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92.2% Marvel : Super Soldier at the Start / Chapter 213: Vormir

Chapitre 213: Vormir

Facing Gamora's skepticism, Blake directly opened a spatial wormhole. 

On the other side of the wormhole was a desolate-looking planet. Blake gestured invitingly with a gentlemanly flourish. 

"What is this place?" 

Gamora asked as she gazed at the scene beyond the wormhole. 

"Vormir—the resting place of the Soul Stone. This is the real reason you're running from Thanos, isn't it? You want to stop his plan!" 

Blake's words made Gamora's expression shift unpredictably. The location of the Soul Stone was her deepest, most guarded secret. 

"I'm guessing this is also why you refuse to stay. You think that if I collect all six Stones, I'll bring disaster to the universe, don't you?" 

Blake continued in a calm, measured tone. 

At this moment, Gamora's face turned pale. No matter who it was, having their most guarded secrets or trump cards laid bare would inevitably lead to a sense of self-doubt. 

Yet Blake paid no mind to her reaction and continued speaking. 

"To be blunt, I currently possess three Stones: Space, Reality, and Power. The Soul Stone is here. As for the other two—Time and Mind—they are on Earth. Or rather, they're within my reach." 

"What?!" 

Gamora's expression finally changed drastically. The six Infinity Stones... Even her father, Thanos, had only managed to acquire the Mind Stone after years of effort, and he had lost it during the failed invasion of Earth. 

"The Chitauri invasion of Earth—was that your doing?" 

Gamora, clearly aware of the incident, asked directly. 

"That's right. The Chitauri army was nothing. The key is your father. Look, I can travel from any corner of the universe in an instant. Working for me is the safest option you have. If you need my help, I can be there in no time, or take you to a place that's safe enough." 

"I don't trust you. You're right—my father seeks to achieve his vision of universal balance by collecting all six Stones and wiping out half of all life in the universe. But what about you? What's your goal? To rule the universe?" 

"I have no interest in ruling the universe or sitting on some lofty throne." 

As Blake spoke, he motioned for Gamora to step onto Vormir. 

"I know you don't trust me, but time will give you the answers. Besides, if I wanted to do something, you couldn't stop me, could you?" 

Blake's words struck a nerve deep within Gamora. 

To him, she had no value beyond knowing the location of the Soul Stone. If Blake truly harbored evil intentions, she neither had the ability to stop him nor the means to be of use to him. 

Seeing Gamora remain silent, Blake continued speaking. 

"The location of the Soul Stone is something you can't hide forever. Thanos will come for you eventually!" 

"I won't tell him. If he ever learns about this, I'll kill myself right in front of him!" 

Gamora said defiantly. 

"Even if you had the chance to do so, what if he used someone to threaten you—like your sister, Nebula?" 

"She's not my sister! Her greatest wish has always been to kill me!" 

Gamora shouted at Blake in anger. 

"Your greatest wish is to stop serving as Thanos' assassin and to become true sisters, isn't it?" 

"Don't look at me like that. I've already told you—the Time Stone is on Earth, and we have someone who fully masters its power. She can see glimpses of many futures, including how your father obtains the Soul Stone." 

...

At the base of the mountain on Vormir, where the Soul Stone altar was hidden, Blake and Gamora stood face-to-face. 

"Let's go up and take a look—at the place that ultimately became your grave," Blake said. 

As they walked, Blake decided to tell Gamora about the fate that should have been hers. As for how he knew so much, he conveniently credited the Ancient One, who possessed the Time Stone. 

Blake didn't mention anything about the TVA or other timeline-related entities for now. After all, Gamora still shared a complicated father-daughter bond with Thanos, and he didn't want to risk creating any unnecessary complications. 

Gamora's face was pale. By this point, she was already halfway convinced of Blake's words. 

If, as Blake claimed, there was indeed a guardian of the Soul Stone on the mountain who demanded a specific sacrifice to obtain it, then knowing Thanos' personality, he would undoubtedly pay any price. 

To achieve universal balance, Thanos would willingly sacrifice even himself, let alone an adopted daughter. 

Gamora found it hard to accept the implication about Thanos' love for her. 

According to Blake, the Soul Stone required the sacrifice of someone the seeker loved most. 

That love could take the form of friendship, familial love, or romantic love. 

