Rocks. Magma. Soil. All of it tore skyward in defiance of physics, dragged up by a gravitational pull that had no business existing.

RUMBLE!

Countless shattered fragments converged in midair, compressing, folding inward, forming a black sphere that kept growing.

As the surface peeled away layer by layer, what lay buried deep underground finally broke into open air.

A massive section of grayish-white body was exposed.

Its surface was smooth as marble, traced over with mysterious cosmic patterns.

An arm.

No, a finger.

More precisely, a fingertip.

Just that single fingertip stretched several kilometers long, its surface veined with strange markings, pulsing with a faint wash of energy.

A Celestial hatchling. Tiamut.

Then several streaks split the air from the distance, closing fast.

"Stop!"

A roar, rage and terror tangled together, tore across the sky.

Hermione paused. She cut the magical output feeding Chibaku Tensei.

The colossal stone sphere hung suspended in the gravitational field, blotting out the sun.

She turned her head. Her gaze swept cold and unhurried toward the arrivals.

About ten of them. Different-colored suits, different builds, different looks. A motley crew.

The man at the front wore a skintight suit and floated in midair, a faint golden glow bleeding from his eyes.

Very Homelander.

He hovered above her, looking down with fury carved into every line of his face.

"Do you have any idea what you're doing!"

Hermione tilted her head and looked at him. One cold glance.

"What I do is none of your damn business."

He blinked. Then his expression darkened.

Seven thousand years. For seven thousand years, he had been used to humanity's reverence. Wherever they went, humans treated them as gods.

This was the first time anyone had dismissed him like that.

"You want to die!"

The golden light in his eyes surged, and two searing energy beams fired.

"Ikaris, hold on!"

A woman's voice from below.

The beams cut off. The man frowned and looked down.

A dark-haired woman stepped out from the group.

She didn't explain herself to Ikaris. She looked straight at Hermione, her expression grave.

"May I ask — are you Lady Witch?"

Hermione raised an eyebrow.

Interesting.

So someone in this ragtag bunch, hiding out in the middle of nowhere, actually knew her name.

"Since you recognize me, this is simple." Hermione's tone was flat. "I'm busy. I don't want a fight. The Eternals would do well not to provoke me."

She already knew exactly who these people were.

Nothing more than Celestial creations who called themselves the Eternals.

She paused and looked at the dark-haired woman.

"Ajak. Keep your people in line."

Ajak's pupils constricted.

She knows my name?

For seven thousand years, the Eternals had lived in seclusion on Earth, never once revealing their true identities to the outside world. They had watched human civilization crawl from the Stone Age to the modern era, always keeping to the role of observers, helping when they did, only just enough.

And yet this girl had recognized her in an instant.

More than that: across 7,000 years on this planet, they had never found a single trace of the wizarding kind. Then the latter had apparently been living right under their noses the entire time, only to seemingly appear out of nowhere in recent years, wielding immense power and seemingly boundless knowledge.

That was terrifying.

The wizarding kind truly ran deeper than anyone could measure.

The other Eternals were piecing it together now.

"The Witch?"

"The one from the wizarding kind, who fought the Chitauri, and then went to war with the Dark Elves during The Convergence?"

Even in their semi-seclusion, even keeping clear of the world's affairs, they had heard the name.

The most famous person on Earth in recent years. And here she was.

Ikaris saw Hermione's easy arrogance and lunged forward to attack. Ajak barked at him again and he stopped.

"Dare I ask what brings Lady Witch here?"

Ajak pushed her shock down and tried for negotiation.

"What does that have to do with you?"

"Is this your house?"

Hermione didn't bother softening it.

"Outrageous!"

Ikaris snapped.

"I don't care what kind of witch you are!"

Twin golden laser beams erupted from his eyes.

He scoffed inwardly.

The Witch? So what?

She was just a young girl.

When he was out fighting the Deviants, her ancestors hadn't even been born.

He had always looked down at humans from a height nothing could touch. It was the Eternals who had civilized them. Humans weren't fit to be named in the same breath.

Hermione didn't move.

BOOM!

Dead-on. Golden light swallowed her whole.

Ikaris's mouth curved. He turned toward Ajak, mockery soaking every word.

"This is the Witch you've all been talking about? That's all she is?"

A probing shot, that was all. And she had just stood there frozen, like she'd been scared stiff.

Then the smile died on his face.

The golden light faded.

Hermione was exactly where she'd been. Suspended in the air. Not a scratch. Not even a tear in her clothes.

"Impossible!"

Ikaris's eyes went wide. "How are you completely unhurt?!"

He had absolute faith in his own strength. Even the strongest Deviant would have been run clean through by that blast.

