The perimeter security of the temporary S.H.I.E.L.D. Base was, to Loki Laufeyson, practically non-existent. The God of Mischief's figure was like smoke blending into the twilight, silently gliding past infrared scans and motion sensors; his illusions were sufficient to deceive mortal eyes and crude electronic devices. He stood in the shadow of a sand dune, gazing from afar at the isolated area and, further away, the town where lights were gradually turning on, his ice-green eyes flickering with a cold and calculating light.
Thor's frustration and confusion were clearly visible to him through his illusion-based surveillance. This stirred a twisted sense of pleasure in his heart, but more than that, it was a sense of urgency—the time of Odin's sleep was limited, and he had to obtain what he wanted and secure his rightful position before his father awoke or his foolish brother truly came to his senses.
Deep in the night, the clamor of the camp had slightly subsided. Loki appeared like a ghost outside the simple prefab building where Thor was being held, or rather, housed. A simple sleep spell caused the two guards at the entrance to slide against the wall, and he pushed the door open to enter.
Thor was not asleep; he sat on the edge of the bed, still maintaining the dejected posture he had during the day, staring at the floor as if trying to bore a hole into it. Hearing the door open, he lifted his head sluggishly. The moment he saw Loki, a flash of surprise crossed his eyes, immediately followed by an even deeper gloom.
"Loki?" His voice was dry. "You... why are you here? Father, he..."
"I came precisely for Father, brother." Loki's expression switched instantly, adopting just the right amount of weight, grief, and a hint of suppressed anxiety. He walked quickly to Thor, knelt on one knee, gripped Thor's hand hanging weakly on his lap, and lowered his voice, with a choked, trembling tone, "Father... he is not doing well."
"What?!" Thor, as if struck by lightning, jumped up, his immense strength overturning the chair with a loud crash. "Impossible! Father, he... he is immortal!"
"It was the Frost Giant!" Loki's voice suddenly turned resentful and pained. "After you were banished, they took the opportunity to raid the Heavenly Palace vault! To defend against them, to protect Asgard, Father exhausted his divine power... his old wounds flared up, and with this time..." He paused just right, lowered his head, his shoulders trembling slightly, "The All-Mother told me to bring you back immediately... perhaps, to see him one last time."
The lies were like meticulously woven poisonous vines, entangling Thor's already chaotic heart. Worry for his father, guilt over his banishment, anger and despair at his inability to change the status quo—all instantly breached his already crumbling line of reason.
"Go back... yes, I must go back! I must go back!" Thor's eyes were bloodshot, and he turned to rush out.
"Wait, brother!" Loki hurriedly got up to stop him. "Going back like this is useless! Father is in this state because of your recklessness and the war you started... You must prove that you have changed! You must regain the approval of mjolnir! Otherwise, even if you go back, you cannot face Father or the people of Asgard!" He cleverly swapped the concept, binding "gaining approval" with "saving Odin".
Thor stopped, his body trembling slightly from intense emotion. He looked back at Loki, his eyes filled with the desperate hope of a drowning man grasping at a final straw: "Yes... the hammer! mjolnir! As long as I can lift it again... Father will know... I must go!"
"I will help you." A hint of an imperceptible arc curled at the corner of Loki's mouth, but his voice remained full of "brotherly affection." "I can handle the guards outside. But brother, remember, there is not much time."
A few minutes later, using Loki's illusions as cover, the two safely crossed the camp's outer perimeter and arrived once again at the spot where mjolnir stood. In the deep night desert, the cold was bone-chilling. Starlight shone coldly on that ancient war hammer, adding a sense of loneliness and mystery.
Thor walked step by step toward the hammer, like a pilgrimage. He took a deep breath, his eyes erupting with unprecedented light, a mix of despair and hope. He let out a low roar, gripped the cold hammer handle tightly with both hands, his muscles bulging, and used all his strength as an Asgardian to pull it upward with all his might!
"Urgh—aaaah!!"
Veins bulged on his forehead, and deep pits were crushed into the sand and stone beneath his feet. However, mjolnir did not budge. That silent barrier of rules, like a Wall of Sighs, silently swallowed and annihilated all his strength, all his desires, all his pain. The hammer just remained quietly stuck there, indifferently watching its "Master" struggle in vain.
Once, twice, thrice...
Thor was like a madman, trying again and again, failing again and again. Finally, he collapsed on his knees before the hammer, exhausted, his hands supporting him on the ground, gasping for air, sweat mixed with sand sliding down his face. Despair, like the deepest ice, completely froze his heart.
Loki watched all this coldly, the satisfaction in his heart almost overflowing. Look, this is the heir Odin chose, a piece of trash who can't even lift his own weapon. He stepped forward, pretending to help, "Brother... it seems... the time may not have come yet. Father, he..."
"No... no..." Thor muttered to himself, as if he had lost his soul.
Just then, Loki's gaze inadvertently swept across the ground around mjolnir. His perception was far keener than any mortal's. Near the hammer, besides the chaotic traces Thor had just left and the slight residues from S.H.I.E.L.D.'s daytime detection, he also "smelled" a trace of extremely subtle, yet unusually "clean" energy residue.
