"Find his true body… take his Star Core?"
"What do you mean?"
Hela frowned in confusion.
She knew how to kill.
On the battlefield, she'd hacked down more foes than she could count.
But from the sound of the Collector's tone, killing this man sounded far more complicated than expected.
"Ego is a very peculiar existence," the Collector explained.
"In layman's terms, you can think of him as the sentient embodiment of an entire planet."
He casually plucked a glass orb from a shelf, held it in his palm, and gave it a soft puff of air. A tiny humanoid figure emerged from within, hopping out of the orb and giving Hela a friendly wave.
"Like this."
"His birth, his very existence—it's a miracle in this universe."
"And if you truly want to kill him, you have to destroy his actual body—the planet that gave rise to his consciousness. Otherwise, you'll never succeed."
As he finished, the Collector crushed the little figure dancing on his palm. The glass orb immediately shimmered and birthed another one in its place.
Crack!
He smashed the orb entirely this time. Hela understood.
"Ego is extremely vigilant," the Collector added. "So I suggest you don't rush to reveal your true intentions when you first meet him."
Long annoyed by the living pile-driver masquerading as a man, the Collector laid out everything he knew for Hela—and by extension, for Rodus, who had been quietly following behind them.
It wasn't until he saw the footage Rodus had on Ego that the Collector had a sudden idea—to use Ego's Star Core as fertilizer for the budding Cosmic Flower, a rare life flower that only bloomed under extraordinary circumstances.
Thirty million years.
He had waited on this planet for thirty million years.
For all that time, the enslaved Tuskari tribe had worked tirelessly, mining resources to nurture the flower of life, yet the Cosmic Flower had only managed to form a single bud.
It was still a long way from full bloom.
But now, with Ego, the perfect solution had fallen into his lap.
That lust-drunk planet whose brain was filled with nothing but crossbreeding theories—who'd even mocked the Collector for being brainless—was more than qualified to become fertilizer. In the Collector's view, it was a perfectly worthwhile trade.
And hey, he wasn't the one doing the dirty work. If Hela failed, he could just pin it all on Odin.
"Oh right, there's one more thing."
As the three of them arrived at the estate's gate, the Collector suddenly turned, eyes landing on the ever-silent Rodus.
"How did you get your hands on that footage of Ego?"
He'd been wondering this for a while.
Knowing Ego's sly, paranoid nature, how had anyone managed to film something so humiliating?
If he auctioned that footage off at the Cosmic Auction House, he could probably make a killing.
Wait a minute…
Come to think of it—
He really could do that, couldn't he?
Eyes glinting with sudden inspiration, the Collector lit up. He'd been eyeing a few of Ego's limited-edition cosmic treasures for a long time now…
"Lord Collector, it was a man named Lothar who gave it to me," Rodus replied without hesitation, the cross-shaped scar on his cheek catching the light.
"Lothar?"
"The son of Thanos from the Centaurian Galaxy?"
Hela's eyes narrowed sharply at the name.
"You know him?"
Rodus raised an eyebrow in surprise.
The Centaurian star system was galaxies away from the Nine Realms. How on Earth had these two crossed paths?
Hela was silent for a moment, then nodded slowly.
How is it that I keep running into that guy, no matter where I go?
"What's he doing on Gafa?" she asked, her curiosity getting the better of her.
"From what I could tell… something about a mechanical component—"
BOOM!
Before Rodus could finish, the skies above Gafa suddenly darkened.
Thunderclouds rolled in, dense and ominous, as a deafening rumble echoed across the city.
Everyone on Gafa instinctively looked to the skies.
What the hell was happening?
"This is…"
"The aura of an Infinity Stone?"
The Collector's expression shifted, his eyes filled with fascination.
"And more than one, at that."
Elsewhere on Gafa, in a lavish pleasure hall, Ego stood by a window, his arm around the waist of a seductive woman, watching the storm overhead with intrigue.
Someone was seriously collecting Infinity Stones?
Even beings like him didn't know where all six were, and here some fool had managed to gather two?
"Interesting."
He drained his drink in a single gulp, crunched the ice between his teeth, and then leapt out the second-floor window, landing with a thud.
Brushing off his shoulders, he strode directly toward the center of the lightning storm.
He was dying to know which idiot was behind this.
....
Five minutes earlier – Lothar's Residence.
The Flerken crouched in the corner, its wide eyes fixed on Lothar as he extended a hand.
"Spit out the Aether."
His voice was cold and commanding.
"Meow~"
The Flerken licked its lips, nuzzling Lothar's hand playfully, batting its round head against his palm and mewling with innocent eyes.
Its fluffy tail swayed side to side, chirping cutely.
A silver energy orb appeared in Lothar's hand.
"Meow!"
The Flerken purred and continued wagging its tail.
Lothar rolled his eyes and conjured a slightly larger orb.
"Meow~"
Cornered and pouting, the Flerken lifted its right paw, as if batting at invisible strings, blinking adorably and meowing again.
"....."
Lothar's face darkened.
Especially since Zora was right there, watching the whole thing.
"Don't push it."
He clapped his hands together, molding a glowing orb the size of a person and plopping it in front of the Flerken.
"Meow!"
The orange creature squealed in delight and bolted forward, leaping onto the orb.
RUAAAAAGH!
With a single heave, it spat out a stream of pitch-black, viscous matter.
WHOOSH!
Lothar's eyes glinted. With a thought, his energy surged!
His hair whipped upward in the wind, turning instantly golden!
He slammed the Mind Stone into his chest, the Aether particle stream instantly drawn toward it, piercing into his body.
"Aaaarrrghhh!!!!"
The combined power of two Infinity Stones, unfiltered by any medium, clashed violently within Lothar's body. Veins bulged, muscles swelled.
And yet—through sheer will—he directed the chaotic force toward a very specific target:
A patch of biological tissue containing the core data of The Other, along with a connected mechanical component he had acquired.
"Come on—"
With no medium to buffer the impact, the twin Stones' raw energy tore through him like wildfire. His body trembled under the strain.
"Come on… RESURRECT!!"
He grit his teeth, channeling every ounce of willpower into filtering the torrent of energy. Slowly, it flowed into the preserved tissue of The Other.
RUMBLE!
A storm erupted outside, lightning lashing the skies!
"RAAAAAHHHH!!"
CRACK!
A lightning bolt flashed across Lothar's face.
In the corner, Zora shivered in terror as the biological mass began to twitch, slowly enveloping the mechanical core next to it…
"Prince… Lothar?"
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