A human. Taking a direct hit and walking away without a mark.

How?

Hermione glanced at him.

"Mere Eternals — nothing but playthings of the Celestials. Dogs in a breeding pen."

Her tone didn't change. "And yet you dare bark at me. You really don't know when to quit."

The other Eternals looked at each other, confused, not quite following.

But Ajak's face shifted. So did Ikaris's.

"You, how could you possibly know —"

Ajak's voice came out unsteady.

The true origin of the Eternals was their deepest-kept secret. Outside of Ajak and Ikaris, none of the others knew what their existence actually meant. What they were actually for.

"I don't have time to play games with you."

Hermione raised her hand. The magic inside her stirred and began to move.

"And I won't pretend otherwise."

The massive stone sphere hanging in the air began to turn, slow and deliberate. Its crushing gravity locked onto every single Eternal in the area.

"I came here today to stop Tiamut's Emergence from destroying Earth."

Her gaze swept the field. Cold. Absolute.

"From this moment on, anyone who tries to stop me again,"

"I'll kill them."

The words landed.

A crushing pressure rolled out from Hermione in every direction. Under tier-seven power magic, the force was nearly tangible, something you could feel pressing against your skin.

The Eternals nearest to her staggered back several meters, faces drained of color.

Ikaris and Ajak looked more shaken than before. They exchanged a glance. Neither of them had expected her to know about the Emergence.

Hermione didn't spare them another look. Her gaze moved across the rest of the Eternals, her voice unhurried.

"You've lived for thousands of years. And you still don't know what you are."

"Truly pathetic."

➤ Next: Exposing the Truth

Chapter 382 - Exposing the Truth

Sersi was the first to break. She stepped forward and turned on Ajak. "What do you mean? What Celestials? What breeding ground?

"And who is Tiamut? What is the Emergence?"

Her voice was rushing, barely controlled. "What have you two been hiding from us?!"

Gilgamesh — Ma Dong-seok — frowned. "Ajak, what the hell is going on?"

A torrent of voices hit at once.

None of them had known why they were even here, why they'd ended up in a confrontation with the Witch. The whole thing had been baffling from the start. All they knew was that Ikaris had suddenly snapped to attention like he'd sensed something, dragged them all along in a frenzy, and insisted Earth was facing some massive threat.

So they'd followed.

They didn't have the details. But after thousands of years with Ajak and Ikaris, they could read the signs. The way those two were reacting right now...

These two had been sitting on something enormous.

Hermione looked at the sea of blank, uncomprehending faces and let out a cold laugh.

"All these years, and those two never told you?"

"Well then. I don't mind doing a good deed and filling you in."

"Don't you dare."

Ikaris went rigid, his face iron-gray.

Ajak's expression cycled through something she couldn't hold still.

A long silence.

Then she sighed.

"Let her speak, Ikaris." Ajak's voice was hollow with bitterness. "We've kept it buried long enough. Let them know."

"Ajak!" Ikaris's face cracked wide open. "Have you lost your mind?!"

"I haven't."

Ajak shook her head. Her tone was quieter than any of them had ever heard it. "I just don't want to keep lying."

Every head turned toward Hermione.

Her voice carried out across the open sea, clean and unhurried, reaching all of them.

"You think of yourselves as guides of humanity? Superheroes?"

"Don't flatter yourselves."

"The Eternals are not guardians. You are tools. Tools the Celestials built."

"Your real mission was never to protect humanity. It was to protect the Celestial hatchling buried in the core of this planet. Tiamut."

She pointed down at the enormous grayish-white mass below.

"Once Earth develops enough intelligent life, enough energy, Tiamut will Emerge. It will crack open."

"When it does, it will drain the energy from every living thing on this planet and evolve into a fully-formed Celestial."

"The day it breaks free is the day Earth shatters apart and every human being on it dies."

A beat.

"As for the Deviants you've spent your whole existence hunting?"

"Also Celestial creations. Just failed ones. They attack humans, suppress population growth, slow the buildup of energy, and that threatens the Emergence, so the Celestials needed someone to clean them up."

"In plain terms: you are watchdogs on a livestock farm. You clear out the pests, fatten up the herd, and wait for the owner to come collect the harvest."

"That is all you have ever been."

Silence dropped over the water.

The Eternals stood as if they'd been struck through.

Sersi stumbled back two steps, her face drained white. "That's not possible... it can't be..."

"Don't listen to her! She's lying!" Ikaris roared.

"Oh, I almost forgot." Hermione continued as though she hadn't heard him, twisting the knife without a flicker of hesitation. "This isn't the first time you've been through this."

"Every time a new Celestial hatches and its host planet is destroyed, you get recalled. Your memories get wiped. Then you get seeded on the next planet and start over as dogs again."

