Chapter 364 |
Shortly after Abbendis told him about the mutation in Loki, Josh had Abbendis send Loki back.
Looking at Loki standing upright before him, obedient like a loyal dog, Josh’s face was full of strangeness.
“I heard from Abbendis that you have mastered the power of thunder? Let me see!” After scrutinizing Loki for a while, Josh finally spoke.
“Yes!” Loki finally breathed a sigh of relief, immediately stretching out his hand, and a spherical lightning appeared in his palm.
“Tsk, you use it quite skillfully!” Looking at the seemingly small but actually containing immense power ball of lightning in Loki’s hand, Josh couldn’t help but smirk. At this level, it was about the same as Thor before; this kid really was lucky.
“Josh, do you know what exactly is happening to me?” Loki retracted the lightning ball and asked puzzledly. Although somewhat pleased about the sudden acquisition of power, he still wanted to understand the origin of this power and whether there were any side effects.
Before coming, he had already learned from the Ancient One that this sudden appearance might be related to the Titan guardian named Loken from Azeroth, but even the Ancient One couldn't clearly know the exact reason.
Faced with Loki’s question, Josh didn’t answer immediately but fell into thought.
Loki’s condition reminded him of a movie from the world he came from before crossing over.
In that film, there was a peculiar theory: everyone in different parallel universes has a counterpart.
Once a counterpart in a parallel universe dies unexpectedly, beyond the predetermined fate, the counterparts in other parallel universes would gain a portion of the deceased counterpart’s power.
The more counterparts of a person die, the stronger the counterparts in other universes become.
The Kung Fu Emperor’s character was both the protagonist and the protagonist’s counterpart. The counterpart tried to become the strongest in the universe by killing counterparts in other universes but was ultimately defeated by the righteous protagonist.
However, normally, this theory should only apply to the parallel Earth universes in The One and not to the Marvel universe where Loki and Josh exist.
Because in the Marvel universe, superheroes frequently visit each other’s universes, such as Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, Ant-Man, and others.
But in the Marvel movies and shows Josh knew, there was never a mention that when a superhero in one universe died, the others would grow stronger.
Moreover, the Marvel universe and Azeroth’s universe are not part of the same system.
Also, Loki’s situation was quite different from the movie’s scenario — Loken’s death did not distribute his power among Loki counterparts in other universes but only appeared uniquely in the Loki located in Azeroth.
But aside from this reason, Josh couldn’t think of any other explanation for why Loken’s power appeared on Loki after Loken’s death.
After all, in his previous life, the character Loken was created based on Loki, so treating Loken as Loki’s counterpart made sense.
Besides, Loki, or rather the various mythological systems, are inherently quite special existences.
If all the film and entertainment works Josh had ever seen in his previous life were considered universes, then 90% of them could not escape the foundational myths of various countries on Earth.
More importantly, normally these universes would have no connections except for some made through production company reasons.
Like Marvel’s Loki, no matter how powerful, could not suddenly go to Azeroth but Josh’s Plane Trading System had broken that boundary.
As long as Josh wanted, he could send Loki to any universe connected by the device where the trading partners were friendly to Josh.
So in this situation, the theory from The One might actually be possible.
Whether this was the case still needed to be verified, and there was a very good chance to verify it now — the Saint Seiya world also had a Loki, right? Killing him to test it out!
Besides, Josh was also thinking about how to fulfill his agreement with Hilda.
Wasn’t this just a pillow arriving when he was sleepy?
So Josh didn’t hesitate and told Loki his speculation.
Of course, he only said he had encountered this kind of thing when communicating with “partners” from other universes but didn’t guarantee it was correct.
Therefore, Loki needed to go to a relatively dangerous world, the Saint Seiya world, to verify it.
Loki was very pleasantly surprised by Josh’s speculation because for him, this was obviously a good thing.
Just one Loken had already more than doubled his power and gave him the thunder power he had dreamed of since childhood — Loki had always envied Thor’s thunder power.
If he could go to more worlds and kill more “Loki’s,” wouldn’t he easily be able to trample Thor?
Although Loki had given up the Asgard throne to be with Carol, it didn’t mean he had given up on surpassing Thor.
He still wanted Odin to see that his strength and ability surpassed Thor’s.
And now, such a broad path lay before him. How could he refuse?
“Since you agree, then it’s settled. I’ll send you there later, but before that, come verify something else with me!” Josh was very pleased to see Loki’s cooperation.
Although he still held some prejudice toward this future son-in-law, since Loki was on his side, enhancing his power was good.
And Josh was not afraid Loki would become too strong and slip out of his control.
After all, Loki’s base strength was there; even with Loken’s power added, he was still far behind Josh.
Of course, if you include the power of the Saint Seiya world’s Loki, maybe it was uncertain, but surpassing the Celestials was basically impossible.
Moreover, Loki couldn’t move between worlds without Josh.
“What are we verifying?” Loki asked in confusion.
“The unique power called Cosmo in the world you are about to go to… If successful, your current power might double!” Josh answered. Of course, if it was confirmed that Cosmo could be cultivated in the Marvel universe, many others besides Loki could also double their power!