"According to the records of our planet, Xandar,"
"This metal is likely older than Xandar itself,"
"And the first time I saw it was a very long time ago,"
"Do you know Sakaar?"
As she spoke, the female president looked at him.
"Sakaar? I don't know it."
Blaine truly didn't know. The universe was vast—he couldn't possibly name every planet.
Even if he could recall some, it depended on his knowledge of the Marvel universe—Titan, Kree, Xandar, and the like. Beyond that, Blaine didn't recognize many names. Still, he believed that if he ever set foot on the planet, he would probably recognize it.
"Sakaar is also known as the cosmic garbage transfer station,"
"I encountered this mysterious metal there,"
"It belonged to a powerful and rather sinister force on that planet,"
"The one known as the Grandmaster,"
"The Grandmaster ran an arena, and this metal was once one of the prizes."
"I don't know if, after all these years, it's already been taken by someone else."
After speaking, the female president fell silent, lost in her memories.
"The Grandmaster?"
"An arena?"
"A garbage transfer station?"
Listening to her description, Blaine also fell into deep thought.
The Sakaar she mentioned seemed somewhat familiar, vaguely overlapping with a planet from his memory, though he still wasn't completely certain.
"Oh, right,"
"The tenth-level star core you're looking for is also there."
"Oh? Is that so."
It seemed Sakaar was a place Blaine absolutely had to visit.
"Is there anything else? If not, I'll be leaving."
After so much polite conversation, Blaine felt a little awkward, as if his earlier behavior really had been somewhat unscrupulous. As a result, his tone became noticeably more courteous.
"There is,"
He hadn't expected the female president to still have something to add, especially when he'd asked so casually.
"According to the records,"
"This metal may be some kind of key,"
"And the piece in your hand should be one part of it,"
"Look at the patterns on its surface,"
"If you can collect them all, there may be further discoveries."
"I don't know exactly how many fragments there are,"
"What it specifically unlocks is also unclear,"
"And who left it behind is equally unknown,"
"As for what kind of material it is—"
"Alright, alright, I get it,"
"If there's nothing else, I'll be leaving now."
Aside from the first two points, the rest was mostly vague speculation. What Blaine hated most was rambling and ambiguity, so he quickly took his leave.
However, as he walked away, he seriously considered her words.
"A key?"
"How many fragments?"
The information provided by the female president was extremely important to Blaine. Perhaps one day, after collecting all the fragments and assembling the key, he could head to the moon—or that mysterious battleship—and make a major discovery.
With that excitement in mind, Blaine hurried toward open space. Since both the tenth-level star core and the other key fragment were located on Sakaar, he could take care of everything in one trip—assuming the key hadn't already been taken.
The blue light of the weakened Space Stone ring on his finger flickered, and a spatial rift appeared before him. In the blink of an eye, Blaine vanished from Xandar.
Inside the Hunter Space, Blaine held the Sakaar coordinates given to him by the female president.
With a swipe of his finger across the screen, a simple three-dimensional star map appeared before him. A red dot flashed continuously—it had to be Sakaar.
"Damn, five billion light-years?"
"That's far."
"If I ran there myself, my legs would snap…"
Staring at the distant planet, Blaine couldn't help complaining.
Fortunately, as a world known as a cosmic garbage transfer station, Sakaar was surrounded by countless wormholes.
Sakaar was special—not only because time there was unstable and different from the outside universe, but also because its surface was encircled by all kinds of known and unknown spatial passages from every corner of the cosmos. Many civilizations treated it as a dumping ground or a place of exile for criminals. As a result, countless unpredictable wormholes existed around Sakaar, evident from the fact that slave catchers often lurked near the garbage fields.
As for why Blaine knew so much—because in his memory, in the Marvel universe's storyline, Sakaar truly existed.
Not only that, but if his guess was correct, the green giant Hulk should currently be on Sakaar as well. The arena there was where Hulk and Thor would eventually clash.
Thinking of this, Blaine's impression of Sakaar became much clearer.
In fact, there was still one thing Blaine couldn't quite understand—how Hulk ended up on Sakaar in the first place. Blaine clearly remembered that Hulk had left Earth in a S.H.I.E.L.D. fighter during the battle against Ultron.
That fighter was known as the Quinjet. Although it was S.H.I.E.L.D.'s primary combat aircraft and extremely versatile, it was designed for operations within Earth's atmosphere. In other words, it wasn't capable of flying out of Earth and into space.
The Quinjet was developed to allow S.H.I.E.L.D. agents to carry out missions more efficiently.
It was a jet aircraft that used Earth-based fuels—oil, aviation kerosene, and the like.
As everyone knew, the combustion of such fuels required oxygen, and there was no oxygen in space. Once it flew beyond the atmosphere, there was only one possible outcome: drifting helplessly through space.
So how Hulk ended up on Sakaar remained a mystery Blaine had never fully resolved.
Still, a rough explanation was possible.
Based on the plot's implications, the existence of wormholes suggested that Hulk might have accidentally flown into one while piloting the Quinjet aimlessly, only to be transported directly to Sakaar. With Hulk's physique, surviving the pressure of a wormhole shouldn't have been an issue.
After all, Thor and Loki had once been violently ejected during Bifrost travel and later arrived on Sakaar via a long-distance wormhole corridor.
At this point, many people might wonder: even if a Quinjet could pass through a wormhole, Hulk wasn't flying a spaceship. How could an ordinary Quinjet encounter a wormhole while flying over Earth's surface?
*************************************
You can get access to early chapters on patr*on
If you like my work and you want to support me then you can become my patron on patre*n.
My patr*on account is Lord_Immortal_0170