The air in Niflheim crackled with anticipation as ancient powers prepared to clash. Ben studied the four Lords of the Underworld arrayed before them, their grotesque forms radiating millennia of accumulated malice. Beside him, Wanda's hands glowed with rose-colored energy, her newly awakened Chaos Magic responding to the threat.
The battle was about to erupt, but first, Ben needed to understand the political landscape they'd stumbled into.
The Nine Realms under Asgard's dominion operated on principles vastly different from other space civilizations. While most advanced species had developed interstellar communication networks spanning galaxies, the Nine Realms remained curiously isolated. Their remote locations in the universe's periphery, connected only through Yggdrasil's mystical branches and the Rainbow Bridge's dimensional pathways, created an information vacuum that had persisted for millennia.
This isolation was most pronounced in the three death-dominated realms: Helheim, Niflheim, and what remained of Valhalla. These shadowy domains had received virtually no external communication for thousands of years, existing more as dimensional pockets carved out by Asgardian authority than true space civilizations. Unlike Ben's Genesis dimension, which thrived with new life and infinite potential, these realms stagnated under death's eternal dominion.
Consequently, the Underworld Lords' understanding of galactic politics remained frozen in an ancient paradigm where Asgard reigned supreme as the ultimate space authority. In their calcified worldview, only the Olympians could challenge Asgardian might, and Odin stood as an unquestioned titan among gods.
But Odin was 'dead' now, his passing creating a power vacuum that these ancient entities were only beginning to comprehend. While Hela commanded considerable respect as the new death goddess, her authority felt diminished compared to the All-Father's legendary presence. When Malekith appeared—older than Odin, wielding devastating Dark Elf magic, conquering realm after realm with ruthless efficiency—the balance of power began shifting in the Lords' collective consciousness.
The calculation was simple: back the winning side. Support either Malekith or Hela.
But King of Sakaar? Some upstart lord they'd never heard of?
The very suggestion was insulting.
Lady Omor's skeletal features twisted into what might have been a sneer. "What pathetic joke is this? Some pretender seeks to claim dominion over the Crown of Death?" Her voice carried the hollow echo of wind through graveyards. "Child, I have ruled the dishonored dead since before your species crawled from primordial muck."
The Black Bone Monarch's towering form creaked like ancient ship timbers. "Mortals these days possess such amusing delusions of grandeur. Remember when they understood their place?"
Killer King Cato hefted his massive executioner's blade, its edge still stained with the essence of countless souls. "I say we educate them about respect. Violently."
The Underworld Dragon's sulfurous breath created billowing clouds as it chuckled, a sound like grinding tombstones. "Agreed. It's been far too long since we've had entertainment."
Their reaction reminded Ben of how Kaido might respond to Monkey D. Luffy's declaration of becoming Pirate King—immediate dismissal followed by violent mockery. Each Lord seemed ready to demonstrate why challenging established hierarchies was a fatal mistake.
But they had gravely miscalculated. The King of Sakaar wasn't some random pretender—he was Ben Parker, wielder of the Omnitrix, architect of Genesis, and collector of Infinity Stones.
Ben's response was characteristically direct.
Green light erupted from the Omnitrix as he transformed, his human form dissolving into something altogether more terrifying. Ghostfreak's distinctive black and white striped form materialized, tendrils writhing from his back while his single eye blazed with supernatural energy. The transformation sent immediate ripples through Niflheim's death-saturated atmosphere.
"Wanda, take Lady Omor," Ben commanded, his voice now carrying Ghostfreak's otherworldly resonance. "I'll handle the other three."
Without hesitation, Ben phased through the ground and emerged behind the Lords, spectral tentacles lashing out to separate them. The Black Bone Monarch and Killer King Cato found themselves forcibly repositioned, while powerful telekinetic force slammed the Underworld Dragon groundward.
"My turn," Ben announced, his ghostly skull tilting at an unnatural angle. "Let me show you what real power looks like."
His single eye flared with brilliant crimson energy.
"Ecto-Blast!"
The concentrated beam struck Killer King Cato with tremendous force, sending both the ancient lord and his massive blade flying across the battlefield. The attack's intensity carved a molten furrow through the cursed earth, steam rising where supernatural fire met Niflheim's perpetual frost.
Ghostfreak possessed numerous abilities rarely displayed in their full glory—possession, telekinesis, spectral tentacles, razor-sharp claws, and devastating energy blasts. Here in the death realms, surrounded by centuries of accumulated darkness and despair, these powers found unexpected amplification.