This aura... did not belong to Thor, did not belong to any mortals present, and even... did not entirely belong to the known energy spectrum of this World. It carried an indescribable sense of "order," a high purity and majesty on a near "conceptual" level. Although extremely thin and almost dissipating with the wind, it had produced some extremely brief yet real "contact" and "resonance" with the rule-based pressure emitted by mjolnir!
Loki's pupils constricted slightly. Someone had been here, had touched mjolnir at a very close distance, and... seemed to have triggered a reaction from the hammer on a rule-based level? Who was it? Mortals were absolutely impossible. Could it be... Heimdall? No, the Bifrost Bridge was closed, and Heimdall's gaze was also temporarily obscured by Father's spell...
He immediately thought of the blonde girl who approached the hammer during the day, and the silver-haired woman accompanying her. Coulson called her a "consultant"... a "consultant" from Earth, capable of triggering a rule-based resonance with mjolnir?
The God of Mischief's thoughts raced. Interesting... too interesting. This seemingly backward Midgard seemed to hide some unexpected things. That girl... her residual aura was so special, it even instinctively produced a trace of... "attraction" in him? No, not the attraction of romantic love, but more like... the "traits" of some higher-level existence, which had a natural allure for a god like him who controlled illusions and psychic power, as if catching a glimpse of a pure starlight in the darkness.
Must find out. Loki glanced at Thor, who was slumped on the ground, completely plunged into despair, and had a new plan in mind. Thor was already ruined, not worth worrying about. And this mysterious "consultant"... might become a new pawn in his plan, or... bring unexpected variables.
He perfunctorily comforted Thor with a few words, used illusions to bring him back to the prefab building again, and applied a deeper sleep spell. Then, his figure flickered, turning into a light breeze, and he drifted toward the direction of the town of Puente Antiguo.
Following that trace of extremely faint, unique residual aura, Loki, like the sharpest hound, quickly locked onto the family inn where Artoria and Minerva were staying. The night was deep, the town had fallen into slumber, with only sporadic lights and faint music coming from a distant bar. He landed silently in the inn's backyard, his gaze locked onto a window on the second floor emitting a warm yellow light.
Inside the room, Artoria had just finished her daily intelligence synchronization with little ai and was preparing to wash up and rest. Minerva was sitting quietly on a chair by the window, holding a guidebook about local plants, her optical sensor steadily scanning the pages, but her core perception always enveloped the entire room and the surrounding area.
Suddenly, Minerva's movements paused ever so slightly. The pages stayed on an illustration of a desert cactus. Her optical sensor did not lift, but the internal scanning mode instantly switched to the highest alert frequency band.
"Artoria," her voice rang out in the quiet room, calm and waveless, "Detected a high-threat unknown individual intruding into the inn's backyard. The energy signature's match rate with 'Loki Laufeyson' in the database has risen to 71%. The target is approaching, intent unknown."
Artoria's motion of drying her hair paused, a flash of realization crossing her green eyes. "Sure enough, he came... it's about what happened during the day, right." She was not surprised. Given Loki's suspicion and desire for control, it would be strange if he didn't come to investigate after noticing the hammer's abnormal reaction.
"Activate level one silent defense protocol. Prioritize ensuring the safety and concealment of other personnel in the inn. Do not escalate conflict unless necessary." Artoria ordered quickly, while rapidly drying her hair and changing into dark loungewear suitable for movement.
Minerva nodded silently, the guidebook in her hand had been closed at some point and placed aside. She still sat on the chair, her posture seemingly relaxed, but every inch of the bionic muscle under her silver hair had been adjusted to the optimal state for exertion, and her optical sensor locked onto a specific position outside the window.
Just then, a cold, slimy, and bewitching psychic force, like invisible tentacles, silently attempted to seep into the room to spy on the situation inside. Loki's signature trick.
However, the moment this psychic force touched the outer layer of the room, it seemed to hit an invisible wall that was extremely smooth and provided absolutely no leverage, being silently "slid off," dispersed, and vanished into nothingness. The defense layer set up by Minerva, which combined the latest anti-psychic detection algorithms with weak energy disturbances, was not a hard block, but a more advanced "deflection" and "misdirection," causing Loki's spying to fail.
Loki outside the window gave a light "huh," his ice-green eyes showing even more interest. Interesting, to be able to block his psychic spying so cleanly and neatly? This could definitely not be done by ordinary Earth technology. It seems the "little mice" inside are more interesting than he imagined, and more worth... "in-depth communication."
He no longer attempted to hide, his figure slowly condensing and appearing in the air outside the window, still wearing that dark green robe, black hair meticulous, with his signature smile that mixed elegance and wickedness on his face. He raised his hand, faint magical fluorescence flickering on his fingertips, intending to directly "knock on the door."
Just as his fingertips' magic was about to touch the window—
"Bang!"
The window glass was not pushed open or shattered, but together with part of the window frame, was completely blown away from the inside by an extremely violent, purely physical force! Shards shot toward Loki like buckshot!
Loki reacted extremely quickly, a magic shield instantly appearing in front of him, blocking most of the shards, producing clattering sounds. But just in the gap of the shield rising, a silver figure, like lightning tearing through the night, shot out from the broken window!
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