But in Thanos' case, there seemed to be no "one of the above"—there was only Gamora. From childhood, he had treated her and Nebula very differently. At first, it might have been because Gamora was stronger. 

Later, however, Gamora gradually sensed Thanos' fatherly love toward her. But she refused to believe it, unwilling to accept it or to let this love bring out her own feelings of familial bond toward Thanos. 

Raised by him since childhood, how could she have no feelings at all? Yet Thanos, obsessed with his grand cause, had no time for sentiment. And Gamora, in turn, suppressed her emotions, unwilling to feel anything for the man who had massacred her family and raised her to be a killer. 

After hearing her story, Blake didn't press her further. He pulled out a chair, lay down nearby, and took out a laptop to enjoy a movie. 

Gamora shot him a deep glance, then gritted her teeth and headed up the mountain. Whether Blake's words were true or not, since she was already here, she had to see for herself. 

Blake had no interest in climbing the mountain. Without a way to claim the Soul Stone for himself, going up would only leave him envious and frustrated. It wasn't worth the trouble. 

Three hours passed. Blake had finished two movies when he finally saw Gamora descend the mountain, looking utterly lost and distraught. 

"Hm?" 

Blake squinted. 

"I told you so much, and you were only half-convinced. No way you'd come back looking like that unless something major happened. What did you see up there?" 

Putting away his things, Blake stood and looked at Gamora. 

She remained in a dazed state, walking to his side and standing there silently for two full minutes—so long that Blake was on the verge of losing his patience. 

Suddenly, Gamora lifted her head and said, "I saw it all—everything. Absolutely everything!" 

As she spoke, she opened her right hand. Resting in her palm was an orange stone: the Soul Stone. 

"Holy sh—! What the—?!" 

Now it was Blake's turn to lose his composure. 

*******************************************

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Chapitre 214: Skull

What exactly just happened?

Blake had brought Gamora over just to take a look, nothing more. Somehow, in the blink of an eye, while he hadn't even gone up the mountain with her, the Soul Stone had already been acquired. 

He wasn't sure what Gamora had witnessed, but she stood there, stunned and silent, unable to utter a full sentence for quite some time. 

Growing anxious, flames burst forth from Blake's palms and soles as he launched himself up to the mountain's peak with a roar. 

The summit was eerily quiet. There were no energy fluctuations, nor any trace of the Red Skull. 

"Huh? Where is everyone?" 

Blake circled the mountaintop, but there wasn't the slightest sign of anyone. 

However, at the edge of a cliff, he noticed traces suggesting someone had fallen. 

Following the cliff downward, he eventually discovered the Red Skull's corpse. Oddly, perhaps due to some sacrificial ritual, the entire body was already beginning to fade, gradually turning translucent and illusory before his eyes. 

If Blake had arrived a little later, there might have been nothing left but a tattered, gray cloak. 

On the ground lay a massive altar carved with unknown runes, radiating a chilling power. It felt like an invisible, shapeless beast, slowly devouring the Red Skull's body and soul until nothing remained. 

The soul and spiritual realms weren't areas Blake had delved into yet. He could only sense the lingering energy before swiftly taking off into the sky, leaving the place behind. 

It wasn't until they returned that Gamora finally spoke, albeit slowly. 

"What I saw… it was real, wasn't it? He pushed me off that place, obtained the Soul Stone, and used Nebula to threaten me into bringing him to Vormir. Everything you said was true." 

"Did you cast some kind of spell?" 

Gamora's voice grew sharper as she spoke, her expression darkening with a rising intent to kill Blake. 

"Sigh…" 

Blake let out a long sigh. 

"You need to learn to face reality. I don't have the power to make the Soul Stone cooperate with me to stage such a dramatic scene. If this were all just an illusion, I wouldn't have bothered explaining anything earlier—I'd have just let you see for yourself. Honestly, even I didn't expect you to end up acquiring the Soul Stone on your own." 

Spreading his hands helplessly, Blake could tell that Gamora was struggling to accept the truth. 

When it was just Blake explaining things, Gamora could chalk it up to him lying to her. But the vision shown by the Soul Stone itself? That, she had no choice but to believe. 

"So, are you ready to tell me what actually happened up there?" 

After a brief pause, Blake gave Gamora some time to calm her thoughts before asking. 

"When I got to the top of the mountain…" 

Gamora began recounting her experience. 

