**Chapter 189. Corvus Glaive**
"It's them! The very same scavengers who plucked the Tesseract from right under our noses!" Tony's voice crackled through the comms, sharp with a mixture of recognition and simmering rage. Based on the satellite telemetry and the energy signatures he'd been tracking, he had expected these intergalactic thieves to be skulking in the shadows of Stark Tower, nursing their prize. Instead, they had chosen the path of the predator, emerging for a sudden, calculated strike.
"You dare?" Thor's voice boomed like a physical blow, his grip tightening on the leather-wrapped handle of Mjölnir. Blue sparks began to dance across his knuckles, leaping like caged spirits between his fingers. "You dare invade Midgard, slaughter its people, and then have the gall to stand before the God of Thunder? Prepare yourselves, for you shall find only death at the end of my hammer!" With a roar that shook the very foundations of the building, Thor launched himself forward, a living bolt of vengeance.
Corvus Glaive and Proxima Midnight did not recoil. They moved with a predatory grace that spoke of a thousand conquered worlds. With a synchronized leap that defied gravity, they bounded onto the sprawling rooftop of the skyscraper, their silhouettes jagged against the churning sky, ready to meet the Asgardian's fury head-on.
Since the moment the portal had torn a hole in the heavens, these two had been content to wait, watching the azure tear widen like a festering wound. Without the Scepter to serve as a key, the gateway was a one-way door they couldn't yet close, and they were more than happy to linger until the full weight of the Chitauri armada could pour through to claim this mud-ball of a planet. Yet, the stubborn resistance of the Earthlings was beginning to grate on their nerves. To hide like cowards while the battle raged was a stain on their honor; if the other members of the Black Order ever caught wind of such hesitation, the mockery would be eternal.
Their logic was cold and lethal: they would break these two "heroes" as a lesson. Thor was a formidable nuisance, but they had faced gods before. As for the man in the metal suit, he seemed little more than a buzzing insect. Their observations suggested that the Storm Swordsman—the only true threat currently on the board—was occupied with the portal's stabilization, leaving these two ripe for the slaughter.
They abandoned their craft, opting for the visceral thrill of close quarters. They knew the Prince of Asgard favored the lightning, but those celestial strikes required a heartbeat of focus, a moment of summoning. If they stayed within the reach of his breath, they could choke the life out of him before a single spark could fly.
Tony Stark watched with a dry, mechanical hum as the duo completely ignored him, their eyes locked solely on Thor. "Ignored? Really? That's new," Tony muttered to himself, a wry smirk hidden behind his gold-and-titanium faceplate. It had been a long time since anyone had been foolish enough to underestimate the Iron Man, but he wasn't about to complain about a free opening. Before he could even calibrate his repulsors, the symphony of steel and thunder began.
Despite his centuries of combat across the Nine Realms, Thor quickly realized these were no mere foot soldiers. Corvus Glaive moved like a shadow given form. In his right hand, he twirled a golden, double-edged glaive that hummed with a sickly, rhythmic light. The weapon felt *wrong*—it didn't just reflect light; it seemed to slice through the very air, leaving a trail of cold dread in its wake. In his left, Corvus gripped a scepter that pulsed with raw energy, capable of both searing blasts and treacherous, armor-piercing stabs. Thor's instincts screamed at him: *The glaive is a sting, but the scepter is the killing blow.*
Corvus was a whirlwind of precision, his strikes heavy enough to crack stone yet fast enough to catch the wind. Beside him, Proxima Midnight moved in perfect, lethal harmony. Her long, three-pronged spear was a blur, spitting bolts of darkened energy to pin Thor down while she lunged with the jagged blade. The pressure they applied was suffocating, a pincer movement of alien malice.
Thor spun Mjölnir in a defensive weave, the hammer a blur of silver-gray stone. The air shrieked as Corvus's blade met the Uru metal. Though the glaive was rumored to be sharp enough to sever atoms and part Vibranium like silk, it could not mar the hammer forged in the heart of a dying star and tempered by Odin's own enchantments. The shockwaves of their collision sent cracks spiderwebbing across the reinforced concrete of the roof.
