Chapter 786

"Gather the dust of the dead and offer it to the Goddess of Death!"

As Malik finished the invocation, the ashes he had blown into the air suddenly gathered into a black vortex.

A twilight-colored haze spilled from its center, spreading outward and swallowing the room. Within moments, most of the chamber had been consumed.

Of course, this was Evenson’s doing.

He was secretly activating the back door he had left inside Hela’s prison, temporarily allowing that space to overlap with the physical world.

Because obviously, dressing an elderly man like a Viking, making him kneel down, blow ashes into the air, and shout a prayer wasn’t enough to get someone into a maximum-security cosmic prison.

You actually needed clearance.

As for the elaborate ritual, that had mostly been for atmosphere. It made the summoning feel solemn and imposing.

Well.

The solemnity was debatable.

Malik and Stephanie, who had no idea what Evenson was really doing, certainly weren’t laughing.

The ground beneath their knees had already been swallowed by the darkness. Looking down, Malik could see nothing but what appeared to be an endless abyss.

"What is happening?" he demanded. "What’s going on?"

"Maintain your composure," Evenson said, carefully manipulating the spell.

He was secretly breaking into one of the most heavily secured prisons in the universe. The last thing he needed was to accidentally trigger some kind of alarm.

"You are about to stand before a goddess."

"Before a goddess?"

Malik’s face changed.

"You mean... face-to-face?"

"Of course."

What else did he think meeting someone meant?

Malik’s throat tightened.

Humanity had imagined what it would be like for a mortal to stand before a god countless times throughout history. No one had actually known.

He had assumed this meeting would involve some kind of psychic communication, perhaps a vision, perhaps a divine avatar, or maybe nothing more than a distant voice.

He had not expected an actual face-to-face meeting.

Damn it.

Why hadn’t Evenson warned him?

He wasn’t mentally prepared. He wasn’t physically prepared, either.

Where were the offerings?

He didn’t even have fruit or pastries, let alone anything worthy of presenting to a deity. If this was his first meeting with the goddess and she took offense at how pitifully prepared he was—

Wait.

Malik suddenly froze.

He realized that his panic itself was revealing something important.

He was reacting like a mortal who was about to meet a god for the first time.

Evenson wasn’t.

The man hadn’t bothered giving him any warning. He had thrown the ceremony together almost casually, with barely any preparation.

That could only mean one thing.

Evenson was used to this.

Used to standing face-to-face with gods.

Malik’s eyes narrowed.

It explained far more than he had initially realized.

When Thor first arrived on Earth, Evenson had been among the people sent by S.H.I.E.L.D. to receive him. When Sif later remained on Earth, S.H.I.E.L.D. and the relevant government committees had repeatedly consulted Evenson about how to handle Asgardian matters.

And afterward, whenever anything involving Asgard happened, Evenson had been there as S.H.I.E.L.D.’s designated specialist.

Everyone had noticed how effortlessly he handled those situations.

But they’d overlooked the obvious question.

Why did Evenson know so much about Asgard in the first place?

How had he identified Mjolnir from a single photograph when everyone else—including Nick Fury—was still trying to figure out what they were dealing with?

Why had he immediately understood the seriousness of the situation and connected it to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand?

And why had that supposedly strange decision to deploy immediately turned out to be completely correct?

Evenson had never met Thor before.

Yet he had recognized him instantly.

He even knew ancient Asgardian customs.

He had always explained it away by claiming that his mysterious school possessed ancient records.

But was that really all there was to it?

If so, why had he shown absolutely no nervousness when standing before beings who were literally worshiped as gods?

And now that Malik understood what Evenson’s so-called school really was...

There was something else.

When Thor had come to London, he had taken two people back to Asgard.

One was his girlfriend. Malik didn’t care about that.

The other was Evenson.

Why?

Was Thor really that sentimental about a recent acquaintance? Had they simply happened to get along, so Thor invited him home for a visit?

Evenson claimed it had been his first trip to Asgard.

Everyone had believed him.

