The black hole I chose had no name, not on the Novan Charts, and certainly not on Earth's databases. I'd started off using both before I began system-jumping, using the Space Stone and my runes to guide my intuition and search.
I crossed distances it would've taken the galaxy's current ships centuries to cover. On the third day, I found what I was looking for: a supermassive black hole tens of thousands of light-years from Earth, sitting in a region of space so empty nothing around it gave away its existence.
There was no accretion disk, no nearby stars, and no civilization broadcasting into the void. This was an old part of the universe—a dead void.
All that remained of their history was a black hole, spinning silently in the dark.
I stopped several light-years away from it and just stared.
I'd been in alternate realities, massive astral planes, witnessed worlds die—killed a few myself—and watched space around me fracture like glass, but something about this particular astral body got to me.
It crept into my bones and chilled my soul.
It wasn't so much an object as it was an absence. Stars behind it bent around its darkness. Their light stretched into warped arcs that curled around the event horizon. The closer I looked, the stranger it became until space began folding in on itself.
One of my orbs projected a model beside me.
"Estimated mass: approximately eight hundred million solar masses."
I whistled appreciatively.
"That's fucking big," I said. I idly wondered if I could survive past the event horizon.
"Unclear. The tidal forces and other deleterious effects are survivable up until the event horizon."
"That's reassuring to hear. At least I know I can complete my mission without getting turned to cosmic spaghetti."
I opened a portal and stepped through. The change was immediate. My senses went haywire. I lost all sense of distance. Light bent around the black hole in strange ways that made my eyes bleed. Time slowed, and my body felt as if it were being ripped apart, atom by atom.
My protective runes ignited immediately, insulating me in a dense layer of energy. Runes spilled out into the air, hundreds upon hundreds, painting on warping and stretching space, stabilizing it while I ascended into True Form. The strength of the runes quintupled, and the effects of the black hole were minimized, but they didn't simply vanish.
The All-Black blinked out of storage runes, nothingness given form and life, barely contained by my sheath.
I flew towards the event horizon, hovering hundreds of thousands of miles away, and let go.
Streamers of darkness reached for me, gushing out from the parasitic blade, but I burned through them all with a flick of my finger, sending the contemptible weapon into the darkness forever, hopefully. It melted into the black without ceremony, and an involuntary sigh escaped my lips.
Then, I turned to the hard work of protecting the black hole.
There was plenty of thermal radiation and electromagnetic energy to sustain the planetoids I planned on creating to orbit the body. But they'd all need a jump start, and there were more than enough stars nearby to help with that.
I was beginning to plot the first of my jumps when I felt a presence behind me, and I slashed with Rebellion.
The awakened weapon came alive with power, crackling with purple lightning that leaped from the tip of the blade and cleaved through the void with a silent crackle. A golden spear turned the lightning away, causing it to arc and fork into ether.
I was about to press my attack when I identified my watcher.
"All-Father," I narrowed my eyes, sending through my telepathy. I teleported across from him. "How long have you been watching?"
"Since you left your system," Odin Borson said. He was different than I expected.
The Allfather was tall and muscular with snowy white hair that flowed down his shoulders and a thick, bushy beard that covered his neck. His arms were larger than even his son's, thick and veiny with muscles. He had a barrel chest and a cinched waist and wore golden battle armor, a crown, and a signature eye patch.
His armor was covered in Norse runes, as was his weapon Gungnir. Some of the enchantments were easy enough to figure out; others were obscure and metaphysical, channeling concepts like might and protection, aspects that my beginner Arcanesmithing skill had touched on with the Precision and Amplification Runes.
"It seems I have to upgrade my sensory arrays."
"Perhaps," the old man mused, "self-mastery is certainly a high virtue, but it's not the reason you didn't sense me."
"You just teleported in," I realized, then frowned. "But I didn't feel the fluctuations in space."
"You were distracted by the Necrosword..." Odin smiled, "and I do have several millennia of experience on you."
"What do you want, old man?" I asked. "I hope it's not Loki because he's not mine to give."
"Loki will suffer whatever punishment your World Council deems necessary," he said, his voice resolute. "No. I am here for you and to deliver a warning."
"From who?" I asked, studying him with a naked intensity.
"From everyone, my boy," he said. "What you've done, the thing you drove out, its departure will not go unnoticed. Gods and Celestials, bounty hunters, mutants, and demons will come looking."
"I'm well aware," I said, hands tucked behind my back. "They will die too."
"You cannot strike down every foe," Odin said. "Or rather, you shouldn't. Your greatest challenge, however, will come from within. From the very people you seek to protect. Watch them closely."
I didn't know if the All-Father had prophetic abilities, but I had the feeling it was in my best interest to listen. Maybe I could design some stealth sentinels and attach them to the Novan representatives on Earth and the World Council. They'd have to have started scheming by now.
"Duly noted," I said, "but I still can't help but wonder why you're helping me? After all, you sent the Warrior Three to spy on me."
"To fight alongside you," Odin corrected. "And they will remain there for only as long as you will have them."
"So I can tell them all to fuck off and stop eating my good steak?" I asked playfully.
"It is your right," Odin said, some mirth in his telepathic voice, "though I ask you to allow them to accompany you to face Belasco. My son has not been tested by a foe of his caliber."
I hummed at him suspiciously. "Only if you stop spying on me with Heimdall and toss in a few volumes on how your runic magic works."
Odin's lips spread wide, and five thick volumes of books appeared in front of me.
"I would ask that you allow me to observe the fight between yourself and Belasco."
"Fine."
It wasn't like I could stop him. I was still likely weeks, if not months, away from learning how to hide myself from Heimdall's sight. This was a meaningless concession.
"I will leave you to your work," Odin said, turning around, but then he stopped himself. "I would also like to thank you. Hundreds of Asgardians perished fighting Shin and his agents. Their families will be happy to know their deaths were avenged."
And then he was gone, with nary a whisper in space. It was a naked display of skill that left me more than a little envious.