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Chapter 548: The Deep Waters and Fiery Solar System (2)

This plan may sound absurd, but in reality, its chances of success are quite high, because Earth indeed holds a treasure—the Infinity Stones.

In the original comics, even without deceitful attacks, Earth has never had a moment of peace. Various factions and individuals make appearances one after another, turning Earth into a battlefield. Most of the time, Earth gains nothing from these encounters apart from serving as a battleground.

In fact, Earth has many capable individuals, and it's their home turf, so theoretically, it shouldn't be this vulnerable. However, because every invasion comes unexpectedly, most people are ill-prepared and can only react on the spot. Superheroes are scattered and not always united, sometimes even engaging in internal conflicts, making it difficult for them to unite against external threats.

Even with Schiller's influence, most Superheroes and mutants have been united, but finding an opportunity where everyone is present isn't easy. Since the atmosphere has already been set, they can't afford to let several fleets go unchallenged.

Prepared defense and unprepared encounters are entirely different, and most Superheroes have received significant enhancements.

Stark has become the Iron Sorcerer, capable of providing backup. Symbiotes remain on Earth, allowing people to operate in a space environment. Nick Fury has more resources, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s technological prowess has greatly improved, Kamar-Taj is abundant in energy without any cost, making them more efficient in combat.

Within Earth, regular people have gone from panic to watching the spectacle after a night of chaos. World leaders are gathering to strategize on how to defend Earth against the invasion.

Outside the Solar System, the Kree escort ships that were brought back are filled with energy. With a push of the throttle, they can arrive at Earth's aid.

One could say that the timing, location, and people are all in place, and now the pressure shifts to Lady Loki.

When Lady Loki took on this mission from Stark, she never imagined the situation would evolve like this. Although she had lived with these Superheroes for a while, she mostly saw their down-to-earth side. She never expected that when Superheroes united, they could achieve such astonishing results.

However, she knows that the pressure is now on her, and if she doesn't use her God of Mischief abilities, Earth's people will underestimate Asgard.

Lady Loki also has professional aspirations. Originally, in Asgard, a place filled with brutes, she couldn't showcase her skills much, at most, she'd tease Thor a bit. After coming to Earth and undergoing comprehensive training, her professional skills improved significantly. However, deceiving ordinary humans had lost its appeal.

Lady Loki's professional ambitions are much greater. She believes that to bring out her skills and shine, she must stay up to date with the times, identify industry trends, address customer pain points, closely follow emerging scams, and revamp traditional cons.

In the original story, Lady Loki's deceit skills were already impressive, and after several self-improvements, her chances of success increased.

In this endeavor, Lady Loki's basic scam process involves first listing the technological characteristics of various interstellar civilizations that she understands. Humanity categorizes these characteristics and arranges them by priority.

Lady Loki then goes door-to-door according to priority, deceiving those she can and obtaining spaceships if necessary. For those she can't deceive, she may still acquire a spaceship, and for those completely resistant, she moves on to the next target, casting a wide net to maximize gains.

With the vastness of space and the multitude of civilizations, Lady Loki's skill and charisma entice many middle or lower-tier civilizations to invest resources and send one or two fleets to the Nine Realms.

These civilizations are mostly in the era of space exploration and colonization, with plenty of spaceships and ambitious dreams of reaching the stars. Occasionally, there are higher-level civilizations in their rule period, and they have some knowledge of Infinity Stones, so they take a gamble to see if they can benefit.

Of course, these fleets don't all go at once; they follow a priority-based order when heading to Earth.

Then, one arrives, one sinks; another arrives, another sinks.

Earth's Superheroes and mutants wait for opportunities. Polaris stays in a temporary base and, when the Portal opens and a spaceship emerges, she reaches out and severs the Portal.

Then, symbiotes lead the mutants to investigate the situation, collect materials, upload them to Stark's data center, and determine whether the technology is science and technology-oriented or magic-oriented. Afterward, they hand it over to the appropriate individuals for further handling.

While there could be more aggressive ways to engage in combat, Humanity prefers to jump in with assistance, throwing Superheroes directly onto the spaceships and capturing the crew members, then towing the spaceship away.

The captured crew members are handed over to Asgard for extradition. This isn't out of Humanity's goodwill; it's mainly to boost Asgard's reputation.

What? You're asking if Lady Loki, a pure trickster, isn't from Asgard? How does that help their reputation?

Didn't she defect? We can't control that!

Asgard is also a victim; their house has been unfortunate to produce such a rogue as Lady Loki.

Originally, we could choose not to get involved, but out of a sense of responsibility to interstellar society, we do our best to clean up after her, saving the fleet members who accidentally crash in the turbulent Solar System. This is Asgard's role as a higher civilization in the realm of space!