Once she reached the summit, the guardian of the Stone—the Red Skull—appeared. He accurately named her father, a name so buried in the recesses of Gamora's mind that even she had trouble recalling it clearly. 

The Red Skull then explained the rules for obtaining the Soul Stone: a soul for a soul. 

To acquire the Soul Stone, she needed to bring someone she truly loved and sacrifice them. There was no other way. 

To this, Gamora coolly replied that she had merely come to see her final resting place and had no intention of taking the Soul Stone. 

Unexpectedly, her words caused the Red Skull's expression to shift dramatically. 

It turned out that the Red Skull had three ways to leave Vormir: 

The first was to serve as the guardian of the Stone for a thousand years, at which point he could gain freedom. The previous guardian had followed this path. 

The Red Skull had been chosen for this role when the Space Stone unexpectedly transported him there. 

The second method was for someone to forcibly take the Soul Stone by sheer power—a nearly impossible feat. 

The third method was to encounter someone destined to be sacrificed to the Soul Stone. In that case, the Red Skull could push them off the altar and replace himself with the new Soul Stone guardian. 

So when Gamora uttered those fateful words, the Red Skull's expression abruptly shifted, and he became inexplicably excited. 

Perhaps due to learning Gamora's identity, he gained new permissions. Following this, the Red Skull revealed his entire life to Gamora. 

From his birth to the moment Thanos pushed him off the altar, Gamora saw it all play out like a movie in her mind. 

While she was immersed in these visions, the Red Skull attempted a sneak attack. He tried to push her off the cliff from behind. 

At that exact moment, Gamora was seeing the scene of Thanos pushing her younger self off the cliff. Hearing about it was one thing; seeing it unfold before her eyes was entirely different. 

The sense of immersion was overwhelming. Watching herself fall, Gamora instinctively stepped forward and shouted, "No!" 

That one step, however, caused her to narrowly dodge the Red Skull's full-force shove. Instead of pushing Gamora, he lost his balance and fell into the abyss himself. 

Of course, all of this was revealed to Gamora only after the Red Skull had fallen to his doom, and she unexpectedly acquired the Soul Stone. In the soul realm, she learned the truth. 

"I saw my soul there—my younger self. She told me about the rules of the soul guardian. In another universe, I was pushed down and became one of the souls within the Soul Stone." 

Gamora spoke in an indifferent tone. 

Seeing her soul from another universe? 

Blake couldn't help but think of what he had read in his past life: when Tony Stark snapped his fingers and died, he reportedly met his grown-up daughter in the so-called soul realm. 

It seemed the Soul Stone not only allowed communication with souls but possibly connected the Soul Stones across all universes. 

However, this was just Blake's theory. He wouldn't know for sure until he had fully mastered all six Infinity Stones. 

Regardless, this trip had yielded quite the harvest. The ill-fated Red Skull's failed sneak attack had cost him everything, while Blake gained the Soul Stone without breaking a sweat. 

Though the Stone wasn't of immediate use, all six Infinity Stones were now within his grasp. Once Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver emerged, Blake planned to absorb the Mind Stone directly. As for Vision… Blake had his eyes on Scarlet Witch for a long time anyway. J.A.R.V.I.S., on the other hand, seemed more innocent and lovable. 

Then there was Gamora. After taking a long time to process everything, she had tentatively agreed to Blake's invitation. She decided to stay and help him take control of the entire Tivan Group. 

"I know you see Nebula as your sister. If the opportunity arises, you can bring her here. If Thanos finds you both, I'll protect you," Blake promised Gamora earnestly. After all, she had helped him obtain one of the Infinity Stones. 

Meanwhile, Drax was still imprisoned on Xandar. Blake had no particular interest in him. Star-Lord, however, had unexpectedly insisted on staying by Gamora's side. 

As for Star-Lord, Blake didn't hate him, nor did he particularly like him. 

From a viewer's perspective, though, Star-Lord's actions in Infinity War had made everyone grind their teeth in frustration. 

Having obtained two Infinity Stones during this trip, Blake knew Ronan was scouring the universe for one of them. Yondu still had a bounty on Star-Lord posted online. Blake decided it was time to find a suitable place to settle all of this once and for all.

*******************************************

You can get access to early chapters on patr*on.

If you like my work and you want to support me then you can become my patron on patre*n.

My patr*on account is S_Pandey_0170


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