Chương 68: Chapter 68: Fighting the Children of Thanos 

As expected, after the Mind Stone had unknowingly 'patched' the fundamental system of the Shadowkhan, the ninjas could now dissolve directly into shadows and return to the Dark Dimension regardless of their distance from Luke. 

This made things incredibly convenient. Luke casually scattered tens of thousands of Shadow Ninjas throughout the entire Helicarrier. 

Right now, there were literally more Shadow Ninjas hiding on the ship than the combined total of S.H.I.E.L.D. and HYDRA agents on board. 

After ensuring nearly a thousand ninjas were silently guarding Loki's holding cell, Luke finally relaxed and walked back out onto the flight deck. He was curious to see how Loki planned to escape this time. 

Stepping out into the brisk wind, Luke drew a Sling Ring portal. Several ninjas immediately walked through, carrying a luxurious lawn chair, a massive sun umbrella, and a small table loaded with snacks. 

Planting the umbrella to block the sun, Luke stretched out comfortably on the lawn chair, popping peeled grapes into his mouth. Life was good. 

He lounged comfortably for a long time until his stomach was pleasantly full. He was just starting to feel a bit drowsy when Natasha's urgent voice suddenly crackled through his earpiece. 

"Keep a close eye on Dr. Banner! Loki's target is the Hulk!" 

Luke blinked, shaking off his sleepiness. 'Right, the classic movie plot.' 

'Is the enemy ADC moving in to check the bushes?' 

Luke sat up, his senses heightening. Suddenly, a nearby Nightbat emitted a series of dark energy pulses, informing him that three technologically advanced, invisible aircraft were rapidly approaching from above. 

"Here they come!" 

Luke stood up, stretching his neck. "I choose you! Nightbats!" 

Dozens of Nightbats instantly materialized from the shadows around him. With a powerful flap of their massive wings, they shot into the sky, diving toward the incoming invisible jets. 

Simultaneously, a fourth jet suddenly decloaked directly off the starboard side of the Helicarrier, accelerating aggressively on a kamikaze trajectory aimed straight at one of the massive turbine engines. 

"What kind of suicidal nonsense is this?!" Luke didn't hesitate. He instantly condensed a highly compressed, armor-piercing javelin of pure dark energy and hurled it directly at the jet. The javelin tore through the cockpit and struck the fuel cell, violently detonating the aircraft in a massive fireball. 

"I really hope Hawkeye wasn't flying that one," Luke muttered, silently crossing himself. 

But up in the sky, things were not going as planned. A lethal, highly concentrated energy beam shot out of one of the remaining invisible jets, instantly striking a Nightbat and blowing it to pieces! The beam didn't stop; it continued downward, violently punching a massive hole straight through the Helicarrier's flight deck! 

"What the hell?!" Luke was shocked. 'Did Hawkeye get a massive, epic-tier buff or something?!' 

Before he could process the situation, a terrifying surge of cosmic energy erupted from the lead jet. A continuous, sweeping laser beam violently shredded the remaining Nightbats out of the sky. 

The beam then sliced a massive, gaping hole directly through the hull of the Helicarrier beneath them. Looking down through the jagged, smoking metal, Luke could see the rest of the Avengers gathered in the laboratory, seemingly in the middle of a heated argument. 

However, the sudden, violent explosion completely snapped them out of their Mind Stone-induced bickering. They immediately prepared for battle. Thor was the first to react, swinging Mjolnir to launch himself up through the hole and onto the flight deck. Tony followed closely behind, the 'Saturday' armor rapidly assembling around him mid-air. 

"What's the situation?!" Tony demanded, landing next to Luke. 

Luke simply pointed up at the three hostile jets circling above them. 

Seeing the jets breaking formation, Tony's shoulder pods opened. A swarm of micro-missiles locked onto the targets and fired. 

Two of the jets were instantly blown out of the sky. However, the third jet—the one that had fired the devastating laser beam—suddenly launched a highly advanced, thermal-decoy arrow that successfully diverted all of Tony's remaining missiles. 

