Chapter 322: Tallying the Spoils, and Deadpool's Situation
Loki was breathing hard, his heart hammering like a war drum, his eyes darting with a mix of wariness and exhaustion.
He pressed himself against the wall of a dim alleyway, as if he could simply melt into the darkness and vanish from the people hunting him.
His ears picked up the commotion echoing not far off — voices thick with fury and hatred.
Somewhere close by, someone was still shouting.
"Where'd that pretty-boy son of a bitch go?! He killed our own — the Love Fist Gang don't forget that!
He can't have gotten far! Find him! There's a fat reward in it!"
The shrill voice burned through Loki like wildfire, and his fists clenched involuntarily.
After a long stretch of confirming no one was still on his tail, he finally allowed himself to exhale.
Only once he'd relaxed did he take stock of his own battered, wound-covered body — and his face twisted into something ugly.
Thinking back over what had just happened only darkened his expression further.
The moment Ethan had dumped him here, Loki had immediately run into trouble with these — these ordinary humans.
He'd figured that even without his godly power, dealing with mortals would be trivial.
And at first, it had been. He'd genuinely relied on his own combat skill to cut down the two men who'd mouthed off at him.
But once his victims' gang-mates saw their own lying dead, more and more of them had piled into the fight against him.
No matter how skilled Loki was, two fists couldn't hold off a dozen hands — let alone an entire mob.
Loki had always been the type to retreat the moment things looked bad. When it came to running, he'd claim second place in all of Asgard to no one.
After taking some real damage, he'd managed — narrowly, but without serious harm — to slip free of the crisis.
Which only made him angrier. Him — the proud Second Prince of Asgard, the God of Mischief himself — reduced to this. Hunted down by a pack of ordinary mortals.
"Damn Ethan. Damn Hell's Kitchen. These people have absolutely no manners whatsoever," Loki spat.
He couldn't fathom it — who just picked fights with strangers the instant they met them? These Hell's Kitchen types acted like savages, throwing punches and drawing blood at the drop of a hat.
If he'd known exile meant this kind of treatment, he never would have tagged along with Thor in the first place.
Was this Thor's doing on purpose? Payback for the time Loki had exiled him?
Once his godly power came back, Loki couldn't beat Ethan — fine. But surely he could handle a bunch of mortals?
Revenge was a dish best served whenever — even ten years from now would be soon enough. Though there was no telling when this exile would actually end. Odin hadn't said.
Loki replayed Odin's parting words in his head: "When your godly power returns, so too will your punishment end."
This was all Thor's fault. And Ethan's too!
Loki straightened up and started thinking through his next move.
That was exactly when his stomach let out a long, embarrassing growl.
Only then did it hit him — he hadn't eaten in ages.
He rubbed his own hollowed-out stomach and let out a bitter laugh. "Me. Hungry. Without my godly power, I actually get hungry..."
He glanced around and spotted a restaurant not far off, its lights still on.
He had no idea what this place was called, or even where in the world he was — but he could still recognize a picture of food when he saw one.
He decided food came first, questions later.
Loki stepped out of the alley and made his way toward the restaurant.
What Loki failed to notice: the instant he crossed the threshold, the shadow beneath his feet moved entirely on its own.
"Hmph... this Loki character has the nerve to curse me out again. Serves him right, getting chased down like that. If it weren't for Thor and Odin's sake, I wouldn't even bother."
Ethan had watched the entire thing unfold through the eyes of his Shadow Legion, every moment of it.
If Ethan hadn't deployed the Shadow Legion, Loki might very well have died right there under that gang's gunfire.
Right now, Loki was a god stripped of his godhood — genuinely vulnerable enough that heavy firepower could actually kill him.
The only reason Loki had managed to escape at all was because Ethan's Shadow Legion had quietly taken out the gang members carrying firearms.
What Ethan hadn't anticipated: in the course of fleeing, Loki had somehow run clean out of Hell's Kitchen's borders and ended up in Brooklyn.
That territory wasn't under Ethan's say-so at all — these days, it was practically a fresh playground for the gangs.
Loki was going to have to fend for himself on that one.
For now, Ethan had more pressing business — time to tally up this round's gains and run the gacha. The recent battle had netted him a substantial haul of Friend Points.
Once that was squared away, Ethan planned to take Strange and the Infinity Stones and head out to support the future parallel universe — this time, they'd be facing Thanos himself. His current strength wasn't quite reassuring enough yet; he wanted to see if the gacha could hand him some extra firepower first.
With that in mind, Ethan pulled up the System panel.
First up: the gift from Kaito Kumon.
[Corvus Glaive's Scythe]: A weapon forged by Marvel's Thanos himself, at the cost of several galaxies' worth of resources. Once bonded to this weapon, so long as the weapon itself is never destroyed, the Host gains the ability to resurrect infinitely.
The catch: the Host cannot stray too far from the weapon. Beyond a certain range, the scythe can no longer bring the Host back.
[Tablet of Life]: A stone tablet from the continent of Atlantis, inscribed with the evolutionary equation of life itself. Legend holds that whoever cracks this equation gains overwhelming combat strength and boundless intellect.
System unlocked. The Host need only place the Tablet of Life within the Homestead: territory residents gain +1% physical stats (cap 20%), +1% brain development (cap 10%), 10% chance to awaken a superpower, and any resident who already has a superpower gains a 5% chance of it being enhanced.
Ethan was thoroughly pleased with this gift from his senior, Kaito Kumon. He hadn't expected a guy who got his kicks stealing things to be generous enough to hand over two items in one go.
Corvus Glaive's scythe, in Ethan's estimation, was actually a bit of a trap — you had to keep it physically in hand at all times for the resurrection to kick in; toss it even a little too far and it wouldn't work. That was probably exactly how the original Corvus Glaive had met his end.
Ethan had briefly considered handing the scythe off to Deadpool. That guy was off gallivanting through other worlds with Wolverine these days.
Apparently the world in question was a mutant world — Deadpool had actually invited him along, but Ethan had been far too busy lately, and honestly didn't feel like going anyway.
If he gave the scythe to Deadpool — on top of the Hidan Growth Template card Deadpool already had — the combination would basically make him a genuine Marvel-flavored Hidan.
Except Deadpool already had functional immortality. Handing him the scythe on top of that would be gilding the lily.
For the moment, Ethan couldn't think of anyone to give the scythe to, so he simply listed it on the Group Marketplace for 1,000 Friend Points.
As for the Tablet of Life's power — that, too, was part of why Ethan had decided to keep Loki around.
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