"So, who are you going to take revenge on?"
Just as her spirit entered the statue and she proudly declared her presence, Bast hadn't even finished enjoying the moment when a calm voice suddenly rang out nearby.
Looking through the statue's vision, Bast felt a chill run through her soul.
Damn it, why is the Ancient One here?
This is a trap—everything was a trap!
Bast realized it immediately and tried to pull her spiritual consciousness back at once.
But she quickly realized that she couldn't.
When she had first entered the statue, she had felt a strong wave of faith energy and had felt quite satisfied.
Even though faith wasn't necessary for the dimensional gods of the Marvel Universe, it was still a great power boost.
But now, this so-called "faith energy" had become special chains of the soul, firmly locking her spirit into the statue while constantly draining her power.
And the drained power was strengthening those very same soul chains, making the trap even harder to escape the longer she stayed trapped.
"Damn it, what kind of evil spell is this?" Bast shouted in panic.
"Damn it, Bast, is this your plan?!" She wasn't the only one panicking. The Bear Goddess Artio, the Wolf God Lycaon, and the Hawk God all found themselves in the same situation after arriving through their own statues.
Forget escaping—at this point, they couldn't even self-destruct their spirits if they wanted to.
"I don't know! Damn it, this is all the Ancient One's doing! It's her trap!" Bast shouted, placing all the blame on the Ancient One.
"Damn you, Ancient One! Are you breaking the treaty and declaring war on all dimensions?" Artio and Lycaon also roared at her in anger.
Josh looked at the Ancient One, who was now taking the blame for him, but to his surprise, she looked calm, as if she didn't care that the dimensional gods were yelling at her.
"Sorry to drag you into this," Josh said with a small smile.
"It's okay. Getting yelled at isn't a big deal. It's not like they're going to get out of those statues in this lifetime. Might as well let them yell," the Ancient One said casually. "And don't worry about that nonsense about war. These four don't speak for all dimensions."
Hearing this, Josh immediately relaxed.
"So it's you, human. This is all your plan?" Bast finally noticed Josh standing next to the Ancient One.
"Tsk… I didn't plan it this way. You just walked right into the trap," Josh shrugged with a smug smile.
"Ancient One, is there no way to negotiate?" the Hawk God finally spoke.
"Oh? So it's you, His Excellency the Hawk God. I didn't expect you to be part of this. But you see, I'm not the one in charge here… So, I'm afraid not," the Ancient One replied with a calm shake of her head.
"Fine. Very well! Ancient One, and you too, human—I won't forget this!" the Hawk God said coldly, then fell silent.
Well, not that forgetting will be easy—being locked up for hundreds of years tends to leave a lasting impression.
Neither the Ancient One nor Josh took the Hawk God's threat seriously—they both saw it as nothing more than a sore loser's bark.
Now that they had successfully captured the souls of the four gods, the next step was to strip them of their power and grant it to others.
To ordinary people, divine power is incredibly strong—but it's also a huge burden on the body.
The trolls of Azeroth, with their naturally powerful bodies and strong life force, could easily handle the power of the Loa gods.
But normal humans in the Marvel Universe obviously couldn't do the same.
In the past, it would've been nearly impossible to find anyone on Earth strong enough to bear the power of a dimensional god—finding even one person out of ten thousand would've been lucky.
However, thanks to the widespread use of the Ouroboros Universal Super Soldier Serum, this was no longer a problem. Almost every Super Soldier could now handle some level of divine power, the only difference being how much they could handle.
Under the guidance of Malacrass and a group of junior priests he trained, over 3,000 Ouroboros soldiers received divine power infusions based on their skills and traits, becoming god-powered warriors.
Some of them even received power from two or three gods.
The most outstanding among them was a young Navajo warrior named Blaista, who successfully took in the power of all four gods—becoming the one and only Four-God Warrior.
Josh remembered this young man as a former subordinate of Blackwater's CEO, Aldo. A truly impressive young warrior.
"Hmm? Something's not right!" But just as the infusion ceremony ended, the Ancient One suddenly sensed something was wrong.
In an instant, she teleported to the Hawk God's statue—over the past year, Kamar-Taj and Kirin Tor had engaged in many scholarly exchanges, so it was no surprise that she had learned quite a few spells from Azeroth.
"What's going on?" Josh asked, even though he couldn't sense anything unusual. The Hawk God's spirit and power were still sealed inside the statue, just like the others.
"No… it's different!" Malacrass, who had just finished overseeing the ceremony, appeared behind them with a serious expression.
"What do you mean, different? Isn't it the same… wait—huh?" Josh, confused, placed his hand on the statue and probed it with his own divine power. At first, he thought nothing was wrong—but then he immediately noticed it too.
The Hawk God's soul was still there, and the divine power hadn't lessened—but compared to the other three gods, its spirit felt strangely empty and lifeless.
"So you've noticed it too," the Ancient One said seriously.
The truth was that the Hawk God had destroyed its own consciousness the moment it realized it was trapped. What remained in the statue was just a blank soul—void of thought or will.
"This Hawk God… actually did that?" Completely erasing your consciousness is even harder and more painful than blowing up your own soul. At least self-destruction is over in an instant.
But erasing your own consciousness is more like tearing yourself apart piece by piece.
There are millions of people who commit suicide—but who's ever seen someone slowly and painfully destroy their own mind?
This Hawk God wasn't just ruthless—it was on a whole different level.
"No, it's probably not that simple. I suspect that this Hawk God was just an avatar all along. And he must be hiding a huge secret, which is why he wiped his mind so decisively," the Ancient One said grimly.
Uh-oh… now this is trouble, Josh thought with a frown.
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