"You know what, Lothar?"

"Right now, I have a sudden urge to kill Stephen Strange."

On the scorched ruins of Asgard, the surviving Asgardians, relieved to be alive, wept in each other's arms. Hela, standing atop a mountain, took it all in and spoke without turning around.

"Not yet."

"He said he'll bring me the Soul Stone."

Hela's expected comfort didn't come. Instead, Lothar rejected her idea, and she felt a little choked up.

"You actually believe him?" Hela's mood was sour, and her tone wasn't pretty.

Before he left Asgard, Stephen Strange had clearly stated that he would agree to Lothar's terms and bring the Soul Stone to the Dark Quadrant. But to trust a disciple of the Ancient One? The Lothar she knew wasn't so naive.

"Of course not," Lothar said, shaking his head.

"Then what are you—"

"Father once said that sometimes, waiting and patience are the best means to an end."

How long had Thanos waited and prepared in secret to collect the Infinity Stones and achieve his life's ambition? His father Thanos had taught him by example, and Lothar, having matured after all he'd been through, couldn't help but compare himself to his father.

Especially after Thanos had once again told him, with great sincerity, "The future is yours."

This was also why Lothar had been secretly monitoring Vormir for so long without initiating the plan to take the stone. With the other stones in his possession, there was no need to act hastily with the wily Soul Stone.

"I never place my hope in others. I already have five of the Infinity Stones. The last one... there's no escape for it."

Lothar clenched his fist.

As Hela turned to look at him, she could faintly see Thanos's shadow in his expression—confident, powerful, and possessing the calm assurance that everything was under his control.

He didn't trust Strange, but that didn't mean he would deny everything the Sorcerer Supreme had said. After all, a cosmic invasion was now a certainty.

"Oh?"

"So you're really going to step up and be the hero?"

"My dear Savior?" Hela extended her tongue and licked her lips, which had become a little dry from exhaustion. Her eyes flickered with a playful glint, causing Lothar to turn his head awkwardly.

"The rules of this universe can only be broken by me. Anyone else is out of the question."

The tail that had been coiled around Lothar's waist softened and began to sway gently behind him.

"Lothar—"

Wanda, who had been hesitating at the foot of the mountain for a while, finally made her way up. Just as she was about to call out, she saw a slightly inappropriate scene and swallowed her words.

A woman's intuition told her that this was not the time to interrupt. If she did, the consequences would be severe. Thinking this, Wanda shivered and quietly went back down the mountain.

"How was it? What did His Highness Lothar say?" At the foot of the mountain, The Other, who had just asserted his position as a lead minister to the newly-arrived Pharaoh Menes, saw Wanda approaching and immediately asked.

They had been in Asgard long enough; it was time to go back. But without Lothar's approval, none of them dared to leave.

"He said nothing, because I didn't dare to ask anything," Wanda said, spreading her hands and making the situation on the mountaintop clear. Who would dare to interrupt at a time like that? She'd be punished for life, or worse, she'd be killed on the spot.

Having no other choice, The Other went back to studying the sealed stone slab Menes had erected on the scorched ruins of Asgard—The Asgardian Sky Dragon Nidhogg. It was at least something to do so he wouldn't be bored.

"Menes, a question for you. How can you be sure that the demon dragon will obey His Highness Lothar's command after you summon it from the stone slab?" The Other knocked on the solid slab, not understanding the principle behind it. The demon dragon had been so furious before that it wanted to beat Lothar's brains out.

"Because the sealing magic inside the Horus's Eye comes with a built-in contract."

"In an extradimensional space, I once used the Horus's Eye to glimpse a fantastical world. The supreme beings there could use these kinds of stone slabs to seal all sorts of legendary monsters for their own use. Later, they even developed the technology to print monsters onto small, thin cards." The elderly Pharaoh Menes described some of the fragmentary scenes he had seen when he first obtained the Horus's Eye in his youth.

"Another universe, then?" Given that Lothar had already traveled between universes, no one, not The Other nor anyone else, would deny the existence of other universes anymore.

"Yes. Unfortunately, my power level was too low at the time, so what I could see was limited. The only things I remember clearly are two incomplete names: one was Muto, and the other was Kaiba." Menes still felt a deep sense of regret and frustration. The Horus's Eye had never given him another chance to observe or learn since then.

"I see..." The Other glanced at the secretly sighing Menes and instinctively tightened his grip on the Mind Stone scepter.

Although he had always seen himself as Lothar's first minister, compared to Pietro, Wanda, and Woz, his core competitiveness was sorely lacking.

All he could do was command the Chitauri soldiers, which was pathetically weak. He had thought the appearance of Menes would help him regain some confidence, but who would have thought this unassuming man could seal a demon dragon?

The feeling of a looming "layoff crisis" grew stronger in The Other's heart, but he kept his expression perfectly still. He needed to find his core competency, or his life would be very difficult.

"We—"

BOOM!!!

Just as The Other was about to speak, all of Asgard shook violently! The intense tremor was only for a moment, but it caused Lothar to instantly appear at the foot of the mountain.

"What's going on?" Lothar asked, his face cold as he scanned his surroundings.

"The energy field of the Nine Realms is in chaos, Your Highness Lothar." The analytical Woz awoke from his contemplation of the question, "Which will His Highness Lothar choose, Mera or Hela?"

The chaotic energy spectrum on his blue screen gave Lothar a precise answer.

"It's Midgard."

"Among the Nine Realms, that's the place most likely to have an issue."

Hela landed beside Lothar and frowned, stating her conclusion. After all, the energy hub of Earth had already been destroyed by Loki.

"Your Highness Lothar! Look!" Wanda cried out, pointing at the sky above Asgard. Everyone looked in the direction she was pointing, and the silhouette of an ancient bronze gate was slowly taking shape...

With its bronze color and profound markings, the image was unmistakable.

That is?!

Lothar's eyelids twitched, and his face instantly turned grim. "Darkseid!"

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