Chương 113: Chapter 113: Keeping a Pet Hamster 

Luke hadn't even had a moment to fully process the fact that he had just successfully employed the daughter of Galactus before he watched her literally swallow a massive handful of hyper-compressed Dark Energy Crystals whole. A look of absolute, profound bliss spread across her flawless face. 

"Did that fill you up?" Luke asked curiously. 

"Um... not exactly. I'd say I'm roughly ten percent full now? But it definitely relieved a massive amount of the gnawing hunger!" Galacta smiled, closing her eyes to savor the aftertaste of the pure dark energy. 

"Wow, you really have quite the appetite," Luke noted, genuinely surprised. 

The handful of highly compressed crystals he had just given her contained a total of over one hundred million Energy Points. And that astronomical amount of raw cosmic energy only made her ten percent full?! 

Hiss... I sincerely hope she doesn't literally eat me out of house and home. 

Seeing the sheer, unadulterated happiness on Galacta's face, Luke shook his head helplessly. This poor girl has had a rough life. She's this ecstatic over only being a tenth of the way full? 

After a moment's hesitation, Luke reached into his pocket dimension and pulled out a massive, heaping pile of Dark Energy Crystals, piling them on the coffee table in front of her. 

"Well, I can't have my first official employee working on an empty stomach. Eat up until you're actually full," Luke pushed the pile toward her. 

Galacta's eyes lit up with sheer joy. She eagerly grabbed a handful of the incredibly dense crystals and tossed them directly into her mouth. 

The sound of her happily crunching on the solid energy crystals was incredibly loud, resembling someone chewing on handfuls of gravel. It made Luke's teeth ache just listening to it. However, seeing how incredibly appetizing she made it look, Luke actually felt a strange urge to try one. 

"So... what exactly does raw dark energy taste like? What's the texture?" Luke asked, genuinely unable to imagine it. 

"Hmm... Dark energy, huh? It tastes sort of like..." Galacta paused, chewing thoughtfully. "It's highly reminiscent of raw Cludian ore, lightly dusted with the atmospheric particles of the ninth planet in the Eilevi System. It has a very distinct, earthy crunch!" 

??? 

How exactly does a flavor profile get that incredibly complex and obscure?! 

Watching her happily munching away, Luke's curiosity got the better of him. He summoned a single, small Dark Energy Crystal into his palm, hesitated for a second, and popped it into his own mouth. 

It literally tastes like absolutely nothing. 

Luke attempted to bite down on the crystal. However, the moment the crystal's dense outer shell fractured, a massive, highly unstable burst of pure, raw dark energy violently erupted! 

PFFT! 

Luke instantly spat the violent energy blast out of his mouth like a dragon breathing black fire. 

"Whoa!" Galacta jumped slightly, startled by the sudden eruption. But then, looking at the massive cloud of highly concentrated dark energy floating in the air, she licked her lips hungrily. 

She took a deep, powerful breath, instantly inhaling the entire massive cloud of volatile energy directly into her lungs, swallowing it alongside another handful of solid crystals from the table. 

"Ugh, that feels awful," Luke groaned, feeling residual, highly charged dark energy clinging to his skin and clothes. He stood up and vigorously shook himself like a wet dog. 

As he shook, small, localized clouds of excess dark energy drifted off his body. Interestingly, the dark energy naturally condensed and briefly formed small, shadowy silhouettes resembling him before dissipating. 

Luke found this slightly amusing. He mentally commanded the shadowy silhouettes to perform a few synchronized martial arts poses. 

Instantly, Galacta lunged forward, opening her mouth wide and casually inhaling the performing shadow-clones like spaghetti! 

Hiss. 

Seeing a beautiful girl casually slurp up shadowy effigies of himself sent a highly involuntary, profound shiver down Luke's spine. 

"Is... is this exactly how you typically 'clean up' the Dimensional Demons and alien invaders?" Luke asked cautiously. 

"Yep! It's highly efficient!" Galacta replied cheerfully, her casual acceptance of the horrific act highlighting a severe lack of proper parental guidance. 

Seriously, Galactus! Look at your daughter! You didn't even teach her basic food hygiene or sterilization protocols before eating extra-dimensional parasites?! 

Galacta was completely oblivious to Luke's internal panic. She was currently experiencing something truly miraculous: for the first time since she left her father to wander the cosmos, she was actually experiencing the sensation of being completely full. 

Unlike her father, Galactus, who indiscriminately devoured entire, populated planets to satiate his hunger, Galacta currently possessed enough willpower to perfectly suppress her instincts. However, regardless of her self-control, her mere identity as the 'Daughter of the Devourer' terrified planetary rulers so profoundly that they universally rejected her asylum requests. 

