"Beautiful ladies, please allow to introduce mys—"
Loki wore that elegant, perfectly manicured, and utterly hypocritical smile exclusive to Asgardian royalty. He offered a slight bow, tapping the butt of his golden scepter lightly against the black water.
Before he even finished the sentence, his physical body had already dissolved into an illusory afterimage.
As the undisputed God of Mischief of the Nine Realms, deception was an instinct carved into his bones. From the very first second he was dragged into this eerie dinsion, he had absolutely zero intention of having a civilized conversation with these two mysterious silver-haired girls.
Deploying an illusionary clone to draw aggro, cloaking his true physical body, and maneuvering for a lethal ambush or a hasty escape—the entire sequence was flawlessly executed without a single incantation.
But his masterstroke was violently interrupted.
Compiler's golden eyes remained completely devoid of emotion. She simply raised her right hand and clenched her fingers.
The colossal, black chanical rigging floating behind her shuddered violently. The triple-mounted, heavy-caliber naval cannons on her flanks charged instantly. The muzzles flared with a blinding, deep-blue radiance, and without a single warning syllable, they fired point-blank into Loki's illusion!
BOOM—!!
A terrifying torrent of raw energy tore through the atmosphere of the Mirror Sea.
The elegant clone didn't even have ti to scream before it was completely vaporized by the blast, leaving not a single particle of ash behind. The shockwave of the detonation ripped across the black ocean, kicking up a wall of water dozens of ters high. The tsunami was instantly swallowed by the obsidian mirrors the mont it touched the periter of the dinsion.
The entire execution took less than a second. The efficiency was utterly terrifying.
Loki's true body, which had just rged into the shadows of the surrounding mirrors, watched his clone get obliterated by a single volley. His pupils shrank to pinpricks, and a layer of cold sweat instantly drenched his spine.
He knew exactly how much magical energy was woven into that clone. It contained half of his active mana reserves. Yet this soft, delicate-looking little girl was actually ruthless enough to casually unleash a strike like that?!
He did not dare test his luck any further. He imdiately pushed his cloaking magic to the absolute limit and sprinted toward the edge of the dinsion.
He only made it two steps before he felt sothing cold, heavy, and radiating raw digital data wrap violently around his ankles.
Mira had simply flicked her wrist. In a fraction of a second, several massive tentacles—woven entirely from glowing blue binary code—erupted from the shadows of the mirrors. Like abyssal pythons, they accurately coiled around Loki's cloaked body, ripping him violently out of the shadows and slamming him hard against the surface of the black sea.
"Hiss—" Loki sucked in a sharp breath of air, the impact rattling his ribs.
He could physically feel the data-stream tentacles aggressively dismantling his magical aura. Even the ancient, fundantal magic of Asgard was rapidly failing under the digital corruption.
Mira slowly floated over to him, her arms crossed over her chest. A sickeningly "sweet" smile hung on her face, and her tone was light, yet it carried an indisputable, crushing weight. "God of Mischief. I strongly advise you to stop playing these petty parlor tricks."
She tilted her chin, gesturing to the endless, reflective ocean surrounding them. "This is a Mirror Sea. It was constructed by the hive-mind. It is a domain of absolute, unadulterated reality. It strips away all hypocritical lies. Your pathetic illusions are no better than a child playing make-believe in this space."
"Oh, right. I almost forgot to tell you," Mira leaned down, bringing her face inches from his. Her eyes curved into smiling crescents. "My Builder's primary cannons, as well as her auxiliary high-frequency laser arrays, are incredibly accurate. If you dare twitch a single muscle, the next shot will not be aid at a clone. I will give you a permanent blowout, and I promise you will not have a single strand of that ticulously styled black hair left on your scalp."
Looking into Mira's smiling eyes, Loki felt a primal chill shoot down his spine.
He finally understood the reality of his situation. These two won were both absolute lunatics, and each was crazier than the last. The one who looked like a harmless child struck with lethal, unhesitating brutality. The one who seed willing to talk was completely unhinged, casually threatening to vaporize a Prince of Asgard.
What terrified him even more was that this bizarre pocket dinsion was actively suppressing his innate magic. He had lived for over a thousand years. He had traveled to the furthest corners of the Nine Realms. He had never witnessed this kind of power, nor had he ever heard whispers of a "Deep Sea Swarm" or "Sirens."
When did Midgard quietly birth such a terrifying, indigenous nightmare?
"Alright. Now we can have a proper chat," Mira straightened up. She clapped her hands, took two steps back, and crossed her arms again, looking down at the tightly bound Asgardian. "Let ask you, Second Prince of Asgard. Instead of sitting comfortably in your Golden Palace, what are you doing skulking around Midgard? And why are you secretly spying on your brother? Planning to permanently steal his throne while he is banished to the mortal realm?"
