When Ancient One said that this was just a powerful symbiote, but its previous host came from a civilization that had been seeded by a Celestial and was destroyed because of the Celestial's birth, Odin immediately understood why Ikaris, under this symbiote's influence, harbored such deep hatred for gods.
The symbiote itself had a simple mind, but as a symbiote, it could share its host's memories and be influenced by the host's emotions.
And its previous host had an unshakable grudge against the Celestials and the Eternals, as they were responsible for the destruction of their entire civilization. It would be strange if they didn't hate them.
"Also, I don't know if it's a coincidence, but I saw you all in its memory fragments!" Ancient One looked at Gilgamesh, implying that the civilization of the symbiote's previous host was actually the target of their last mission.
"What? You saw us?" Gilgamesh was confused. They had never encountered this thing before.
"...I forgot to explain. Originally, this wasn't something we were supposed to say, but it doesn't matter now..." Ancient One glanced at the bodies of Ajak and Sersi, which had been gathered by Makkari and Phastos, and then revealed the true mission of the Eternals—how their memories were erased after every mission.
"No, that's impossible!" Gilgamesh remained calm, but Makkari and Phastos were visibly shaken. "And you're only a little over five hundred years old. How could you possibly know all this?"
"I'm just telling you the truth. Whether you believe it or not is up to you." Ancient One didn't care about their doubts.
So what if she was only five hundred years old? She had seen countless dimensional beings, frequently traveled through the multiverse, and knew far more than they did.
And what good was their long lifespan? They were brainwashed every single time.
"I know this is hard to accept, but I can prove she's telling the truth," Odin said, patting Gilgamesh on the shoulder.
Gilgamesh nodded. In fact, after hearing Ancient One's explanation, he was already seventy to eighty percent convinced.
Over the past few hundred years, he had spent a lot of time with Thena, who suffered from "Mahd Wy'ry." He had seen many things she wrote and drew—things that once seemed incomprehensible. But now, everything suddenly made sense with Ancient One's explanation.
Mahd Wy'ry wasn't a disease—it was the resurfacing of erased memories.
Even so, Makkari and Phastos still couldn't accept it right away.
"They're right. I remember now—Pangoria, the civilization that was destroyed because of us..."
At that moment, Ikaris, who had been restrained by Ancient One and grieving alone, opened his eyes and spoke.
As the strongest Eternal, Ikaris' memories were more complete than Thena's. He even remembered the name of that civilization.
Just then, a small golden orb suddenly emerged from Ajak's chest and floated in the air for a moment before flying toward Gilgamesh, startling him.
Before it could reach him, Ancient One caught it with magic.
"What is this now?" Gilgamesh asked, frustrated.
"If I'm not mistaken, this represents your leader among the Eternals and serves as a tool to communicate with Arishem," Ancient One explained before looking at Gilgamesh. "If you receive it, how will you report the situation to Arishem?"
"...I don't know." Gilgamesh hesitated, his expression darkening.
"Of course, we have to ask Arishem for the truth!" Phastos said, clearly displeased.
"It doesn't really matter. You can just report the situation honestly," Ancient One smiled. "And you can also tell Arishem that Ikaris is in a special condition, so I will take him to Kamar-Taj for imprisonment."
Hearing Ancient One's request, the Eternals had no objections. They had never liked Ikaris, and without Ancient One and Odin's help, they wouldn't have been able to deal with him anyway.
After considering the situation, letting Ancient One take Ikaris away was the best option.
As for the symbiote, no one mentioned it—it was Ancient One's spoils of war.
"There's one more issue we must handle!" Seeing that everyone agreed, Ancient One nodded in satisfaction before her expression turned serious.
"What issue?" Odin asked.
"Although this symbiote is not a fragment of Knull, that doesn't mean Knull's fragments don't exist. There's one locked inside the spaceship beneath the ice, and this symbiote was actually its guardian," Ancient One revealed another shocking truth as she played with the symbiote in her hand.