"I seriously need to install localized AI guidance systems on every single one of my micro-missiles," Tony complained in exasperation, watching his ordinance explode uselessly in the distance. 

Just then, the cargo ramp of the surviving jet dropped open, and two tall, terrifyingly alien figures plummeted toward the Helicarrier. 

Luke obviously wasn't going to let them land safely. He immediately summoned dozens of Nightbats. 

The Nightbats swooped down, unleashing a barrage of kinetic light-beams while simultaneously physically diving to intercept Proxima Midnight and Corvus Glaive mid-air. 

Tony prepared to fly up and engage them, but Luke stopped him. Even with the AllSpark's upgrades, the Mark VI's armor plating couldn't withstand a direct hit from Proxima's spear. Luke ordered Tony to intercept Hawkeye's jet instead. 

Turning his attention back to the aerial skirmish, Luke watched the two Black Order generals with narrowed eyes. The aliens were incredibly agile, effortlessly dodging the kinetic beams mid-air and brutally slashing the Nightbats into ribbons of dark mist with their legendary weapons. 

Luke quickly gauged their combat capabilities. They were incredibly lethal, but primarily close-quarters fighters. 

"You're on support," Luke ordered Thor. The Asgardian prince had finally awakened his true divine power; he was more than capable of playing crowd control. 

Without waiting for Thor's response, Luke focused on the shadow army waiting directly beneath the falling aliens' trajectory. 

The moment Corvus Glaive and Proxima Midnight touched down on the deck, the shadows beneath their feet violently erupted. Dozens of Razor Claws lunged forward, thrusting their serrated katanas in a deadly, synchronized ambush. 

Corvus Glaive's reflexes were terrifying. He spun his massive, double-bladed glaive in a blinding arc, effortlessly shattering every single incoming katana and violently pushing the assassins back. 

Proxima Midnight reacted instantly, slamming the butt of her three-pronged spear into the deck. A massive, concussive wave of cosmic energy exploded outward, instantly obliterating every shadow construct within a fifty-meter radius. 

But Luke wasn't done. 

Massive, five-meter-tall Troll Ninjas materialized directly behind the two aliens, swinging their boulder-sized fists with devastating force. Simultaneously, more Razor Claws emerged from the Trolls' shadows, moving in a blur of motion, aiming lethal strikes directly at the aliens' throats. 

Corvus Glaive displayed incredibly terrifying combat proficiency and superhuman agility. He didn't try to block the Trolls' massive punches. Instead, he fluidly dodged between their strikes, his glaive flashing with deadly precision, effortlessly decapitating the massive Trolls one by one. 

Proxima Midnight charged her spear, spinning it rapidly to unleash a continuous, sweeping laser beam that sliced the surrounding Razor Claws entirely in half. 

The tactical pouch on Luke's waist suddenly clicked open. A 'One-Million Point' Dark Energy Crystal automatically flew out, dissolving and morphing into a massive, pitch-black shield just in time to block a lethal, concentrated laser blast fired by Proxima. 

Thor roared, hurling Mjolnir directly at Corvus. 

To Thor's absolute shock, Corvus didn't dodge. He swung his glaive, striking the legendary Uru hammer head-on! The resulting shockwave nearly shattered the deck, but Corvus's blade completely stopped Mjolnir's momentum, knocking the hammer back to Thor. 

Catching Mjolnir, Thor's eyes widened in sheer horror as he noticed a deep, visible scratch etched into the indestructible Uru metal! 

Luke ignored the grieving Asgardian. He checked his energy reserves and frowned deeply. 

He was genuinely shocked. Proxima's spear, forged from a dying star, was incredibly powerful. Just blocking that single laser blast had consumed hundreds of thousands of Energy Points from the crystal shield! 

Luke sighed. He only had about fifty crystals left in his tactical pouch. At this rate, the pouch could only block a couple hundred attacks. 

'I definitely need to buy a bigger tactical fanny pack next time,' Luke thought practically. 1

Suddenly, a deafening screech of tearing metal echoed across the deck. Luke looked over and saw that Proxima's stray laser blasts had completely severed the structural supports of the Helicarrier's primary portside command bridge. The massive structure was groaning, slowly beginning to tip over the edge! 