The dance had only lasted seconds, but Tony had seen enough. He wasn't about to let the "Point Break" have all the fun—or get his head taken off. The internal systems of the Mark VII whined as orange light bled from the chest piece and palms. With a sharp *vwoom*, Tony unleashed a concentrated Unibeam directly at Corvus's exposed flank.
The son of Thanos, realizing he couldn't simply overpower the God of Thunder while a mechanical gnat stung at his heels, pivoted mid-air. His inhuman reflexes saved him; he twisted his body with a sickening crackle of joints, the orange beam missing his ribs by a hair's breadth. The laser didn't stop, however; it punched through the rooftop like a hot needle through wax, carving a molten hole that plummeted through the floors of the building until it scorched the very earth below.
"My turn!" Thor bellowed, seizing the opening. With a grunt of exertion, he swung Mjölnir in a wide, punishing arc aimed squarely at Proxima. She raised her spear in a desperate parry, but the sheer, unadulterated weight of the hammer was too much for her lithe frame. *CRACK.* The spear shattered into a dozen shimmering shards, and the impact sent Proxima flying backward like a broken doll. She tumbled across the roof, coughing up dark, viscous ichor as her ribs turned to powder.
Corvus let out a guttural snarl of concern, rushing to catch his mate. A wave of bitter dejavu washed over him—not long ago, he had been the one on the brink, and now the scales had tipped again. Proxima's breath came in ragged gasps, her primary weapon nothing but splinters.
Thor had no intention of granting them mercy. He raised his hammer high, his entire silhouette wreathed in jagged branches of cerulean lightning that turned the sky white. With a flick of his wrist, he hurled Mjölnir. The hammer roared through the air, trailing a wake of ozone. Corvus barely managed to raise the scepter, firing a desperate sphere of dark energy to deflect the projectile.
Fury and fear warred in Corvus's sunken eyes. In the long eons of serving the Mad Titan, he had rarely met an equal, let alone a superior. Yet here, on this primitive, backwater rock, he had been humiliated twice in as many hours. It was an insult that burned deeper than any wound.
Tony touched down beside Thor, his boots clanking heavily on the debris. His repulsors hummed at full charge, pointed directly at the trembling aliens. "End of the line, ugly," he started, but his words died in his throat.
The sky above Stark Tower flickered. The towering column of sapphire light that had been piercing the clouds—the very umbilical cord of the invasion—suddenly vanished. A heavy, unnatural silence fell over the city.
"Did Noah do it...?" Tony whispered, his head tilting as he scanned the empty air where the beam had been.
"No... this cannot be!" Corvus shrieked, his voice cracking with genuine horror. He knew the power of the Space Stone; to break a barrier sustained by an Infinity Stone without a counter-stone was a feat of impossible strength. Did these primitives possess another Singularity?
"Wait, if the beam's gone, why is that thing still open?" Tony's confusion turned to dread. Visually, the portal remained, hanging in the sky like a lidless eye. But as they watched, the shimmering blue hue bled away, replaced by a deep, bruising violet. The circle began to stretch, groaning as it expanded to ten times its original size.
"What in the hell...?" Tony cursed, his sensors screaming warnings. The disappearance of the power source hadn't killed the portal—it had unleashed it.
Corvus and Proxima shared a look of grim realization. This chaos was their sanctuary. Before Thor could summon his hammer back to his hand, the duo vaulted off the edge of the roof. A Chitauri sky-sled, weaving through the smoke, caught them mid-fall and spiraled up toward the safety of the clouds.
*RAAAAAA—!*
The sound wasn't a mechanical hum or a whistle of wind. It was a primal, tectonic roar. From the depths of the gargantuan violet rift, the massive, armored heads of a dozen Leviathans began to emerge, their shadows falling over Manhattan like the shroud of an apocalypse.
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