Ancient Battlefield

Kratos’s life signs vanished. He lay in the fighter jet’s seat with his eyes forever closed, a scorched hole no larger than two fingers wide appearing between his brows. No blood flowed out; everything had been directly vaporized into nothingness by perfectly controlled flames.

A generation’s God of War had fallen.

Having completed the act of godslaying, Kyle calmly withdrew his two fingers and gave a light flick. The golden flames dispersed from his fingertips, and wisps of green smoke slowly faded within the cabin.

After attaining a Divine Body, he had also realized that Kratos truly was at death’s door, like an aging god plagued by old ailments. Otherwise, with a physique a hundred times stronger than a human’s, coupled with divine power geared toward defense and strength enhancement, how could he have been severely injured by Myriad Tendrils?

Of course, the power of Myriad Tendrils was equally unquestionable.

It had drained all of Kyle’s physical strength and even caused Venom to fall unconscious into deep hibernation. The side effects were immense. It could only serve as a desperate trump card and could not be used as a normal combat mode.

"Master, may I handle Kratos’s corpse?" Vis asked, hopping onto Kratos’s knee.

"What do you want it for?" Kyle asked in surprise.

"The corpses of godlike beings are the finest experimental specimens. We can try to uncover the secret of the power source within divine bloodlines, or transform him into a semi-mechanical Artificial God." Vis’s mechanical eyes kept rotating, casting red laser beams as it scanned Kratos’s body from head to toe.

It was a mechanical lifeform born from the semi-intelligent Jarvis. Its system seemed to have absorbed Howard’s madness for scientific research, giving it an intense interest in anything worth studying.

"Research is fine, but put the matter of turning him into an Artificial God weapon on hold for now," Kyle said with a nod.

He still held a certain degree of respect for Kratos. This was treatment none of his previous dead enemies had ever received.

Kratos was the most difficult opponent Kyle had ever faced. The other man knew the secret of how Kyle had become a god after World War I, and their positions in the Duel Arena had been clear: a fight to the death.

Rather than keep a God of War who could offer no loyalty and was difficult to control, it was better to kill him and be done with it.

After Vis preserved Kratos’s corpse in the fighter jet’s freezing compartment, it left the cabin with Kyle and came to the barren land outside.

The Eagle Fighter Jet had exhausted its energy fuel, and its body had been damaged in many places during the emergency landing. It had clearly lost all ability to continue interstellar travel.

Kyle directly drew a card, turning the Eagle Fighter Jet into a card and returning it to Card Space. Standing atop a small hill, he looked around and saw a lifeless, silent wilderness stretching before him.

There was not a trace of green from trees or grass. Everything was brown gravel and dust, quieter and more deathly still than Earth’s deserts.

"Gravity is 1.2 times that of Earth. Oxygen in the atmosphere is scarce, and all forms of elemental energy are chaotic. This is not a planet suitable for life," Vis reported softly.

Kyle nodded in agreement. Yet despite wearing no spacesuit or other protective gear, only Earth’s casual attire of a leather jacket and jeans, he showed no sign of discomfort.

Godlike beings could survive in any harsh environment. Even in the vacuum of space, they could remain at ease by relying on divine power.

It could be said that godlike beings were not the strongest creatures in the universe, but they were certainly one of the world’s most perfectly evolved races.

Two antennae rose from Vis’s head, and a string of garbled characters flashed through its mechanical eyes. It suddenly relayed information that surprised Kyle. "Master, radio wave detection has found two living beings roughly ten kilometers to our left."

"Living beings on an uninhabitable planet?" Kyle rubbed his chin, lifted Vis from the ground into his hand, and leaped down the hill. Landing on level ground, he extended a hand and waved it forward.

An Item Card quickly emerged and landed on the ground ahead, materializing into a retro twin-engine motorcycle. Its rugged, domineering appearance and elegantly curved metal body exuded a sense of craftsmanship. It had likewise been made and modified by Howard.

It had been built during the campaign against Hydra with Captain America, but Steve’s motorcycle had self-destructed during the assault on a Hydra base. Kyle’s, however, had remained preserved in Card Space to this day.

Kyle straddled the motorcycle and inserted the key to start it. Vis transformed into mechanical sunglasses and settled on his nose, displaying a three-dimensional navigation route on the inner surface of the lenses leading straight to the destination ten kilometers away.

Kyle quickly twisted his wrist and revved the engine a few times. The rear wheel immediately spun, the engine roared like thunder, and a spray of sand and stones shot out behind it.

Like a wild horse breaking free of its reins, the motorcycle accelerated into the wilderness ahead. After a drifting tailspin, it adjusted its direction and sped away in a cloud of dust.

On the desolate planet devoid of all signs of life, the surface was dry, dark-brown earth, with hills standing alone like graves.

Vroooom!

The speeding motorcycle suddenly shattered the silence with a violent roar, sweeping across the endless wilderness and kicking up billowing dust.

Crunch!

The wheels crushed something brittle beneath them. Kyle frowned slightly. On the ground ahead, dust covered heaps of bones belonging to all manner of unknown creatures.

Some were the skeletal frames of enormous beasts as large as hills. Some were humanoid skulls five meters tall. Others were the pale bones of malformed creatures less than half the size of humans…

Most of these bones were buried beneath the earth and gravel, revealing only the tip of the iceberg. Who knew how many more had accumulated below? It was as if the constant flow of blood from countless creatures had soaked the land for years, turning the once-brown soil into an everlasting dark red.

"Kratos wasn’t wrong. This is an Ancient Battlefield where higher races fought to seize sovereignty over the universe," Kyle murmured.

Only a large-scale war between races in the universe could turn an entire planet into a battlefield, leaving corpses scattered for thousands of miles and blood flowing like rivers.

And now, which higher race ruled this region of the universe? The answer was obvious: Asgard of the Heavenly Realm, the lineage of the Norse Gods!

"Asgard…" Kyle muttered as he pondered. A cursor floated before his eyes on the inner surface of Vis’s sunglasses, reminding him that he had approached the location where the biological signals had previously been detected.

"We’ve arrived at the location, but just ten seconds ago, the life signs of both biological entities disappeared at the same time," Vis warned.

Kyle nodded to show he understood and continued riding forward. Soon, he stopped before two corpses locked in close-range confrontation and pushed his sunglasses up onto his forehead in surprise.

One of the corpses was a humanlike young soldier clad in silver armor and holding a longsword. His blood-smeared face still retained an expression of resolve and decisiveness.

The other corpse was a three-headed monster two or three times larger and stronger. It stood on two legs, its twisted features grotesquely ugly, while a trident was clenched in its massive hand.

Their weapons had both pierced the other’s body completely. Though they had lost all life, their blood was still flowing downward. Clearly, they had been locked in a prolonged death match and had only just perished together.