Marvel x Genshin: Mavuika, The Sun Goddess Rules Asgard — Chapter 175

Chapter 175: You Don’t Recognize Me?

Tony narrowed his eyes, the motion imperceptible behind his golden faceplate. “Do I know you?”

For a fraction of a second, Killian’s manic smile froze solid.

It had been over a decade.

He had waited for over a decade, plotted for over a decade, and clawed his way from an overlooked scientist into a superhuman genius. He had killed, maimed, and burned his way through the world, all for this one singular moment—to stand before Tony Stark and force him to acknowledge the man he had so casually cast aside.

And Tony Stark didn’t even recognize him?

The edges of Killian’s smile began to twist, warping into something ugly. “You don’t recognize me? 1999. Switzerland. Bern. New Year’s Eve.” His voice was a low, dangerous hiss. “You were on the rooftop, and I told you… ‘We can change the world together.'”

Tony was silent for a beat, the suit’s internal processors likely searching a vast database of forgotten encounters. Then, his voice crackled through the external speaker, dripping with casual dismissal. “1999? I was in Switzerland for less than forty-eight hours and met hundreds of people. You really think I’d remember every single one?”

Killian’s smile vanished completely, replaced by a mask of pure fury.

His eyes turned cold, but his body began to radiate a scorching aura. The skin visible on his neck and hands shifted from a dark, angry red to a brilliant, molten orange as the temperature around him climbed with terrifying speed. The polished tiles beneath his feet hissed, cracked, and then began to melt, pooling into viscous magma.

“You will remember me,” he snarled.

Before the words had even finished echoing, he launched himself at Tony. His speed was explosive, leaving a searing red afterimage burned into the air. A fist, glowing with three thousand degrees of raw heat, smashed toward Tony’s faceplate.

Tony’s reaction was just as fast. He pivoted sharply, the concussive force of the blow roaring past his ear. The repulsor in his palm flared to life, casting the room in a brief, brilliant blue as he fired a blast directly into Killian’s chest.

The impact sent Killian stumbling back several steps. He merely glanced down at the blackened, smoking scorch mark on his designer suit, then looked up, a deranged grin spreading across his face.

“Is that it?”

He lunged again.

This time, his speed had doubled. There was no time to dodge. Tony could only raise his arm in a desperate block.

Killian’s fist connected with the Mark VII’s forearm with a horrifying shriek of tearing metal. Tony grunted, stumbling back from the sheer force of the impact. He looked down; a gaping, molten hole had been punched straight through his armguard, the edges still glowing cherry-red.

The three-thousand-degree heat had exceeded the armor’s design limits.

Tony took another step back, his expression grim beneath the helmet. He had fought aliens, demigods, and rogue military hardware, but he had never encountered an enemy who could melt his suit with their bare hands.

Killian watched the flicker of alarm in Tony’s body language and laughed, a harsh, grating sound. “What’s the matter? Is your little tin suit failing you?”

He spread his arms wide, and the ambient temperature in the room spiked again. “This is Extremis! It allows the human body to evolve to its next stage—super strength, super speed, super regeneration, and also…”

He raised a hand, and a sphere of scorching, unstable light coalesced in his palm, pulsing like a miniature sun.

“—heat exceeding three thousand degrees!”

With a roar, he violently shoved the sphere of light toward Tony.

Thrusters at his feet spewed blue-white flames, launching Tony straight up toward the vaulted ceiling. The light sphere grazed past his boots, striking the far wall and blasting a massive, smoldering hole straight through it to the night sky beyond.

Tony hovered in mid-air, looking down at the man radiating a hellish red light below. His mind raced. The suit couldn’t handle this level of heat; a head-on fight would only end with him being cooked alive inside a melted shell. He needed a new strategy.

Killian craned his neck to look up at him, his laughter echoing in the cavernous space. “Flying? Where do you think you can fly to?”

He waved his hand, a general commanding his troops. In an instant, the fifteen Extremis soldiers moved as one. They were a pack of cheetahs unleashed, charging toward different targets throughout the villa. Some leaped toward Tony, their bodies glowing, while others fanned out, charging Thor, Loki, and the still-seated Mavuika.

Thor grinned, raising Mjolnir as crackling arcs of lightning exploded around him. “Come on, then!”

