Chapter 194. Corvus's Desperate Gambit
"Fire everything! All batteries, unleash hell!" Corvus Glaive screamed into his comms, his voice a jagged rasp of desperation.
He peered through the shimmering veil of the portal, his eyes fixed on the distant, looming silhouette of the Chitauri Mothership. He was perched precariously on a damaged skiff, his long, spindly fingers clutching the limp form of Proxima Midnight. She was pale, her breathing a shallow, wet rattle; the thunderous wrath of Thor's hammer had left her broken, her armor shattered and her life-force leaking onto the deck. They were cornered, the hunters turned into terrified prey, and Corvus knew the only way out was to buy their escape with a wall of fire.
When the portal had first begun its erratic expansion, turning that haunting shade of violet, Corvus had dared to hope. He thought the tide had turned. But even as the Chitauri poured through the breach in endless, screeching waves, they were being met by a resistance that defied all logic. An Asgardian who commanded the lightning, two mortals in suits of impossible artifice, and now... the robots.
The white-armored sentinels were scouring the city like a localized plague of order. Every strategic point he had seized was being systematically reclaimed. The mission was no longer about conquest; it was about survival. He needed to get the Infinity Stone back to the Sanctuary, or Thanos would make his current suffering seem like a mercy.
But the Storm Swordsman was a shadow he could not shake.
Noah moved through the sky like a vengeful god. No matter how many gliders Corvus threw in his path, no matter how many Leviathans rose to intercept him, the man simply... moved through them. He watched in horror as Noah created flickering afterimages of himself, a dozen blades striking simultaneously. Worse was the magic. Noah would gesture with a hand bathed in violet light, and a terrifying Leviathan would suddenly shrink, its armored plates softening and its roar turning into a pathetic, high-pitched squeak until it was nothing more than a harmless caterpillar tumbling toward the concrete miles below.
"Faster!" Corvus snarled at the pilot. "To the portal! If we reach the event horizon, the Mothership's shields will protect us!"
Behind them, Noah was a blur of gold and violet. He raised a hand, and a dragon of pure energy erupted from his palm, tearing through a Leviathan as if it were made of wet paper. Noah's eyes were locked on Corvus, or more specifically, on the prize Corvus carried.
Noah wasn't even breaking a sweat. The Chitauri were an annoyance, a swarm of gnats to be swatted. He raised his hand again, invoking the whimsical, reality-warping whimsy of Lulu. A charging Leviathan was suddenly enveloped in a nimbus of purple sparkles. Its massive, terrifying bulk collapsed in on itself, its roar becoming a muffled squeak.
A second later, a plush, stuffed toy version of the Leviathan—complete with button eyes and soft, felt fins—fell into Noah's outstretched hand.
Noah weighed the toy thoughtfully. It was light, soft, and utterly absurd. The power to ignore physics is truly the most terrifying weapon of all, he thought. He tucked the plushie into his [System Inventory], adding it to a growing collection of Chitauri-turned-trinkets. He didn't care for their crude ships, but the biological engineering of the Leviathans was fascinating. He'd have them analyzed later, once he turned them back into their original forms in a controlled environment.
His gaze shifted back to Corvus. The alien general was nearing the portal's mouth.
Noah reached into his inventory and pulled out the Tesseract. The cube pulsed with a cold, rhythmic blue light, the Space Stone within singing a song of infinite distance. He had tried to equip it earlier, hoping to slot it into his gear like a standard artifact, but the System had reacted strangely. Inside the inventory's 'slotted' space, the Cube became inert—a beautiful, dead stone, much like the Stones kept as paperweights in the halls of the Time Variance Authority.
It seemed his inventory existed in a pocket of reality where the Stones' fundamental connection to the universe was severed. Good to know, Noah mused. The pocked-dimension rules apply here too.
He held the Cube in his open palm. He didn't need to 'equip' it to use it. He simply reached out and touched the raw power within. The air around him began to warp and fold, the space between him and Corvus stretching like taffy.
With a thought, Noah combined the blue essence of the Space Stone with his own golden energy. The result was a shimmering, incandescent violet-gold flame that danced across his fingertips. This hybrid energy felt more... malleable. It wasn't just raw cosmic force; it was a tool he could wield with surgical precision. He flicked his wrist, sending a wave of this energy toward the fleeing skiff.
Corvus felt a surge of relief as the portal loomed large in his vision. He was only a hundred meters away. At this speed, he would be through in seconds. He could see the docking bays of the Mothership, the welcoming darkness of the void.
Five seconds passed. Ten.
Corvus frowned. The wind was still whipping his cloak. The engines of the skiff were screaming at maximum output. But the portal... the portal wasn't getting any closer. It hung there, a hundred meters away, mocking him. He looked down at the city below; the buildings were moving, the streets were passing by, but the distance to the gateway remained fixed, as if he were running on a cosmic treadmill.
He looked back and saw Noah holding the glowing Tesseract.
Corvus bared his yellowed teeth in a silent snarl of fury. The thief was using the prize against him! He didn't understand how a mortal could possibly harness the Cube without being unmade by its power, but the evidence was undeniable. He was trapped in a loop of space.
"Open fire!" Corvus shrieked, sending a high-priority signal to the Mothership. "Target the coordinates of the anomaly! Burn it all!"
The signal reached the flagship. Deep in the cold dark of the upper atmosphere, the Chitauri commander obeyed. The massive vessel groaned as its primary weapon arrays hummed to life. Thousands of turrets, each capable of vaporizing a city block, locked onto the coordinates near the portal.
Noah felt the shift in the air before he saw it. The Mothership's shields might be trash, but its firepower was a different story. The energy readings spiking from the other side of the portal were off the charts.
He didn't flinch. He sent one final pulse of violet-gold energy into the space around Corvus, locking the alien into his spatial prison with the finality of a tombstone. Then, Noah turned his full attention toward the portal, his eyes reflecting the gathering light of a thousand alien cannons. The real fight was about to begin.
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