Chapter 546: The Troubled Solar System (Part 3) _1

The plan sounds ludicrous, but in fact, the chances of its successful execution are very high, because the Earth does possess a treasure: the Infinity Gem.

In the original comics, even without trickery or stealth attacks, the Earth was never at peace. Various parties took turns to make their move, one after another, and in most cases, Earth was nothing more than a battleground, gaining nothing in return.

In reality, with so many capable individuals and the advantage of fighting on their home turf, Earth shouldn't have fared so poorly. However, because each invasion was so sudden, most people were unprepared. They could only react in the moment. Superheroes were scattered all over the place, their resolve wavering, occasionally clashing among themselves. They lacked the unity to deal with external enemies.

Even with Shiller's influence, most superheroes and even mutants were united. But finding a chance where everyone was present was not easy. Given the sparkling offer that has been laid out, it would be unthinkable not to crush a few fleets.

Prepared defense and counterattack are completely different from surprise skirmishes. More importantly, most superheroes have received significant upgrades.

Stark was promoted to the Iron Demon God, ready to backstop. The Symbiote stayed on Earth, ready to lead the fight in a cosmic environment. Nick Mao's funding increased, significantly enhancing S.H.I.E.L.D.'s technological expertise. Kamar-Taj was rich with energy, enabling more effective combat without any cost.

Within Earth, the common people watched a night of fireworks, their emotions gradually shifting from panic to spectatorship. Under the pressure of an invasion, leaders of various nations united, all stationed in a conference room, ready to brainstorm strategies at any moment.

Outside the Solar System, those Kree Guard Ships that had been brought back were full of energy and ready to rush to Earth's aid at the push of a pedal.

It can be said that everyone and everything is in place, and the pressure is now on Loki.

When Loki took this job from Stark, he never envisioned the situation would evolve like this. Although he has lived with these superheroes for some time, he mostly saw their approachable sides. He did not expect that when these superheroes combined, they would be so effective.

But he also knows that the pressure is now on him, if he did not put his prowess as the God of Mischief to use, the Earthlings would undoubtedly look down on Asgard.

Loki also has career aspirations. She could not reach her full potential in Asgard, home to many brutes. At most, she could play with Thor a few times. After coming to Earth and undergoing complete professional training, her skills have improved. However, deceiving ordinary humans ultimately has no meaning.

Loki's career dreams are much bigger. She believes that to deceive with style, one must keep up with the times, find the right industry focus, target customer pain points, keep up with emerging fraudulent trends, and reenergize traditional scams...

In short, in the comics, Loki's deceptions were quite successful. After several self-improvements, her chances of success were even higher.

In this matter, Loki's basic fraud process is to list the technical features of various interstellar civilizations that she has learned. Humans then categorize all the technical features and prioritize them.

Loki would then go knocking on doors according to priority. If she could deceive them, she would. If not, deceiving them into giving a spaceship would count too. If she really couldn't deceive them, she would simply move onto the next. By casting a wide net, she catches more fish.

Given the vastness of the cosmos and the multitude of civilizations, many civilizations at the middle or lower-middle tiers were willing to contribute, raising one or two fleets to the Nine Major Kingdoms, given Loki's deceptive skills and her appeal.

These civilizations are mostly in the space exploration and colonial era, with many spaceships and ambitions to reach the sky overnight. They would not stint on the cost of deploying one or two fleets.

Occasionally, there were some advanced civilizations in the ruling era. These were basically civilizations that had heard of the Infinity Gem and wanted to take a gamble to see if they could find a bargain.

Of course, these fleets did not all go together. They head for Earth according to the order of priority.

So, for each ship that went, one sank. For each ship that went, one sank.

Earth's superheroes and mutants were waiting leisurely, Polaris stationed in a temporary base. Seeing the teleportation portal open and the spaceship coming out, they simply reached out and cut off the portal.

Then, the Symbiote led the mutants to inspect the situation, collect data, upload it to Stark's data center, identify if it involves the science or magic side, and then hand it over to the respective teams.

Although they could opt for full-scale combat, in order to preserve the technological integrity of the ship, the earthlings opted for ship-jumping combat. They simply tossed the superheroes onto the ships, captured the crew alive, and then hauled away the ship.

The captured crew were extradited to Asgard. This was not out of the earthlings' kindness but a move to increase Asgard's reputation.

What? You're asking if Loki, a pure fraudster, is from Asgard? How can they boost their reputation?

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

Asgard is a victim too, having the misfortune of breeding such a miscreant in Loki who schemed and attacked.

Originally, we could have chosen to ignore it, but out of our sense of responsibility to interstellar society, we cleaned up after her as much as we could, saved the crew members of the fleet who unwittingly capsized in the perilous Solar System. This is Asgard's cosmic responsibility as a highly advanced civilization!

Of course, when this plan was first initiated, it worked reasonably well, fooling quite a few medium and lower-medium tier civilization fleets, obtaining the most research materials with the least cost. However, the approach quickly began to lose effectiveness.

