thefictionvixens Chapter 142 Not Your Power
Chapter 142 Not Your Power
As the shuttle detached from the Sanctuary, Wanda glanced back.
Thanos's fleet was deploying, with twelve capital ships spreading out along Olympia's equatorial orbit, encircling the entire planet. The Chitauri fleet wasn't moving particularly fast, but its sheer number allowed it to complete the orbital blockade within twenty minutes.
The shuttle descends towards the planet's surface.
Wanda sat in the passenger seat, Saint Seiya to her right, neither of them wearing seatbelts. As the shuttle passed through the energy field that covered the entire planet, goosebumps rose on Wanda's skin. The energy seeped in from the outside of the cabin, swept over her body, and then receded.
"It just scanned us," Wanda said.
The Holy Lord did not respond. His palm was facing upwards, and a faint golden light flickered between his fingers. The Tiger Talisman was responding to the power of the same origin.
Before the shuttle even reached the middle of the atmosphere, Wanda's senses detected a rapidly approaching energy body.
"Someone's coming."
Before she could finish speaking, a figure appeared in the field of vision directly in front of the shuttle. It was a man, dressed in a dark blue, tight-fitting combat suit with gold patterns extending from the collar to the shoulder armor, and his eyes radiated a pale golden light.
Icarus.
Wanda finally met the guy Thanos had mentioned who had made him choose to retreat. He was two sizes smaller than Thanos, but the energy emanating from him was indeed quite strong. Just as Thanos had described, his basic combat power was among the top in the universe.
The shuttle hovered.
Icarus's gaze swept across the cockpit through the windshield. His attention was fixed on the Thanos insignia.
The Holy Lord stood up: "Open the hatch."
Wanda pressed the decompression button, the side door slid open, and cold air from the upper atmosphere rushed in, causing the temperature to plummet to minus forty degrees Celsius. However, this temperature was similar to air conditioning for Wanda.
The Holy Lord walked to the hatch, stood in the air currents at an altitude of 30,000 meters, and looked at Icarus, who was suspended 20 meters in front of him.
Icarus's gaze shifted between Shendu and Wanda before finally settling on Shendu.
"Thanos," Icarus spoke, his voice transmitted directly into the shuttle through some kind of energy resonance, without needing a medium. "Three years ago, I let you go because I didn't want the battle to affect the civilians on the surface. Today, you return with a fleet, and two helpers as well."
He paused, his tone flat: "Who are you? What do you want?"
"That's not important," the Holy Lord said. "What's important is that this planet beneath your feet contains my things."
"Your things?"
"You think the energy field covering this planet was created by the Eternals themselves?"
Icarus did not answer. The Eternals' defensive network had existed for countless years, and all Eternals took it for granted.
The Holy Lord raised his hand, and an aura of a superior surged from his palm. The golden light resonated with the energy field on the planet's surface, causing the entire defense network of Olympia to tremble for a moment.
Icarus's expression changed instantly as he sensed the reaction from the defensive network.
He felt that a part of him within him, a power he believed to be innate, had for a fleeting moment resonated with the aura emanating from the man before him, much like a defensive network.
"That's impossible," Icarus said.
"You bear the aura of the Tiger Talisman." The Holy Lord withdrew his hand and said calmly, "But it's not yours. You were infected, not its owner."
Icarus's eyes blazed with golden light, a sign of the Eternals' battle readiness. Wanda narrowed her eyes, and chaos magic instantly appeared in her palm.
"The power of the Eternals belongs to the Eternals." Icarus's voice was low. "I don't know who you are, nor do I care what your things are. There are eight thousand Eternals and three hundred thousand civilians on this planet, and I will not allow anyone to threaten them."
The Holy Lord merely glanced at him, and the power of the Mind Stone instantly touched the other's consciousness.
Icarus reacted extremely quickly; his mental barrier erected the moment Wanda made contact, but it was to no avail. The Holy Lord easily saw all of Icarus's memories.
Thousands of years ago.
In the void, Olympia was still a barren, rocky planet. The Eternals had just arrived, exhausted and weak, having drifted through the universe for an unknown amount of time.
Then someone came.
The Holy Lord saw a colossal silhouette. Not humanoid, but more like a geometric shape, a shadow cast in three-dimensional space. The thing was so large it could block out the light of a star. It did not speak, but its will was directly instilled into the minds of every Eternal being present.
"The Celestial Group," the Holy Lord said calmly.
For the first time, a genuine wavering appeared on Icarus's face.
The three calm words the Holy Lord had just uttered triggered memories he himself was unaware of. This past was indeed buried deep within his consciousness, but it was so well sealed that he had never encountered it in his thousands of years of life.
It wasn't until today that the Holy Lord forcibly brought it up again.
"That's not..." Icarus's words trailed off. He wanted to deny it, but the images of that memory were unfolding automatically in his mind, and once the seal was broken, it couldn't be taken back.
The Holy Lord stood at the cabin door, the wind at an altitude of 30,000 meters sweeping past him.
"The Celestials have dismantled my Tiger Talisman, stuffing part of it into your bodies and weaving part into the planet's structure. You are the safes, not the masters," the Holy Lord said calmly. "You can process this slowly, but what's mine is being taken away today."
Icarus's golden light began to become unstable. The fragment of the Tiger Talisman within him continued to resonate with the aura of the Holy Lord, and with each resonance, his energy output fluctuated. This feeling must have been very unfamiliar to Icarus; the power within his body was not obeying his commands, but rather responding to a stranger.
"Wanda," the Lord said calmly.
Wanda walked to the side of the Holy Lord.
"There are 7,999 more below him. When I begin to dismantle the energy field, there will be a reaction on the surface of the planet. Those Eternals will feel their power being drained away; they will panic and rebel."
The Holy Lord glanced at her.
"I understand," Wanda said.
Icarus was still blocking the shuttle, making his last struggle, his fighting spirit torn between his will to fight and the truth that had just been revealed.
Wanda said to Icarus, "The powers you used before weren't originally yours. They were stored inside you for thousands of years, and now that the original owner has come to take them, why are you stopping her?"
Icarus's lips moved. The words were probably harsh, but he ultimately didn't say them.
The Tiger Talisman fragment within his body trembled again. This time, he clearly felt that power flowing outwards, being drawn by the Holy Lord's physical form, being peeled away from his cells bit by bit.