Loki's expression shifted instantly. A dark, vicious glint flared in his eyes.
He never expected this indigenous creature to know that Odin had banished Thor!
He quickly composed his features, let out a cold, mocking laugh, and stubbornly shot back, "The internal politics of the Asgardian royal family are none of your concern, deep-sea monster. I ca to Midgard on my own personal business. It has absolutely nothing to do with you."
"Nothing to do with ?" Mira raised an eyebrow and let out a genuine laugh. Her tone gradually plumted into a freezing chill, radiating the suffocating pressure of the abyss as she spoke each word deliberately. "You bring Asgardian magic into the territory of The Swarm. You stir up chaos. You plan to execute a psychological strike against your own brother. And you have the audacity to claim it has nothing to do with ?"
"The hive-mind despises chaos. And it particularly despises arrogant outsiders like you, who bring malice and lies to Midgard," Mira leaned in slightly, watching Loki's face turn increasingly pale. She delivered her final ultimatum. "I am going to give you exactly one chance. Right now, this second, you will crawl back to Asgard. The drama playing out in Midgard is not for your entertainnt. If you refuse, I will gladly let you rot in this Mirror Sea forever to feed the younglings in the abyss."
Hearing the threat, Loki did not cower. Instead, he suddenly burst into a fit of mocking laughter.
"You speak with such grand, sweeping authority, yet you only dare to threaten while hiding in this dinsion?" Loki tilted his chin, his eyes flashing with vicious provocation. "That hamr, Mjolnir, sitting in the crater out there? And that banished idiot, Thor? They are both Asgardian. They are both here causing 'chaos' in Midgard. Why don't you go confront him? Why did you only abduct ? What, is the great 'hive-mind' terrified of the God of Thunder? Do you only have the courage to bully the unard 'Second Prince'?"
Loki knew exactly how to manipulate an opponent's ego. As far as he was concerned, this creature was a coward. She only bullied the weak and feared the strong. She didn't dare provoke the legitimate son of Odin, so she chose to vent her territorial frustration on the bastard child instead.
He fully expected her to fly into a rage. He did not expect the smile on Mira's face to widen into a look of absolute, theatrical excitent.
"Oh? Well, since you put it that way, you make a very compelling argunt," Mira stroked her chin, looking down at Loki with a look of extre 'benevolence'. "You are right. Since you care so deeply about your older brother, and you strongly feel I should confront him, I suppose I can do a good deed today. Let us invite him over right now, so you two brothers can have a proper family reunion."
"It works out perfectly. I can finally ask the legitimate God of Thunder what the hell he is doing loitering in my territory."
The mocking smirk on Loki's face froze instantly.
He was just trying to sow discord to buy ti! He never expected this woman to be this much of a lunatic! She was actually going to drag Thor into this dinsion?!
Before Loki could scream at her to stop, Mira raised her right hand and made a casual grasping motion toward the empty air.
[Command verified. Spatial anchor successfully locked onto target individual Thor Odinson. Initiating forced dinsional extraction.] Compiler's flat voice echoed through the space, perfectly synchronized with Mira's gesture.
The atmosphere inside the Mirror Sea violently distorted. Countless streams of glowing blue code surged frantically through the air. A massive spatial rift tore open above the black water. A terrifying gravitational pull reached across the dinsional barrier, ripping straight into S.H.I.E.L.D.'s temporary interrogation facility.
Mira originally just intended to yank the moping, depressed Thor out of his holding cell. But she hadn't quite mastered her new proxy's spatial calibration yet, and she gripped just a tiny bit too hard.
Consequently, a split second before the portal snapped shut, three "accidental bonus prizes" were violently sucked into the Mirror Sea alongside the primary target.
"Holy crap—!!"
Mira stared at the four people who suddenly tumbled onto the black water in front of her. Her jaw practically hit the floor.
At the front of the pile was Thor. He was still wearing the stolen t-shirt, his wrists were still zip-tied behind his back, and he looked completely bewildered. He had literally been staring at a wall in depression two seconds ago, and his brain hadn't even processed the dinsional shift.
Tangled up next to him was Jane Foster. She was wearing an outdoor jacket and clutching a heavy steel crowbar. She had just managed to sneak past the guards to break Thor out of the interrogation room. The second her crowbar touched the lock, she was sucked into the void.
Landing heavily behind Jane was Agent Phil Coulson. His pristine suit was wrinkled, and he was still clutching a S.H.I.E.L.D. interrogation logbook. His face was the color of charcoal. He had just opened the interrogation room door to question the lunatic claiming to be a god, only for his vision to go black and to wake up in a sci-fi nightmare.
