The shock that the God King's arrival had held in check finally burst through the agents' ranks, like a dam breaking, a volcano erupting, a thousand years of pent-up ash surging into the stratosphere.
Murmurs rose on every side. Whispers they could no longer suppress swept through the spaceport like a tide!
Agents from every department, rank, and post in S.P.E.A.R. were there, along with tactical teams, researchers, and intelligence analysts.
So were the veterans who had guarded this planet from the shadows for decades, even centuries, and had grown accustomed to extraordinary events.
Now their eyes held a shock greater than what they had felt when they first saw the Bifrost descend.
Something they had always taken for granted was crumbling.
Snatches of conversation washed across the spaceport like a tide. Every word overturned the old understanding of the Nine Realms; every whisper tore at the order Asgard had maintained for millions of years.
"I think I finally get it..."
A veteran field agent looked up at Odin's imposing yet composed figure. His voice held the dazed clarity of someone who had endured one shock after another and finally reached a breaking point.
His gaze left Odin's single eye and settled on the young man in a dark hoodie standing at the center of the Asgardian legion.
"For millions of years, ordinary people, superhumans, and every living being in the Nine Realms have taken it for granted that Odin rules over all worlds. That he alone is master of the Nine Realms.
Asgard's Golden Palace was the highest seat of power in the Nine Realms. Wherever Gungnir pointed, that was the will of the Nine Realms.
As far as Odin's single eye could see, Asgard's authority reached."
"That understanding was written into every civilization's creation myths. It was carved