Beep, beep, beep-!
The alarm shattered the TVA's last moment of peace.
The entire Temporal Loom chamber was bathed in blinding red light. The enormous Temporal Loom was operating beyond capacity, rumbling on the verge of collapse, as though it would explode at any moment.
Beyond the door lay the endless, wildly expanding multiversal timelines.
Countless bands of colored light collided, tangled, and burst apart. A spacetime storm battered the protective doors like a tsunami, and the entire TVA shook violently.
OB stared fixedly at the console, his fingertips trembling, his voice filled with barely contained despair:
"The branches are still growing... growing infinitely! Physically, the Loom simply can't handle this many timelines! It'll blow, and everything will blow with it!"
Victor Timely sat slumped beside the equipment, his face covered in sweat, his eyes vacant.
He had tried every formula, every model, every expansion plan, only to arrive at one cold conclusion.
"Infinite against finite... there's no mathematical solution. We're fighting the universe itself. We can't win."
Mobius braced himself against the console and looked at everyone in turn. His throat bobbed, but he couldn't say a word.
He had seen countless timelines perish, but never had he felt as helpless as he did now-they had tried everything, fixed everything, prayed for everything, yet the end was still destruction.
"Is there really... no other way?"
B-15 stood guard by the door, her armor bearing a faint glow left by spacetime radiation. She watched TVA employees outside being torn apart and twisted by the runaway flow of time, reduced to nothingness, her gaze cold and pained.
They were protecting free will, yet free will was about to bury every universe with its own hands.
Cassie huddled in a corner, desperately poring over the ancient code left by He Who Remains, but the screen showed nothing except line after line of unbreakable deadlocks.
No back door, no hidden program, no miracle.
It was a dead end. The multiverse was about to collapse and be reduced to nothingness.
"Wait! Do you see that throne? There's a throne right behind the Temporal Loom!"
As if he had suddenly noticed something, Mobius pressed himself against the door leading to the temporal gravitational flow.
B-15 hurried over and looked through the round window with Mobius. A golden throne was visible directly behind the Temporal Loom at the end of the gangway.
Loki, who had just returned to the present by Time Slipping from his first meeting with Mobius, shuddered at those words. Then he realized something and fixed his eyes on the throne.
"No! Loki, that's not your responsibility. There has to be another way."
Sylvie also remembered something Thor from Knowhere had said to Loki before the two of them entered Kang the Conqueror's fortress.
Those seemingly out-of-nowhere words of comfort were actually starting to come true.
"Let's go to Knowhere and find that Thor! He could see what was happening here now, so he must have a way!"
Sylvie gripped Loki's arm tightly, and without realizing it, her voice took on a pleading tone.
"Sylvie, he and Father were right. My throne was never in Asgard. This is my destined fate. For the free will of everyone in the multiverse, this is my throne and my responsibility."
Loki cupped Sylvie's face in both hands, gently wiping away the tears streaming down her cheeks with his thumbs.
"No! This shouldn't be your responsibility, Loki! I'm the one who killed Kang the Conqueror. I should be the one to end all this!"
Sylvie shoved Loki away and rushed toward the gate.
Snap!
Loki snapped his fingers, freezing Sylvie in place, and looked around at his friends.
In his universe, apart from his father, his mother, and that foolish older brother of his, no one thought much of Loki, God of Mischief, and no one had ever cared about him. From beginning to end, he had never had a friend in the truest sense.
Yet he had never expected that at the TVA, he would not only find friends who shared his ideals, but also a lover of his own: Sylvie, a variant of himself who had lost everything as a child.
That Thor from Knowhere, his older brother, had seen all of this long ago and had also known what choice he would make.
Now it was his turn to choose. Would he take the throne and save the multiverse, or perish alongside his friends?
The answer went without saying.
"Loki! What do you mean? You've found a way, haven't you?"
Mobius looked at Sylvie, who had suddenly been rendered unable to move, and stepped forward.
"Yes, I've found a way. A way to save the free will of everyone in the multiverse."
Loki straightened his collar and used magic to remove every speck of dust and crease from his clothes.
"A way to save the multiverse by sacrificing yourself?" B-15 crossed her arms and stood in Loki's path.
"It's the only way."
Loki stressed.
"No! Loki! Sylvie's right. There has to be another way. Let's try again!"
Mobius also stepped in front of Loki.
"Loki is right. It really is the only way." Victor Timely smoothed down his wild hair and pushed his slipping glasses up his nose.
"Kang the Conqueror once maintained the multiverse and kept all the timelines stable on his own. Now he's dead. Unless someone takes his place and stabilizes all the timelines again, the cost will be one person's life."
"We're not sacrificing anyone!"
Mobius turned and shouted.
"But it's the only way. Otherwise, all we can really do is wait to die."
Victor Timely explained calmly.
Sacrifice one person to save the multiverse, or let everyone perish together?
"My friends, there's no need to argue about this. It's my responsibility, not yours."
Loki was just about to step forward when Mobius stopped him.
Boom, boom, boom-!
Before anyone had a chance to react, immense waves of temporal gravitational flow began spreading outward, furiously battering the chamber where they stood.
Hum-!
Loki waved a hand, and a pale green magical glow helped everyone steady themselves. Invisible shackles of divine power locked around their limbs, trapping them in place.
Loki walked up to Sylvie and looked at her gently. He placed his right hand lightly behind her head, leaned down, and kissed her forehead.
"Sylvie, I love you."
Sylvie could clearly feel the warmth of Loki's hand behind her head and the imprint of his kiss on her forehead. Tears streamed uncontrollably down her face. She struggled desperately, but it was no use. Before the great power of time, all struggle was futile.
With that, Loki went to the thick gate and operated the machine beside it. The door leading to the end of time slowly opened, and the raging temporal gravitational flow surged in at once.
Loki braved the immense spacetime storm and slowly stepped onto the bridge, looking back at the gate as it closed and at Sylvie, Mobius, and the others who had rushed to it.
He smiled. He had failed all his life, but this time he had succeeded. He had not only saved the person he loved and the friends he cared about, but would also save the entire multiverse.
"I know what kind of god I need to be. For you, for all of us."
He took one last, long look at everyone behind him and did not look back again. As his divine power gathered, his white shirt slowly transformed into traditional Asgardian attire, the attire belonging to him alone as the God of Mischief.
His golden horned helmet shone brilliantly in the spacetime storm, and his dark green robes snapped in the terrifying gravitational flow.
Loki pushed against the immense pressure until he reached the throne. Raising both hands above his head, he fully unleashed the divine power within him for the first and last time.
The emerald radiance of his divine power gradually suppressed and extinguished the multicolored gravitational flow. One timeline after another went dark, hanging above the throne.
Loki gently stroked it.
The throne he had always sought, yet which had never belonged to him, now stood quietly before his eyes.
He hesitated no longer. Elegantly sweeping aside his robes, he sat down like a true king.
At the same time, he reached out and seized the tangled timelines above him. Divine power burst from his hands and wound its way up the thick timelines, forming an enormous tree of time in the blink of an eye. It shone with a brilliant dark green light at the end of time.
Loki, God of Stories, was born.
His gaze rested calmly ahead. Through the shadows of countless universes, he found the Thor who had guided him to his true throne.
"Thor Odinson, I'll be waiting for you at the end of time."