Marvel's Shendu: Dominating the Multiverse

Chapter 143 The Location of the Tiger Talisman

Icarus made his choice faster than Wanda had anticipated.

He didn't hesitate any longer. The memories that the Holy Lord had unearthed were still churning in his mind, but he made a decision typical of a warrior: fight first and think later.

Golden beams shot from Icarus's eyes, striking the shuttle directly.

Wanda was prepared; chaos magic conjured a barrier before her, and the beams of light that struck it were refracted into hundreds of thin lines that scattered in all directions. The shuttle shook violently in the shockwave, and the autopilot issued a series of alarms.

The Holy Lord did not move.

Wanda leaped out of the shuttle, stepping on the edge of the hatch. Chaos magic formed an airfield around her, isolating the airflow at an altitude of 30,000 meters from her energy field.

Icarus caught up with them.

The first exchange was brief, lasting less than three seconds. Icarus's eye ray swept across Wanda's position, and Wanda dodged to the side, simultaneously unleashing a chaotic energy whip with her right hand. The whip struck Icarus's shoulder armor, causing the golden patterns on his combat suit to flash. Icarus leaned back half a meter, but was unharmed.

Wanda noticed a detail.

Icarus's beam was about 15 percent more powerful than his first attack on the shuttle. Only a few seconds had passed.

In the second round, Icarus's speed was noticeably improved. He circled around Wanda's left side to her back in almost half the time it took the first time, and the golden rays from his eyes were much denser. Wanda used chaos magic to weave three layers of protection behind her; the first layer was breached, and the second barely held.

The power output has increased again.

"This guy's output is going up," Wanda said to Shendu in the shuttle. "Linear growth, increasing every few seconds."

Icarus didn't give her time to analyze; the third attack followed immediately. This time, he didn't use his beam attack, opting for hand-to-hand combat. He moved with such speed that he left a white, cone-shaped shockwave in the air, slamming his fist into Wanda's protective shield.

The shield shattered.

Wanda was propelled more than two hundred meters by the impact. Chaos magic spread out behind her to cushion the fall, and when she came to a stop, the corner of her mouth was slightly numb from the shock.

"Interesting." Wanda steadied herself.

She had never encountered this fighting style before. Most opponents have a fixed energy output, which reaches a bottleneck after a certain point, but Icarus's energy curve keeps climbing without any sign of slowing down; the longer the fight goes on, the stronger he becomes.

Icarus charged again. This time, Wanda didn't take the hit head-on. The dragon rune, enhanced by the Reality Stone, activated within her, igniting her body with intense, chaotic flames. She transformed into a crimson streak of light, creating distance behind her. Icarus caught up, his eyes drawing intersecting lines in the air, forcing Wanda into an ever-shrinking space.

Just as Wanda was about to increase her output, the voice of the Holy Lord came from the direction of the shuttle.

"That's enough, come back."

Wanda withdrew her attack, and a thick barrier of chaos magic formed in front of her to block Icarus's final blow. She then disengaged from the battle and flew back to the shuttle.

Icarus didn't chase after him. The Tiger Talisman fragment in his body trembled again, this time more violently than before, and a clear break appeared in his energy output curve.

The Holy Lord stood at the door of the shuttle cabin; the power of the Mind Stone was no longer in Icarus's possession.

From the moment Wanda clashed with Icarus, Shendu was doing something else. The Mind Stone's perception extended downwards, piercing through the 30,000-meter atmosphere, passing through Olympia's crust and mantle, and reaching all the way to the planet's core.

The energy structure of the entire planet unfolded in his perception.

It's very complex. The Celestials' work is indeed ingenious; the fragments of the Tiger Talisman weren't randomly inserted into the bodies of the Eternals, but rather distributed strictly according to a certain topological structure. Twelve nodes, corresponding to twelve individual Eternals, are scattered across different locations on the planet's surface. Each of these twelve individuals has a fragment of the Tiger Talisman embedded within their body, and the fragments are interconnected through the energy field covering the planet, forming a closed loop.

The superpowers of the other Eternals do not originate from the fragments themselves, but from the energy that overflows when this circuit is in operation. Just like the electromagnetic radiation produced by a high-powered generator when it is running, people nearby can sense the current by holding a coil.

Icarus is one of the twelve nodes.

No wonder his energy increases linearly; he's not outputting energy alone, he's drawing energy from the entire circuit. The longer he fights, the more energy the circuit pours into him.

Wanda landed back inside the shuttle cabin.

"The Tiger Talisman was broken into twelve nodes and inserted into the bodies of twelve Eternals. Icarus was one of them."

"Then should we just extract all twelve fragments?"

The Lord did not answer the question. His Mind Stone continued scanning, not the Eternals, but the fragments themselves.

The Rat Talisman, blessed by the Mind Gem, grants him a keen perception of all moving objects, and at this moment, this perception tells him one thing.

These fragments are incomplete.

Or to be more precise, these fragments are merely "shadows" of the Tiger Talisman. If the real Tiger Talisman is a key, then what the Celestials placed within the Eternals is simply the imprint of that key left in the mud. The shape is correct, the pattern is correct, but it is not the key itself.

The Tiger Talisman fragment in Shendu's hand resonates with these "marks" because forces of the same origin instinctively seek each other out.

Outside the cabin, Icarus was still suspended there, the golden light around him stabilizing, but his expression was worse than before. Not because of the battle, but because during that time, the unsealed memory in his mind had automatically played out.

The day the Celestials arrived, every single scene of what they did to the Eternals was crystal clear.

"Your defense network was created by the Celestials using projections of fragments of the Tiger Talisman," the Holy Lord said, his voice carrying outside the cabin. "The fragments are not inside your bodies; you only have shadows within you."

Icarus remained silent.

"The real thing is not on this planet," said the Holy Lord.

Wanda reacted quickly: "The Celestials kept it for themselves?"

The Holy Lord nodded. After the Celestials dismantled the Tiger Talisman fragments, they kept the original and implanted the projection into the Eternal Race, using the projection to weave an energy field covering the entire planet.

This energy field serves two purposes. First, it provides the Eternals with a source of superpowers; second, it binds the Eternals to this planet, turning them into gatekeepers of the Celestials.

Anyone who comes searching for the Tiger Talisman, sensing its presence on this planet, will assume it's there. Upon arrival, they discover the fragment is embedded in the energy system of eight thousand Eternals, who will fiercely protect it because it is their source of power.

A perfect sleight of hand.

Unfortunately, they have now met the true owner of the talisman, and these illusions are of no use.