Eventually, she had arrived on Earth. Because the planet lacked a unified, singular authority figure to formally banish her, she simply decided to secretly settle down. She sustained herself entirely by hunting and devouring the numerous hostile aliens and extra-dimensional entities drawn to Earth's unique magical nexus. 

However, these entities were incredibly cunning and excellent at hiding. Her diet consisted of sporadic, tiny snacks—eating one minor demon avatar every three years. It was impossible for her to ever truly feel full. 

Furthermore, the Dimensional Lords rarely expended significant amounts of energy projecting their avatars to Earth. Firstly, massive energy spikes were easily detected by the Sorcerer Supreme. Secondly, expending vast amounts of energy with a high probability of failure was simply a terrible return on investment for the demons. 

Luke watched Galacta happily finish the pile of crystals and breathed a quiet sigh of relief. 

Okay, it takes roughly two billion Energy Points for a single meal to completely fill her up. Assuming she eats three meals a day, that's roughly six billion points daily. I generate twenty billion passively. I can easily afford this. 

However, since I'm officially paying her a highly competitive salary, I absolutely need to put her to work! 

Luke rubbed his chin, evaluating his new employee. Since her raw power was easily sufficient to casually devour the avatars of Dimensional Lords, he decided her primary job would be to systematically exterminate every single parasitic demon currently hiding on Earth. 

But how exactly were they going to locate these deeply hidden demonic avatars? 

Oh, right! The sorcerers at Kamar-Taj literally specialize in tracking extra-dimensional incursions! 

Wasting no time, Luke drew a Sling Ring portal. He and Galacta stepped through, arriving directly outside the Ancient One's private pavilion in Kamar-Taj. 

Leading the highly curious Galacta inside, Luke found the Ancient One sitting calmly at her desk, surrounded by a massive pile of ancient scrolls, meticulously transcribing and verifying texts. 

"Oh? Transcribing forbidden knowledge again?" Luke asked, casually picking up a scroll and unrolling it. He immediately recognized the highly complex, inherently malicious runic structures of dark magic. 

"These are highly classified texts regarding advanced dark magic from the Asgardian Royal Archives. Odin generously gifted them to our sanctuary two days ago," the Ancient One stated without looking up. 

Luke nodded. He scanned the scroll for a few seconds and realized it primarily detailed highly complex, convoluted magical techniques for stabilizing massive dark energy arrays and preventing the corrosive energy from destroying the caster. 

This is completely useless to me, Luke realized. To ordinary sorcerers, dark energy is a volatile, highly aggressive force that must be carefully controlled. To me, it's basically a loyal, perfectly obedient puppy. 

After glancing at it for two seconds, the scroll was smoothly snatched out of his hands by the Ancient One and placed on the 'verified' pile. She was meticulously reviewing every single scroll to ensure they didn't contain any hidden traps, corrupted knowledge, or subtle mental compulsions embedded by Dimensional Demons before allowing them to be placed in the Grand Library. 

Several senior disciples entered the pavilion, respectfully gathered the verified scrolls, and carried them toward the Library. 

Once the desk was clear, the Ancient One finally looked up and noticed Galacta. 

"Allow me to introduce my newest employee," Luke quickly intervened. "This is Galacta, the daughter of Galactus. She is currently working for me. I intend to establish a joint operation with Kamar-Taj to systematically locate and permanently eradicate all hostile dimensional avatars currently hiding on Earth." 

The Ancient One nodded slowly. "Indeed, Earth is constantly plagued by the minor incursions of countless Dimensional Lords. However, they are incredibly insidious and adept at concealment. Kamar-Taj possesses the capability to generally track their localized presence, but precisely isolating and eliminating them without causing collateral damage is highly difficult." 

"I can flawlessly perceive and track their unique energy signatures!" Galacta chimed in eagerly. "Furthermore, over the past few centuries, I have already successfully... uh... 'eliminated' numerous avatars on this planet!" 

The Ancient One didn't even blink at Galacta carefully avoiding the word 'eaten.' Frankly, as long as the parasitic Dimensional Lords were permanently eradicated from Earth, she didn't care if Galacta ate them raw, boiled them in a stew, or deep-fried them. In fact, if Galacta requested it, the Ancient One would happily conjure a magical spatula to help her cook them! 

Regarding Galacta's terrifying lineage, the Ancient One wasn't particularly concerned. 

As the daughter of Galactus, Galacta was essentially a significantly scaled-down, 'lite' version of the Devourer. In this specific cinematic universe, the power scaling was relatively balanced. The Ancient One and Odin working together possessed more than enough raw cosmic power to successfully repel a starving Galactus. Therefore, Galacta's current threat level was entirely manageable. 

