Chapter 27: The Weight of a Name

Chapter 27: The Weight of a Name

The bridge remained eerily silent even after the transmission ended. The officers, warlords, and mercenaries present were still frozen, processing what they had just witnessed. The Black Market wasn't a place where power shifted often. It was a den of hardened killers, criminal syndicates, and warlords who had spent decades carving out their own little empires.

Yet Baldur had walked in, broken their rules, and rewritten them in less than an hour.

It was something they had never seen before.

And that terrified them.

Baldur turned away from the dimmed screen, his golden energy still flickering faintly in his hands. The Kree warlord's words lingered in his mind.

He wasn't just a name anymore.

He was a target.

Good.

He had wanted attention. Now, he had the entire underworld watching him.

The captain, still sitting against the ruined console, sighed heavily. His cybernetic eye flickered as he processed the situation. "Do you even realize what you've done?"

Baldur tilted his head, the faintest smirk playing at his lips. "Yeah. I won."

The captain scoffed, running a hand down his face. "You don't get it, do you? The Black Market isn't just criminals running around shooting each other for fun. It's a network. A system that has existed for centuries, older than most civilizations. The warlords, the factions, the empires—they all tolerate each other because none of them can afford to disrupt the balance."

He gestured to the destruction around them, the wreckage of his once-mighty Leviathan-class warship. "Then you came in and set fire to the whole damn thing."

Baldur's eyes gleamed. "Sounds like they needed it."

The captain just stared at him. "You really don't care, do you?"

Baldur stepped forward, light bending subtly around his form as he moved. "Let me ask you something," he said, voice calm. "How long have you worked for them? These warlords, these syndicates—how long have you been a pawn in their little game?"

The captain's jaw clenched, but he didn't answer.

"Exactly," Baldur muttered. "You've been playing by their rules for so long, you forgot you could change the game."

He crouched slightly, meeting the captain's gaze directly. "And that's what I just did."

The room was still tense, but Baldur could feel it—the shift.

Some of them were still afraid. Others were angry. But a few?

A few were starting to understand.

Power respected power.

And Baldur had just proven himself to be something beyond their comprehension.

He turned toward the rest of the officers still standing on the bridge. "You all have a choice," he said, his voice filling the space like rolling thunder. "You can either fight me, and end up like the rest of your crew—" he gestured toward the unconscious bodies on the ground, "—or you can accept the reality of the situation."

He raised a hand, and the light around him pulsed slightly. The artificial glow of the ship's remaining lights dimmed, bending subtly to his presence, as if the very photons obeyed his will.

"I'm not here to play warlord," Baldur continued. "I don't care about your factions or your little empires. I'm here to change the rules."

He let the words sink in.

A few of the officers exchanged glances, uncertain. Others lowered their weapons slightly. The ones who were truly smart?

They stood down entirely.

The captain exhaled sharply. "You're insane," he muttered.

Baldur grinned. "I've been called worse."

A voice crackled through the ship's damaged comms. One of the mercenary captains from the surface. "Uh… this is Commander Voss. We have a problem."

Baldur turned toward the speaker. "You're gonna have to be more specific."

There was static for a moment before the man responded.

"More ships are coming."

Baldur's eyes narrowed slightly.

The mercenary continued, sounding genuinely shaken. "It's… it's not a fleet. It's them."

The air in the bridge shifted.

Everyone knew what that meant.

Them.

Not warlords. Not bounty hunters.

Something worse.

Baldur's expression didn't change. But deep inside, he already knew.

Thanos' people.

The Black Market wasn't just a place for criminals and warlords. It was a place where information flowed faster than light, where deals were made in the shadows, where the biggest players in the universe kept their ears open.

And right now?

One of those players had just heard about him.

Baldur exhaled slowly, his golden light pulsing subtly as he rolled his shoulders.

"Alright," he muttered. "Let's see what they've got."

He turned toward the bridge crew, his smirk widening slightly.

"You might wanna buckle up."