"Thor! Go stabilize that bridge before it falls! I'll finish these two off!" 

Luke grabbed his tactical pouch and violently hurled it into the air. 

He intentionally shattered the remaining fifty crystals inside. 

Instantly, FIVE HUNDRED MILLION Energy Points violently erupted, completely saturating the air with a terrifying, absolute darkness that seemed to swallow all light and hope in the vicinity. 

Without a moment's hesitation, Luke dove directly into the swirling maelstrom of dark energy. 

Fusing perfectly with the raw, chaotic power, Luke underwent a terrifying, instantaneous transformation into his True Dimensional Demon God form. 

'Kamar-Taj's warning wards should be able to hold out for a few minutes before the Ancient One gets too annoyed, right?' 

Feeling the sheer, incomprehensible, world-breaking physical power coursing through his colossal demonic body, Luke suddenly understood why so many hyper-powerful beings in the Marvel Universe preferred to settle things with their fists. 

Because right now, he really, really wanted to punch something! 

Looking down at Proxima and Corvus—who were currently staring at the towering, five-meter-tall demon in absolute, bewildered terror—a terrifying, jagged smile stretched across Luke's face. 

With a powerful thrust of his massive bat-wings, Luke launched himself directly at them. 

Corvus Glaive, ever the hardened veteran, was the first to recover from the shock of the 'Boss entering Phase 2.' He roared, thrusting his legendary glaive directly at the incoming demon. 1

Luke didn't dodge. His razor-sharp claws, glowing with condensed, lethal dark energy, reached out and grabbed the glowing blade of the glaive bare-handed! 

Corvus's eyes widened in vicious triumph. His glaive possessed virtually zero ranged capabilities, but it was arguably the sharpest weapon in the universe. It could effortlessly slice through atoms! 

He fully expected the blade to effortlessly shear through the demon's hand and continue forward to decapitate him. 

But as Luke's claws clamped down on the blade, Corvus's expression instantly froze. 

What a joke! 

Your weapon can split atoms? That's cute. But this body isn't made of atoms! It is entirely composed of ultra-dense, continuously cycling dimensional energy! You can split an atom, but you can't sever a continuous flow of raw magical power! 

Luke sneered down at the stunned alien. While gripping the glaive with one hand, Luke reached his other massive claw directly toward Corvus's chest, aiming to rip his heart out. 

Suddenly, a lethal, concentrated laser beam fired by Proxima struck Luke's reaching arm. 

The highly destructive cosmic energy violently reacted with the dark energy, instantly annihilating Luke's entire forearm! 

"Looks like your wife doesn't want you to have a quick death." 

Since he didn't have a hand anymore, Luke simply morphed the stump of his arm into a massive, blunt battering ram. He violently slammed the dark energy stump directly into Corvus's chest, instantly blasting a massive, gaping hole completely through the alien's torso! 

Simultaneously, tendrils of pitch-black dark energy shot out from Luke's severed arm, violently burrowing into Corvus's ruined body. Like a swarm of ravenous, flesh-eating ants, the dark energy rapidly consumed and assimilated every single cell, bone, and drop of blood it touched. 

"ARGGGHHH!" 

Even as a hardened veteran of countless cosmic wars who had suffered unimaginable injuries, Corvus Glaive shrieked in absolute, agonizing torment as his body was slowly, painfully erased from existence. 

Luke felt absolutely zero pity. He intensified the dark energy output, completely obliterating Corvus until absolutely nothing remained. 

"Your turn. Go join your husband," Luke said, his severed forearm already perfectly regenerated. He casually tossed Corvus's legendary glaive—which was completely immune to the dark energy corrosion—to the side. 

Proxima Midnight's face was twisted in absolute, hateful fury. She realized she and Corvus had been completely set up! 

Hawkeye had assured them that the anomaly known as Luke relied entirely on summoning vast quantities of weak, 'cannon fodder' minions. He had explicitly failed to mention that the anomaly possessed a True Demon God form with terrifying, world-breaking physical combat capabilities! 

