Wanda quickly understood what Lady Deathstrike had meant.
Hearing the sounds coming from within the room, her cheeks flushed crimson. Her mind raced with expletives for that shameless couple behind the door.
Time passed.
Eventually, Martin emerged from the room, visibly pleased. He gave a sidelong glance at Wanda, whose body temperature had spiked noticeably, and spoke with casual detachment:
"Speak. What do you want?"
Wanda steadied her nerves, voice taut with tension. "You saved us from Hydra. What do you want from us in return?"
Martin raised an eyebrow, his gaze sweeping over her like a predator surveying prey, predatory and invasive, dissecting every physical detail.
Before Wanda's simmering indignation could boil over, he withdrew his gaze.
"Your value doesn't lie in the present... but in what's to come. I might need you someday."
He paused, then added, almost as an afterthought, "Oh, and Erik knows you're here. But he doesn't seem particularly concerned whether you live or die."
Magneto, always the cold one.
But Martin… Martin was even colder.
His preparations against Chthon had already begun. Perhaps it was premature, maybe even paranoid, but better to be ready than helpless when Chthon eventually came knocking.
"You'll need to train elsewhere from now on."
"Where exactly?" Wanda asked, instinctively tightening her grip on her collar.
Martin didn't even look at her. Instead, he pushed open the massive door, stepped into the morning light, and spread his arms as if to embrace the world itself.
The sunlight poured down, stretching Martin's shadow long across the floor.
"To my planet."
With those words, he strode away, leaving Wanda behind, baffled and silent.
It was time to build Cybertron.
"All protocols are ready. We can begin construction at any time," reported Shockwave, streaming vast torrents of data before Martin.
Martin nodded, satisfied. "Excellent. We'll begin where Asgard once stood."
That place, the original site of Asgard, was located in the upper boughs of Yggdrasil, the World Tree.
Earth, by contrast, resided in its middle realm: Midgard.
The Space Stone flickered with cosmic brilliance. A massive vortex tore through the fabric of reality, and Martin stepped through, emerging into the void of deep space, surrounded by the debris of a shattered world.
His eyes scanned the ruins. He raised a hand.
Instantly, a streak of shadow shot across the stars and landed in his grasp: a long, dark blade radiating with death and malevolence.
"The Necrosword? So it survived Hela's fall…"
Of course it did. As the divine weapon of the god of symbiotes, its resilience was beyond comprehension.
Martin examined the blade.
Its last owner had been a creature of pure rage, awakened once by the noise of the Celestials during its slumber, and in that instant, had slaughtered one of them on the spot. A volatile god, with a temper carved into myth.
It was also the originator of the symbiote species.
Though Martin had no interest in wielding the Necrosword himself, it could prove useful for his subordinates.
Hum!
The Space Stone pulsed again. In a flash of blue radiance, light swept across thousands of light-years, drawing in scattered debris and collapsed starships. Martin's power siphoned out their metal cores—gleaming ores, rare alloys, and raw elements—all drawn to him.
Ding!
[Congratulations, Host. You have taken the first step in your conquest of the Multiverse. Reward: 1 Legendary Artifact Draw.]
Ding!
[Congratulations, Host. You have obtained one of the Ten Divine Artifacts—Vector Sigma!]
Martin's eyes gleamed.
Vector Sigma!
With that, he no longer needed the AllSpark to power Cybertron's core.
In truth, Vector Sigma predated the AllSpark in both time and continuity. It was the original planetary core of Cybertron, both its heart and its brain.
Martin raised his hand, revealing the artifact.
Golden and radiant, it was adorned with crystalline runes and pulsing with ancient energy. Within it lay a terrifyingly vast archive of knowledge and power, mystic circuitry humming with forgotten technology.
This was Vector Sigma.
He cast it into the void.
A surge of overwhelming light erupted from it, so powerful it began to bend the laws of physics around it.
The hum grew into a roar.
The fragmented wreckage Martin had summoned now spiraled toward Vector Sigma, layering into orbit. At its heart, a planet began to form.
Data—endless, celestial, untranslatable data—flowed from Vector Sigma like a digital sunburst, and under Martin's guidance, the supercomputer began constructing the foundational lattice of Cybertron.
All of Yggdrasil was bathed in its glow.
Even the universal laws began to warp before it.
The spectacle defied reason. This was no mere technology, it was cosmic genesis.
"What's going on?! That's the Asgardian Ruins!"
"That golden radiance, what god is responsible for that?!"
Even the dragon gnawing at the roots of the World Tree stopped in confusion, its grotesque head rising toward the glowing horizon.
Yet the most profound reactions came from the true powers of the universe.
Death stirred in her throne of shadows.
Eternity's gaze slowly turned.
Infinity began to awaken.
Oblivion narrowed his eyes and watched from afar.
"Ha! A delicious planet is being born!"
Galactus rumbled, voice laced with hunger.
Life-worlds were his one addiction. And across half a universe, he could already taste the succulent potential of the forming Cybertron.
Though these Five Cosmic Entities were merely avatars in this timeline, embodiments of fundamental laws, they were still real, still watching.
"This energy again… That damned mortal…"
Death's expression darkened.
Even for her, arbiter of all endings, the golden radiance of Vector Sigma was impervious to her gaze. She, a cosmic constant, was being repelled.
And that only made her more curious.
"Just who are you… really?"
Death's eyes gleamed with renewed interest.
The birth of Cybertron, forged in golden fire, shaped by cosmic will, crowned by Vector Sigma, had drawn the gaze of the entire universe.
And Martin?
He stood at its heart, basking in the golden light like a sovereign above the stars.
He no longer cared what gods thought.
This was the step he had to take.
The foundation of his empire had begun.
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