And finally, there was Loki, still tightly bound by the digital tentacles, staring at the newly arrived trio in absolute shock.
The Mirror Sea plunged into a deathly, suffocating silence.
The only sound was the gentle lapping of the black water against the endless mirrors.
Coulson was the first to regain his faculties.
He looked around at the endless, surreal black ocean. He then looked up and saw the two silver-haired girls. One was the terrifying white-haired girl with the massive naval cha from the crater last night. The other was the silver-haired girl who had confronted Obadiah Stane's Iron Monger suit after the Queens armory explosion.
White hair again! It is this exact sa rogue faction! And now they have their own pocket dinsion?!
Coulson's brain short-circuited. He nearly suffered a massive stroke on the spot. The clipboard slipped from his fingers and smacked against the watery floor.
He only had one coherent thought in his head: It is over. My career is officially over.
He hadn't even managed to identify the first five white-haired girls, and now he had accidentally stumbled directly into their secret ho base, bringing an alien and an astrophysicist along as collateral damage. If Director Fury found out about this, Coulson was going to be permanently reassigned to a weather station in Antarctica!
Thor was the next to recover.
He looked around the bizarre dinsion in total confusion. Then, his eyes landed on the bound figure of Loki. His eyes instantly went bloodshot. Completely forgetting the absurdity of his location, he roared in fury and charged forward.
"Loki!! It was you! Tell ! You are the one responsible for this, aren't you?!"
He lunged so aggressively he nearly face-planted into the water, but Jane was quick enough to grab his shoulder.
"Thor! Stop! Do not do anything stupid! We are clearly not on Earth anymore!" Jane held onto him desperately. She stared at the terrifying machinery and the endless ocean, her mind completely numb with terror. She had just been trying to break a guy out of a temporary holding cell. How the hell did she end up in a parallel dinsion?! Who were these two silver-haired girls?! And what was that massive chanical monstrosity?!
"Oh? My dear brother. You are just as foolish as ever," Loki finally regained his composure.
Seeing Thor acting like a rabid dog actually managed to calm Loki down. He let out a cold laugh and tilted his chin toward Mira and Compiler. "Use your eyes, you idiot. I am not the one who dragged you into this realm. Those two 'Arbitrators' from the Midgardian deep-sea brought you here. I am just a prisoner, exactly like you."
Thor froze. He finally followed Loki's gaze and locked onto Mira and Compiler, taking in the impossibly massive, cold-steel rigging hovering behind the smaller girl.
Thor instantly tensed. He dropped into a defensive brawler's stance and barked, "Who are you?! Are you the ones who dragged into this realm?! What do you want with ?!"
Mira stood in silence, watching the chaotic, screaming ss unfolding in front of her. The second-hand embarrassnt was so severe she could have used her toes to excavate a new Golden Palace for them.
She had only intended to yank Thor into the dinsion to show off her power and intimidate Loki. But she over-torqued the portal and accidentally kidnapped the entire cast, including a high-ranking S.H.I.E.L.D. officer.
Great. Now she was physically trapped inside the very circus she had been trying to watch.
[Mira. The spatial extraction intensity exceeded calculated paraters. Two non-designated civilian individuals were acquired,] Compiler's flat voice echoed in Mira's mind, followed by a terrifyingly helpful suggestion: [Shall I initiate the purge protocol to permanently eliminate the irrelevant personnel? The purge protocol is highly efficient and guarantees zero forensic evidence.]
"No! No, no, no! Absolutely not!" Mira scread internally, desperately shutting down the AI's lethal subroutine.
Purge my ass! If Compiler executed Phil Coulson, Nick Fury would declare a global holy war against her! She wouldn't be able to watch the MCU plotline anymore; she would beco the number one priority target of the entire Avengers initiative!
She took a slow, deep breath, forcing down the crushing awkwardness. She plastered the arrogant, profound expression of a "Deep Sea Arbitrator" back onto her face. She looked at the highly defensive Thor and spoke slowly.
"Do not be so tense, Son of Odin," Mira's voice echoed across the empty Mirror Sea, laced with an undeniable, heavy majesty. "I invited you to my realm rely to ask you a question. God of Thunder of Asgard... why are you not sitting in your Golden Palace? Why have you been banished to Midgard, dragging your hamr into the dirt, and disturbing the peace of my territory? What is it that you hope to accomplish?"
Now Get The FULL AVAILABLE NOVEL at Once!
@patreon/Authorizz/shop
User Comments
0 comments from readers