Grandmaster's fury boiled over.
In the span of a breath, Soren had erased an entire battalion of his soldiers and shattered his massive holographic projection… an insult unlike anything he had endured in his billions of years of life.
It was a public humiliation, a blatant slap across his face.
He would make Soren pay.
Within minutes, all of Sakaar was mobilized under his orders. Wanderers and mercenaries scrambled into the sky, riding flight devices and hastily armed skiffs.
Champions long kept in the shadows were released and outfitted with the finest artifacts the Grandmaster possessed.
His spread across every screen and every speaker on the planet.
"WANDERERS! HEAR ME!"
The Grandmaster's giant image projected across the sky once more.
"Whoever kills the Great Devil, I will grant you a full set of top-tier artifacts, a mountain of resources, and the fulfillment of your greatest desire!"
A collective gasp spread through the crowd.
"And to my champions slay him, and the freedom you have begged for will finally be yours!"
At those words, Wanderers howled with excitement and the champions roared with newfound desperation.
"Move! If we get there first, we'll be rich for eight lifetimes!"
"I'm done living like this! Kill him!"
"Don't let anyone beat us to it!"
They surged toward the building where Soren stood, each terrified of being too slow to claim the reward.
But not everyone lost their minds to greed.
Inside a massive wanderer battleship, a mercenary crew gathered excitedly. They were veterans and always chasing the highest-paying jobs.
"Captain," one soldier shouted, "If we move now, we'll beat everyone! We can't let this chance slip by!"
"Yeah! One kill and we're rich forever!"
Their captain a middle-aged man, remained silent for a long moment. The offer was tempting…very tempting.
And that was exactly what scared him.
Finally, he let out a long, resigned breath. "All hands, stand by."
"No one takes action without my command. If anyone disobeys, they're expelled from this ship."
"Captain, what?!" The crew erupted.
"This is the chance of a lifetime!"
Their frustration hung heavy in the air, but none dared push beyond complaints. The captain had earned their obedience through decades of surviving what others didn't.
He looked at them and shook his head. "You're blinded by greed."
"The only reason we've survived this long is simple, we know when to stay still." His voice dropped into a heavy, grim tone. "Do you even understand who the Great Devil is?"
"…" Uneasy shifting.
"If he dared walk into the Grandmaster's domain alone… what does that tell you? Anyone who thinks they can kill him is already dead."
"Have you all forgotten what happened to the last fools who crossed paths with Soren?"
A chill ran through the entire crew.
They remembered.
And slowly, one by one, the adrenaline drained from their faces… replaced by dread.
"Just wait," The mercenary captain exhaling slowly as the others settled down. "Some people are about to suffer."
For all his greed, the captain had something the others lacked… clarity.
In the face of Grandmaster's astronomical bounty, he kept his reason intact and that clarity ended up saving dozens of lives.
But the others weren't so wise.
…
Drawn by greed, mercenaries poured in from all directions. Champions, killers, gladiators, every fighter desperate enough to chase Grandmaster's reward.
They rushed toward Soren like moths toward a bonfire, and Soren did not soften his flame.
He had given them a warning when he crushed the first wave. It was a clear message.
But anyone who still dared to come now had already chosen their fate.
Above, Soren hovered in the air like a dark star, staring down at the tide of warriors.
The first to arrive were elite mercenary groups, roaring in aboard their own attack crafts. Their ships streaked through the air and converged around Soren's position.
"…" Valkyrie tensed instinctively.
She had lived on Sakaar long enough to know what these fighters could do, how terrifying they were in numbers.
Even at the height of her power, this kind of formation would have raised the hairs on her neck. These weren't random thugs, many of these fighters were seasoned killers.
"Smash." Hulk, of course, felt nothing.
Thor, on the other hand, practically vibrated with excitement, sparks dancing at his fingertips.
Freyja knew that while Soren was powerful, the sheer volume of enemies might be too much.
Through the hole Hulk had smashed in the wall, they watched the flood of warriors closing in.
Soren watched them without a flicker of emotion.
When the fighter squadrons drew into range, they opened fire instantly… lasers, missiles, energy cannons, every weapon blazing as mercenaries tried to be the first to bring him down and claim Grandmaster's unimaginable reward.
The sky lit up in chains of fire.
Soren understood perfectly… Grandmaster's fortune was enormous, but he had not expected this many to still come after watching the first wave perish in an instant.
And he had no sympathy for them.
These were scavengers, desperate wanderers ready to kill for credits. They had made themselves his enemies.
And there was only one end for enemies.
As the wall of firepower closed in on him, Soren finally…
Boom
A pulse of raw space ripped outward from him. It expanded in a sphere as hard as diamond and as fluid as storm winds.
Every missile, laser, and beam struck it and failed. The barrier didn't even ripple.
To the attackers, it must have felt like firing everything they had at an unbreakable world.
Soren hovered there, gazing down upon them.