Chapter 205. Awakening and the Cosmic Hunt
The silence that followed the explosion was heavy, broken only by the crackle of dying fires and the distant, mechanical thrum of the Chitauri invasion. Corvus stood atop the deck of the alien craft, his chest heaving as his energy-form struggled to stabilize. The madness that had clouded his thoughts—a feverish, golden haze induced by the Mind Stone—had been violently purged by the blast. He breathed in the acrid air of the battlefield, and for the first time in what felt like an eternity, he was himself again.
He turned his gaze toward the slumped, unconscious form of Proxima Midnight nearby. A pang of genuine, agonizing relief pierced his heart. In his delirium, he could have easily turned his blade upon her, the one anchor in his dark existence. The thought of her blood on his hands chilled him more than the void of space ever could.
His mind raced, reconstructing the fragments of his original plan. He had never intended this to be a duel to the death; he was meant to be a shadow, a thief in the night. He was supposed to seize the prize, grab Proxima, and vanish through the threshold of a portal before the Earth's defenders could even blink. But the Stone... it had whispered of godhood, of a power that could crush worlds, and he had listened. He had been a fool, and the price of that folly was written in the translucent, fading edges of his own limbs.
"Enough of this," he hissed, his voice a rasping shadow of its former strength.
He turned his hand upward, and with a focused surge of will, he forced the Mind Stone to manifest. It emerged from the center of his chest, a jagged, luminous yellow gem that thrummed with a terrifying, ancient intelligence. It had been hidden within the very lattice of his energy-body, a secret he had kept even as Noah's fingers searched his "flesh."
Noah, recovering from the blast, watched the gem appear with a predatory focus. "So, you were the vault all along," he said, his voice carrying over the din of battle.
Corvus didn't answer with words. He poured the last of his personal reserves into the Stone, forcing it to scream. A wave of golden force erupted from the gem—not a focused beam, but a crushing tide of mental and physical pressure designed to stall, to hinder, to buy seconds.
Noah felt the weight of the universe settle on his shoulders. Even with the [Mikael's Blessing] acting as a spiritual aegis, the sheer, primordial authority of an Infinity Stone was almost too much to bear. He ground his teeth, his boots furrowing the ground as he was pushed back. Inadequate, he thought bitterly. When I summon Orn again, I must demand armor that can withstand the gaze of gods.
But he was far from helpless. Drawing upon the core of the Rune of Bravery, he summoned a mental image of the ancient symbol, letting its green light wash over his mind. He channeled that energy into a single, devastating technique: [Demolition].
Life energy, usually a force of healing and growth, was inverted, twisted into a purely entropic power. The air around Noah began to distort as if melting. With a roar that shook the very foundations of the nearby buildings, he unleashed a shockwave of emerald destruction. It collided with the Mind Stone's golden tide in a spectacular display of celestial pyrotechnics. The two forces tore at one another, erasing the very atmosphere between them, until the golden barrier finally buckled and shattered.
But when the smoke cleared, the skiff was empty.
Noah's eyes scanned the horizon, catching the faint, violet shimmer of a closing portal. Corvus had vanished, dragging Proxima's body with him into the unknown.
"A coward's exit," Noah spat, though a flicker of surprise crossed his features. He hadn't expected the fanatic to break so quickly. "Do you truly think a door will save you?"
High above, Corvus had transformed himself into a streak of golden light, tearing through the upper atmosphere and into the cold embrace of the vacuum. He wasn't at the speed of light—not yet—but he was accelerating, a falling star fleeing the dawn. In a matter of minutes, the vastness of the cosmos would swallow him whole.
Noah closed his eyes for a fraction of a second, reaching out through the link he held with his ally. "Lissandra, I'm jumping through the portal to finish this. The cleanup here is yours. Do not let them regroup."
Lissandra's voice returned, calm and steady amidst the chaos. "Go, Noah. End it. I will hold the line."
"I won't be long," he replied, a grim smile touching his lips. With the Tesseract in his possession, distance was a mere suggestion, and the closing of a portal was no more than a locked door to a man holding the master key.
The blue cube hovering behind him began to pulse with a rhythmic, ethereal glow. In a flash of azure light, Noah's physical form collapsed into a single point of brilliance and leapt across the fabric of reality.
He emerged in the silent, terrifying majesty of deep space. The Earth was a distant marble of blue and white, and around him, the stars hung like frozen diamonds in a sea of ink. It was a beautiful, lethal landscape.
And there, hurtling toward him like a stray bullet, was the golden streak of Corvus.
Noah raised his hands, green fire dancing between his fingertips. "The hunt ends here!" he declared, though no sound carried in the vacuum. He unleashed a torrent of magical force, a brilliant jade river that cut through the darkness.
Corvus, blinded by his own acceleration, barely veered in time. The magical bolt missed him by a hair's breadth, striking instead the drifting, scorched hull of a Chitauri mothership that had been destroyed in the earlier skirmish. The impact was a silent, blooming flower of fire and debris, lighting up the void for hundreds of miles.
Corvus skidded to a halt in the vacuum, his hate-filled eyes locking onto Noah. He was trapped. He looked at the Mind Stone in his hand, then at the man who had followed him into the very jaws of infinity. With a snarl that existed only in the vibration of his energy, he lunged again, desperate to find a way—any way—to survive.
But Noah was already moving, his body wreathed in the combined power of the Rune and the Space Stone. He was no longer just a man; he was a force of nature, and he was closing in.
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