"Marvika, the Sun Goddess?" Ronan's pupils contracted.
He naturally knew that name; in the Kree Empire's oldest war archives, and within the fragmented scrolls describing ancient conflicts, Asgard's sun goddess was an existence on par with the All-Father Odin.
Legend says she single-handedly incinerated Surtur the Fire Giant's entire fleet during the "Conquest of Muspelheim," and used her incarnation as a blazing Sun to bring the dead back to life during the "Dark Elf War."
But those were legends from thousands of years ago.
The Kree Empire's textbooks claimed that Asgard had declined and that the protection of the Nine Realms had become empty talk.
They thought that Earth, as the most backward "Midgard" of the Nine Realms, would not attract attention, but now...
"My Lord, what should we do?" The adjutant was already drenched in cold sweat. "Should we retreat?"
Ronan was locked in an internal struggle.
Retreat? He, Ronan the Accuser, the youngest fleet Commander of the Kree Empire and a future contender for a seat in the Supreme Intelligence, scared off by a single sentence from a woman?
If word of this reached Hala, his political career would be over.
But a direct confrontation... He looked at the woman standing quietly in the Akasha outside the window; she hadn't even assumed a combat stance, just stood there as if it were only natural for the Sun to hang in the sky.
That composure, that absolute confidence, made Ronan instinctively feel the danger.
Ambition finally overrode caution. Ronan took a deep breath, opened the fleet-wide broadcast, and responded in Kree, knowing she would surely understand.
"Messenger of Asgard, we have no intention of offending the territories of the Nine Realms, but the Kree Empire has internal affairs to handle. Traitors have stolen important imperial assets and fled to this sector. This is an internal matter of the Kree Empire, and Asgard has no right to interfere."
He attempted to gain the initiative with diplomatic rhetoric while secretly ordering, "All ships, charge main cannons, lock onto that... lifeform. Shields at full power, prepare for battle."
The bow cannons of the four Kree warships began to glow with blue light, the hum of gathering energy palpable even through the hull.
The shield generators ran at full power, forming translucent energy barriers around the warships.
"Is that so?" Mavuika smiled after hearing Ronan's words.
The Kree Empire was considered a rising power in the Universe, but on Asgard's timescale, it was merely a child who had just learned to walk.
She spoke no more.
She extended her right hand, palm upward.
A cluster of golden fire ignited out of thin air. At first, it was only the size of a fist, but in the next second, the flames surged, transforming in an instant into a massive flaming greatsword hundreds of meters long!
The sword was composed purely of energy, its blade flowing with a luster like molten gold. The space around the edge distorted slightly; the extreme heat caused thin, volatile substances to rise from the surface of the distant Moon.
The sword's length even exceeded that of the Kree warships. It burned quietly in the Akasha, emitting light and heat that sent all sensors off the charts.
Ronan's breath hitched. He had seen energy weapons—ion cannons, phase cannons—but he had never seen such a pure, such a massive form of destruction.
She gripped that Solar Blade and gave her wrist a light flick. The hundreds-of-meters-long flaming greatsword, carrying world-ending power, slashed down toward the warship.
The movement appeared slow, elegant, and even somewhat casual.
The moment the tip of the sword touched the shield of the nearest Kree warship, a blinding flash of golden light erupted.
That Kree warship's composite energy shield, claimed to be capable of withstanding small meteor impacts, shattered silently like a soap bubble.
Immediately after, the blade contacted the hull. The hardened Kree Alloy armor was as fragile as rice paper before the solar fire, and was smoothly sliced in two.
The cut vaporized instantly, the metal melting into a glowing jet that bloomed into a brief, gold-red flower in the vacuum.
The air, equipment, and personnel inside the ship were all vaporized within a ten-thousandth of a second.
The warship's core power cell was instantly detonated. A pale blue energy explosion ignited a brilliant flare in the pitch-black space, which then quickly extinguished.
The two halves of the wreckage drifted apart slowly under inertia, with scattered small internal explosions acting like final wails before soon dying out in the vacuum.
From the strike to the destruction, the entire process took no more than two seconds—clean and efficient, like a hot knife through butter, without the slightest hesitation.
A three-hundred-meter-long Kree Empire capital ship had thus been turned into space junk.
Inside the bridge, there was a deathly silence.
Everyone was frozen in place, including Ronan.
The data pad in the adjutant's hand fell to the floor with a crisp cracking sound, but no one looked down.
"Five seconds left," Mavuika's voice rang out again, this time with a chill.
The flaming greatsword in her hand turned slightly, pointing at the next warship.
Ronan's face turned from livid to pale, and finally to a deathly gray.
All his ambition, all his pride, and all his conviction that "legends are merely exaggerations" were completely shattered before this single strike.
This wasn't a gap in technology or a difference in tactics; this was a fundamental difference in the level of existence—the absolute powerlessness of a mortal facing a deity.
"Re..." Ronan's lips trembled, finding his voice parched for the first time.
"Retreat! All units retreat! Initiate warp jump immediately!"
He practically screamed it, having lost all his composure.
His subordinates, as if granted a general amnesty, scrambled to operate the consoles.
The engines of the remaining three Kree warships roared to life, shield power was pushed to the limit, and the warp engines were Overloaded to charge.
Blue warp halos lit up around the three warships as space began to warp.
At the last moment, Ronan looked through the viewport at Mavuika. Those cold eyes were etched deep into his soul.
With a flash of light, the three warships vanished.
Only the warship wreckage, drifting metal fragments, and Mavuika standing quietly in place remained in the Akasha.
Mavuika did not pursue; she just watched silently.
The flaming greatsword in her hand slowly shrank, finally turning into sparks that dissipated into the void.
She had given a warning and displayed her power; the remaining choice was theirs.
If Ronan had chosen to fight to the death, she would have eliminated all invaders without hesitation.
But since they chose the wise path, she wouldn't drive them to total extinction; Asgard's majesty lay in deterrence, not Carnage.
She looked toward Earth and sighed softly.
"It seems it's time to make the Universe remember the name of Asgard again."
Turning around, she transformed into a gold-red meteor, heading back toward the Skrull ship.
...
In low Earth orbit, aboard the Skrull stealth ship.
While Mavuika was intercepting the Kree fleet in lunar orbit, another conflict was unfolding on the Skrull ship.
The interior of the ship was in chaos, alarms flashed red, the hull vibrated violently under the bombardment of energy weapons, and there was a smell of Burning and a faint scent of blood in the air.
Just ten minutes ago, a small Kree Assault Craft had forcibly docked with the mothership, and a team of elite Kree warriors had broken inside.