A sudden grin spread across Lock's face.
With Thor's personality, the God of Thunder would never hesitate — he'd throw himself straight at the problem.
So, Lock did exactly that.
He shot into the sky like a comet, soaring toward the blood-red tornado that towered several kilometers high. Without pausing to think, he plunged straight into the storm.
Inside, the Aether crystals were like countless knives, stripping the flesh from his body piece by piece.
Even Lock's nine-refined divine body could not withstand the full assault of the Reality Stone.
In seconds, his flesh was gone — leaving only a blood-soaked skeleton suspended in the storm.
But he had succeeded.
Though Malekith had given him an incomplete formula, Lock had used his own body and willpower to force his consciousness into the very heart of the tornado.
Malekith's voice rang out in shock, echoing through the roaring winds.
"How—how did you get in here?"
Lock grinned, though it was only his soul that smiled. "Why don't you guess?"
Now that he had found Malekith's presence within the Aether, the rest was just a contest of willpower.
Malekith still had more precise control, but Lock's spiritual consciousness was far stronger. Using brute force, he seized hold of the tornado's trajectory and began dragging it away from the Convergence point, steering it toward the North Atlantic Ocean.
Malekith snarled and fought back. The portals above were nearly perfectly aligned — victory was within his grasp.
He forced the storm back toward the void, inch by inch.
Lock growled, pouring more of himself into the battle. He consumed bottle after bottle of golden recovery elixirs from his dimensional storage, regenerating shreds of flesh that were instantly stripped away by the storm — each shred granting him more leverage to control the Aether.
The two wills wrestled for dominance, the tornado swinging wildly across Britain.
One moment it was surging toward the Atlantic, the next it was roaring inland, flattening forests, draining lakes, and flooding towns with blood-red rain.
But Lock never let it reach the portal.
Then, with a deafening hum, the eight rifts in the sky merged into one.
For a single, terrifying instant, the Nine Realms were connected.
Across all worlds, everything dimmed as if the very light was being stolen away.
In Asgard, Heimdall gripped his sword and stared grimly into the void. Thor, Jane safely in his arms, watched from Earth with growing dread. Warriors in every realm felt their hearts sink.
If Lock failed now, the Nine Realms would drown in eternal night.
For what felt like an eternity, the world held its breath.
The wind howled. The tornado raged. People in Europe clutched one another, waiting for the end.
And then — light.
At the very edges of the singular void, a thin rim of light appeared. Slowly, steadily, it grew brighter.
The perfect black circle fractured, stretched, and twisted — forming the shape of an infinity symbol (∞).
Then the symbol split apart into eight portals once more, scattering to their original places in the sky.
The Nine Realms were safe.
"No!" Malekith's scream shook the tornado. His despair turned to rage, amplifying the storm's power, but it was useless.
He had sacrificed everything — his fleet, his people, even his own body — and still he had failed.
If the Convergence was missed this time, the next chance would not come for another five thousand years.
And Malekith knew, bitterly, that he would not be there to see it.
His power was burning away. The act of merging himself with the Aether had consumed his soul as well as his body.
Laughing madly, he made one last desperate move.
"Then I'll take you with me, Midgardian!"
Malekith hurled himself fully at Lock's soul, attempting to drag him down in mutual destruction.
But the moment their spirits collided, Malekith realized his mistake.
"What—?! Your soul—how can it be so… indestructible?!"
Lock's essence was like unyielding steel. Malekith's attacks were like smoke against it, scattering harmlessly.
For the first time, Lock truly understood what Frigga and the TVA had hinted at — the "nobility" of his soul. It wasn't just words. His very essence was incorruptible.
Lock went on the offensive, wrapping his divine consciousness around Malekith's spirit like a millstone grinding grain.
Malekith struggled, cursed, and howled, but there was nowhere to run.
At last, the presence of the Dark Elf King faded into nothingness.
The storm began to lose strength.
Lock's will now hold full command of the Aether.
He dragged the massive tornado out over the North Atlantic, where it could harm no one, then invoked the incomplete formula once more. Slowly, painstakingly, he compressed the Aether into a cluster of blood-red crystals and gathered them into his skeletal hand.
The tornado collapsed with a final roar, its energy scattering into harmless rain.
Sheets of water fell from the sky in torrents before the clouds finally broke apart, leaving the world quiet again.
Lock's body was a wreck — most of his bones were worn down, leaving him a barely held-together frame clutching the Aether.
He emptied the last of his golden recovery potions over his bones. Flesh and blood regrew agonizingly slowly, until at last his divine body stood whole again.
The cost had been enormous. The Aether's storm had nearly ground him to dust. But he had endured.
The Nine Realms were safe.
And the system's rewards chimed in his mind like ringing bells — more recovery potions synthesized, this time fusing into rarer, higher-grade elixirs.
This battle had saved not just one city like New York — but nine entire realms.
When Lock's strength fully returned, he looked back toward Britain. The coastline lay in ruins, coastal cities devastated by the storm surge.
He let out a long breath and turned toward the Atlantic, flying back to the United States.
There will be more battles like this, he thought grimly. Bigger ones. If I can keep Earth alive through all of them, that will already count as victory. I can't save everyone. I can only try to save as many as possible.
When he landed back in New York, Thor was waiting.
The God of Thunder greeted him with a grin.
"Lock! Took you long enough. I've been waiting to share a drink!"
Lock glared at him. "Really? You run off with your girlfriend and leave me to deal with the end of the world — and now you want to drink?"
Thor shrugged. "What was I supposed to do? Malekith was tearing the continent apart. I had to get Jane across the ocean first. By the time I could've come back, you had it handled!"
Jane, standing beside Thor, surprised Lock by offering a quiet, sincere "Thank you."
Ever since meeting Lock, Jane had been openly skeptical of him, often mocking Thor for trusting him so completely.
But after seeing how Lock had fought — saving her, saving Thor, and saving the Nine Realms — she finally let go of her prejudice.
Lock didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I nearly sacrificed my life, fought a war to save the universe — just to earn a single "thank you"?
Once the crisis passed, S.H.I.E.L.D. and various world governments rushed to manage disaster relief. Rescue operations swept the North Atlantic, searching for survivors.
As for Lock — he finally allowed himself to rest, spending some quiet time with Natasha before returning to his preparations.
Yet a strange feeling lingered in the back of his mind.
I'm forgetting something…
He shook his head. If I can't remember, it probably wasn't important.
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