Chapter 118: Life Boxes Scattered Across the Nine Worlds

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“Hey, wizard, you know what? After my last defeat, I returned to Asgard and trained some new abilities. You don’t stand a chance. Your scheme is doomed to fail.”

Thor spun Mjolnir in one hand while launching a verbal assault.

“Oh, what a pleasant surprise. You learned some new abilities, only to come here and experience the joy of defeat once more? Counting your brother, that makes a double defeat!”

“Oh, no, no, no, esteemed wizard. Don’t lump me together with this idiot. Wizard, I’m a hundred times more intelligent than that hammer-wielding fool.”

“Are you two really brothers?”

Kel’Thuzad delivered a question that struck at the soul.

“Hm? That’s not important. What matters is that I’m smarter than him.”

Loki casually hurled a spell at Kel’Thuzad—and included Thor as one of its targets.

“There’s a reason for that! Wizard, we were born different. I’m smarter than he is. I should be the heir to Asgard’s throne. This reckless fool can’t do anything right, so perhaps we could negotiate a temporary alliance?”

In a stone circle in the outskirts far from London, three Kel’Thuzads, Loki, and Thor were locked in a chaotic battle.

While using his words to distract Kel’Thuzad, Loki kept listing Thor’s many faults, leaving Thor at his side thoroughly exasperated.

And furious.

“Hey, you’re not even his real son, cousin. That means I’m the only possible heir to Asgard’s throne.”

Just as Thor was about to explain why he was the true heir to Asgard’s throne, Kel’Thuzad raised a hand.

“Gentlemen, we are not here to chat. I won’t be staying for long, so the best course of action is for you to bring out the Eternal Frost Casket and exchange it for the hostages. As for the relationship between the two of you, I’m sure you can find a quiet place to discuss it at length afterward. Now, let us begin the formal exchange.”

“What? Have a heart-to-heart with him? Absolutely not.”

Thor objected at once.

He still wanted to stall for time and search for an opportunity.

“Fool, think about your mission. Why are you here?”

Loki’s words finally brought Thor back to the matter at hand.

That was right. They had come to rescue Jane and bring their mother back.

Their bickering had nearly made them forget their true mission.

At the gates of Asgard, Heimdall was guarding the entrance while dealing with the aftermath of recent events. He looked at the two brothers, let out a long, weary sigh, and shook his head helplessly.

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Odin had gone after the Dark Elves’ warships. At present, Heimdall was the only force Asgard could rely on.

The Atlas of Ghosts and Gods

There was no way Heimdall could abandon the palace and travel directly to Earth.

Once the brothers became serious, Kel’Thuzad felt a faint pressure.

Still, mirror images were a wonderful thing for any mage. They could provide two reliable assistants, confuse the enemy, and even take a blow meant for their master at a crucial moment.

Moreover, after absorbing the immense energy of the Cosmic Cube, Kel’Thuzad felt that his elemental body, apart from the skeletal frame, was another invaluable asset.

With the obelisk concealing him, his true body could hide completely while he controlled his energy-based duplicates to carry out various tasks. The duplicates were capable of many other things as well.

At present, the duplicates were keeping Thor and Loki occupied while Kel’Thuzad explored the power of the Aether—and continued misleading Thor with his words.

“It seems you still don’t know the condition she’s in. Some mysterious force has already seeped into her body. Apparently, none of you understand this power either.”

“Now, I’ll show you a force capable of altering reality.”

Kel’Thuzad spread his arms in an embracing gesture. Jane’s body floated into the air, and through her, Kel’Thuzad directly activated the power of the Aether.

The sky darkened. Thor instinctively stopped attacking. He felt as though something were about to burst from Jane’s body. The woman frozen in the ice changed color completely. Then something near her chest transformed into clusters of black particles that streamed out from within her and gathered in Kel’Thuzad’s hands, forming a dark red cloud.

The Aether had appeared.

But Kel’Thuzad’s true body had vanished.

“Where did he go?”

Thor stared at the spot where Kel’Thuzad’s true body had disappeared.

“Did he turn invisible?”

“Impossible, Thor. I can’t sense his presence.”

Loki answered from the side. The two brothers then stood back-to-back.

“You’re sure he can’t know where we hid the Casket?”

Thor asked again, still uneasy.

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“Yes. It’s perfectly safe. I put it somewhere I personally discovered.”

All three Kel’Thuzads vanished, leaving Thor and Loki with the distinct feeling that something was wrong.

The layers of space began to blur, and the boundaries between worlds seemed to slowly overlap.

“Space is becoming chaotic, Thor.”

Loki noticed the anomaly.

“Yes. Space is in disorder.”

“At this point in time, we’re already very close to the celestial convergence of the Nine Realms. The spaces between the realms have begun to overlap. If we don’t hurry, we may have to search other worlds for Jane and Mother.”

“Then what should we do? Pursue him? Split up?”

Loki gripped a dagger. Thor’s meaning was simple: dividing their forces would be the best approach.

But traveling between worlds was accompanied by immense danger. They might fail to find anyone and instead fall straight into a trap.

“Let’s not pursue him just yet. We’ll wait here. After all, this is the place he chose, and we still have the Casket he needs.”

After a moment of thought, Loki abandoned the seemingly sensible choice of splitting up.

At the same time, as Kel’Thuzad used the Aether to traverse space, the converging spaces of the Nine Realms were opening pathways between them. This gave him the opportunity to scatter phylacteries throughout all nine worlds.

That had been the plan from the very beginning.

Taking advantage of the convergence of the Nine Realms, he would use the power of the Aether and the Space Stone to travel continuously between the nine worlds, casting out a large number of phylacteries.

In the film, Thor pursued Malekith through one frantic transition after another, passing through all kinds of hostile environments and strange worlds. This also made it convenient for Kel’Thuzad to carry out Roald’s orders.

“Wait, Thor. It’s the only thing we can do right now.”

Because there were three Kel’Thuzads, Loki had no idea which world he should search—or which true body he should look for.

Thus, all they could do was wait. Once the convergence of the Nine Realms had passed, Kel’Thuzad would certainly return to the central realm.

The three Kel’Thuzads continued traveling through the Nine Realms, leaving card after card behind and scattering one phylactery after another, each crafted from dragon bone.

They contained not only his own phylacteries, but also those belonging to Roald, Sindragosa, and several leaders of the Scourge. To make the imitations indistinguishable from the real ones, he had created countless replicas as well.

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