"What?"
"Boom..."
With a muffled sound, Loki in Lock's hand suddenly turned into a ball of divine power and exploded. But apart from blowing his clothes back a little, it did not harm him in the slightest.
It was another clone!
Lock immediately realized the trouble.
Loki had already used his clone trick twice. Although the clone itself had little strength, this proved he was now extremely cautious—his true body and the Mind Stone must be hidden somewhere deep, making it nearly impossible to track down quickly.
And once the wormhole above expanded wide enough, those interstellar warships would begin to pour through. At that point, Earth would face total catastrophe.
Loki clearly understood this as well—that was why he was making so much noise.
Lock clenched his jaw. Though powerful, he was not like Captain Marvel, who could crush entire fleets alone.
On the other side of the wormhole, he could already see it: countless alien warships, lined up, the entire void beyond filled with their endless ranks.
At that moment, a message cut through every Avenger's communicator.
Nick Fury's voice:
"Attention, everyone, there are two nuclear bombs flying toward you!"
Lock froze. "Isn't it supposed to be one?"
"Two! Repeat, it's two!" Fury snapped back. "The World Security Council overstepped my authority, and two nuclear bombs are flying at the wormhole, the other at the Tesseract. Time to impact: ninety seconds. You need to retreat!"
Lock's eyes narrowed. So the politicians had chosen the most brutal option—obliterate the wormhole and New York together.
The nuclear bomb. Humanity's so-called ultimate weapon.
Destroy a city to prevent alien fleets from passing through… the logic was simple, cruel, and cold.
Iron Man's furious voice came over comms:
"There are millions of people in New York right now! If a nuclear bomb detonates, millions will be turned into ashes instantly. How dare they?!"
He turned toward Lock. "I'll intercept one of them. Tang—I'm leaving the other to you!"
Lock nodded. "No problem."
Far in the distance, two nuclear warheads cut white trails across the sky, ripping through the air at supersonic speed toward the heart of New York.
Iron Man boosted hard, locking himself against one missile, forcing it upward toward the wormhole.
Lock also accelerated, seizing the second missile. Though his divine power could reduce it to fragments in an instant, he dared not take the risk—what if it detonated here, over the city? No. Like Tony, he had to drag it upward.
Both missiles broke through the wormhole.
Then—two fireballs erupted in the void beyond, twin suns blazing across the cosmos. The light pierced the wormhole, flooding all of New York with its brilliance.
But as the fires dimmed and the smoke cleared, Lock's heart sank.
Aside from a single battleship at the very front, slightly scorched, the entire fleet was untouched.
"As expected," Lock thought grimly.
Earth's nuclear bombs—devastating to humans, yet laughable before true interstellar civilizations. To aliens, this "ultimate weapon" was nothing more than outdated firecrackers. Their shields and alloys had long surpassed such crude destruction.
"…Alas," Fury's voice came again, heavy with defeat. "Retreat. New York is lost. If we don't sacrifice the city, humanity itself won't survive."
His voice lowered. "Protect yourselves. The next wave—they'll launch more than ten nuclear bombs. And no one can stop them."
Silence fell over the comms.
Even Iron Man and Captain America said nothing. The helpless weight of sacrificing millions crushed them all.
Lock's eyes hardened.
"Fury," he said suddenly, voice cutting through the despair. "Give me five minutes. If you see no hope after five minutes, then launch your bombs again."
The channel went quiet. Fury finally replied: "…I'll hold them off. Whatever you're planning, do it fast."
Thor shouted from nearby, panic in his tone: "Brother! What are you thinking? No one can pierce the energy shield of the Infinity Stones!"
Lock's answer was steady: "I have to try."
He rose into the sky and descended before the device holding the Cosmic Cube.
Placing one hand against the shimmering barrier, he closed his eyes and focused.
The Tesseract's shield was indestructible, yes—but it was not offensive. If he controlled his power carefully, he could touch it unharmed.
His goal wasn't to break it.
He wanted to absorb it.
From the moment he'd gained divine power in Asgard, Lock had wondered: could the Infinity Stones be used to strengthen himself?
After all, Captain Marvel had been transformed simply by accidentally absorbing part of the Space Stone's energy.
Why not him?
Greed and determination burned in his chest.
He began to adjust his divine power, tuning it, searching for the resonance—the frequency where his energy would align with the Space Stone's boundless ocean.
One minute passed.
Two minutes.
Three.
Even with his abnormal body, sweat poured from his brow, his veins bulged, his face pale. The energy of an Infinity Stone was far beyond imagination—terrifyingly vast.
All around, the Avengers stared anxiously from a distance—Thor, Captain America, Iron Man, Black Widow, Hulk, and Fury himself.
Four minutes…
Somewhere, the Council's finger hovered over the red launch button, eyes on the countdown.
Suddenly—Lock's grimace relaxed. His eyes snapped open.
Blue light burst from his hand. The energy of the Space Stone, for the first time, flowed into him!
It surged wildly, overwhelming, almost uncontrollable. His entire body glowed, veins crackling with luminous azure.
There was no time to refine it—he had to release it. Now.
Lock threw his head back and roared.
Pressing his left hand harder onto the shield, he clenched his right into a fist—then thrust it upward.
"Roar—!"
A blazing blue fist of energy burst forth, no larger than a basketball at first… then expanding, swelling as it soared higher. By the time it pierced the wormhole, it was the size of a football field.
The leading Chitauri warship had no chance to evade. The colossal fist engulfed it whole.
In space there was no sound—only silence.
And in that silence, the warship dissolved, its vast body reduced to glowing fragments, then to dust, vanishing into the void.
With one punch, Lock had annihilated a space battleship.
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A/N: Advanced Chapters Have Been Uploaded On My Patreon
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