Chapter 236: A Crisis Closing In
On the USB drive's video, the footage showed a dark space with no discernible sense of direction at all.
Within that darkness, the Ancient One hovered in midair, clad in a yellow robe, her hands forming rapid seals, the Eye of Agamotto at her chest blazing green, spinning without pause.
Not far from her, the decayed corpse of a female zombie hung pinned in place, letting out a constant, hoarse, guttural shriek.
Massive amounts of crimson energy poured out from inside that zombie's body, colliding again and again with the spells the Ancient One kept unleashing.
Sparks burst continuously through the darkness.
In the faint, flickering light, Matthew could make out a transparent wall standing not far from the two of them.
Beyond that wall, countless zombies shrieked in a frenzy, and among them were more than a few zombified superheroes.
Peter Parker, Hawkeye, Tony Stark, Captain America, all of them.
"W-T-F?!" Watching the scene unfold, Matthew found himself rising to his feet without meaning to.
Only then did it truly sink in for Matthew: the Ancient One hadn't been avoiding him out of laziness. She'd genuinely been busy this whole time, and busy with something massive.
Something that, with the slightest misstep, could send the entire world tumbling into the abyss.
"Guess it's time to speed up the plan," Matthew murmured, his eyes darkening.
A single thought.
Behind him, the door to a hidden chamber swung open instantly.
The Chitauri Scepter, its head set with the Mind Stone, came into view.
Matthew walked over to the scepter, his eyes fixed on the Stone mounted at its top.
The next instant—
Gravity tore the Chitauri Scepter apart in an instant, reducing it to a pile of scrap metal, leaving only the Mind Stone hovering in midair.
Given his experience with the Power Stone, Matthew was already mentally braced for what might come next.
"With the Power Stone, direct physical contact destroys the body. So what happens if I make direct physical contact with the Mind Stone?"
Curious, Matthew reached out and closed his hand around the Mind Stone without hesitation.
Inside the chamber, nothing happened at all.
Everything stayed perfectly calm. No backlash of any kind.
"What's... going on here?" Matthew stared down at the Stone in his hand, confused.
He could feel the immense power contained within it, but unlike with the Power Stone, he couldn't get that power to actually flow into his body.
"Is there some kind of medium missing, something needed to actually channel the Mind Stone's power?"
"But if that's the case... why didn't the Power Stone need any medium at all to pour its power straight into me? Is that just something unique to the Power Stone specifically?"
Matthew's eyes narrowed slightly, his mind sifting back through everything he remembered about the Infinity Stones.
Before long, something clicked.
"Thanos made contact with the Mind Stone using his bare hand too, if I remember right..."
"And not just that. He touched the Time Stone and the Soul Stone directly with his hand as well."
"Could it be—"
"Every Stone except the Power Stone needs some kind of medium to activate it?" Matthew frowned, deep in thought, turning the Mind Stone over between his thumb and forefinger, murmuring under his breath. "Don't tell me I'm going to have to build myself an Infinity Gauntlet after all?"
The Infinity Gauntlet was undeniably powerful, no arguing that.
But it came with its own serious limitations, in equal measure.
When it came to actually maximizing the power contained within each Stone, the Gauntlet didn't seem capable of unlocking their full potential.
You could see as much just from looking at Six-Stone Ultron.
Ultron, wielding all six Stones directly, had displayed a level of power ten, a hundred times greater than anything the Gauntlet itself had ever shown.
And that kind of raw power was exactly what Matthew was after.
Which was exactly why he kept experimenting, trying to channel the Stones' power directly into his own body.
Except right now, he seemed to have run into a real problem.
Aside from the Power Stone, none of the other Stones' power seemed to be directly accessible through physical contact alone.
"There's a crisis closing in as we speak... and the Ancient One's off fighting some zombified Scarlet Witch, which means I don't even get the chance to ask her a single question." Matthew paced back and forth across his office.
A creeping sense of urgency spread through him.
No one could say how much time passed before he seemed to land on some kind of idea, finally coming to a stop.
"Wait, hold on! The Ancient One might not be around, but Odin still is!"
"He spent years hunting for the Infinity Stones himself, way back when. He's got to know something about how they work! If anyone can give me answers, it's him!"
With that thought, Matthew flickered outside in an instant.
The Bifröst crystal activated once more.
Asgard.
"...Mr. Lawrence, is there something you need?" Heimdall looked at the man in front of him, utterly unimpressed, the same man who'd only just been sent back to Earth a moment ago and was now already back again.
