The moment 05-10 spoke, the livestream went dead silent.
Then it exploded.
"Interested?"
That single word hit the audience like a slap. People didn't even know what part to react to first. Interested in what—repairing the Ebony Blade? Or interested in something far worse… like using it?
In Stark Tower, Tony Stark leaned forward so hard he nearly slid off his chair.
"Does that mean the Foundation approved it?" he blurted out, eyes shining. "Are they actually going to repair the Ebony Blade?"
Colonel Rhodes didn't share the excitement. His brow furrowed deep, like he could already see the disaster report being typed.
"But are they sure?" he asked. "Do they even understand what they're trying to bring back?"
Stark waved it off. He wasn't thinking about risk. He was thinking about possibility.
What he really wanted to know was simple:
Would James agree?
---
The screen cut.
When it returned, the broadcast showed James and 05-10 in the same room—an office with harsh lighting, reinforced walls, and a quiet pressure in the air that made it feel like a place where people only spoke when they had to.
A third person stood with them: a woman in a white coat, early thirties, calm-faced, sharp-eyed. Her posture wasn't nervous. It was controlled.
A nameplate on her chest read:
Senior Researcher — Claire Snow
She spoke first, voice cool and direct, not bothering to hide that she didn't like this situation.
"I assumed the 05 Council would leave this project entirely to me," she said, looking past James and addressing 05-10. "I'm the lead researcher on SCP-2481."
The meaning was obvious: Why is he here?
James didn't respond. He didn't need to. His expression stayed steady, like stone that had learned how to breathe.
05-10 answered instead—cold enough to make the room feel smaller.
"You are the chief researcher for SCP-2481," she said. "James is not here to compete with you."
She paused, then delivered the real reason like a verdict:
"He is here to terminate SCP-1428."
The world stopped for half a heartbeat.
Then the livestream erupted so violently the chat became unreadable.
"What?! James is here to terminate SCP-1428?!"
"That's the Solar Harbinger! That's basically a sun-god level threat!"
"Are you kidding me—James has handled god-tier projects before!"
"If Claire Snow repairs the Ebony Blade, James can finish the job—no question!"
Within seconds, the audience built James up into something terrifying: not just a specialist, not just an expert, but a legendary executioner, someone the Foundation sent when even containment stopped being enough.
Claire Snow's eyes shifted to James—measuring him again, as if the man in front of her had just been rewritten by that sentence.
After a long silence, she extended her hand.
"I spoke out of line," she said. "My apology."
James took her hand briefly. No smile. No warmth. Just professionalism.
05-10 didn't waste time on social rituals.
"In fact," she said to James, "restoration of SCP-2481-2 began a long time ago."
James blinked once. "Progress?"
Claire Snow stepped in, voice calm but with the faint pride of someone who had dragged a mountain uphill.
"Reconstruction of the First Empire's reality-distortion framework is complete," she said. "At our current rate, repairs will finish within one month."
For the first time, James's eyes sharpened—just a flicker, but it was there.
Even he hadn't expected progress that fast.
And then the office door opened hard.
A thin older man entered quickly, around sixty, white-haired, excited, carrying a heavy stack of documents like they weighed nothing compared to what was inside them.
He dropped the pile onto the table with a grin.
"These notes from SCP-2481-3 are priceless!" he said, voice bright. "I'm close to mapping the relationship between the Broken God and the First Empire in a way we can actually prove."
He noticed the looks he was getting and chuckled.
"Right. Introductions." He straightened a bit. "Judith Low. Doctor Judith Low. You can call me Judith."
James didn't react to the friendliness. He only asked one thing—sharp and immediate:
"Let me see the notes."
"Absolutely." Judith pulled a file from the stack and handed it over. He also gave copies to Claire Snow and 05-10.
Then Judith smiled, almost proud.
"These translations were only possible because your branch had the right linguists," he said. "Otherwise, I'd never have spotted the pattern buried in the text."
James opened the document.
And the first paragraph made his gaze shift.
It was older than the First Empire—far older.
It described an ancient era where leaders fought like gods… because gods were not myths back then.
The text, rewritten into modern language, read:
The Sun King fought the Iron Warlord and the Ember King. He defeated the Iron Warlord on the Red Plains, broke the Ember King at the Broken Ridge, and burned the Headless Champion on Ashen Mountain.
Even as a summary, it felt like someone had cut out a chunk of the world's forgotten history and tossed it onto a desk.