(Author's Note: To maintain narrative balance within this MCU-adjacent setting, Galacta's base power level is roughly equivalent to Luke's raw physical strength without utilizing his Dark Energy Crystals. However, her power will scale significantly as Luke continues to 'feed' her, as she is technically still in her developmental phase). 

Luke nodded in satisfaction. With this partnership established, the persistent threat of Dimensional Demons would be permanently neutralized! 

The Ancient One's supreme magical barrier—anchored by the Time Stone and the three Sanctums—prevented the Dimensional Lords from physically entering the material plane in their true forms. Under her absolute vigilance, their minor avatars couldn't cause any widespread, catastrophic damage. 

But now, with Galacta acting as a highly motivated, cosmic predator actively hunting those avatars for snacks? Earth was about to experience an absolute, 100% eradication rate of all demonic incursions! 

After finalizing the operational details with the Ancient One, Luke led Galacta out of the pavilion, intending to head toward the primary defensive nexus of Kamar-Taj to begin their hunt. 

However, their progress was immediately halted. 

"How are you hungry again already?!" Luke stared in utter exasperation. 

Galacta was currently standing completely paralyzed in the middle of the street, her eyes locked onto a busy food stall, drooling profusely. 

Why in the name of all that is holy did I decide to build a fast-food street directly outside the Sorcerer Supreme's window?! 

Oh right. I did it specifically to annoy and tempt the Ancient One... and she retaliated by dropping a mountain of priceless historical artifacts on my desk to appraise. Karma is brutal. 

"Ugh... the Tapeworm's digestive efficiency is simply too high! It completely absorbed all that pure energy you gave me!" Galacta complained, her stomach growling audibly. 

The primary reason she had abandoned her father and wandered the cosmos was to desperately seek a cure or method to safely remove the 'Cosmic Tapeworm' parasitizing her internal system. However, after centuries of searching the galaxy, she found nothing and eventually settled on Earth. 

"Cosmic Tapeworm?" Luke, whose Marvel knowledge was primarily limited to the mainstream MCU films, was completely unfamiliar with this highly obscure comic lore. 

"I have absolutely no idea what it actually is," Galacta explained miserably. "I only know that it possesses the terrifying ability to continuously absorb and process literally any form of matter or energy in the universe. The more it consumes, the more our combined strength and my insatiable hunger grows." 

Smelling the incredible, savory aroma of fried food wafting from the stalls, Galacta's tears literally began flowing from the corners of her mouth. 

"Hold on! Wipe your mouth!" Luke quickly handed her a napkin. 

Suddenly, a profound realization struck him. 

An internal, biological parasite capable of continuously devouring any form of matter or energy in the universe? 

That sounds incredibly similar to the pocket-dimension stomachs of the Flerken! 

Wait a minute... does this 'Cosmic Tapeworm' qualify as an 'Essence of Devouring'?! 

Luke's eyes widened in sheer, unadulterated excitement! 

If that's true, I don't need to hunt down Goose the Cat! Furthermore, since Galacta desperately wants this parasite removed anyway, wouldn't it be an absolutely perfect, mutually beneficial transaction?! 

Luke immediately decided to test this theory. Once they finished hunting demons today, he would return to his dimension and see if the System could extract the Tapeworm's essence! 

However, looking at Galacta, who was currently completely immobilized by the smell of fried noodles, Luke sighed heavily. 

"Alright, fine. We'll eat first, then work. Since it's your first official day on the job, we'll have a proper welcome feast!" 

Luke firmly grabbed her hand and led her down the busy food street, rapidly purchasing massive quantities of various snacks and street food. 

Because standard Earth food contained virtually zero cosmic energy, it was physically impossible for it to actually satiate her. If ordinary food could fill her up, Luke wouldn't bother conquering dimensions; he'd just dump massive amounts of cheap street food into the Dark Dimension and watch his energy skyrocket! 

To solve this, Luke casually sprinkled handfuls of highly compressed Dark Energy Crystals directly into her food like salt, watching her happily devour the magically enhanced meals. 

Watching Galacta happily stuffing her cheeks with food, Luke felt a bizarre, highly domestic illusion wash over him. 

I feel like I've just adopted a highly energetic, incredibly destructive pet hamster. 

He felt a sudden, profound urge to reach out and gently pet her smooth, dark hair. 

Cough. 

Maintain professionalism. Suppress inappropriate urges. 

Luke cleared his throat, waiting patiently for his cosmic hamster to finish her meal before dragging her toward the defensive nexus. 

Given how incredibly fast that Tapeworm digests energy, we need to hurry. If we don't start working immediately, she's going to get hungry again, and we'll literally never leave this food street today.