Proxima gripped her spear tightly with both hands. A blinding, terrifying surge of cosmic energy enveloped the entire weapon. With a furious roar, she violently hurled the spear directly at Luke like a javelin. 

As it flew through the air, the spear miraculously split into three distinct, hyper-lethal beams of homing cosmic light! 

Sensing the apocalyptic energy contained within the three projectiles, Luke's eyes narrowed. He instantly drew a massive Sling Ring portal in front of him, intending to redirect them into the sun. 

But the three light-spears miraculously adjusted their trajectories, smoothly flying around the portal, locking onto Luke's energy signature! 

Left with no other option, Luke rapidly withdrew several more heavy pouches of Dark Energy Crystals from his inventory, violently crushing them into dust. 

An immense, hyper-dense cloud of dark energy violently expanded outward, the sheer density of the magical power actively distorting the fabric of reality and nearly collapsing the Sling Ring portal. 

The three cosmic light-spears violently collided with the wall of absolute darkness. 

Deafening, rapid-fire explosions echoed across the deck as the cosmic energy violently reacted with the dark energy. Slowly, agonizingly, the light-spears were ground down, eventually fizzling into nothingness. The original, physical spear clattered harmlessly to the deck. 

"That was incredibly close," Luke muttered, wiping a bead of sweat from his demonic brow. He hadn't expected the spear—forged from the core of a dying star—to possess such an utterly terrifying burst output. 

However, it was still inferior to the true, sustained power of a star. Blocking the attack had consumed several hundred million Energy Points from Luke's crystal reserves, but it had successfully neutralized the threat. 

"This is exactly why you always dive the ADC first in a team fight!" 

Luke casually kicked the spear away as it attempted to magically fly back to its master. He violently lunged at Proxima Midnight. Before the stunned, defenseless alien could even react, Luke brutally grabbed her and physically tore her body into several pieces, instantly assimilating her remains with dark energy. 

"Honestly, I wanted to enjoy a fun, physical brawl, but I definitely need to be more careful next time. I can't let my power go to my head," Luke muttered to himself, reverting back to his human form to save energy. 

He turned around and noticed something incredibly bizarre. 

Floating faintly in the air directly above Corvus's discarded glaive was a translucent, spectral silhouette. 

A ghost? 

Luke frowned in confusion and walked closer. The silhouette was undeniably a spectral projection of Corvus Glaive, its eyes tightly closed. 

"Ah, right. I remember now. The lore said as long as his blade remains intact, he can infinitely resurrect himself," Luke recalled. "But since I completely erased his physical body from existence, the Law of Conservation of Energy dictates he's going to need a massive amount of external energy and biomass to actually rebuild a physical form." 

Luke carefully picked up the glaive. Channeling a tiny pulse of dark energy into the blade, he could clearly feel the distinct, deeply ingrained soul signature of Corvus Glaive residing within the metal. 

Luke felt a massive headache coming on. 

The thousands of magical tomes he had read in Kamar-Taj were exclusively focused on 'White Magic' and dimensional manipulation. The books had given him brilliant inspiration for upgrading his surveillance drones, but there was absolutely zero information regarding curses, necromancy, or manipulating the souls of the dead. 

Figuring out how to completely destroy a soul bound to an indestructible cosmic weapon was going to be incredibly tedious. 

For now, the ghost was completely harmless. Luke simply ordered two Shadow Ninjas to carefully pick up Corvus's glaive and Proxima's spear. Unfortunately, because both weapons possessed incredibly high-tier, active cosmic energy signatures, he couldn't safely store them in his Dark Dimension inventory without causing a volatile reaction. The ninjas would just have to carry them manually. 

Just as Luke was dusting off his hands, assuming the crisis was fully averted, the entire Helicarrier violently shuddered and began tilting precariously to the port side! 

"What's happening?!" Luke yelled into his comms. 

"The laser beam from that invisible jet severed the primary power conduits for the portside rotors! We've lost engines One and Two!" Hill's voice shouted frantically over the comms.