He swung his hammer in a devastating arc, connecting with the first Extremis soldier to reach him. The soldier was sent flying like a ragdoll, smashing clean through a support column, but not before his own glowing fist had slammed into Thor’s shoulder.

Thor looked down at the point of impact, his brow furrowed. The blow had been surprisingly solid. These mortals hit harder than he had imagined.

On the other side of the room, Loki was engaged in a different kind of battle. He disdained a direct confrontation, instead using his illusions to toy with his assailants.

A soldier lunged, only for three identical Lokis to shimmer into existence before him. He hesitated for a crucial second before charging the one in the middle. His fist passed through nothing but empty air as the illusion dissipated.

The real Loki appeared silently behind him, tapping him gently on the shoulder. “I’m over here.”

The soldier spun violently, throwing a punch at Loki’s smirking face. Loki sidestepped with fluid grace as a blade of green energy coalesced in his hand. He drove the dagger deep into the soldier’s chest.

The blade pierced through flesh and bone. The soldier’s body stiffened for a moment, but then the wound, which should have been fatal, began to glow and seal itself. In seconds, it was as if nothing had happened.

Loki’s smile faltered, his eyes narrowing. These creatures’ regenerative abilities were stronger than he had anticipated.

Amidst the chaos, Mavuika set her teacup down with a soft click and rose to her feet.

As she stood, a tide of gold-red fire ignited around her body. The light was not the angry, destructive orange of Extremis; it was warm, brilliant, and majestic, like the first rays of a rising sun. The temperature of the entire living room began to climb, but it was a gentle, total warmth, not a scorching, destructive heat.

The Extremis soldiers felt that power.

They stopped their attacks mid-motion, their heads snapping toward Mavuika. In their glowing eyes, a primal fear flickered—an emotion they hadn’t experienced since the Extremis had burned away their humanity.

Mavuika began to walk toward the nearest soldier.

The man instinctively took a step back, a tremor of doubt shaking his super-powered frame. Then, gritting his teeth, he let out a battle cry and lunged forward, his fist a three-thousand-degree meteor aimed at Mavuika’s chest.

Mavuika simply raised her hand.

She caught the fist.

And with a gentle squeeze, she crushed it.

There was no melting, no sizzling. The soldier’s fist, bones and all, simply shattered in her grip, overcome by pure, irresistible strength. The three-thousand-degree heat washed over Mavuika’s palm, but her skin showed no change whatsoever. To her, that temperature was, quite literally, just ‘warm.’

The soldier let out a choked scream and stumbled back, clutching the mangled stump of his arm. The flesh was already glowing, trying to regenerate, but the process was agonizingly slower than before.

Mavuika didn’t give him a chance to recover. She raised her other hand, and a bolt of gold-red fire, no larger than her fist, shot from her palm and struck the soldier in the chest.

He was launched backward as if hit by a cannonball, crashing through two interior walls before burying himself in a mountain of rubble.

This time, he did not get back up.

The other Extremis soldiers stared at the scene, their enhanced minds struggling to process what they had just witnessed. They had injected Extremis. They possessed superhuman strength and the ability to regenerate from almost any wound. They thought they were immortal.

But now, they saw someone who could extinguish their fire with a single touch.

Mavuika did not stop. She walked toward the second soldier. The man’s nerve broke; he turned to run, but he had barely taken a single step before a beam of golden light struck him in the back. He collapsed to the ground, twitching, the angry red glow of his body slowly fading to grey.

The third. The fourth. The fifth.

Mavuika’s actions were brutally simple: raise a hand, release a burst of fire, and another soldier would fall. She used no complex techniques, no flashy incantations—just the simplest, most direct application of absolute power. It was not a fight; it was an extermination.

In less than a minute, all fifteen Extremis soldiers lay silent and still on the floor.

Thor stood off to the side, still gripping his hammer, a complex mix of awe and disappointment on his face.

“Big sister… couldn’t you have left a few for me?”

Mavuika turned her gaze to him, the last embers of her divine fire fading from around her. “You are itching for a fight against opponents of this level?”

Thor rubbed the back of his head sheepishly, looking for all the world like a child who had his toys taken away. “It’s just… it’s rare to run into opponents that are even slightly interesting here on Midgard… uh, Earth.”