This explained why Mander, the Inhuman skilled in telepathic communication, had sensed that the spaceship beneath the ice was a prison when he tried to connect with it.
The one who had sent him that message was none other than the symbiote in Ancient One's hands.
A symbiote created by Knull, serving as the guardian of a Knull fragment—it sounded absurd, but it wasn't.
As mentioned before, symbiotes were originally a simple-minded species. They would naturally take on the tendencies of whatever host they bonded with.
In the beginning, when Knull created them, they were influenced by his evil nature and acted accordingly.
But after Knull was defeated a second time, his connection with the symbiotes was completely severed, leaving only his largest remaining body fragment.
Without Knull's control, the symbiotes began searching for new hosts. Some bonded with good individuals, some with evil ones, and some with those who were indifferent, creating differences among them.
Regardless of their host's nature, most symbiotes had no interest in Knull's destructive ways.
Over time, they collectively turned against Knull. Countless symbiotes surrounded his largest body fragment and built a prison around it, trapping him inside.
As the prison grew larger, it eventually became an entire planet—Klyntar, the symbiote homeworld and Venom's place of origin.
Even then, many symbiotes aligned with the forces of good continued to roam the universe, using their connection to Knull to track down his scattered body fragments.
The one inside the spaceship was one of those fragments.
However, the spaceship itself didn't belong to the symbiotes but to the previous host of this symbiote—the Pangorian civilization.
Pangoria was an incredibly advanced society, on par with the Kree and Shi'ar in technological development.
Yet, despite their advancements, they were a peaceful people who valued nature and had no interest in expansion. Because of this, they remained mostly unknown in the universe.
But just like Krypton in DC and Asgard, which Surtur would one day destroy, no matter how advanced a civilization was, it was powerless against a planetary-level catastrophe caused by a Celestial's birth.
And so, Pangoria was effortlessly erased from history, leaving almost no trace. Only a few survivors managed to escape.
This prison spaceship was one of their remnants.
The Knull fragment inside had been captured long ago by Pangorian heroes and their symbiote partners.
However, after tens of thousands of years, those heroes had long since perished, leaving only a few symbiotes and the imprisoned Knull fragment. The ship remained locked under the ice in Antarctica for thousands of years—until Josh's robots reactivated it.
In other words, the symbiote in Ancient One's hands, along with the ones still in hibernation aboard the spaceship, all belonged to the faction aligned with good—though due to the destruction of Pangoria, this "goodness" did not extend to gods.
"So, what do you think is the best way to handle this?" Odin asked, looking at Ancient One.
On the surface, he was inquiring about the disposal of the Knull fragment, but in reality, he was thinking about claiming a share of the spoils.
After all, he had contributed to subduing the symbiote just now.
"You can take half of the symbiotes from the ship. As for the ship itself and Knull's fragment, I will seal them away. How about that?" Ancient One immediately replied, fully aware of Odin's intentions.
As for the Eternals? They were just machines—staying alive was already a blessing.
And the Inhumans? What Inhumans?
…Wait. Inhumans?
Ancient One suddenly froze.
Where were the five Inhumans? What about their ship? And—where was the Domo?
"Where is your Domo?" Ancient One turned to Phastos and asked.
"The Domo should be right…" Phastos and the remaining Eternals were momentarily stunned by the question. Without thinking, Phastos pointed toward the wreckage of the Domo.
But as their gazes shifted, all they saw was a massive crater where the Domo had crashed.
The ship itself? Gone.
Not just that—the Inhumans, their spaceship, and all the excavation machinery had also disappeared without a trace.
(Because of the battle, they had moved several kilometers away from the original excavation site.)
"This is bad!" Ancient One suddenly realized what had happened. Without hesitation, she opened a portal and stepped through.
Odin and the Eternals exchanged glances before following her.
On the other side of the portal was the bottom of the excavation site's ice pit.
But now, apart from endless white ice, there was nothing else to be seen.
