Germany
Loki swaggered into a gathering of high-society elites, calmly harvesting his target's eyeball. At the same time, on another front, Hawkeye—who had secretly infiltrated a military base—carried out his operation, stealing the data needed to obtain extraterrestrial meteor elements required to construct a spatial portal.
After completing his primary objective, Loki herded the party's attendees together like sheep into a circle and began his speech, deliberately waiting on the spot for S.H.I.E.L.D. forces to arrive.
To ensure Hawkeye's operation went smoothly, Loki intentionally created a massive disturbance and stayed behind to draw S.H.I.E.L.D.'s attention.
"Kneel. Submit to me obediently, and be spared all meaningless pain," Loki roared at the crowd from several directions at once through the illusions he had created, as the Mind Scepter flashed with light.
Unable to withstand the overwhelming mental pressure, the crowd involuntarily sank to one knee.
"That's more like it," Loki said smugly, nodding. "Lowly mortals should be ruled by a great god-king."
"Someone as arrogantly high-and-mighty as you usually ends up with a miserable fate," a voice rang out from above.
Steve leapt directly down from the Quinjet, landing in front of Loki.
Loki cast a contemptuous glance at Steve.
"An arrogant mortal! It seems I must let you feel the wrath of a god, so you may learn what fear and obedience truly mean."
He raised the scepter and fired a beam of energy at Steve, but Steve blocked it with his vibranium shield.
"Nice shield. But if you think that alone lets you stand against a god, you're gravely mistaken."
Loki slammed the scepter into the ground, and several figures appeared around Steve, encircling him.
"Illusions?" Steve charged straight at the figure in front of him and passed right through it.
However, he immediately felt an attack coming from behind—the ripping sound of air tearing.
He rolled aside to dodge, then stared grimly at the summoned duplicates.
"Can every one of these clones freely shift between illusion and reality?"
Facing Loki's duplicates that could arbitrarily switch between the real and the unreal, Steve found himself in a bind. If not for his almost instinctive and extensive combat experience, he would have been knocked down after just a few exchanges.
After assessing the situation, Steve realized that continuing this stalemate would be endless and extremely disadvantageous. He immediately transformed into Kuuga's Dragon Form. His shield changed into a Dragon Staff, and with agile movements he leapt out of the encirclement of illusions, charging straight at Loki.
Seeing Steve's sudden transformation, Loki was briefly startled, but he reacted just as quickly, swinging the Mind Scepter to meet Steve's Dragon Staff.
With a dull crash, surging energy exploded outward, creating a powerful shockwave.
"Give up resisting, reindeer boy. Otherwise, I can't guarantee you won't get hurt," Tony said as he descended from the sky in his Iron Man armor, all weapon systems activated and locked onto Loki.
At the same time, Kent landed on the ground, transformed immediately, and raised his hand, ready to attack Loki at any moment.
Loki swept his gaze across the three men surrounding him in a triangular formation, a wicked smile curling at the corner of his mouth.
"Let me see what you're really capable of."
Tony snorted and opened fire at once—micro-missiles and palm-mounted particle cannons firing simultaneously.
The area where Loki stood was blasted into shattered ruins.
"Is that it?" Tony asked uncertainly. "No resistance detected at all."
As the smoke cleared, the three of them realized there was nothing there. Loki had vanished without anyone knowing when.
"Are you looking for me?" Loki suddenly appeared some distance away, grinning mockingly at them.
"When did he—?! We didn't detect anything at all! JARVIS!" Tony muttered in disbelief.
"Sir, the armor's detection systems show no malfunction. But it is true that no anomalies were detected just now," JARVIS replied after a thorough scan.
"How did he do it?"
Kent didn't hesitate—he flew straight at Loki with a kick, only to pass right through him, striking nothing.
Clearly, the Loki who had spoken was merely an illusion.
"Can you find my true body?" Loki's voice echoed with mockery. "You can't even tell where I am, toyed with in the palm of my hand—and yet you think you can be my opponents?!"
Countless Lokis appeared across the field, reversing the situation and surrounding the three of them.
A beam of energy shot out and slammed directly into Tony.
Tony immediately turned and fired back toward the source of the attack, but his overwhelming firepower hit nothing but air. Aside from passing through layers of Loki's illusions and causing massive destruction to the surrounding buildings, it achieved nothing.
Then another energy beam struck Tony from a different direction, the violent explosion forcing him to stagger backward several steps.
"Look at how pathetic you are now—completely toyed with by me. Weren't you just boasting earlier about making me surrender?" Loki's voice came from all directions at once.
"Damn it," Tony cursed, scanning the countless Lokis around him. "JARVIS, analyze immediately. Find this bastard's real body."
"Sir, all of the illusions are shrouded in a special form of energy. Because of it, the sensors cannot distinguish any differences at all," JARVIS replied, failing to give Tony the answer he wanted.
"So you're saying I have no way at all to find his real body among these illusions—just stand here and take hits?!" Tony snapped angrily.
At the same time, he activated the Mechanical Memory, altering the armor's structure to reinforce its defenses as much as possible against incoming attacks.
Loki's illusion magic was, of course, far more than simple holographic visual deception. Such crude tricks would be laughably low-level for a powerful god-tier civilization like Asgard—one where true gods actually existed.
In reality, the illusions Loki had mastered operated on the level of laws themselves—illusory yet real, real yet illusory.
Because of the nickname Tony had previously mocked him with, Loki focused most of his attacks on Tony. Kent and Steve also tried indiscriminate, large-scale attacks to force out Loki's true body, but they achieved little effect.
"Kent, draw his attention for me," Steve said after taking a deep breath.
Kent nodded without hesitation, activating his divine lightning power and unleashing a massive web of thunder that spread across the area, engulfing Loki's illusions.
Steve immediately switched to Pegasus Form, then pushed it even further. Golden lightning crackled around his body, golden ringed armor appeared on his wrists and ankles, and rune-edged golden patterns formed along the boundaries of the muscle armor covering his body.
Rising Pegasus Form.
His senses were now tens of thousands of times sharper than those of an ordinary person. Steve could even feel the flow of energy itself.
He "saw" the brightness that represented energy intensity.
"Found it—the one with the brightest energy," Steve thought. He raised the Ascended Pegasus Crossbow and fired an energy arrow at Loki.
Loki's illusions were indeed flawless, nearly impossible to distinguish from reality. But the power of the Mind Stone within his scepter was impossible to completely conceal—and instead became the very flaw that gave him away.
(End of Chapter)