Matthew looked up at Heimdall's flat expression and answered offhandedly. "I just got back to Earth and realized there was still something I needed to sort out with the King of the Gods, so I figured I'd come right back."
"Besides, you're standing guard here around the clock anyway. Opening the door for me a second time is basically just a chance to stretch your legs."
With that, Matthew let out a short laugh.
Without waiting to hear whatever Heimdall wanted to say in response, he stepped forward and vanished straight into the Bifröst.
Inside the throne hall.
Odin, in the middle of discussing something with Frigga, seemed to sense something and suddenly turned his head toward the doorway.
The next instant.
A figure appeared out of thin air inside the hall, the doors never having opened at all.
"...Matthew Lawrence."
"Don't you think it's more than a little rude to enter a room where a council is still in session like that?" Odin fixed his single eye on Matthew, Gungnir still gripped in his right hand.
Hearing that, Matthew grimaced and offered a half-hearted response. "Then I ask the King of the Gods to forgive my rudeness."
"After all, I'm here now because I have an urgent matter to discuss."
At that, Odin's brow furrowed slightly. "Urgent?"
"How urgent, exactly?"
His gaze settled on Matthew, his mind turning over exactly what "urgent matter" might mean.
But before Odin could work it out, Matthew's next words had him rising sharply from his seat.
"How urgent..." Matthew echoed Odin's own question back at him, then said, dead serious, "The survival of the universe itself. Is that urgent enough for you?"
Drawing a slow breath, Odin turned to Frigga beside him. "Frigga, go on and attend to your own matters for now."
Hearing that, Frigga glanced at Odin, then at Matthew, pressed her lips together briefly, and slowly withdrew.
Once Frigga had gone, only then did Odin step down from the throne.
"The survival of the universe?"
"That's right." Matthew nodded.
Odin circled slowly around Matthew, Gungnir tapping the floor in a steady rhythm with each step.
His single eye swept over Matthew, and he spoke, even and unhurried. "Since you've said as much, then explain yourself properly."
"Tell me about this great matter of 'the survival of the universe' you keep mentioning." He put particular weight on those exact words.
Matthew didn't waste time dancing around it, going straight for the question. "King of the Gods, surely by now you've already sensed the changes happening across this universe, haven't you?"
"What do you mean by that?" Odin stopped walking, glancing at him sidelong.
"I mean things showing up that don't belong to this universe."
"Things like... you, for instance?"
Matthew's mouth twitched at that, and he grimaced.
"Sure, that obviously includes me."
"But relatively speaking, I'm the friendliest, most agreeable one of the bunch. Everything else that's shown up so far has mostly brought nothing but trouble to this universe."
Listening to Matthew shamelessly polish his own image, Odin let out a noncommittal laugh, saying nothing either way.
Seeing Odin's amused expression, Matthew scoffed lightly, but didn't let it throw him off, continuing on. "Anything from another universe that's shown up on Earth so far, I've already folded into my own forces, one way or another."
"Anything that couldn't be brought in was simply eliminated."
"Part of the reason I'm doing this is to help Earth develop more effectively."
"But the other part is that the Ancient One showed me this universe's future."
"This universe is going to face all kinds of crises going forward, and among them, there are three specifically capable of ending the world entirely."
"As for exactly what those three crises actually are..." Matthew drew a slow breath, lifting a finger and tapping the empty air.
The exact footage the Ancient One had shown him poured out in front of Odin like a flood.
Watching the images flash rapidly in front of him, Odin's single eye contracted sharply.
The images were gone in an instant, but felt entirely real all the same.
So much so that the hand gripping Gungnir tightened, unconsciously, and the whole hall fell into silence.
About half a minute later, Odin slowly lifted his head, the last trace of doubt in his eyes completely gone.
He looked at Matthew, his tone gaining real weight. "Since you've come here at all, I take it that means one of these crises has already arrived?"
"If not yet, it will be soon enough."
Odin understood perfectly well that Matthew wouldn't have come to him in such a hurry unless the danger was already at the door.
With that in mind, his gaze settled directly on Matthew. "Can you tell me what exactly has appeared?"
"Of course."
Matthew went on to tell him about Ego, the Living Planet, and how he'd been infected by the Quantum Zombie Virus.
Hearing the news, Odin's fist clenched instantly.
"Ego?!"
"How could that enormous thing possibly get infected? His entire body's just mountains and magma, isn't it?"