Though no sunlight penetrated Niflheim's gray-shrouded atmosphere, neither was this realm truly dark. Instead, everything existed in a perpetual twilight, veiled by swirling mists that carried the accumulated anguish of the dishonored dead. This ambient despair and supernatural darkness served as fuel for Ghostfreak's abilities, making him significantly more dangerous than usual.
However, Ben understood his limitations. Unless he claimed the complete Crown of Death for himself, Niflheim's enhancement would remain modest. What Ghostfreak truly required was pure darkness itself—the absence of hope, the negation of light, the void between stars.
"Die, skull-faced aberration!" Killer King Cato roared, his massive form recovering with supernatural swiftness. He charged forward, executioner's blade raised high, its cursed edge promising oblivion.
But his poorly chosen words drew immediate criticism from an unexpected source.
"Watch your tongue, Cato!" The Black Bone Monarch's voice carried sharp disapproval as he pressed his palms against the cursed earth. "Some of us actually ARE skull-faced!"
Instantly, the ground erupted in a forest of gleaming bone spears, each one sharp enough to pierce dragon scales. The attack resembled Kimimaro's devastating bone techniques, creating a deadly maze of calcium carbonate death traps. But Killer King Cato's charge carried him directly into the bone forest's path.
Clang!
Sparks flew as cursed blade met supernatural bone. Cato's momentum drove him through several spears, shattering them, but the Black Bone Monarch's trap had served its true purpose—forcing a confrontation between the two Lords rather than maintaining their focus on Ben.
"Move aside, you bony fool!" Cato snarled, his blade deflecting another bone spear. "You're interfering with my kill!"
"I'M interfering?" The Black Bone Monarch's hollow laughter echoed across the battlefield. "Cato, perhaps you should simply surrender your fragment of the Crown to someone more competent!"
The two ancient entities immediately turned on each other, their millennia-old rivalry erupting into violence. Ben watched with grim satisfaction as his enemies began eliminating themselves through petty infighting.
But the Underworld Dragon wasn't content to let its fellow Lords handle the intruders alone.
Massive wings blotted out Niflheim's dim sky as the draconic entity soared overhead, death-fire gathering in its throat. When it exhaled, the flames fell like a torrential downpour of liquid shadows, each droplet capable of extinguishing life itself rather than merely burning flesh. The cursed fire transformed the battlefield into a nightmarish sea of dark flame.
The dragon clearly cared nothing for its supposed allies' wellbeing.
Damn the others, the creature's thoughts radiated through supernatural channels. Kill them all and sort out the fragments afterward!
The death-fire washed over everything—Ben's intangible form remained unaffected, but the flames engulfed both the Black Bone Monarch and Killer King Cato. Dark fire danced across gleaming bone structures while cursed flames wreathed the executioner's massive form.
Both Lords paused their duel, looked upward with identical expressions of outrage, then simultaneously redirected their attacks skyward.
"DAMN YOU LIZARD!" they roared in unison, their combined assault nearly shredding the Underworld Dragon's wings.
The draconic lord suddenly realized its tactical error. Why am I fighting all them? Where did that damned intruder go?
Ben, naturally, had positioned himself at a safe distance to observe the chaos. Unfortunately, his entertainment didn't last long. The three Lords quickly recognized their strategic blunder and reluctantly called a temporary truce.
"Kill the outsider first," Lady Omor's voice drifted across the battlefield as she dueled Wanda. "Settle our differences afterward."
The Black Bone Monarch, Killer King Cato, and the Underworld Dragon formed an uneasy alliance, their combined might representing nearly half of Niflheim's total power. Even an enhanced Ghostfreak—strengthened by the realm's death-saturated atmosphere—couldn't match such overwhelming force.
Worse yet, Ben discovered that intangibility wasn't the perfect defense he'd expected. Niflheim was, after all, the realm of the dead. The Lords' mastery over their Crown fragments granted them supernatural abilities specifically designed to affect spectral entities and undead creatures.
After several exchanges, they learned to channel the Crown's power through their attacks, allowing them to damage Ben even in his intangible state. Their assault patterns adapted quickly—as long as they infused their strikes with death-essence, they could harm Ghostfreak's otherworldly form.
"Now we have you," the Black Bone Monarch declared with grim satisfaction.
The three Lords coordinated their final assault, death-power flowing from their Crown fragments like black rivers of annihilation. The combined energy streams converged on Ben's position.
BOOM!