However, this plan, while initially effective, quickly became less so.

The races that have developed to interstellar civilizations are not foolish. They are often much smarter than Humanity and are willing to invest, essentially treating it as an investment. If the investment succeeds, everyone is happy, but if it fails, they can still bear the cost.

However, after the first wave of failed investments, they become more cautious about further investments. Meanwhile, other potential investors reevaluate the risks, and when the risks rise, most civilizations are no longer willing to invest.

Moreover, many people began to suspect if this was some kind of Asgardian scheme.

After Odin stepped down, Asgard remained quiet for a long time, refraining from interstellar conflicts. It turns out they weren't just tired of these brutes; they had finally wised up and learned to set traps by biding their time, right?

In reality, Asgard's reputation in space had always been criticized. Not because Odin was constantly in combat, but mainly because many civilizations envied their innate advantages while looking down on their brute-force style of direct, hit-and-run combat.

Many civilizations believed that if they had Asgard's conditions, they would have developed even better than Asgard. They considered themselves more strategic and mentally superior to those brutes.

The idea of Asgard's brute-force combat had become ingrained in everyone's minds. Initially, not many people realized that this might be an Asgardian trap. However, as more and more suffered losses, most civilizations began to reconsider.

The logic was also sound. Previously, under Odin's leadership, Asgard indeed relied on brute force, but it was heard that there's a new king in Asgard, and Thor's reputation wasn't as great as All-Father Odin's. Most civilizations didn't know what style of leadership Thor would bring.

Perhaps this new king was a master of conspiracy and strategy? How else could he have outmaneuvered Odin and taken the throne of Asgard?

Among these civilizations, the planners were starting to find this speculation increasingly convincing. On the surface, they sent Princess Lady Loki to defect and portrayed themselves as victims of political struggle seeking aid in the interstellar society.

Once the aid was secured, they would be taken to the Nine Realms, and behind Asgard's World Tree, New King Thor would give the signal. Three thousand axemen would immediately spring into action, and the ship that arrived would be sliced into pieces.

As for why they specifically targeted smaller civilizations, it was likely a test of the plan's viability. Haven't you noticed that Lady Loki is increasingly targeting higher-level civilizations?

The Infinity Stones were merely bait. If someone wanted to steal them, they would have to do it when Asgard was distracted. Asgard was waiting, prepared, and had laid countless traps on the road. Now, anyone who went would be a fool.

This speculation was indeed highly convincing because there was ample evidence to support it. Consequently, it quickly spread within the interstellar society.

Civilizations with good relationships started communicating and immediately blacklisted Lady Loki from their contact lists and restricted her Portal access.

Communication and transport were often interconnected among many civilizations. With more people blacklisting her, others started to inquire about what was going on, and they received similar responses and made similar choices.

As a result, Lady Loki was initially blacklisted in a few prosperous star sectors, and even star ports became inaccessible to her. Then, this range continued to expand until almost the entire interstellar society was on guard against Lady Loki.

But Lady Loki wasn't one to give up easily. If these moderately developed civilizations were blacklisting her, she would go find those of higher status. Higher civilizations should be reasonable and not misunderstand Asgard like this, right?

In space, there were only a few empires that could be considered higher civilizations. Earth had already dealt with the Kree's escort ships, but it would take another century or so to decipher their technology. The Skrull Empire was busy with conflicts against the Kree Empire, and the remaining one was too occupied with peacekeeping to pay attention to Lady Loki.

With fewer options available, Lady Loki luckily knew of a nation that was even more mysterious compared to the major Space Empires.

In a dim dimension, a dying sun hung in the center of space. When viewed from various planets, the sky appeared eerie and yellow.

A small shuttle landed on a sandy surface, kicking up fine particles of dust. Lady Loki, dressed in elegant attire, followed her guide through a long bridge and arrived at the tallest building in the city.

In the hall behind the corridor, there was a massive throne. At this moment, a purple-skinned giant was sitting on the throne, eyes closed, taking a nap.

A servant entered and announced, "Your Majesty, we have a visitor."

"Who?" the giant inquired.

"Lady Loki."

As the footsteps drew closer, a black-haired young woman stopped in the middle of the hall.

"Your Majesty Thanos, I am Lady Loki, the princess of Asgard. After being banished by the new king, I have been plotting to reclaim the Celestial Palace..."

"Stop talking. Throw her out!" a deep voice resounded through the hall.

"Wait! Your Majesty Thanos! I am serious! I come with sincerity, I... Your Majesty Thanos! Your Majesty Thanos! Listen to me, Infinity Stones... Earth... a great opportunity..."

Watching Lady Loki being escorted out by the guards, Thanos, sitting on the throne, let out a low chuckle and said, "Did she think I wouldn't browse the internet? A dead trickster."

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