Asgard — Hall of Radiance.
A portal of light shimmered open in the void. From it stepped Balder, the God of Light, returning to his divine palace.
He seated himself upon his throne — radiant and calm — as three orbs of light floated before him.
These were his spoils from the mortal realm.
As Balder studied them, a faint, satisfied smile touched his lips.
"A fruitful journey."
The first orb was the pure faith of an entire world, condensed into a miniature divine effigy.
Through it, Balder could call upon the immense power of mortal belief whenever he wished.
Of course, faith energy could not be absorbed directly.
It carried within it the chaotic will of countless human minds — much like the "poisonous incense" spoken of in Eastern pantheons.
For Balder, this idol wasn't nourishment — it was a reserve, a vast blue energy flask, an external power source that could amplify his light in battle far beyond his normal limits.
The second prize: a Dark Artifact prototype — a weapon forged from slaughter and negative will. Its lethality was extraordinary,
but its alignment clashed with Balder's divine nature of light and purity.
That mismatch dulled its true potential.
And finally — half of an Energy Crystal, still humming with transcendent force.
As he examined his spoils, divine light rippled faintly around him.
His inner radiance had multiplied several times over since the last battle. His spirit had evolved — elevated to a new state.
Balder's power had now reached the absolute peak of the Transcendent tier.
And yet… he had not crossed into the next realm — the Sub-Heavenly Father level.
Not because he was unwilling.
But because he didn't yet understand how.
"Power doesn't scale by mere addition," he mused.
"Between the Transcendent and the Sub-Heavenly Father, there lies a gulf as wide as heaven and earth."
He thought of others who stood at that threshold.
Thanos, a Sub-Heavenly Father being, ruled over five thousand star systems,
his presence alone suffocating thousands of galactic races.
Captain Marvel, by sheer accident and the influence of the Infinity Stone,
had briefly stepped into that same domain — transcending mortality,
her lifespan endless, her body sustained without breath or food,
her power vast enough to drift unscathed across the cosmic void.
Between a Transcendent and a Sub-Heavenly Father…
lay a difference not of power, but of species.
"That's why," Balder murmured, "we call them half-gods."
Reaching that rank meant truly stepping into the realm of divinity itself.
And if simple energy could achieve it, Asgard would be teeming with gods already.
Yet beyond All-Father Odin, not a single Asgardian had crossed that boundary.
(Hela and Kull the God of Fear didn't count—they were exiled, absent from Asgard.)
With a wave of his hand, Balder stored away the divine idol, the dark artifact, and the energy crystal.
He rose from the throne.
It was time to seek knowledge.
"If power fails, then wisdom must light the path."
He would go to the Temple of Magic — Asgard's great archive of higher mysteries.
Despite its name, it was more than a temple of sorcery.
It was Asgard's Grand Library, the treasury of divine knowledge collected by countless generations of kings.
A flash of light carried him away.
When he reappeared, he stood before an enormous temple — ancient, majestic, and impossibly vast.
Typical of Asgardian architecture: massive, imposing, gloriously excessive.
"Big means strong. Big means beautiful," Balder chuckled.
He stepped through the gates.
Inside, a gigantic floating tome glided toward him — the Book of Magic,
core of the temple's sentience, its custodian and archivist.
Balder preferred to call it "Asgard's Baidu."
He sent his intent into the book, constructing a thread of consciousness within it.
Instantly, glowing text appeared across its pages,
marking the exact shelves that held the knowledge he sought.
He floated upward and followed the guidance.
Moments later, a single tome drifted gently into his hand.
The temple was silent — utterly empty.
Though Asgard possessed the greatest repository of arcane and metaphysical lore in the Nine Realms,
the Asgardians themselves were a people of strength and valor, not scholars.
Even Loki, self-proclaimed "Greatest Sorcerer of the Nine Realms,"
rarely studied here.
If he had, perhaps he wouldn't know only a handful of spells to back that boast.
Balder shook his head in faint amusement and began to read.
He turned the pages slowly, though there weren't many.
Soon, he finished.
"So that's how it is…"
The path to greater power unfolded before him.
An Asgardian's might increased naturally over time,
but true progress was often halted by bottlenecks —
first between Transcendent and Sub-Heavenly Father,
and again between Sub-Heavenly Father and All-Father.
One could overcome these barriers through patience —
a hundred years, a thousand, even two thousand —
but there were faster, riskier ways.
Two methods.
First: Awakening Divine Power.
Transforming one's existing energy into its true godly form.
For example, Balder's current force was "Light Energy,"
but until it awakened and evolved into Divine Light Power,
he could never break through.
Second: Bodily Ascension.
Through endless battle and refinement,
a god could evolve their physical vessel, transforming flesh into divine matter —
the Body of a God.
Balder rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
"Body ascension is harder… needs years of combat and countless rare elixirs.
But divine awakening… that can be guided."
He recalled Thor's legend.
When Odin sealed a spark of his own power inside Thor
and cast him into trial by battle against Hela,
Thor awakened — his thunder transcended into true divine lightning,
and he ascended to the Sub-Heavenly Father tier.
"So the question is…"
"Do I go to Odin for help?"
Balder frowned.
Odin — the All-Father.
Neither wholly good nor wholly evil.
He was a ruler, first and foremost —
wise, brilliant, but ruthlessly pragmatic.
"A great king," Balder mused, "is rarely a good man."
When Odin sensed threat, he sealed his own daughter, Hela, without hesitation.
He allowed the Valkyrie legion — Asgard's greatest warriors — to perish before his eyes.
And Loki, poor Loki —
the adopted son, second prince,
given nothing but a ceremonial dagger,
while Thor wielded Mjolnir, the hammer that symbolized succession.
You couldn't call Odin a villain.
But his heart was a labyrinth.
Unknowable.
If Balder surpassed Thor —
if he reached the Sub-Heavenly Father realm first —
who could predict how Odin would react?
Unlikely he would strike directly… but not impossible.
And more importantly—
"In this Marvel universe," Balder thought grimly,
"I am not Odin's son. Not in this timeline."
His eyes narrowed.
Then, suddenly—
He froze.
A flicker of intuition — danger.
Without hesitation, Balder closed the book,
and drove his fist toward the far corner of the hall.
A blinding surge of Light Energy erupted, forming a colossal, radiant fist
that smashed through the air like a meteor.
The entire temple trembled,
ripples of holy force cascading through its ancient walls.
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