The explosion sent smoke and debris skyward, the concussive force creating a crater nearly a hundred meters wide. Dust and pulverized bone created an obscuring cloud that blotted out even Niflheim's dim illumination.
But from within that chaos, two distinctly colored energies clashed—rose-pink and ink-black magical forces colliding like stellar phenomena, spreading outward in glowing waves that resembled space dust clouds.
Two figures burst from the settling debris: Lady Omor and Scarlet Witch Wanda, locked in their own deadly dance.
As one of the Six Lords of the Underworld, Lady Omor wielded considerable death magic and millennia of combat experience. She had initially expected this battle to be laughably easy—what could some dimensional upstart's apprentice possibly accomplish against ancient power?
But Wanda's strength had exceeded every expectation.
What began as Lady Omor's crushing dominance had evolved into an even contest, and now the ancient lord felt genuine pressure for the first time in centuries. Her opponent was not only matching her power but growing stronger with each exchange.
Wanda fought with an unusual combat style—though called a witch, she employed techniques borrowed from Kamar-Taj's warrior-monks. Her rose-colored energy manifested as various weapons, with a particular preference for magical blades that could cleave through supernatural defenses.
This hybrid approach wasn't accidental. Wanda lacked formal magical education from established traditions. Her only real teacher was Ben, and his Mana manipulation had been developed through collaboration with the Ancient One, adapting dimensional magic techniques for use with his innate mana rather than borrowed power.
Consequently, Wanda's spell repertoire drew heavily from Sanctum Sanctorum methodologies, though powered by fundamentally different energy sources. Even her incantations followed similar patterns—combining alien race names with magical effects, creating impressive-sounding formulas that masked their practical nature.
The Mystic Arts had always used this approach. Spells like "Shields of the Seraphim" or "Rings of Raggador" sounded profound primarily because they invoked the names of powerful dimensional entities. If those same entities had been called something mundane like "Joe" or "Bob," the magic would work identically but sound far less impressive.
For Ben's modified techniques, he couldn't very well invoke Asgardian or dimensional demon names. Instead, he'd created new formulas using Ben 10 alien species designations. Fire spells became "Flames of Pyros" or "Heat of Methanos," drawing on Heatblast and Swampfire's racial identities. Combat magic invoked "Strength of Tetramand" or "Speed of Kineceleran."
The system was both practical and personally meaningful—every spell connected to Ben's alien forms while maintaining the mystical tradition's dramatic naming conventions.
"Kineceleran Lightning!" Wanda shouted, her Chaos Magic transforming into crackling electrical force that surged toward Lady Omor.
The Thunder of Kineceleran bore no actual relationship to XLR8's species—it was simply Wanda's personalized version of the Bolts of Balthakk. But the power behind it was undeniably real, enhanced by her connection to Ben's Mana network.
The lightning blast overwhelmed Lady Omor's death-magic barriers, sending the ancient lord crashing to the ground with her skeletal form wreathed in residual energy. Smoke rose from her charred robes as she struggled to comprehend what had just occurred.
"Impossible..." Lady Omor gasped, her hollow voice filled with disbelief. "My mastery over death itself... how could mere chaos magic..."
Wanda descended slowly, rose-colored energy still dancing around her hands. Her expression carried a mixture of determination and quiet satisfaction.
"Is it powerful?" she asked, tilting her head slightly. "This is the divine blessing granted to me by the great King of Sakaar."
Somewhere in a distant dimension, Chthon—the primordial Chaos God and true source of the Scarlet Witch's abilities—felt a profound sense of bewilderment.
Divine blessing from WHO exactly?
But Wanda's perspective had evolved beyond simple chaos magic. While she understood her natural abilities differed from ordinary sorcery, and Ben had explained the concept of chaos magic during their training, she no longer considered herself bound by those limitations.
The one who wielded chaos magic was the Scarlet Witch. What did that have to do with her, the Rose Witch? She'd never even heard of this "Chthon" entity people sometimes mentioned.
Well, actually, she HAD heard of him. But only because his chaos dimension served as an excellent source of mystical energy that she could siphon through her Mana connection, funneling additional power into Ben's Genesis dimension. The stronger Genesis became, the more powerful Ben grew, which ultimately benefited everyone.
Must continue the theft, Wanda thought pragmatically. For the greater good.
Lady Omor desperately wanted to protest this explanation, but her current position—sprawled in the cursed dirt with her ancient powers thoroughly overwhelmed—made rebellion seem inadvisable. She could only hope her three fellow Lords would quickly eliminate their opponent and come to her aid.