"Cycle after cycle. No end."

"That is the truth of what you call the Eternals."

Silence.

The whole world went silent.

Nothing but the sound of waves.

Shock wasn't the right word anymore for what was on their faces. The sheer weight of it had knocked the refusal right out of them.

"If you still don't believe me..."

Hermione's eyes moved to the blonde woman. "Ask her. She should still have memories from the last cycle."

Thena went rigid. The golden spear in her hand gave a faint tremor.

Every gaze snapped to her.

"I don't know..." Thena's voice came out frayed with confusion and pain. "But I do... sometimes I see things. Memories that can't exist. A sky full of fire. The ground splitting open..."

Sersi whipped around and locked her eyes on Ajak. Her voice came out scraped raw. "It's a lie, isn't it? Tell me it's a lie."

The others looked at her too, something desperate in their eyes. "Ajak. Say something."

Ajak closed her eyes.

"The memories, I don't know about those." She shook her head slowly. "But the Emergence is real."

"Tiamut is real."

"Our mission..."

A pause. A small, bitter smile.

"From the very beginning, it was never to protect humanity. It was to protect Tiamut until it matured."

That landed like a thunderclap.

Whatever they had been holding onto — it was gone now.

The Eternals drifted, unmoored.

"Seven thousand years... what did any of it even mean..."

"What did it mean?"

Hermione watched from where she stood, cold and unmoved.

"It means you were accomplices. Villains helping to destroy Earth."

Not a shred of softness in her voice. "Did you actually think you were the heroes of this story?"

Sersi's head came up. Her eyes were burning. She looked straight at Ajak and Ikaris. "You hid this from us for all these years!"

"Why?!"

"Why didn't you tell us the truth?!"

The others turned on the two of them as well, anger and incomprehension written across every face.

Ikaris shot a vicious look at Hermione. Then he sneered.

"So what?"

"What are you going to do, rebel against your creators?"

"We were made by the Celestials. Serving the Celestials is what we are. We didn't tell you because we knew you'd fall apart exactly like this."

Sersi stared at him. She looked like the ground had come out from under her. "You... are you serious?"

"Those are seven billion lives!"

"Every single one of them will die! Earth will be destroyed!"

Ikaris's face didn't move. "And? The will of the Celestials is above everything."

"Without the Celestials, there is no cosmic order. No new planets are born."

"Earth's sacrifice is the price of something greater."

"You, "

Sersi couldn't get another word out.

Gilgamesh stepped up beside her. "Ikaris." His voice dropped low and hard. "Get yourself together."

"I am together."

Ikaris looked at him with flat, cold eyes. "It's the rest of you who'd better remember what you are."

"We are Celestial creations. Not humans."

Hermione made a short, dry sound.

"Tsk. Textbook slave mentality."

"A few thousand years on a leash and you actually started thinking you were a dog."

She watched the Eternals tear into each other and felt no impulse to intervene. She'd come here for one thing: harvest Tiamut's Soul Energy to deal with Hela.

Time wasn't on her side.

"Take your family drama home."

"Now get out of my sight."

Ajak breathed in slowly. She turned to face Hermione.

"Lady Witch."

"If you want to stop the Emergence, stop it."

"I'm tired. I've been carrying this secret for a very long time." A pause. "And I don't want Earth to die."

"But there is a problem."

She met Hermione's eyes directly. "Kill the hatchling, stop the Emergence, and the Celestials will come. They will want answers."

"When that happens, Earth won't survive their arrival either."

Her voice was weighted. The fear in it wasn't performative.

"The power of the Celestials is beyond anything you can picture."

She didn't finish the thought. She didn't need to. Her eyes said the rest.

The Eternals went quiet with her.

Shock and fury were still there, but Ajak's words had changed the shape of the problem. It wasn't what they'd thought. Kill Tiamut, and Earth lives. But draw the Celestials down, and Earth dies just the same.

A dead end with no exit.

Hermione let out a short breath.

"That's my problem to solve, not yours."

The confidence on her face was complete and utterly unhurried. "I wouldn't be moving on this if I didn't have a plan."

"Ajak! You dare betray the creators!"

Before Ajak could answer, Ikaris exploded.

His face had gone ugly with it, years of compressed, grinding resentment all detonating at once as he stared her down.

He pulled in a breath. His gaze swept the deck.

Sersi. Gilgamesh. Thena. Every face was wavering.

He laughed.

It wasn't warm.

"I see it now."

He looked up at Hermione, and there was nothing in his eyes but rage.

"This is all because of you."

"If you hadn't come along and stuck your hands into this, they would never have ended up like this."

➤ Next: The Diversity Clan