God of Mischief

A year ago.

After completing the task assigned to him by Thanos, Corvus Glaive did not immediately return to report, but instead went off alone to search for new planets.

During this chance search, he encountered someone, or rather, a god, drifting in space.

Because the other claimed to be an Asgardian, and his name was Loki.

Hearing this name, Thanos became even clearer about the timeline he was currently in.

This time should be the period following the events of Thor.

Back then, in order to seize the throne of Asgard, Loki had calculated that his cheap father, Odin, was about to enter his period of slumber.

So he deliberately induced his brainless older brother, Thor, to anger the God King Odin.

And Thor, exactly as Loki had calculated, was stripped of his divine power by the enraged Odin and cast down into Midgard, which was the Blue Star.

Thus, as Loki had wished, he obtained the status of acting king while Odin fell into a slumber.

However, Loki was not satisfied with the word "acting".

Filled with ambition, he even dispatched War Machine and Destroyer to Midgard to assassinate his older brother.

Yet what Loki did not expect was that all of this was actually just a scheme devised by his cheap father.

Because even Loki himself did not know that he actually carried the bloodline of the Frost Giants, meaning no matter what he did, he could never inherit the throne of the Asgardians.

Just as Loki was about to succeed, Odin secretly restored Thor's divine power.

So Thor blasted the Destroyer to pieces, then fought his way back to Asgard, while Loki fell into an unknown wormhole.

The current plot was right before Avengers, where he had just discovered Loki and made the other bring the Mind Stone to Midgard to prepare for the invasion of the Blue Star.

Yet knowing the plot, he naturally would not follow the storyline anymore.

Heaven knows which Marvel Universe this was, in case it happened to be the universe of that lunatic Ultron.

Sending the Mind Stone over, letting the other create Ultron, and then having a laser beam send him away?

He was not that foolish.

Still, Loki could be put to some use.

Just as Thanos lowered his head in thought, Proxima Midnight, who was training alongside him, suddenly dropped to her knees.

My lord, I can't take it anymore.

Thanos shook his head and had Deep Blue turn off the gravity system.

Then, as he walked outward, he said, "I'm going to go see this Loki. From now on, if you two haven't adapted to a thousand times gravity, don't even think about stepping outside."

Hearing this, Proxima Midnight and Corvus Glaive immediately wore bitter expressions.

Although their strengths were formidable existences throughout the universe, they simply dared not disobey their lord's orders.

A dozen or so minutes later.

Thanos arrived at the place where Loki was imprisoned, and the first thing he saw was that long pair of ram-horn horns on the helmet.

At that moment, the other was lying on a bed, reading a book he had fished out from somewhere.

Yet Thanos turned his gaze to another corner of the prison cell.

That area looked completely empty, with nothing there.

However, in his perception, a mass of energy was gathering there.

And as his gaze shifted over, this mass of energy stopped gathering, returning to stillness as if it were all an illusion.

Yet Thanos knew very well that it was no illusion at all.

So he revealed a trace of a mocking smile.

Loki was known as the God of Mischief; naturally, it was impossible for him to surrender obediently without a fight.

The one on the bed should just be an illusion, while his true body was cloaked in invisibility, hiding in the corner and waiting for someone to enter before launching an attack.

Meanwhile, Loki in the shadows, seeing the purple big guy outside the cell looking at him and smiling, immediately knew that his little trick had been seen through.

He was also quite straightforward, directly dissolving the illusion and invisibility, revealing his fully armed appearance, and then looking up from below at the big guy in front of him.

Actually, he was not short; his height of one meter eight was considered medium height among the Asgardians.

Yet Thanos's height of nearly two meters five was simply too towering for him.

"Who are you?"

Thanos turned off the laser door and walked inside.

Then, taking advantage of his height, he looked down at the other from a superior angle and said flatly, "You can call me Thanos."

Seeing the other looking down at him with such condescension, a surge of anger rose in Loki's heart, yet his body very obediently lowered its head as he said respectfully, "So you are Lord Thanos. I've heard a great deal about you."

Although Asgard practiced a policy of closing its doors to the outside world, some news from the universe still managed to filter in.

Among them, the news regarding the rise of Thanos was definitely the biggest and most recent headline across the entire universe.

After all, the other was the only one in the entire cosmos who implemented population resource reproduction acts, leaving people without even the freedom to reproduce.

He enforced a so-called most scientific and reasonable reproduction plan.

If anyone had too many or too few children, they would face massive fines or even criminal penalties.

And this set of plans was precisely the method Thanos had devised to sustainably maintain cosmic equilibrium.

It was much better than that previous violent method of erasing half of the universe's life.

Yet in the Marvel Universe, which valued freedom far more than life, this approach was viewed like a demonic heresy, to be avoided at all costs.

If not for his formidable strength, he probably would have been wiped out as a heretic long ago.

Thanos ignored Loki's superficial flattery and instead said playfully, "Loki, nicknamed the God of Mischief, the third son of Odin, yet a bastard with the bloodline of the Frost Giants."

Hearing the word "bastard," a cold flash instantly crossed Loki's eyes as his hands swept forward.

In an instant, over a dozen daggers shot out from the void, flying toward Thanos with extreme speed.

The flattery before was merely to numb the other.

He had been scheming all along on how to escape.

To his surprise, however, Thanos simply ignored the daggers, crossing his arms over his chest.

Seeing this, Loki felt a surge of excitement in his heart.

Among these dozen-plus daggers, one was his divine artifact, the Godslayer Dagger.

A weapon that could be called a divine artifact by the Asgardians naturally possessed extraordinary power.

He had used the Godslayer Dagger to kill countless powerful enemies, and this purple big guy would surely be no exception.

The next instant, a sound of clashing steel rang out.

Clang, clang, clang...

Then, a particularly crisp ding... sound suddenly echoed.

Loki's expression instantly turned into one of utter disbelief.

For the divine artifact he had pinned such high hopes on had bounced off just like all the other daggers.

And Thanos seemed to have sensed that this dagger was different, catching the falling Godslayer Dagger in one hand, looking at it for a moment, and then saying mockingly, "To be able to casually pull out a dagger made of Uru, you Asgardians really are wealthy."

Although Uru was not as rare as Adamantium and Vibranium, it still ranked among the top four in the Marvel Universe.

A piece of Uru the size of the dagger in his hand could even be traded for a small spaceship in the Cosmic Alliance.

From this, the value and preciousness of Uru could well be seen.

Loki ignored Thanos's banter, his expression turning ugly as he said, "First of all, I am not a bastard. Also, I am Odin's second son, not his third!"