"What happened here?" Odin and the Eternals, seeing the empty space beneath the ice, were utterly confused.
"…It seems we underestimated the Pangorian civilization. Perhaps they had spatial teleportation technology we were unaware of," Ancient One muttered, rubbing her temples as if she had a headache.
In truth, she already knew exactly what had happened.
But there was no way she could say it out loud.
She hadn't expected that little bastard to be so bold.
Stealing right under her and Odin's noses—unbelievable.
That's right—all that talk about Pangoria's advanced teleportation tech?
Complete nonsense.
The real story was much simpler.
While they had been busy ganging up on Ikaris, Josh had entered the site, and in a ridiculously short amount of time, had looted nearly everything—including the Inhumans, their spaceship, and even the Domo itself.
And at this very moment, he was already on an island, popping champagne with Ophelia and Vito, celebrating his successful heist.
…Just as Ancient One and Odin had discussed earlier, the moment Josh arrived and saw Odin facing off against Ikaris, he had only one thought: Nope.
No matter what the fight was about, a battle between Asgard's strongest and the most powerful Eternal was not something Josh wanted any part of.
And so, he had immediately prepared to leave.
Just as he was about to leave, Josh noticed Ophelia and her team's actions.
And that gave him an idea—one that led him to take a risk.
Sure, he couldn't interfere in a battle between Odin and Ikaris.
But did that mean he couldn't take advantage of the situation?
Recently, Abbendis from the Warcraft universe had sent him a bunch of magical tools, including various magical traps.
These tools were actually leftover stock from the Abbendis family's mage offerings and some merchant guilds on their territory.
Most of them were just functional items with no offensive capabilities. Their effects were simple, but due to the materials used, they were absurdly expensive—mostly unwanted by anyone except mages and alchemists who liked to tinker with odd experiments.
But to Josh, these so-called useless magic trinkets were absolute treasures.
For example:
A stealth cloak that could only be used once but provided near-perfect invisibility.
A minor stasis trap that could paralyze someone for a few seconds.
Single-use teleportation runes.
A transformation wand that could temporarily turn people into random small animals.
And those were just the normal ones.
There were also some… less conventional ones:
A slime bomb that made the target stink for days.
A potion that turned people green when consumed.
A powder that made grass sprout from a person's head.
And so on—an endless collection of bizarre, absurd items.
As for the high price?
Josh had more money than he could ever spend—what did he care?
Gold and silver, the hard currencies of Azeroth, were abundant.
Little Abbendis, though still young, used his status as a count's son to obtain these magic tools.
Since they had no lethal capabilities, the mages and merchants simply assumed the kid was up to some mischief and sold them to him at a reasonable price.
And the little guy?
He immediately traded them with Josh in exchange for snacks, drinks, and gaming consoles.
Thanks to these special magical tools, Josh decided to take a gamble.
Ophelia and Vito had originally planned to steal just a few things from the Domo.
But Josh?
He wanted everything—the Domo, the spaceship beneath the ice, everything that could be taken.
After all, both ships weren't that large.
His system's inventory could fit them with no problem.
And so…
That was how Ancient One ended up in her current awkward situation.
The Eternals were still somewhat convinced by her words.
After all, the facts were right in front of them—the ships were indeed gone.
Their only confusion?
The Pangorian ship vanishing made some sense…
But how the hell had their Domo disappeared?
As for Odin, who had been around for centuries and seen it all?
He didn't believe a single word Ancient One said.
But, having known her for hundreds of years, he was tactful enough not to call her out.
After all, neither the ships nor the symbiotes were of much value to him.
Instead, he saw an opportunity—Ancient One now owed him a favor.
Ancient One understood this as well.
For now, she could only brush the matter aside.
But in the future?
She was definitely getting back at that little bastard.
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TL/N: Until now, I used to translate two chapters of 1,000 words each daily, but from now on, each chapter will be 2,000–2,500 words, so only one chapter will be posted per day.