Is This Really Earth?

Is this really Earth?

As Malekith looked at the three enormous Kunpeng Motherships in the sky, along with the dense swarms of various fighter craft, he went completely numb.

Wasn't Midgard supposed to be the weakest realm among the Nine Realms?

Weren't the people of Midgard supposed to be terribly backward?

A few thousand years ago, when he had fought Asgard's Bor here, hadn't this still been an age of savages who drank blood and ate raw flesh?

How long had it been? At most, only a few thousand years. Why had there been such an enormous change?

What Malekith could never have imagined was that Earthlings had only truly begun developing at breakneck speed in the past few centuries, while China had reached its current level in merely a few years.

Human lifespans were short, but it was precisely because of that that humans could always create miracles within their brief lives. To create a better future for later generations, people were always willing to make many sacrifices.

The same was true of scientific advancement.

Present-day China embraced all rivers and accepted every kind of strength, pouring it all into development. Such a rate of growth had surpassed everyone's imagination. Only a nation as inclusive as China could have such an opportunity.

Long lives could sometimes become shackles on development. Take the Dark Elves, for example—they lived even longer than Asgardians. If China had been given those thousands of years to develop, it would have conquered the entire universe long ago. Why would it be like them, spending thousands of years making only a few Cursed Hearts and producing a handful of Cursed Warriors?

The Asgardians were the same. After thousands of years of development, they had made practically no progress, also because their lifespans were simply too long.