In the boundless expanse of the universe, everything remains as profoundly silent and unchanging as ever, as if locked in an eternal stasis spanning millennia.
A tiny speck drifts and sails through the dark void, its faint blue light waves flickering in and out. The thrusters eject powerful streams of particles, propelling it forward at a speed that belies its seemingly leisurely pace.
Sean lay quietly in the command chair on the bridge... the vast, empty control room echoing with the upbeat hits from a bygone century. His eyes were slightly closed, as if he was lost in deep contemplation.
The Dark Elf warship was dreadfully monotonous, having no entertainment to speak of. The interior was a stifling black, adorned with intricate, twisted patterns that exude an unsettling eeriness.
It left Sean regretting his decision, "I should have had Reed modify it at least a bit to match my own aesthetic tastes, not this gloomy and sinister dark vibe."
"Space jump in five minutes." The mechanical voice of Skynet chimed in.
As the former overlords of the Nine Realms from over ten thousand years ago, it's no surprise that the Dark Elves possessed cutting-edge warp drive technology.
Still, when it came to spatial manipulation, Asgard's Bifrost was even more advanced. The fusion of technology and magic harnesses dark energy on demand, shattering spatial barriers to traverse vast distances.
It was a true weapon of war.
'It's a pity Odin refuses to share it...'
Though Asgard and Earth are currently allies, there was no such thing as perfect harmony between civilizations. War and conquest are the real symphony of civilizations.
"There's still so much to do..." Sean murmured meaningfully.
In the face of this vast cosmos and sprawling starfields, without space jump tech to break interstellar limits, any civilization was doomed to lag behind forever... like prisoners confined within their own galaxy, forever cut off from expansion or exploration.
Compared to powerhouses like the Dark Elves or Asgard, Earth's progress was merely taking its first baby steps.
"Even hearing Skynet's voice feels downright comforting compared to this monotonous and tedious interstellar travel." Sean quipped.
The one piloting this warship was Skynet, embedded in the ship's central control core. As Earth's sole super-AI, it was the obvious choice.
During his time in Asgard, Sean acquired a galactic star chart from Odin. It was a gift dotted with countless anchor coordinates to keep him from getting lost in the dark cosmos.
He had also swiftly picked up several common interstellar languages, those of the galaxy's mightiest empires.
These included Xandar, which was backed by the Nova Corps; the Kree Empire, a dominant power for millennia; the xenophobic Shi'ar Empire; and even the perpetually low-profile Skrull Empire.
These powers are the universe's unchallenged titans, ruling swaths of colony worlds with vast resources, advanced tech, and deep-rooted legacies.
Barring outliers like the Mad Titan, whose personal might is off the charts, no one dared provoke them.
The colossal warship, which was shaped like a vertical greatsword, shuddered faintly. The silent darkness stretched into a tunnel, streaked with mottled light and shadow like fleeting phantoms. Amid them, glimpses of vibrant, kaleidoscopic nebulae and desolate asteroid belts flickered by.
Of course, this was merely what Sean could perceive. Those warped, stretched flashes of light far surpassed the limits of what the human eye could capture.
At first, Sean was awestruck by these cosmic spectacles. But over time, he grew numb to them.
Interstellar travel was even more tedious and dull than medieval sea voyages. The journey was consistently set against a monotonous, dark backdrop. No wonder most people opted to put themselves into hibernation pods to slow the decline of their life functions.
As a lifeform possessing four Infinity Stones, Sean had no need for such measures. In fact, once his power expanded to a certain degree, he might not even need a spaceship, relying solely on the Space Stone to traverse the stars.
"It's a shame my knowledge of this dark universe is a total blank slate." Sean muttered to himself.
As the vibrations cease, he peered through the holographic display at a desolate, cold wasteland. This was the edge of the Nine Realms, where the dwarven kingdom lay.
Nidavellir was once a legendary haven in the cosmos, the dwelling of the dwarves.
Thor's mighty Mjolnir was forged here by King Eitri himself. Only Nidavellir's neutron star forge could smelt Asgard's sacred metal, Uru, into a weapon of unparalleled power.
"Looks like Thanos paid a visit here before." Sean gazed at the lifeless, icy planet.
It was nothing like Odin's tales. Legend has it that Nidavellir's neutron star forge burned eternally, its fierce glow piercing the starfields, visible from light-years away.
Now however, through the holo-projection, Sean only saw a cold world. The dwarves' pride and joy, the neutron star forge, didn't show even a glimmer of light.
From the outside, this neutron star which ranked as one of the universe's most extreme celestial bodies, rivaling black holes, was encased in layers of runic metal, etched densely with Odin's runes.
No known materials or tech could withstand the neutron star's immense gravity. Only the dwarves' unique forging prowess, bolstered by Odin's divine might, could birth such a terrifying furnace.
Asgard and the dwarves had built a Dyson sphere-like shell around it, a massive enclosure shrouding the star.
This setup blocked the immense gravity and cosmic rays, channeling them through intricate orbital rings into an energy core while throttling the star's rotation.
They had taken a dying star on the brink of supernova collapse and repurposed it into a colossal smelter for metals and weapons.
Encircling the neutron star were vast circular arrays, which the dwarves call star rings. When the forge fires up, these rings whirl to direct energy, modulating cosmic rays released through the planet's metallic crust. It was essentially a gigantic ignition system.
For ages, Nidavellir's forge drew the envy of advanced civilizations. But without dwarven smithing secrets or comprehension of Odin's runic power, they couldn't replicate or even study it.
So, amid their admiration, those empires could only marvel and hail Nidavellir as the grand miracle of the cosmos.
But now, that miracle was in ruins.
Thanos and his Black Order had descended here, slaughtering dwarves to coerce King Eitri into crafting the Infinity Gauntlet; a supreme artifact to house the Infinity Stones.
Once it was done, Thanos snuffed out the 'miraculous' forge to deny its power to any who might follow in his footsteps. Hence, the desolate, frozen world before Sean...
Sean understood all too well. With a flicker of thought, his knockoff metal gauntlet materialized from thin air, the four gems gleaming brilliantly.
The once-indestructible metal was now webbed with visible fine cracks. Odin's knockoff relic couldn't handle the stones' surging energies anymore. It was starting to break down.
That was why Nidavellir was Sean's first stop on this interstellar journey.
He wanted the real deal, a flawless Infinity Gauntlet, one capable of holding all six stones.
The greatsword-shaped warship eased its speed, gliding toward the sole remaining dock...