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Chapter 103 - Chapter 104

Fastest update of the latest chapter of Clark in the Marvel Universe!

"Clark, what's wrong?" Diana noticed Clark suddenly stop in his tracks—she knew something had just happened.

"The Tesseract… it was just activated—but it seems to have failed."

"The Tesseract was activated? That means Loki must've figured out how to use it. We need to move faster," Coulson said, feeling the pressure mount upon hearing Clark's words.

Clark had sensed the fluctuation of Tesseract energy because Loki had just tried to open a portal to the Chitauri using the Cube—but unfortunately, he seemed to have failed.

"Erik, why didn't it work?" Loki stared at the Tesseract, which had flashed briefly before going quiet. He was confused—he didn't know what had gone wrong. But he was certain: the technology provided by the Chitauri wouldn't fail. After all, they were waiting on him to open the portal.

"There's a lot in the tech they gave us that doesn't exist on Earth. So we just ran an experiment—to find out what we're still missing," Erik replied as he personally dismantled the damaged apparatus holding the Tesseract.

"What's missing?" Loki frowned. He hadn't expected that, even with advanced tech, they'd be limited by materials. And he had assumed the Chitauri's instructions were Earth-compatible, ensuring all necessary elements could be found locally.

Loki was right to question it—but he didn't know that the Chitauri had never been to Earth. And that posed a serious problem: they didn't know Earth's elements or terminology.

So even though Erik had access to Thanos' tech, he didn't understand what some of the terms meant. That's why he ran the experiment—to see what would happen if the Tesseract was activated without those unknown components.

"What we need now is something with high rigidity and strong corrosion resistance. The Tesseract's energy corrodes everything it touches. While the corrosion isn't severe, it still means replacing parts every ten days," Erik explained.

"But once we activate the Tesseract, its energy output and corrosiveness will multiply. With the materials we currently have, they'll never withstand a prolonged activation. Not to mention—we're also critically low on energy. We'd need to continuously flood the Cube with power just to keep it open. Without that, it'll shut down within a minute."

After dismantling the setup, Erik explained this all to Loki.

Before Loki could come up with a solution, Hawkeye had already found a potential fix. Following Erik's criteria, he accessed S.H.I.E.L.D.'s database and found the perfect material.

"Doctor, is this what you're looking for?" Hawkeye handed Erik a S.H.I.E.L.D.-issued tablet.

"Iridium? Yes! That's it! It can self-generate anti-protons, it's rigid, corrosion-resistant… I can't believe I didn't think of it sooner!" Erik slapped his forehead in disbelief.

"But this stuff is hard to find," he added.

"If S.H.I.E.L.D. finds out we need it, it will be hard to get," Hawkeye said, then pulled up a list of all known Iridium locations tracked by S.H.I.E.L.D.'s intelligence division.

"They won't know. Before S.H.I.E.L.D. got involved, I was the lead researcher on the Tesseract. Even I didn't know Iridium was necessary—there's no way they'll suspect it," Erik said confidently, putting Hawkeye's concern to rest.

Then, scanning through the list of Iridium sources, his eyes landed on one name: Dr. Heinrich Seifer, a physicist.

"Found him. Stuttgart."

"Now the only problem left is energy. That's not an easy one to solve—we're talking about a power requirement equivalent to all of New York City's energy usage for a month," Erik said. He was impressed by how quickly Hawkeye found the Iridium, but the energy shortfall still left him uneasy.

The gap was enormous—nothing on Earth could provide that kind of sustained power.

"Don't worry, Doctor. I think someone's already solved that for us," Hawkeye said with a smirk, pointing at a photo of Stark Tower on his tablet.

"What are you planning to do?" Loki asked, now that all of Erik's requirements had been addressed and only execution remained.

"I need to create chaos—to distract them. And I'll need an eyeball. Also, if someone can divert S.H.I.E.L.D.'s attention further, especially Superman, that would help. I really don't want to face him right now."

As he spoke, Hawkeye opened his gear case, retrieved his collapsible bow, and made a few quick adjustments before flashing a confident smile at Loki.

But at the mention of Clark, even Hawkeye—usually full of swagger thanks to the Mind Stone's control—couldn't help but twitch at the corner of his eye.

"I'll handle that," Loki replied. Speaking of Superman made him think of the Destroyer and Laufey, but for the sake of his plan, he took a deep breath and tried to stay confident.

"Just wait, Clark. Thor. I'll prove myself. I, Loki, was born to be king... (even if I'm still Bronze-tier right now)."

But once out of sight, Loki felt a pang of guilt—he wasn't sure he'd even be able to attract Clark's attention. Then suddenly, inspiration struck: maybe he could get support from the leader of the Chitauri.

He sat down and activated the scepter in his hand, initiating communication.

"You again? Don't tell me something happened to the Cube. If it did—you're dead!" The Chitauri leader was visibly displeased to see Loki return so soon. A bad feeling was rising in his chest.

"The Tesseract was fine when it arrived. But I'm having a small problem. Just a small one—but if I can't fix it, we won't get a chance to open the portal together."

"A small problem? Are you scheming again?" The Chitauri leader instantly became suspicious. After all, they'd thoroughly investigated Loki before working with him. They knew about his grudge against Thor and his reputation as the God of Mischief and Deceit.

"I swear I'm not scheming. The problem is—there's someone on Earth. Someone very powerful. His presence is seriously interfering with our plans. So I want to know—can you help me deal with him?"

"Someone powerful?" At that, the Chitauri leader remembered something Ronan had once said: that there was a being on Earth so terrifying that even Ronan had chosen to retreat.

"Could it be… him?" the Chitauri leader muttered under his breath. If it was the same being, then this invasion might be doomed before it began.

"What did you say?" Loki asked, not catching the last thing the leader had whispered.

"It's nothing. Is it a woman?" the Chitauri leader asked cautiously, trying to confirm if it was the person Ronan once feared.

"No. It's a man. A very powerful man." Loki didn't understand the misdirection, but he knew Clark was definitely male.

"Then it's not her!" The Chitauri leader visibly relaxed.

After all, even with their entire army, facing a being capable of singlehandedly repelling a starship fleet would have been disastrous.

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