Chapter 48-The Supreme Reckoning
The remnants of the Combined Legion's fleet limped home, their hulls scorched and crews hollow-eyed. News of the catastrophe spread faster than light.
Lin Fan wasn't done.
**"Burn their empires to ash."**
His order ignited the Dark Quadrant's armada. Warships sleek as obsidian daggers surged into Shi'ar, Kree, and Skrull space, their hulls crawling with Majin symbiote-enhanced berserkers. Planets fell in hours. Systems went dark in days. The Demon Legion's advance was a cosmic wildfire—unstoppable, inexorable.
Yet in the heart of the Kree Empire, on the sacred world of Hala, a different kind of reckoning brewed.
--
The Supreme Intelligence's chamber hummed with sterile energy. The air smelled of ozone and dread.
Kneeling before the gargantuan crystal face—its maw a swirling cosmos—the High Accusers trembled. Among them stood the corrupted commander, his forehead's **M-brand** pulsing faintly. He'd delivered his report. Every word carefully vetted. Every failure framed as… opportunity.
The Supreme Intelligence's voice boomed, vibrating bones:
**"A single being. One. Has shattered our legions."**
Its crystalline visage flickered, cycling through forms—a stern matriarch, a warlord, a scientist—each the idealized leader of the supplicant before it. When it settled on the commander, the face became **his own**, grinning with too many teeth.
**"You suggest we bow."**
The commander didn't flinch. **"I suggest we survive. Lin Fan isn't Thanos. He doesn't want balance. He wants** ***subjugation***."**
A murmur rippled through the Accusers. Blasphemy. Yet—
**BOOM!**
The chamber doors exploded inward.
Odin Allfather stood wreathed in storm-light, Gungnir sparking. His single eye burned brighter than neutron stars.
**"Enough groveling,"** he growled. **"Your 'Supreme Intelligence' is a glorified abacus. The real threat festers in your ranks."**
The Allfather's gaze locked onto the branded commander.
The room froze.
Then—
The commander's **skin split**. Pink tendrils erupted from his mouth, eyes, pores—snapping toward Odin like whips.
---
Odin moved faster than physics allowed. Gungnir's tip flared, severing the symbiote tendrils mid-lunge. The severed flesh writhed, screaming in Lin Fan's voice.
**"Pathetic,"** Odin spat. **"You infect men instead of facing me yourself?"**
The Supreme Intelligence's crystal face darkened. **"This… anomaly was undetected."**
**"Because your 'wisdom' is blind to magic,"** Odin sneered. He raised Gungnir—
—and the commander **detonated**.
A shockwave of pink biomass engulfed the chamber, dissolving Accusers into screaming slurry. The Intelligence's crystal cracked. Odin's cloak flared gold, shielding him.
From the carnage, a child's giggle echoed.
Lin Fan's voice oozed from the walls:
**"Oops. Looks like I'm already here."**
The biomass coalesced into a grinning, half-formed Lin Fan, waggling fingers at Odin. **"Hey, grandpa. Heard you were talking shit."**
Odin's eye burned with a light that made supernovae seem dim. The chamber's temperature plummeted as frost crawled up the walls.
**"Where. Is. My. Son."**
Each word hit like a hammer on anvil, reality itself warping under Odin's fury. The High Accusers collapsed, clutching their ears as blood trickled from their noses.
Lin Fan's smile widened. **"Oh, Víðarr? The nature god?"** A tendril extended from his mass, forming a crude cage. Inside, a faint green light pulsed weakly. **"He's been such good fertilizer for my garden."**
The projection showed Víðarr suspended in a cocoon of pink biomass, his emerald power being slowly drained into grotesque alien flora. His face was contorted in silent agony, roots burrowing into his flesh.
Odin's knuckles turned white around Gungnir. The weapon hummed with barely restrained power.
**"Final chance, abomination. Release him."**
Lin Fan's laughter echoed through the chamber, high-pitched and mocking. **"Make me, old man. Oh wait—"** The biomass suddenly hardened into a perfect replica of Víðarr's face, mouth moving with Lin Fan's voice: **"FATHER HELP ME PLEASE—"**
The illusion shattered as Gungnir's blast vaporized half the chamber.
Odin stood amid the smoke, beard crackling with barely contained energy. **"Hear me, parasite. When I tear your heart from your chest, you will watch as I use it to revive every soul you've harmed. Then I will kill you again. Slowly."**
Odin's eye narrowed. **"You desecrate Yggdrasil's order."**
**"And you're** ***boring***.**"** The biomass Lin Fan blew a raspberry. **"But hey—thanks for the warm-up. Tell Asgard… I'm coming for the buffet."**
The simulacrum dissolved, leaving only a message smeared in Accuser blood:
**"RUN."**
---
Hala's skies turned pink that night.
The Supreme Intelligence initiated **Code Omega**—the first time in millennia. Evacuation orders blared. The Kree Empire's crown jewel abandoned to the creeping horror slithering through its ventilation shafts.
Odin returned to Asgard with a storm on his brow.