Seeing how strong Odin's reaction was, Matthew shrugged. "Who knows?"
"Point is, he got infected."
"But don't worry about him. I've already handled it. There's not even scraps left of him at this point."
Hearing that, a flash of surprise and suspicion crossed Odin's eyes.
He looked Matthew up and down, an eyebrow raising slightly. "Given that creature's sheer size and vitality, even I would have had real trouble finishing him off completely."
"So... would you mind telling me exactly what method you used?"
At that, Matthew smiled, making no effort to hide anything, and pulled the Orb straight out of his pocket, dangling it in front of Odin. "The method's simple enough. This."
The instant Odin saw the Orb, his pupils contracted sharply.
He, of course, recognized exactly what it was.
"The Orb... or should I say, the Power Stone?" Odin's voice dropped low. "You used this thing?"
"That's right." Matthew nodded, confirming it.
Hearing that, the surprise on Odin's face deepened further. "...Direct physical contact?"
Matthew nodded again.
Seeing that, Odin gave him a long, searching look, the light in that single eye something hard to read.
After a long pause, one word finally left his mouth. "Madman."
With that, without waiting for Matthew to respond, Odin went on explaining, unprompted. "As a general rule, the Power Stone is the one Stone, out of all six, that no living body can make direct physical contact with."
"Because it embodies destruction and annihilation itself, at its very core."
"It treats any living being that tries to touch it as nothing more than a vessel to release its power through, right up until that vessel bursts completely."
"An ordinary creature touching it would be reduced to scraps by that power in an instant."
He paused, his single eye sweeping over Matthew again. "There are exceptions, of course."
"Someone with an exceptionally resilient body can make brief contact, even briefly draw on that power for their own use."
"From the looks of things, you must fall into that category."
"Unfortunately, once you've made contact with it that first time, even if you touch the Power Stone again later, the rate at which it releases its energy won't reset. It'll simply pick up right where it left off from your last exposure, and keep climbing from there."
"So if you were hoping to use the Power Stone as some kind of temporary power boost, you can forget it."
"Because every single time its power enters your body, it'll come in at several times the intensity of the time before, right up until, on some future contact, that power finally bursts your body apart entirely."
Matthew, naturally, already knew everything Odin had just told him.
After all, he'd gotten more than a little personal experience with exactly how fast the Power Stone's energy output climbed.
Once he'd finished laying out the risks of the Power Stone, Odin asked another question. "Besides Ego, the one you dealt with, did you come across any other 'zombies' during your time wandering the universe?"
Hearing that, a flicker of the scene on the Chitauri homeworld crossed Matthew's mind.
Did that even count, though? That was just an ordinary zombie virus, after all.
With that thought, Matthew shook his head. "Not so far, or, well, none that I've noticed, at least."
"Of course, the only reason they haven't come pouring into this universe in large numbers yet is because the Ancient One still holds the position of Sorcerer Supreme."
"Defending against incursions from other dimensions is literally part of the Sorcerer Supreme's job."
"Right now, to deal with the zombie universe currently trying to break through into ours, the Ancient One has gone personally into some unknown dimension to fight off the zombified superheroes spilling in from other universes."
At that, Matthew paused, an unusual note of real seriousness creeping into his voice. "That's exactly why I came looking for you in such a hurry."
"This visit isn't just to warn you about the current crisis. There's also something else I wanted to ask you."
"What is it?" Odin looked at Matthew again, a question in his single eye.
Matthew didn't waste any more words, pulling another Infinity Stone from his pocket.
The Mind Stone.
The Stone now hovered quietly above his palm, radiating a soft golden glow, tinting both their eyes gold.
"What I want to know is—"
"How do I get the other Infinity Stones' power to flow directly into my body, the way the Power Stone does, without relying on some outside medium?"
Matthew's voice wasn't particularly loud, but it was enough to bring that same look back into Odin's eyes.
After a long silence, Odin turned slowly and walked back to sit down on his throne.
"Matthew Lawrence, I have to say..."
"Even with everything I've seen in my life, your particular brand of recklessness is genuinely rare."
"Instead of trying to borrow the power through some outside object, you actually want to absorb an Infinity Stone's power directly into yourself?" Odin looked at him like he was staring at a lunatic. "You really aren't afraid to die, are you!"
If you're enjoying the story, toss a Power Stone or drop a review — it helps more than you'd think.
Advance chapters → patreon.com/Eatinpieces