But the next section was worse—because it explained the why.
The Iron Warlord had offered his flesh, skin, and hair to a Bronze Dragon, gaining bodies like metal and the strength of eighty-one war-brothers.
The Ember King had prayed to the Dragon Mother, receiving immortality—freedom from sickness, freedom from death, even the ability to reshape his body.
Then came a line attributed to the Sun King himself:
"The Bronze Dragon is our Father-God. The Dragon Mother is our Mother-God. Yet both are imprisoned within the Jupiter Entity beyond the sea. Why keep dying for masters who only feed on our worship? Better to learn their methods. Follow the Way of the Serpent, and we can become dragons ourselves."
The livestream went silent again—like the world needed a second to accept what it had just heard.
Then the arguments began.
"See? They were all god-worshippers!"
"Metal bones, immortal flesh… anyone would want that!"
"Is it really that easy? Worship and you get power?"
Inside S.H.I.E.L.D., Natasha's face tightened.
"Father-God? Mother-God?" she muttered. "If the Bronze Dragon is the Broken God… then who is the Dragon Mother?"
Nick Fury didn't answer immediately. His throat looked dry. His expression went strangely heavy.
Then he spoke, and the room seemed to lose temperature.
"Dragon Mother," he said quietly, "is one of the names tied to Yaldabaoth."
Silence.
No one moved.
No one breathed right.
Fury stared at the screen like it was staring back.
"So the Broken God and Yaldabaoth," he said, voice bitter, "have been at war for thousands of years."
Natasha's confusion shifted into something sharper.
"Then why would anyone worship Yaldabaoth?" she asked. "What does it offer besides chaos?"
Fury didn't answer with theory.
He answered with the text.
The Dragon Mother had granted the Ember King the ability to live without a head… and reshape his body into different forms.
Fury finally understood something he didn't like:
Chaos wasn't always weakness.
Sometimes it was freedom from rules—and that was attractive enough to poison entire civilizations.
---
At Kamar-Taj, the Ancient One's eyes widened at the mention of the Jupiter Entity.
Her fear wasn't vague. It was specific.
Because she knew the old stories—the way cosmic prisons worked, the way divine wars ended in cages, not graves.
"If both are imprisoned…" she whispered, shaken, "then the prison isn't a victory. It's a stalemate."
And a stalemate between supreme forces didn't mean peace.
It meant pressure.
It meant a seal that could crack.
---
The notes continued.
The Iron Warlord, though defeated, boasted that nothing could harm him and his brothers—not steel, not spears.
So the Sun King called down lightning and fire, melted their bodies into molten metal, and sealed them in the Western Seallands.
Then the Headless Champion rose—another follower of the Dragon Mother—fighting even after decapitation, growing new eyes and a new mouth, refusing to die until he was burned into true death and buried beneath Ashen Mountain.
The chat roared again:
"Both factions got crushed by the Sun King?!"
"So the Sun King is the strongest!"
"Maybe his 'Way of the Serpent' is stronger than gifts from gods!"
And then the document shifted forward in time.
It reached the First Empire.
King Alder, the first great king of that age, faced a catastrophe: floods that swallowed land, and a rebel plague-maker known as the Nine-Head Serpent—a fusion-born creature with no soul left inside, only hunger.
The notes described it in blunt horror:
"It was formed by fused bodies. It did not follow the Way of the Serpent—it followed the words of the Dragon. Flesh combined, spirit erased. Touch it, and it devours you."
Even Natasha looked unsettled.
"In an age like that," she muttered, "how did ordinary humans survive at all?"
Then came the line that made the entire Marvel world fall quiet.
King Alder, unable to stop the flood, consulted a seer—Seer Rowan.
And Rowan said:
"Eight thousand years ago, the Bronze Dragon imprisoned the Dragon Mother within the Jupiter Entity. Now dragons and serpents rise from the rivers, poisonous and wrong. We must investigate the prison itself."
So King Alder gathered the world's metals, forged a vast platform called the Jade Throne Array, built a colossal ship, and launched a voyage.
They sailed past the Moon. They passed Mars. And they traveled toward the Jupiter Entity.
And as that final sentence appeared on-screen, the universe seemed to lean closer.
Because everyone understood what it meant.
If the First Empire reached the Jupiter Entity… then something answered them.
And whatever that "something" was…
it was about to appear.
-----------------------------
🕷️ End of Chapter
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