Chapter 65: I Am the Chosen Fate of This Universe!

"I knew you'd come. You had to come."

Loki had just blasted Hawkeye and Natasha away with a burst of energy. He now stared at the man who crossed half the Earth in a single step, a sinister smirk creeping onto his face.

Martin cast a casual glance around the battlefield.

His eyes met Natasha's, just for a moment. That was all it took. Her face drained of color. The feeling was suffocating, like a wild beast had locked eyes on her. Just that gaze, nothing more, nearly shattered her.

This was the fundamental difference between a god and a human.

Martin walked forward slowly, unhurriedly, until he stood directly before Loki.

"Even if you're a god… there's no escaping the control of the Infinity Stones!" Loki raved, teetering on the edge of madness, consumed by fury and hate.

He didn't move, yet with a soft click, another Loki appeared behind Martin and thrust a scepter toward his chest.

The Loki who had just been speaking flickered and vanished into mist.

A clever illusion.

But that was all it was.

Loki's expression twisted. The snarl on his face froze, then drained into blank confusion, then growing horror.

"…How…?" he whispered. "Why isn't it working?"

Martin looked down at him, face unreadable.

Crack!

With a motion like swatting a fly, Martin seized Loki's wrist, and snapped it clean with a single twist. The bones shattered with a sickening pop.

"You thought everyone was as stupid as you?"

He stepped closer, his voice cold and biting.

"You thought everyone was trapped by the same rules as you?"

The energy surging from Martin's body was terrifying, paralyzing even. The very air seemed to freeze. Even Loki, born of Asgard and raised among gods, felt a chill creep into his bones. For Natasha and Hawkeye, mere mortals, it was overwhelming.

The ground beneath Martin's feet began to fracture, disintegrating into microscopic particles. Across all of New York, people felt it, an invisible, godlike pressure, and trembled under its weight.

"You're just Thanos' lapdog," Martin said with a hollow chuckle. "To me, you're not even that."

With a flick of his wrist, he ripped the Scepter of the Mind from Loki's grasp.

"You… why aren't you affected by the Scepter?" Loki clutched his broken arm, stumbling back, a grimace twisting his face. "You shouldn't understand its power. I looked into your background, you were born on Earth, raised in some backwater region. You never even had access to cosmic secrets. So how...?"

Martin looked down at the scepter now in his hand, slowly analyzing the raw energy it radiated, the ultimate psychic force it housed. A faint look of fascination crossed his face.

The Mind Stone. The cosmic embodiment of all mental power in this universe. With it came ultimate authority over thought, emotion, and perception, power over the mind itself.

Indeed, those who wield an Infinity Stone and fully master it, stand on the summit of their chosen path, as absolute entities. It was intoxicating… overwhelming… divine.

And now…

"From this moment on, the Mind Stone belongs to me."

With a light twist of his hands, Martin snapped the Scepter in two. The metal splintered like dry wood. Then, without hesitation, he reached out and tore the glowing gem from its head, barehanded.

Loki's eyes lit up for a brief moment, and a maniacal smile curled his lips.

He could almost see Martin being vaporized in a blaze of divine backlash.

"You're finished," Loki sneered. "Just because you resisted the Scepter doesn't mean you can touch the Infinity Stones directly! Even a Skyfather-tier being risks death doing that!"

A blinding surge of golden light exploded from Martin's palm.

It swept across the globe in an instant.

Every living thing touched by the strange radiance felt it, as though an invisible hand had passed through their minds, scouring them clean. Confusion vanished. Noise disappeared. What was left was… clarity. A terrifying, unnatural stillness.

On the other side of the world, Professor X gasped. His mutant senses screamed. The pulse of psychic energy was beyond comprehension.

"Martin! You have to control it! Unchecked mental power is more dangerous than any weapon! One mistake and millions could lose their free will!"

Charles Xavier tried to reach out psychically, but his telepathy was shut out, completely. He couldn't even sense Martin anymore.

All he could do was shout, powerless.

But Martin wasn't listening.

He was studying the stone intently, as if lost in a trance. Experiencing its essence. Savoring its power.

It was his first time… touching an Infinity Stone.

And he was doing it with his bare hands.

Which had unleashed a mindstorm, a cataclysmic psychic eruption felt across the entire planet.

"The Infinity Stones… shortcuts to cosmic supremacy in any single universe," Martin murmured. "I never needed a shortcut. But I won't let anyone else use one, either."

If he wasn't walking that path, then he'd make sure no one else could.

The mental storm began to calm.

Martin clenched the Mind Stone in his fist, eyes closed, breathing steady. He was learning, adapting. His thoughts reached out to the gem, intertwining. He was mastering it, imposing his will on a force no mortal should possess.

At last, silence.

The storm had ended.

And only one figure remained at its epicenter.

Martin, standing alone, the Mind Stone glowing in his hand.

"From now on," he said, his voice echoing across the world, "Destiny has a new name."

"I am the one chosen by fate."

I am the destiny of this universe.

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