Baldur Odinson:The light of Asgard

Chapter 22: Arrival at the Black Market

The station was alive with chaos.

Unlike Xandar's pristine cities or Asgard's golden halls, this place was a different beast entirely. The Black Market of the Cosmos had no name, no true location. It existed in the shadows, moving from system to system, always one step ahead of those who sought to shut it down.

It was a place for the desperate, the dangerous, and the damned.

And Baldur was very aware that he had just stepped into a den of wolves.

The docking bay alone was enough of a warning. Rust-covered ships lined the hangars, some barely held together by scrap metal and stolen parts. Bounty hunters, smugglers, and warlords moved between them, their weapons always within reach.

Baldur lowered his golden aura, dimming his presence. He had no doubt that an Asgardian walking in here would attract the wrong kind of attention.

This wasn't a battlefield. This was a hunting ground.

And in places like this?

The strong didn't just survive. They thrived.

Baldur walked through the market streets, taking in everything.

Exotic weapon stalls lined the paths, selling everything from Kree plasma rifles to illegal Nova Corps energy cores. Flesh traders peddled stolen prisoners, their shackles humming with suppression tech. A Skrull merchant whispered of black hole grenades, their destructive potential enough to erase entire moons.

He saw species he had never encountered before—some with glowing eyes, some with scales, some that radiated energy so powerful it made his skin prickle.

This place wasn't just dangerous.

It was a concentrated mass of the galaxy's worst.

Baldur moved with calculated ease, not making eye contact but also not showing hesitation. He had no doubt half the people here would kill him for sport if given the chance.

And the other half?

They'd make it hurt first.

He passed a small alley where a massive creature, eight feet tall and covered in obsidian armor plates, was using its four arms to pin a smaller humanoid against the wall.

A mugging.

Normally, Baldur wouldn't care—he wasn't here to play hero.

But as he glanced at the victim, he recognized something familiar.

The symbol of Xandar's underground resistance.

A survivor.

Baldur exhaled. "Great. So much for staying unnoticed."

The armored creature never saw him coming.

One moment, it was holding its victim against the wall. The next?

A golden blur.

Baldur struck with precise, controlled force, his palm slamming into the creature's chest. The impact was enough to send it flying backward, crashing through the wall and into the adjacent building.

The market paused.

A dozen eyes turned to him, some with curiosity, others with immediate hostility.

The victim—a Xandarian man with a cybernetic implant covering half his face—stared up at Baldur in shock.

"You… you shouldn't have done that," the man whispered.

Baldur raised an eyebrow. "You're welcome."

The building exploded outward.

The armored creature emerged, rage burning in its crimson eyes. It cracked its massive knuckles, the plating on its skin shifting like liquid metal.

"You made a mistake, offworlder," it growled.

Baldur sighed. "Yeah, I hear that a lot."

The fight was on.

The creature lunged, moving faster than something that size should have been capable of.

Baldur sidestepped smoothly, his footwork nearly effortless as he twisted around the incoming punch. The air pressure alone from the swing cracked the walls behind him.

Strong. But not fast enough.

Baldur planted his foot and delivered a counter-punch straight to the creature's ribs.

There was a loud, metallic crunch.

The thing staggered, but didn't fall.

Instead, it grinned.

Its skin shifted, reforming itself.

Self-repairing armor. Interesting.

The creature came at him again, this time changing tactics.

Instead of relying on brute force, it started moving unpredictably, shifting its weight, adapting mid-fight. It was learning.

And Baldur loved it.

He let the fight drag on, testing himself. He dodged and countered, allowing the creature to push him more than he would have before.

Not because he had to.

Because he wanted to see how far he had come.

Each of its attacks became easier to predict, each movement a pattern waiting to be broken.

Finally, Baldur ended it.

He ducked under a final, desperate swing—then delivered a perfect upward strike to its jaw.

A golden shockwave erupted outward, blasting the creature straight up into the air. It soared over the marketplace, smashing into a distant stall.

The market fell into silence again.

And then—

Someone started laughing.

A deep, gravelly chuckle.

Baldur turned.

From the crowd, a new figure emerged.

A being clad in red and black battle armor, with deep scars running across his face. He carried a massive curved blade across his back, and his eyes were the color of dying stars.

A warlord.

Baldur recognized him instantly.

Not from his past life. Not from the MCU.

But because his name had been whispered in every criminal stronghold from here to the Kree Empire.

Rylos the Butcher.

The leader of the Iron Fangs, one of the largest mercenary factions in the sector.

"You fight well, Asgardian," Rylos said, his voice a low, dangerous purr. "But you should know something."

Baldur exhaled. "Let me guess. I just made another mistake?"

Rylos grinned.

"No," he said. "You just made yourself interesting."

The entire marketplace erupted into motion.

Every bounty hunter, every mercenary, every warlord who had been watching moved at once.

Baldur sighed again.

"Yeah, figures."

Then the battle began.