Apple, he could not say.
But Noah was not a man to be deterred by a change in scenery. If the pawns were out of reach, he would speak to the Queen.
Back in the hushed, incense-laden halls of Kamar-Taj, Noah had shared the truth of the Eternals and their Celestial masters with the Ancient One. The Sorcerer Supreme, never one to leave a threat unexamined, had sought out Ajak personally. She had gone to gauge the weight of Noah's warnings and to see if the leader of these ancient guardians was a friend to the world or merely a herald of its doom.
The Ancient One had later described their meeting as civil, even contemplative. She sensed a flicker of doubt in Ajak, a growing hesitation toward the cold, celestial mandate she had served for seven thousand years. It was that flicker Noah intended to fan into a flame.
The Ancient One had been clear: Ajak wished to speak with him.
It was a fortunate turn of events. Had Ajak been a fanatic, the Sorcerer Supreme might have been forced to excise her like a tumor to protect the sanctum of Earth. From what Noah knew of the "film" logic, Ajak was no warrior; her gifts were those of the hearth and the healer, leaving her vulnerable should a true power decide to strike.
Driven by the logic of proximity, Noah had charted his course for South Dakota. Since Sersi and Sprite had opted for the charms of London, he would settle for the architect of their mission. The Ancient One had provided the coordinates—a secluded ranch tucked away in the sprawling emptiness of the plains.
From his vantage point, the prairie was a masterpiece of autumn. The vibrant, emerald greens of summer had died away, replaced by a scorched, golden-brown hue that shimmered like hammered brass under the sun. Noah tilted his wings, diving toward the earth. The sheer force of his descent sent massive ripples through the tall grass, a golden wake following his path.
He had never stood in a place quite so vast, so seemingly untouched by the frantic crawl of civilization. For a moment, he felt the urge to simply lose himself in the flight, to revel in the raw speed and the scent of dry earth. But he suppressed the impulse, fixing his gaze on his target.
Ahead, standing in defiant isolation against the horizon, was a simple wooden farmhouse. There were no power lines, no paved roads, no signs of the modern world for miles. It was a place of profound solitude.
Noah slowed his approach, his boots eventually touching the soil with the lightness of a falling leaf. Up close, the house was charming in its simplicity, weathered by the wind but meticulously kept. Hand-crafted trinkets hung in the windows, and the porch seemed to radiate an aura of hard-won peace.
To the side stood a small stable. The door creaked on its hinges, swaying slightly in the breeze. Inside, a sturdy mare with a coat the color of polished mahogany stood perfectly still. Her large, intelligent eyes locked onto Noah, watching the stranger with a quiet, unblinking curiosity.
"A horse? It seems Ajak has played the role of a mortal daughter of the soil quite convincingly," Noah remarked softly, his eyes drifting back to the main house.
He stepped toward the door, hand raised to knock, but he froze. His senses, sharpened by mana and experience, recoiled.
The house was hollow. No heartbeat, no breath, no rhythmic shuffling of feet. It was a shell. Had she sensed his coming and fled? Or was he simply too late?
His gaze fell upon a pair of woven wicker chairs resting against the exterior wall. Noah walked over, hovering his palm over the seats. He could feel it—the faint, dissipating ghost of thermal energy. Someone had been sitting here, and recently.
'One chair for Ajak... but who occupied the other?'
He closed his eyes, letting his magical perception expand like a ripple in a pond. The Eternals were not creatures of flesh and blood alone; they were constructs of the Celestials, vibrating with the immense frequency of Cosmic Energy. Ajak, as the Prime, should have blazed like a star in his mind.
He focused, sifting through the layers of reality. Beneath the scent of grass and the whistling wind, he caught the jagged, shimmering afterimage of cosmic power. But it wasn't a single thread. It was a knot of two distinct signatures.
Noah tapped into a deeper well of power—the precognitive echoes of Malzahar, the Prophet of the Void. It was a gift he had meticulously cultivated, a power that allowed him to peer not just into the foggy veils of what might be, but to reconstruct the bloody truth of what was.
The air around him seemed to thicken with purple-hued static. Ghostly images began to coalesce in his mind's eye. The lingering cosmic energy began to take shape, forming the silhouettes of two figures.
It was then that he realized the truth. The second signature was familiar—dense, powerful, and radiating a sense of righteous authority. It was Ikaris, the crown jewel of the Eternals, a man who possessed the terrifying strength of a god and the unwavering loyalty of a soldier.
'Is this a simple council of war? Or has the betrayal already begun?' Noah wondered. In the original timeline, Ikaris had ended Ajak's life on the eve of the Emergence to ensure the Celestial's birth.
But Noah had shattered the timeline. The Emergence was still years away by his reckoning. Would Ikaris strike so early? Or had the pressure of Noah's interference forced his hand?
"There is only one way to know. And perhaps it's time I met this 'Superman' of the stars."
He caught the trail. Two streaks of cosmic fire had lanced into the sky, headed toward the frozen wastes. Ikaris had taken her. Noah's eyes flared with a cold, predatory light as he crouched, the ground beneath his feet cracking from the sudden pressure, before he launched himself into the air like a thunderbolt.
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