A mischievous smile curved the corner of his lips.
"And now, it's time to witness a miracle."
He released his hand. The Tesseract continued to float serenely before him.
He snapped his fingers at the cube.
Snap!
A crisp sound.
The next second, utterly bizarre events began occurring in rapid succession!
...
Helicarrier, Bridge Command Center.
Nick Fury was holding a cup of scalding black coffee—no sugar, no cream—listening to Hill's report.
Suddenly, the weight in his hand felt... different?
He looked down, pupils contracting.
The bitter black liquid in his cup had somehow transformed into a milky white drink giving off a rich coconut aroma.
There was even a little umbrella stuck on the rim, radiating Hawaii vibes.
"...What?"
Director Fury began to wonder if sleep deprivation was causing hallucinations.
...
Clint Barton was practicing archery at the training range, drawing his bow.
He aimed at the bullseye a hundred meters away and released.
Whoosh—!
The arrow flew from the string.
But what shot out wasn't his specially-made carbon fiber arrow.
It was a freshly grilled Frankfurt sausage, still steaming and glistening with oil!
The sausage traced an extremely bizarre, wobbly parabola, flew about thirty feet, and splat—dropped to the ground.
Hawkeye stared at his empty bow, then at the innocent sausage on the floor, and fell into a long period of existential contemplation.
...
Thor, eating pizza with the Avengers, had his mouth open wide, about to bite into a big chunk of Hawaiian pizza.
Suddenly, he felt something extra in his beard.
He reached up and pulled out—a Hawkeye-branded custom explosive arrow!
The arrowhead was blinking with the red light of imminent detonation.
"Oh, my Odin—!"
A miserable scream echoed through Stark Tower's dining room.
...
P.E.G.A.S.U.S. Base, Laboratory.
Cloud was conducting himself like a master magician, elegantly waving his fingers.
Each wave of his hand represented a spatial substitution.
Each smile meant that somewhere in S.H.I.E.L.D., an inexplicable "paranormal incident" was occurring.
The scientists present had completely lost their minds.
They watched Cloud as if watching a god playing Tetris.
Except the blocks he was playing with were real space itself.
"That's enough! Enough, Mr. Cloud!" Dr. Banner was the first to recover. Wiping cold sweat, he rushed forward, trying to stop this prank that was about to turn all of S.H.I.E.L.D. upside down.
"If this keeps up, Director Fury's going to have a heart attack!"
"Oh? Really? No fun at all."
Cloud pouted, reluctantly ending his "spatial game."
He gave the Tesseract one last look, a glint of understanding flashing in his eyes.
Through that little game, he'd completely mastered this gem's "instruction manual."
He'd even discovered that through this stone, he could briefly open doorways to other parallel universes.
"Alright, I'm bored with this toy."
He dusted off his hands and turned his gaze to another corner of the laboratory.
There, Loki's sinister-aura-radiating Mind Scepter sat sealed in an energy-isolation container.
"Now, let's see what interesting things are hidden in this little toy."
Ignoring the "please don't touch" warning looks from the surrounding scientists, he walked straight over and grabbed the Mind Scepter.
The instant he gripped the scepter!
A cold, violent, destructive psychic force filled with absolute will surged through the scepter like a venomous snake, madly flooding into his mind!
Trying to corrupt his soul, control his consciousness!
The source of this psychic force was the scepter's true master—Thanos, far away in the depths of space!
This was a backdoor program he'd left in the scepter, used to monitor and control everyone who wielded it.
Any existence that dared resist his will would have their soul utterly crushed, transformed into his most loyal slave.
However...
Today, it encountered Cloud.
"Oh? There's a little bug hiding in here?"
In Cloud's sea of consciousness, the divine soul avatar seated upon the Dimensional Throne—composed of infinite laws—slowly opened its eyes.
That arrogant psychic force filled with destructive will, upon contact with Cloud's universe-vast "Sovereign Soul," was like a drop of scalding butter falling into a steelmaking furnace.
It couldn't even produce a wisp of smoke before being instantly vaporized, devoured, and assimilated!
"No—! This is impossible!"
"What kind of power is this?!"
From the deepest part of that psychic force came a shocked roar!
"You think you can come and go as you please? Not that easy."
Cloud's divine soul avatar curved its lips into a cold smile.
He activated the law of [Infinite Plunder]!
An even more domineering, even more unreasonable devouring force reversed course along that psychic link, spanning endless space-time, and bit viciously toward the source of that psychic force!
"My memories! My will! You're—you're devouring me!"
Far away on his throne aboard Sanctuary II, Thanos's eyes snapped open!
He felt as if someone had driven a red-hot iron poker straight into his brain!
A piercing agony radiated from the depths of his soul!
He made an instant decision, immediately severing all connections with the Mind Scepter!
But it was too late.
Cloud had already glimpsed everything from that torn-away fragment of "soul."
He saw six Infinity Stones radiating different lights, containing the universe's most fundamental laws.
He saw an obsessive, insane theory of balance: "The universe's resources are finite, but life expands infinitely."
He also saw a mad plan called "Destiny"—to eliminate half of all life in the universe.
"I see now..."
"An obsessive, self-righteous purple sweet potato trying to be the universe's family planning commissioner?"
...
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