Hela couldn’t suppress her growing suspicion any longer.
Though the curvature was barely perceptible and the lengthening almost invisible to the naked eye, it was still a clear anomaly, sothing had changed with Lothar.
And that, for Hela, was impossible to ignore.
After all, from what she’d witnessed, this man’s power seed oddly tied to his hair.
His strength in his usual black-haired form was diocre at best. But whenever that hair turned golden, it was as if he activated so kind of cheat code, his combat power skyrocketed uncontrollably.
She had seen it ti and again; on Svartalfheim, on Gafa, on Sakaar, and even on Midgard. Each ti, she was there, a witness to the abrupt surge in Lothar’s power.
To her, it seed like the race he claid to belong to, Saiyan, asured strength by hairstyle and hair color.
So when his hair began to subtly change again, Hela’s instincts flared.
"My hair’s perfectly normal."
Lothar shot her a glance, then casually grabbed her wrist and flung her over his shoulder. The Asgardian’s powerful body crashed straight into the armant base on Hala!
"Pfft!"
"You bastard!"
Dust and flas erupted around her. Cursing, Hela erged from the crumbling ruins, pointing up at the airborne Lothar, her voice sharp with rage.
Any satisfaction she’d been feeling vanished into smoke.
No one enjoys being used as a living weapon. The fact that she didn’t imdiately leap into a fight was testant enough to her royal upbringing as a princess of Asgard.
Well, mostly. The truth was, she didn’t think she could win.
"One day I’m gonna dye that ridiculous hair of yours green!"
Her teeth clenched with a sharp crack. Hela turned her fury on the bustling capital of Hala, venting with unchecked destruction.
Under the blood-red moon, her exquisite features and Lothar’s blazing golden hair etched themselves into the mories of every Kree that laid eyes on them.
The Mind Stone, glowing between her brows, pulsed repeatedly, channeling endless energy into her veins, turning her into a self-sustaining engine of carnage.
Beneath the crimson sky, blood and ruin reigned.
Once a face that could command adoration across galaxies, now stood over nothing but a landscape of ruin.
Skyscrapers fell. Cities crumbled.
To the dying Kree, the last image they saw before death was that golden flash from the Black Quadrant, blazing like the wrath of gods.
"No!"
"Help us!"
"Please!"
"Where is our army?!"
"What about the Supre Accuser Tribunal?!"
"Why are you just watching this happen?!"
The people of Hala scread in terror, their final cries echoing in the ears of every Kree Supre Accuser as lives were snuffed out en masse.
"Have we received the Supre Intelligence’s response yet?"
"Our weapons are completely ineffective against the two of them!"
Hearing that Ronan and Gina had safely entered the shelter, Accuser Cross let out a breath of relief. But his gaze imdiately shifted toward the leader of their tribunal.
"The directive has arrived."
Before the leader could even finish the sentence, every mber of the Supre Accuser Tribunal received the Supre Intelligence’s command:
"Center an Evolution Energy Field around the damaged Thirteenth District. Extend it outward to the Sixteenth District. All forces must lure Lothar and Hela into the field, at any cost."
What?
Cross blinked in confusion.
Help them evolve?
The order didn’t make sense at first.
"The strength Lothar and Hela wield isn’t purely their own, it’s being augnted by the Infinity Stones."
"The energy flowing from the Stones is constantly reshaping their bodies and souls. In other words, evolving them."
"But every species in the cosmos has a limit. Even those two are no exception."
"If we can lure them into the Evolution Zone, their bodies will accelerate past safe thresholds. Eventually, the damage will surpass their capacity to endure."
"And when that mont cos..."
The ergency directive, drafted personally by the Supre Intelligence, the so-called God of Artificial Intelligence, was enough to give Cross a headache.
To bring death, one must first drive madness.
That was its strategy: sacrifice a relatively small portion of Hala’s population and territory, to lead the berserking Lothar and Hela down a path of self-destruction.
Down into the abyss of over-evolution.
It would push them to the brink inside the Evolution Field, until the only outco left was total implosion.
That, the Supre Intelligence believed, would honor the fallen.
"Fourth Fleet, full deploynt!"
Though Cross disagreed with the plan, he ultimately carried out the orders.
In the Kree Empire, no one dared disobey the Supre Intelligence.
Even knowing it might be a one-way mission, none of them hesitated.
Zwoosh!
A relentless barrage of cannon fire harassed Lothar, each blast irritating his nerves. The Mind Stone’s energy subtly amplified the tension building inside him.
His calm frayed, replaced by bloodlust.
Once again, just like on Planet U40, the sensation returned: his power was climbing at an unnatural rate.
Die.
All of you will die!
No one, NO ONE, gets to challenge !
This is the price of targeting !
Dark, murderous intent churned within him, tightly coiling with the ever-swelling energy. Before he even noticed it, both he and Hela had been drawn into the trap laid by the Supre Intelligence.
"Now!"
At the command of the Supre Intelligence, the Evolution Field, engineered specifically for Lothar and Hela, burst to life!
"What?!"
Lothar felt it instantly. His power was surging wildly, too wildly.
He turned back.
Hela’s expression mirrored his, alard.
And then the Mind Stone embedded in her brow erupted with a glow that struck him with a jolt of recognition.
In the Black Quadrant, where the artificial intelligence Woz monitored everything, Thanos narrowed his eyes in alarm.
Soone as learned as him needed only one glance at the screen to understand what he was seeing.
"Activate backup energy reserve. Authorization: Thanos."
"Woz, extract Lothar, NOW!"
Bzzzzt!
A shrill feedback rang out. The hidden backdoor Thanos had left inside Woz failed, completely severed!
"Woz?"
The screen went black. Thanos had lost all access.
Thump!
Thump!
Inside the Evolution Field, a thunderous heartbeat echoed in Lothar’s ears, on the verge of rupture.
What is this...?
This power...
This feeling...
The sa overwhelming sensation he once felt on U40 ca flooding back.
Light exploded from within him, forming a blazing column of crimson-gold energy that shot straight into the sky, engulfing Lothar like a cocoon.
BOOOOOM!
"Lothar!!!"
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