Races that can develop into interstellar civilizations are not foolish, and one might even say they are smarter than humans. Their willingness to invest is essentially making an investment;if the investment succeeds, everyone will be happy. If the investment fails, they can afford the loss.

However, after their initial wave of failed investments, they adopted a watch-and-wait attitude towards future investments. At the same time, the other yet-to-invest money-holding clients would reassess the risks of this investment. When the perceived risks soared, the majority of the civilizations became unwilling to invest again.

Moreover, many of them had started to wonder, could this just be a scam set by Asgard?

After Odin's abdication, Asgard had lain dormant for a long time, refraining from waging wars. It occurred to them that it wasn't that these brutes had grown weary, instead they had finally smartened up, learning to use tricks to set traps?

In fact, Asgard's reputation throughout the cosmos has always been criticized, not necessarily because of Odin's constant warring, but mainly because many civilizations were envious of their innate advantages, while also looking down on their brutish tactics of ramming their ships straight into the enemy.

A number of civilizations believed that if they had the conditions of Asgard, they would develop far better. They saw themselves as more strategic and smarter than these brutes.

Everyone had become conditioned to Asgard's brute force tactics, so they did not initially realize this could be a trap set by Asgard. However, as the number of losers swelled, most of the civilizations began rethinking.

Logically, it made sense. Before, Asgard under Odin's leadership indeed displayed rashness. But recently, Asgard had a new king—Thor, whose reputation wasn't as great as Odin, the Father of All Gods. Most civilizations knew nothing of Thor's temperament.

Perhaps, the new king started his career through conspiracies and strategies? How else could he have outperformed Odin to become the king of Asgard?

The strategists among these civilizations found these concepts increasingly convincing. On the surface, they sent Crown Princess Loki to defect, as a victim of political strife, she sought assistance in the interstellar society.

After receiving help, she would head towards the Nine Major Kingdoms. Behind the World Tree of Asgard, when the new king Thor signalled by smashing his cup, instantly, three thousand axe-wielding soldiers would storm into battle, cutting down whatever came their way.

The reason they targeted small and medium civilizations was merely to test the feasibility of their plot: had Loki not increasingly turned to higher civilizations?

The Infinity Gem was merely bait. If anyone wanted to seize it, it had to be done when Asgard was not attentive. With Asgard being on guard, who knew how many traps they had set on the road? Anyone who ventured now would be a fool.

This speculation was indeed persuasive, as there were ample factual evidences, and the rumor quickly spread throughout the interstellar society.

Civilizations on friendly terms apprised each other, directly blacklisting Loki from their contact list and denying her access to the portal.

Communication and portals among many civilizations could be interconnected. Once the blacklist swelled, more and more people would ask, what was actually happening, then, arriving at the same conclusion, they would make the same decision.

Thus, Loki was initially blacklisted in a few prosperous star zones. She was even denied entrance to Star Ports. Subsequently, the blacklist expanded rapidly, almost the entire interstellar society was circulating it: guard against fire, theft and Loki.

Yet, Loki wasn't going to be put down so easily. If these medium-level developed civilizations blacklisted her, then she would turn to higher ones. Surely, higher civilizations would be reasonable and would not misunderstand Asgard in such way?

In the cosmos, only a handful of empires could be considered higher civilizations. Among them, Earth already had Kree's Guard Ship, which would take at least a hundred years to analyze. The Skrull Empire was busy fighting with the Kree Empire, and the remaining one was occupied with mediating, thus having no time to pay attention to Loki.

This greatly limited Loki's selection of allies. However, out of sheer opportune, Loki knew of an even more mysterious kingdom compared to the major cosmic empires.

In a gloomy dimension, a dying sun hung at the cosmic center. As seen from all other planets, the night sky was dim and yellowish.

A small shuttle landed on the sandy ground, raising fine dust around. Dressed in a grand gown, Loki followed her chaperone, crossing a long bridge to enter the tallest building in the city.

In the middle of the hall beyond the corridor, there was a massive throne, on which sat a purple-skinned titan, eyes closed in a light snooze.

A servant came in to report, "Your Majesty, a visitor has come."

"Who?"

"Loki."

Accompanied by an increasingly audible footfall, the black-haired girl stood still in the hall.

"Your Majesty Thanos, I'm Loki, the crown princess of Asgard. After being exiled by the new king, I have been planning to reclaim the Fairy Palace..."

"Enough, get her out of here!" A deep voice resounded throughout the hall.

"Wait! His Majesty Thanos! I'm serious! I come with sincerity, I... His Majesty Thanos! His Majesty Thanos! Listen to me, the Infinity Gem... Earth... A golden opportunity..."

Watching Loki being dragged out by the guards, Thanos the Destroyer, seated on the throne, snorted disdainfully, saying,

"Did you think I didn't browse the web? Darn swindler."