Night fell.
A single, blazing streak tore through the night sky — a meteor, its tail trailing like a whip of fire, hurtling toward Earth at a speed that defied imagination.
At that exact moment, within the quiet expanse of the Lakeview Estate, Balder abruptly lifted his head.
"It's here."
The words had barely left his lips when his form dissolved into a beam of radiant light and vanished from sight.
A deafening boom erupted moments later.
The meteor crashed into the ground with world-shaking force, splitting the night in two.
Normally, such a violent explosion would have drawn crowds or panic — but this was the "land of the free," where gunfights and explosions were practically background noise. The locals' first instinct wasn't curiosity, but survival; doors slammed shut, curtains drew closed. No one dared investigate.
A streak of light descended from the heavens and landed gracefully at the impact site.
Balder's feet touched down beside the smoking crater. His golden eyes glimmered.
"Finally. Let's see what you really are."
He leapt into the pit, his movements effortless and elegant. After just a few steps, something caught his eye — a massive, crystal-like object, half-buried in the dirt.
It was translucent, glowing faintly, its surface rippling with subtle color shifts — red, blue, violet — like a living gem breathing in the dark.
Balder narrowed his eyes.
"Such dense mental energy…"
Even he, a god reborn, was momentarily surprised. He had expected the object to be little more than an oddity — perhaps containing some minor mystical power at best. Yet the reality before him was far beyond his estimation.
Ordinary people would sense nothing, but to Balder's divine perception, the crystal was overflowing with psychic energy.
Not pure, but enormous in scale — as if tens of thousands of lesser psychic signatures had merged into one colossal entity.
"So this world's aliens have already advanced to the point of manipulating mental energy?"
Judging by the crystal's trajectory, it clearly wasn't manmade. A laboratory experiment couldn't have produced such a phenomenon. No — this was something from the stars.
If an extraterrestrial race had indeed developed the ability to weaponize or harness psychic power, their civilization might already be brushing against the realm of cosmic energy, even touching the edges of the primordial forces that underpinned the universe.
That would make them far from insignificant — possibly even rivaling the Asgardian level of advancement.
Balder extended his hand and pressed it against the surface of the crystal. His divine consciousness flowed outward, probing deep within the strange object.
Moments later, his expression shifted — a flicker of surprise, then amusement.
"Interesting… so that's what you are."
This wasn't a product of technology, at least not in the usual sense.
It wasn't something that could be replicated or mass-produced.
It was… an accident.
A relic born from the death of a civilization.
Balder's voice was soft, almost reverent.
"A race that perished in its own brilliance."
The crystal's story unfolded in his mind — visions of an alien species whose members were all naturally gifted with powerful psychic abilities. Their civilization advanced rapidly, powered by collective thought and mental projection.
But with intellect came greed. With power came conflict.
Resources became scarce, and their unity shattered.
War followed — a psychic cataclysm that consumed their entire race.
In the final throes of their extinction, the dying minds of millions of beings — their power, their fear, their hatred — fused together under unimaginable pressure.
From that fusion was born this crystal — a psychic tombstone, pulsing with residual willpower and the bitterness of annihilation.
"So that's why whoever touches it gains telekinesis…"
It all made sense now. The crystal was forged from the condensed psychic energy of countless sentient beings. Contacting it would naturally attune the human mind to their residual powers — but also expose it to their despair.
That despair was the price of power.
Balder's golden gaze grew distant as he recalled the story he'd already seen play out in this world's fiction — the events of Chronicle.
Three people had come into contact with such a crystal. One — Andrew — had succumbed to darkness and madness. The second — Matt — had been forced to kill him, his soul forever scarred. And the third, a man who tried to redeem Andrew, was struck down by lightning, slain by the very power he sought to save.
All three had been touched — and twisted — by the crystal's curse.
The longer they held its power, the deeper the corruption dug into them.
Balder chuckled quietly.
"For mortals, yes — this would be dangerous. But I am no mortal."
The corruption that had consumed humans could not touch a god of light. Darkness, hatred, despair — all were but shadows before his radiance.
And beneath that corruption lay a treasure.
Tens of thousands of merged psychic signatures — weak individually, but together… enough to surpass his current mental might severalfold.
"An unexpected gift indeed."
If he could purge the crystal of its malice, he could absorb it entirely. The power within could amplify his strength by magnitudes.
Balder closed his eyes briefly, calculating.
"At present… I'd place myself somewhere in the middle of the Earth-level tier."
In the hierarchy of Marvel's power scale, that was the first major step:
Planetary level, then Sub-Skyfather, Skyfather, Single-Universe, and Multiversal.
Planetary-level beings were the heavy-hitters who shaped Earth's fate — beings like Thor or the Hulk in their normal states, or Doctor Strange without his full artifacts.
Yet even within this tier, the differences were enormous. Some barely surpassed human limits, while others could crush mountains. The cosmos simply didn't care to measure the difference between ants.
So Balder had created his own internal sub-rankings:
Third-class Planetary – Entry-level supers, capable of minor superhuman feats. Failed mutations, low-tier enhanced agents — people like the early Black Widow.
Second-class Planetary – The standard superhero range. Captain America, early Iron Man, Green Goblin, the Lizard — formidable, but still humanly bound.
First-class Planetary – The apex of terrestrial might. Thor in his normal form, the Hulk at base rage, Doctor Strange before tapping cosmic power.
And right now, Balder stood proudly among the first-class planetary.
He smiled faintly.
"The crystal's energy isn't pure, but its volume is immense. Once I cleanse and absorb it, my strength could increase severalfold — enough to reach the peak of this level."
A soft gleam flickered in his eyes.
"Perhaps even… break through to Sub-Skyfather."
That would place him on the threshold of true cosmic divinity — just one step below the gods who shaped galaxies.
For a god reborn on Earth, that was no small ambition.
Balder raised his hand once more, divine light gathering at his palm, ready to purify the relic of a dead civilization.
"Let's see if your despair can withstand the light."