But could a few days of friendship really make the Asgardians—including Odin, ruler of the Nine Realms—value him so highly?

Evenson had obtained Asgardian citizenship. He had received a title.

He had even been confident that Odin would permit everyone from Umbrella to seek refuge in Asgard if necessary.

Had Evenson accomplished some earth-shattering feat during those few days?

And even if he had, how did that explain what was happening now?

They were about to meet Hela.

Odin’s daughter.

A former rebel.

A prisoner whom Odin himself had imprisoned.

Why would he allow some outsider to visit her?

Surely even the All-Father understood the principle of keeping family scandals private.

There were simply too many questions.

Too many coincidences.

And once Malik stripped away the convenient excuse of coincidence, only one possibility remained.

His eyes sharpened.

Evenson had absolutely not been visiting Asgard for the first time.

Umbrella had been in contact with the Asgardians for a very long time.

Not only that, Umbrella probably had significant influence within Asgard itself.

Otherwise, how could Evenson possibly have arranged access to someone as politically sensitive as Hela?

And if Umbrella could establish relations with Asgard, what about the other advanced civilizations in the universe?

Evenson had casually mentioned the Kree Empire before, along with portions of its history.

His knowledge of Kree warfare and the origins of the Inhumans had been far too detailed.

Even if Umbrella didn’t maintain regular diplomatic relations with the Kree, they clearly possessed intelligence that went far beyond anything a terrestrial organization should have.

Umbrella...

The more Malik learned about them, the less he understood them.

Their influence on Earth was already frightening.

But their connections to the great civilizations of the universe were even more terrifying.

Could it be...

Malik felt a chill crawl down his spine.

Could Earth itself actually be one enormous Umbrella laboratory?

Could human civilization and history have been carefully manipulated simply to preserve the diversity of their experimental subjects?

Could Umbrella actually be—

The survivors of an ancient civilization?

No.

No, that was absurd.

Malik immediately rejected the thought.

He wasn’t living inside some comic book or television series.

That theory was simply too ridiculous.

"Hey. Are you all right?"

Evenson’s voice snapped him back to reality.

The ritual was almost complete, but Evenson had noticed Malik’s increasingly strange expression. The old man’s face had gone pale, then flushed, then pale again. He had been alternating between shaking his head and nodding for several minutes.

Evenson was beginning to wonder whether he’d somehow given the old man a seizure.

"One more thing," he added. "When you meet Hela, control yourself. Don’t say anything stupid."

Malik stiffly nodded.

"Seriously," Evenson continued. "Don’t fall back on your usual Hydra greeting and start shouting—"

"Wait," Malik said slowly.

His thoughts had already gone somewhere else.

He had actually been considering changing Hydra’s traditional slogan.

Hail Hydra.

Perhaps they could turn it into—

Hail Hela.

It sounded almost identical. It would be easy to remember.

Why couldn’t they use it?

"You don’t understand," Evenson said, sounding almost smug.

"Asgardians claim their average lifespan is around five thousand years. Technically, that’s true. But the lower-blooded populations drag down the average. The high-born live much longer, especially the royal family."

"Take Bor, the former king of Asgard. His history reaches back to the earliest ages of the universe, before light and darkness were even properly divided."

"Odin himself was conquering the Nine Realms five hundred thousand years ago. Hela was his foremost champion back then."

Evenson gave Malik a solemn look.

"So if you shout ’Long live Hela,’ you’re not wishing her a long life. You’re practically cursing her to die young."

"Oh."

Malik nodded slowly.

But internally, he was more convinced than ever.

Evenson didn’t merely understand Asgardian biology.

He knew their history.

In astonishing detail.

There was no way that knowledge had come from a single meeting.

Unless Odin had the peculiar habit of meeting strangers and immediately opening his family tree to show them every secret his dynasty had accumulated over half a million years.

Malik quietly dismissed the thought.

Still, there was one piece of information he was extremely happy about.

Hela had an absurdly long lifespan.

That was excellent news for him.

