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"What?!"
Before Thor could react, the Cursed Warrior's fist slammed into his chest.
"Ugh—!"
Thor felt as though a Planet had struck him head-on; he flew a hundred metres and slammed into the black rock wall, wedged so deeply he couldn't be pried out.
"No! Thor!!" This time Jane was truly terrified.
The Cursed Warrior turned and looked at Loki.
Loki twirled a dagger between his fingers. Facing the monster that had batted the God of Thunder about like a ball, he forced a brittle smile.
"Hey, big fellow... remember me? I even gave you directions."
The answer was a boulder hurled by the Cursed Warrior.
Loki evaded with an illusion, but the titan was too fast; a follow-up punch blasted him to the ground.
The gap in strength was overwhelming.
This was absolute, crushing power.
As the Cursed Warrior stepped up, a massive foot poised to smash Loki's skull,
"Wait!!"
Loki threw his hands up and shouted.
"I surrender!! I know where the other half is!!"
The warrior's boot froze a finger's breadth above Loki's nose.
Malekith strolled over and looked down at the trickster god.
"Give me a reason not to kill you, Asgardian."
Loki rose, dusted himself off, his fear replaced by the fawning grin of a man who'd found a new patron.
"The reason's simple." He pointed at Thor, still embedded in rock.
"Because I hate him, I hate Odin, and I'd love to watch Asgard burn."
"Besides..."
Loki moved closer to Malekith, lowered his voice, eyes glinting with cunning.
"...I know where the other half of the Aether Particle is. It's on Midgard, in the hands of a very, very arrogant mortal."
"I can take you there." Loki spread his arms in invitation. "I'm the best guide in the Nine Realms."
Malekith stared into Loki's eyes, weighing truth from lies.
After a few seconds he gave a cold laugh.
"If you lie, I'll tear out your soul and roast it over the Dark Fire for eternity."
"The honour is mine." Loki bowed with courtly grace.
Far away Thor finally wrenched himself free—just in time to see the scene.
"Loki!!!"
Thor's roar shook with disbelief and betrayed fury.
"You surrendered?! You sold us out?!"
Loki glanced back at him.
"The wise submit to circumstances, brother," Loki said coldly.
"You're always so dull—nothing but brute force. I, on the other hand, intend to keep on living."
With that he turned and followed Malekith toward the ship.
"Farewell, Thor."
The Cursed Warrior spun round, ready to deliver the final blow.
"mjolnir!!"
Thor knew the battle was lost.
He flung out his hand.
"Boom—!"
From afar the hammer tore through the air, but instead of attacking he used its momentum to sweep Jane Foster into his arms.
"Go!!"
The two of them became a streak of lightning, shot skyward and vanished into the murky clouds.
Malekith watched Thor flee without ordering pursuit.
"Let him run; we're short on time."
"Set course for Midgard."
...Earth, United States, West Coast.
One moment it was a sunny afternoon tea; the next, God flicked off the light switch.
The once-azure sky was smothered by heavy gloom without warning.
"Boom—!!"
The atmosphere shrieked.
A colossal black cross-shaped warship appeared out of nowhere above the Pacific, vast enough to blot out the sun.
It was the Dark Elves' mothership—Ark.
On the bridge,
Malekith stood with eyes closed, feeling the call of a power born from the same source.
"I sense it..."
He snapped his eyes open and stared at the blue Planet below.
"It's here. The pulse is faint, but somewhere on this continent."
Yet its exact location is blurred; the host seems to be suppressing its power."
Then make her lose control," Loki said, gazing at Earth with a cruel smile.
"These mortals—fragile, twitchy, easily panicked."
"Give them a tiny prod," he pointed at the city clusters below,
"make them feel pain, feel terror; the host's emotions will surge and the Aether Particle will explode out of control."
"Like... pouring boiling water on an anthill."
Malekith nodded.
"Do it."
"Launch all fighters."
"Turn this continent into a sea of fire."
...Earth's defence systems reacted instantly.
"Alert! Alert! Unknown object detected—massive size!"
"This is NOT a drill! Repeat, NOT a drill!!"
"All the people, Go to the nearest Bunkers available."
The Pentagon erupted into chaos.
While this scene is repeating all over the world due to uncertainty of Location of Alien Invasion.
At the top of Vought Headquarters,
Anthony swirled a glass of red wine while watching satellite images on the huge screen.
"They're finally here."
"Is the nationwide broadcast live?" he asked Ashley beside him.
"It's live! Every channel, every stream! All of America—no, the whole World—is watching us!" Ashley's hands shook with fear and excitement.
"Excellent."
Anthony set down the glass.
"Tell the city heroes and those trainees:"
"Anyone who doesn't want to die had better be on full alert."
"The show... has begun."
..."Swoosh—swoosh—swoosh—!!!"
Countless black scythe-shaped fighters poured from the mothership like locusts.
They had no specific target—or rather, their target was everything that moved.
Washington, New York, Boston, Philadelphia... every major West-Coast city was struck in a blanket assault.
"Boom! Boom! Boom!"
Explosions rang out in waves.
Skyscrapers collapsed like toy blocks under energy blasts; streets became infernos, cars flipped, crowds screamed and fled.
"This is your so-called defence?!"
In the White House bunker President Ellis roared into the phone, "Where's the Air Force?! The surface-to-air missiles?!"
"Mr President, our missiles are away!" Ninety-nine
In the sky hundreds of Tomahawk cruise missiles and Patriot SAMs, tails blazing, surged upward like dragons against the current, racing toward the alien craft and their mothership.
It was a clash of modern tech and ancient mythic science.
The result was despair.
As the missiles closed on their targets,
each Dark-Elf fighter shimmered with a black ripple—the same tech as the Black Hole Grenades: a Singularity Defence Field.
"Boom—"
No blast, no fireball.
The multi-million-dollar warheads vanished the instant they touched the black ripples, swallowed whole.
"Wh-what?!"
The generals in the command centre were dumbstruck.
"That's impossible! Those are high-explosive warheads—even an intercept would detonate them!"
Then the Dark Elves struck back.
Several scythe fighters swept over a U.S. Base and dropped a handful of unremarkable black spheres—
Annihilation Bombs.
"Boom—whoom!"
The spheres hit and instantly imploded.
Micro black holes formed at the Base's centre.
Fighters, APCs, Patriot launchers, even entire barracks were shredded, stretched, twisted, then sucked into fist-sized points of darkness.
Three seconds later,the black holes vanished, leaving only mirror-smooth circular craters behind.