Chapter 333. The Eternal's Astral Path
In the end, Noah delivered the trio of Eternals to a city nestled on the edge of the Australian continent: Perth. It was a place whispered of in traveler's circles as the "loneliest city in the world," a shimmering urban oasis isolated by a staggering expanse of eighteen hundred kilometers of sun-baked wilderness from any other major settlement.
Perth served as the closest metropolitan hub to Gilgamesh's former sanctuary, and more importantly, it boasted an international airport. It was for these practical reasons that Noah had chosen it as their final drop-off point.
However, as the shimmering portal closed behind them on the outskirts of the city, Ajak, Gilgamesh, and Thena found themselves facing a mundane but formidable obstacle: they possessed neither the passports nor the visas required for international travel.
Money, at least, was not an issue. Gilgamesh, despite his rugged appearance, had always been a man of principle; he hadn't stooped to looting the shops during his years of isolation, and he had a modest reserve of currency. Documentation was the true thorn. Ajak's papers remained tucked away in her residence back in the United States, while Gilgamesh and Thena lacked them entirely. When they had first set foot upon the red earth of Australia, the concept of a "passport"—let alone a jet engine—was a dream far beyond the horizon of human imagination.
Ajak turned once more to Noah, her gaze silent but pleading. Noah rubbed his chin, a faint smile playing on his lips, before delegating the task to Lissandra. For an artificial intelligence of her caliber, bypassing the labyrinthine bureaucracies of the human world was child's play. Within minutes, digital ghosts were summoned into existence, and the necessary documents were printed and authenticated, ready for the journey ahead.
With their new identities in hand, the three Eternals shared a final, somber nod of farewell with Noah before boarding a flight bound for Asia. Their primary target was Kingo, currently residing in India, after which they planned to make the long trek to London to reunite with Sersi and Sprite.
Finding Kingo would be effortless for Ajak, even without tapping into the celestial power of her sphere. Following the disbanding of their team centuries ago, Kingo had sought the brightest spotlight he could find. He had become a titan of Bollywood, a silver-screen icon whose face was plastered on billboards across the globe, his name synonymous with cinematic legend.
To an outsider, the feat seemed impossible: how could an Eternal, unchanging and ageless, spend over a century in the public eye without sparking a firestorm of suspicion?
Kingo, however, was a master of the long game. He had meticulously crafted a legend of a vast acting dynasty—a sprawling clan where the men were blessed with such uncanny resemblances that they appeared to be carbon copies of one another. Whenever he sensed the world growing too curious about his lack of wrinkles, he would simply stage a grand "retirement" for his current persona, only to emerge months later as the talented, look-alike son of the "retired" star.
Naturally, there were those who whispered about the eerie, identical features of the Kingo lineage. But through sheer charismatic talent and a heart-tugging narrative about the "power of family bloodlines," he managed to dissolve every doubt. He lived his life in the most public way possible, hiding his immortality in plain sight behind the glare of the camera flash.
Among all the scattered Eternals, Kingo had arguably carved out the most influential niche in human society. His resources and fame would be an invaluable asset for the gathering storm.
Once the Eternals had vanished into the terminal, Noah opened a golden-rimmed portal and stepped back into the familiar, bustling air of New York. The task of gathering the flock now lay with Ajak; all he had to do was wait for the pieces to fall into place.
Back in his sanctum, Noah let his mind drift to the recent sparring match with Gilgamesh. A pang of regret tightened his chest—if only he had a spare quest slot available. That clash of titans would have surely triggered a legendary reward.
He had already burned through his daily mission quota testing whether Warwick could complete objectives at a distance. Yet, as he paced the room, a spark of optimism returned. Ten Eternals, he thought, his eyes narrowing. Ten opportunities for greatness. Perhaps the system has more in store for me than I realize.
Shaking off the lingering regret, Noah turned his attention to the mountain of tasks piling up on his desk. Between the intricate modifications of his ship, the lingering shadows of HYDRA, and the elusive Reality Stone, his hands were more than full. Odin had remained silent regarding the Aether, and Nick Fury was currently knee-deep in the messy business of weeding out HYDRA's roots.
With a heavy exhale, Noah descended into the depths of his subterranean laboratory. The hum of machinery and the soft glow of monitors greeted him as he joined Lissandra to continue their work on the vessel that would one day pierce the stars.
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Meanwhile, across the desolate, frost-bitten expanses of Alaska, a creature unlike anything born of Earth's evolution came to a sudden, jarring halt.
Its massive frame was draped in a thick, mottled hide of slate-grey and dull blue, standing out like a bruise against the blinding purity of the arctic snow. Had any of the Eternals been present, they would have felt the cold chill of recognition instantly: a Deviant.
When Noah had decimated the pack near Ajak's home, he had briefly wondered why the alpha—the cunning leader he remembered from the cinematic threads of another life—had been absent. At the time, he had dismissed it as a butterfly effect, a shift in the timeline that had simply erased the beast from existence.
But the alpha was very much alive. It had clawed its way out of the permafrost alongside its wolf-like brethren and had partaken in the bloody slaughter at the drilling station.
As an alpha, it possessed gifts far beyond those of its mindless kin. It was a creature of evolution, capable of drinking in the cosmic essence of the Eternals to rewrite its own DNA. It also possessed a primal, supernatural intuition. When Ikaris had first brought Ajak to that frozen cliffside, the alpha had been watching from the lightless depths of a cave beneath the ice, its senses screaming at their presence.
It had remained motionless, a shadow within shadows, until Noah arrived.
Even though the Mirror Dimension was supposed to be a world apart, a ghostly reflection of reality, the alpha had felt an aura of such overwhelming, suffocating danger that it had frozen. Long before Noah even stepped into the rift—while he was still just a speck in the sky—the beast's instincts had flared with a panicked, primal terror.
Casting aside its loyalty to the pack, the alpha had turned and fled through a jagged tunnel in the back of the cavern. It raced through the dark, the distant, muffled thunder of Noah's power echoing behind it, confirming that its cowardice had been its salvation.
Now, miles away, the creature stood panting in the center of a white wasteland. Its breath came in ragged, steaming plumes, but its four eyes remained sharp and calculating.
It did not know how long it had been running, but it knew the immediate shadow of death had passed. Unlike its brothers, who were little more than ravenous animals, this creature possessed a burgeoning, dark intellect.
Having tasted the life force of the world and escaped the icy tomb, its singular purpose began to crystallize: to hunt.
It didn't understand why the mere thought of an Eternal sent a surge of white-hot vitriol through its veins, but the hatred was etched into its very marrow, a command written in its genetic code. The scent of them—a faint, golden hum in the air—triggered an unquenchable thirst for slaughter.
The power it had consumed was already working its wonders. Its muscles rippled and grew, its hide hardening into organic armor. More importantly, it had gained the ability to track the Eternals by their very essence, a psychic bloodhound across the vastness of the world.
The great Deviant fixed its gaze on the horizon. Somewhere out there, not far at all, one of its marks was waiting.
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