"Is he still alive?" Steve looked up at the sky and asked softly.
"Hard to say." Sif shook her head. "The Bifrost is powerful enough to destroy a planet. Loki might survive inside the Destroyer, but as for him… that's another story."
Volstagg let out a heavy breath, his brown beard fluttering as he spoke with booming confidence. "No matter what, we Asgardians will forever remember this brave warrior. Diamond War God, worthy of the name!"
Clearly, the four visitors from Asgard had subconsciously counted Bant among the dead.
Not only them. Even Heimdall, whose sight could peer across the Nine Realms, believed Bant had died.
In his eyes, there was no trace of the Diamond War God.
But was that really the case?
In the endless darkness of space, a dazzling ribbon of rainbow light tore through the void.
The Bifrost carried Loki across the universe.
"Aaaah!"
Inside the Bifrost, the scorching energy made Loki suffer beyond words.
The Bifrost's terrifying power even forced cracks into the Destroyer armor. Loki, unable to draw out the Destroyer's full strength, found it hard to withstand the Bifrost's might.
And beside him, the Diamond War God's shadow was long gone.
The Bifrost's overwhelming force was enough to shatter the Diamond War God and erase him completely.
But if someone looked closely, they would notice something off about Loki's condition.
Black fissures surfaced across his body. And within those fissures, a ghostly eye kept darting and sliding.
That's right. Ghostfreak!
From the very beginning, Bant had never planned to take the Bifrost's bombardment head-on.
Sure, the little broken watch's protection mechanism might keep his life from being threatened, but Bant had no need to gamble like he used to.
Even if the Diamond War God didn't actually feel pain, he still had no interest in taking someone's cannon blast.
So, before the Bifrost shattered the crystal mountain, Bant used the Diamond War God's power to shove the Casket of Ancient Winters hundreds of meters underground. He sealed it with specially made crystals to preserve it, then immediately switched heroes, transforming into Ghostfreak.
At first, he found it hard to possess Loki.
The Destroyer's powerful magical defenses kept him out, and Loki's divine power was protecting him as well.
Bant could only force his way through by phasing his body, but that still caused him some damage.
After all, the Bifrost was a fusion of technology and magic. It being able to harm the soul wasn't strange.
But soon, as the Destroyer developed cracks under the Bifrost's bombardment and Loki was knocked unconscious by the overwhelming energy impact, Bant finally found an opening.
So Loki became Bant's umbrella. As long as Loki didn't die, Bant wouldn't be harmed.
Even if Loki did die, Bant could immediately detach from the Bifrost and slip into the dark universe. Darkness gave Ghostfreak tremendous power, enough to heal any injury.
Still, Bant wasn't completely unscathed. At the very least, when he saw the Destroyer cracking, it hurt his heart.
"That's my Destroyer!"
Bant's heart was bleeding.
"Forget it. It's only a few cracks. It can still be repaired."
Besides, in the short term, he wasn't going to run into an enemy he could only defeat by using the Destroyer.
Bant sighed and lifted his gaze into the cosmos.
In a single instant, the Bifrost crossed an unknown distance. Countless stars flashed past his eyes, and misty galaxies drifted away like immortal clouds.
After passing through who knew how much darkness, Bant finally reached his destination.
Sakaar.
This was a planet very similar to Earth, with both oceans and continents.
It lay within the Fornax system, the fourth planet of the Ta-Yo star system, and the only life-bearing planet in that system.
Long ago, if you looked down from space, you could clearly see Sakaar's oceans interwoven with crimson rock and soil. But at some point, the space wormholes surrounding Sakaar began dumping cosmic garbage onto the planet without end. Little by little, the planet's original face was completely buried.
Now, looking down from above, Sakaar resembled a steel planet, filled with every kind of cyberpunk fantasy.
At the exact moment Bant and Loki exited the cosmic passage and began to fall, Bant noticed there were dozens of other "meteors" heading toward Sakaar alongside them.
Boom!
Flames dragged long tails across the gray sky.
Among this space junk, some were aliens with powerful physiques, while others were alien technology.
Of course, what counted as mechanical trash to certain races was undoubtedly a gift to a more backward civilization.
The technological content inside the discarded items of advanced civilizations was extremely high.
And so, Sakaar's technology slowly developed amid all kinds of chaotic salvaged tech, evolving into what it was today.
Because they had come via the Bifrost, Bant and Loki's descent created a much bigger spectacle than other falling debris.
The Sakaaran scavengers who stared at "space garbage" all day immediately noticed the Bifrost's brilliant glow.
Many scavengers guessed it had to be an extraordinary treasure. The teams confident in their manpower all converged toward the place where that glow would land, while scavengers who weren't as strong naturally focused on other falling objects.
In an instant, all of Sakaar became lively.
Among those most attentive to the light released by the Bifrost was Valkyrie.
Valkyrie was actually a collective title, referring to the female warriors of Asgard, the Valkyries.
They rode winged steeds, or transformed into swans to fly, choosing the souls of the dead, weaving the fate of war, seeking out valiant einherjar, and bringing victory to Asgard.
They had once been Asgard's most famous army, and the idol Thor admired most in his youth.
Yes, Thor's childhood dream was to become a Valkyrie. Later, he discovered that to become a Valkyrie, the first requirement was being a woman…
From that alone, Asgardian civilization was less advanced than America.
If it were America, who would dare assume Thor's gender?
As for her former name, Valkyrie no longer wanted to mention it. Ever since the war between Odin and Hela, almost all Valkyries had perished. The one left behind had long since grown disheartened and left Asgard.
War?
Death?
That Asgardian "fate" that once swept them forward, all of it, to Valkyrie now, was something to avoid at all costs.
Yet now, the Bifrost's light flashed before her eyes again.
It moved so fast, needing only an instant to drag back the painful memories Valkyrie had buried in alcohol.
Dead memories attacked her.
Valkyrie crushed the bottle in her hand, exhaled a heavy breath of liquor, and chased after the falling glow.
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