"Those three incompetents," she muttered, struggling to regain her footing. "How can three-against-one possibly be taking this long?"
If Killer King Cato, the Black Bone Monarch, and the Underworld Dragon could hear her thoughts, they would have provided a very different perspective on the battle's progress.
We're almost finished, they might have replied. The problem is WE'RE the ones about to be finished!
"Transform: Diamondhead!"
Faced with overwhelming odds, Ben abandoned Ghostfreak without hesitation. If intangibility couldn't overcome the Lords' death-enhanced attacks, he had plenty of other alien forms capable of matching their power.
He didn't even need to deploy his strongest transformations—those enhanced forms capable of challenging gods or space entities. Among the original ten aliens, several possessed the raw capability to handle these supernatural threats.
Diamondhead stood as one of the Big Three among first-generation aliens, alongside Heatblast and Four Arms. While Heatblast could reach supernova-level temperatures when sufficiently enraged—capable of instantly vaporizing dozens of meters of solid rock—Diamondhead's crystal manipulation abilities were equally devastating.
In the hands of a skilled wielder, the Petrosapien form had once suppressed Vilgax during his prime. Now, enhanced by Ben's growing mastery and the supernatural environment of Niflheim, those abilities reached new heights.
Emerald crystal blades erupted from the cursed earth with the same overwhelming force as Hela's death-spikes piercing Asgard's sky. The massive spear caught the Underworld Dragon in its belly, sending the draconic lord tumbling through the air.
The crystal wasn't quite hard enough to pierce the dragon's supernatural scales, but the kinetic impact caused considerable damage. Internal organs shifted, ribs cracked, and the beast's flight pattern became erratic.
Ben simply raised his hand, and several mountain-sized emerald formations materialized above the dragon's position. The crystal peaks crashed down with irresistible force, pinning the Underworld Dragon beneath tons of supernaturally hardened matter.
"Molecular reorganization," Ben mused, his voice now carrying Diamondhead's crystalline resonance. "Still one of the most versatile abilities in my arsenal."
The only limitation was that his control extended to molecular rather than atomic levels. If he could manipulate individual atoms, the power would be nearly limitless.
While the crystal mountains held the dragon captive, Ben reshaped his right arm into a gleaming blade. The molecular structure reorganized itself for maximum hardness and sharpness, creating an edge capable of cutting through virtually any material.
SLICE!
The blade severed the Underworld Dragon's head in a single precise motion. The ancient lord's expression of shocked disbelief remained frozen on its reptilian features as the head rolled away from its massive body.
Simultaneously, Killer King Cato and the Black Bone Monarch launched their coordinated sneak attack from behind.
Ben didn't even turn around. Green light flashed, and suddenly XLR8 stood dozens of meters away, the dragon's severed head tucked under one arm like a grotesque football.
"Crown of Death recovery progress: one-sixth complete," he announced with satisfaction.
The head's flesh was already dissolving, leaving behind only the skeletal structure and the precious artifact embedded within—a gray-black crown fragment resembling a spider's leg, all sharp angles and malevolent curves.
Ben examined the partial crown critically. "Only half the design is present, which creates balance issues when worn... Let's try a different approach."
Another flash of green light, and XLR8 was replaced by Wildmutt's imposing orange form. The crown fragment settled onto the Vulpimancer's head, and immediately the power of death began flowing through alien neural pathways.
Wildmutt's size increased dramatically as death-essence wrapped around his muscular frame, transforming him into a creature the size of a small hill. Supernatural power coursed through his enhanced form, but Ben maintained careful control—this was temporary empowerment, not permanent absorption.
The Crown fragment functioned like a mystical tool rather than an integrated power source. Just as Captain America gained Thor's abilities only while holding Mjolnir, Ben could channel death-power only while wearing the crown piece.
His ultimate plan was to collect all six fragments and transfer the complete Crown of Death to Ghostfreak, creating a permanently enhanced form optimized for supernatural combat.
The enlarged Wildmutt threw back his massive head and released a bone-shaking roar. Saliva splattered across Killer King Cato and the Black Bone Monarch as they stumbled backward in terror.
Both ancient Lords exchanged glances filled with the same desperate realization.
Where had this impossibly powerful opponent come from? How could some unknown entity possess such devastating abilities?
Their eyes met, and identical thoughts flashed between them: Time to negotiate. Quickly.
The age of underestimating the King of Sakaar had come to an abrupt and violent end.