After all, Malik intended to become the High Priest responsible for the religious affairs of Hela’s followers.

Granted, given the realities of politics, he suspected the position might eventually turn into little more than a state-sponsored apparatus for purging political enemies in the goddess’s name.

But that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

If he understood the goddess’s wishes, the position could become unimaginably powerful.

You think I’ve done something wrong?

I’m sorry, but I suspect you’re disloyal.

No, wait. I suspect you’re insufficiently devout.

Come with me to the Inquisition. We can have tea.

And if someone wanted to build a temple in his honor?

Well, clearly that person was an exceptionally faithful believer.

Of course, positions like this were dangerous.

They accumulated enemies.

And whenever the ruler changed, the people who had enjoyed power under the previous regime were often the first to be purged.

But Hela wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Malik wasn’t going to end up like Beria.

Hela still had hundreds of thousands of years ahead of her.

That meant his family would have plenty of time to establish itself.

For the first time in a long while, Malik felt genuinely optimistic about the future.

Then everything went black.

A sharp pain struck his knees.

When his vision returned, he was no longer in his home.

He was kneeling in an open wasteland, both knees pressed against a rough black stone.

The pain was intense, but Malik didn’t dare stand.

Evenson had warned him.

He was in the presence of a goddess.

He carefully raised his eyes.

The world around him was dim, painted in the colors of eternal twilight.

Far away, atop a jagged mountain ridge, stood a lone figure.

The figure wore an imposing helmet and a long cloak that concealed her back.

Even from this distance, Malik could feel the killing intent radiating from her.

The sheer presence was overwhelming.

The Goddess of Death.

Malik swallowed.

Then he noticed something strange.

Her shoulders seemed to be moving.

Up and down.

Repeatedly.

Perhaps he was simply too far away to see clearly.

His aging eyes must have been playing tricks on him.

Then another sensation reached him.

A strange fragrance hung in the air.

Malik sniffed.

He couldn’t identify it.

He had lived a privileged life. There were plenty of things he had simply never encountered.

But the smell was undeniably alluring.

Then his stomach growled.

Malik froze.

He was hungry.

What?

He had eaten plenty.

At his age, his digestion certainly shouldn’t have been this efficient.

So why—

He understood.

Of course.

He was standing before the Goddess of Death.

This strange hunger must be the divine manifestation of his mortal life’s craving for the essence of life itself.

And this intoxicating fragrance...

The scent of death.

The realization sent a thrill through him.

Even inside her prison, Hela had filled the surrounding space with her divine power, transforming it into her own domain.

No wonder she was the Goddess of Death.

Malik’s eyes burned with reverence.

Far away, Hela reached up and grabbed the edge of her cloak.

She pulled it toward her face, apparently preparing for a dramatic flourish.

At the same time, something round fell from the mountain behind her.

A skull, Malik decided immediately.

Perfectly fitting for the Goddess of Death.

There was only one strange thing.

The preparation seemed to be taking an unusually long time.

Eventually, however, Hela gave the cloak a magnificent sweep and began turning around.

She even raised one hand delicately.

Then—

She saw Malik.

Hela hadn’t even completed the turn.

The instant she caught sight of her visitor—and particularly his outfit—she began coughing violently.

Her cheeks puffed.

She swallowed hard, apparently preventing herself from spitting something out.

Then she gestured toward Evenson.

"Come here."

"Hmm? Oh—"

Evenson barely had time to react.

The ground beneath him suddenly trembled.

A colossal black blade of obsidian erupted from the earth, lifting him into the air and carrying him rapidly toward Hela.

He had barely arrived when Hela reached out, hooked an arm around his neck, and dragged him closer.

"What is that?"

"That’s the believer I promised to find for you," Evenson managed to say, his head trapped beneath her arm. "Your Majesty."

"A believer?"

Hela tightened her grip.

"That thing dressed like a bear cub?"

Crack.

Evenson felt something in his neck shift.

He suspected he was going to wake up with one hell of a crick.