Chapter 209: The Aether
This was a legend whispered through the ancient halls of Asgard.
Long before history itself was forged—when time was still shapeless and the universe cloaked in chaos—the Nine Realms were bathed in eternal darkness. From that primal void arose a terrifying race: the Dark Elves. Pale as bone, their skin bore the mark of living for countless eons beneath the crust of dead stars.
The legend was so old that even Odin, the All-Father himself, only remembered fragments. Back then, Odin had not yet claimed the throne of Asgard. That honor belonged to his father, King Bor. And at the time, Asgard was far from the mighty realm it would become.
According to the ancient chronicles, the Dark Elves' leader—Malekith—sought to return the universe to its original state of darkness and chaos. His instrument of rebirth?
The Aether.
One of the six primordial forces of creation, the Aether was the vessel of the Reality Stone—an Infinity Stone capable of bending matter and rewriting the rules of existence itself. Among the Dark Elves, secret rites had been passed down to wield the Aether. And with its power, Malekith could plunge the Nine Realms into an eternal abyss, reshaping them into a mirror of the void from which his kind was born.
Fortunately, King Bor had thwarted that nightmare.
Leading the warriors of Asgard into a cataclysmic battle, Bor managed to defeat the Dark Elves after a brutal and bloody campaign. Most of Malekith's forces were wiped out. The rest—including Malekith himself—escaped into the uncharted edges of space aboard a stealth warship. The Aether, however, was claimed by Bor.
Bor had wanted to destroy it.
But he quickly realized: the Aether could not be destroyed. It was too ancient. Too powerful.
So instead, he ordered it hidden—buried in a place so obscure that no living being would ever find it again.
Of course, the universe has a strange sense of humor. The more something is sealed, buried, or forgotten… the more inevitable its return becomes.