Chapter 663
Dio finally arrived at Earth, but he immediately frowned as he sensed something was off.
“What is happening here? What’s with this gloomy atmosphere? Has the sun finally decided to abandon Earth?” Dio said as he jokingly strided towards Steve and the others.
“Dio! You are finally back!” Steve said as he turned his attention towards Dio.
“Hey, I heard that you have a planet of your own. Do you welcome new immigrants to your tax-free world?” Ant Man said jokingly.
Alas, the Avengers welcomed Dio warmly, while Wanda enthusiastically hugged Dio as she missed him the most out of all the avengers. Dio finally sat down with Wanda in his arms to finally assess the situation.
“Calm down, guys! I am not deliberately hiding my planet from you. I just didn’t have any reason to talk about it before! What would I say anyway? Should I brag about having my own planet out of the blue?” Dio said with a smile on his face.
The heroes had to say that they were envious of Dio’s feat. Even if T’challa was considered the wealthiest hero in the world, he was still a king of a country, meaning that he wouldn’t have that kind of money for himself, while Dio was his own person, and he could very much do anything he wanted with his own money!
“Alright, come on! What happened during my absence?” Dio asked seriously. As he really wanted to hear what happened on Earth. The Avengers that chatted enthusiastically earlier immediately quieted down as they didn’t know where to begin.
Dio was confused. He could understand why Thor had this sad look on his face, but what happened to the others?
“Strange is missing! We couldn’t find his whereabouts even after we spent a lot of resources to find him!” Steve said as he finally stood up.
“Are you sure he was missing? You know he can create a portal to go to basically anywhere he wants, right? He could be on some remote part of the Earth to have some little fun, you know!” Dio said as he was extremely confused by Strange’s disappearance.
“I am quite sure that he was missing!” Steve said as he shook his head before saying anything else. The confused Dio made speculation about the current situation, but it didn’t really make sense!
“Let’s start from the beginning. What happened to Strange? Lamenting what happened in the past won’t help anyway!” Dio said carefully.
“I understand. Now it all started after we received a call from Tony!” Steve said as he began to narrate what happened during Dio’s absence. Dio immediately frowned after he heard everything that Steve had to say.
“You said that a strange woman attacked Vision and tried to take his Mind Gem away, and then after she spared Vision, he reported everything that happened to Tony. Tony immediately contacted you after a long time to ask for any discrepancy with the other Avengers with you, but you couldn’t contact Stephen, and no one knows where he was! Then you suspected that Stephen had fallen prey to the mysterious woman. Am I right on point?” Dio said with a frown on his face.
“Yes, that is the most of it! We couldn’t determine the enemy’s goal at all! We have a slight idea why Vision’s Mind Stone was targeted, but we were confused why Stephen would be targeted!” Steve added.
“I probably know why. Stephen had another Infinity Stone in his possession, the same kind as Vision’s Mind Stone.” Dio said whisperingly, more to himself than to inform the others. When Dio fought against Thanos earlier, he only encountered Ebony Mau, Corvus Glaive, and Hela. He hadn’t seen any of the other Black Order, so he thought Thanos might have sent them to Earth to get the other Infinity Stones!
After Carol woke up, he learned that Thanos had a new member in his Black Order and that new member was a woman with a very tricky power. Because of that woman’s power, Carol missed his chance to strike Thanos down and got caught as a consequence.
At that time, Dio began thinking that the woman Carol mentioned was Supergiant that didn’t make her appearance in the movie. But still, it was just speculation as Dio didn’t have enough information to go on. As for why Carol didn’t come with him to Earth was the story for another time.
Dio’s thought was on the right track, but he lacked the most important information, which was about the Supergiant and Proxima Midnight that was no longer alive!
Now, Dio knew that he had killed Ebony Mau with his hands, but he still thought that there were still 5 members in the Black Order with the addition of Hela, while in truth, the Black Order has been reduced to 3 people! Dio would never expect the strongest group in the universe would have been reduced in half in a short time frame!
“Are you serious? Strange has another Infinity Stone?” Steve clarified as he was surprised by the information he heard from Dio. This was normal as no one knew how long the Time Stone had resided on Earth.
“Yes, in fact, I believe that the Time Stone in Strange’s possession was the only Infinity Stone that originally resides on Earth. It was handed down to the hands of the Sorcerer Supreme since ancient times as it was their responsibility to protect the Earth and the Time Gem from any dimensional invader! This was why the Time Stone secret was strictly protected!” Dio said solemnly.
Everyone nodded their heads as they understood the information that Dio provided. They knew that the Infinity Stones was too much to handle alone, so they understood why the Sorcerer Supreme must keep its secrecy to the utmost level! It was more of a matter of safety rather than trust, as the fewer people knew about it, the higher chance it would remain hidden.
“Then Stephen’s Infinity Stone has to be the reason for his disappearance! I don’t know why that woman leaves Vision alone, but we must act quickly! My instinct told me that the woman would soon bring a disaster to Earth!” Steve said with a frown on his face.
“This is also one of the information that I have to tell you! I believe that mysterious woman was under the command of the Tyrant to collect all the Infinity Stones!” Dio said solemnly.
“Tyrant? Who are you talking about?” Everyone asked as they had never heard anyone with that name before. In fact, Thor was the only one out of all people here now that knew who Dio was talking about!
“He is the great genocider that planned to kill half of all life in the universe! He has that vision to make sure that the remaining people could enjoy the limited supplies that the universe has better than the current condition. He believes that the current population in the universe is too high, and thus the supplies won’t be enough for everyone!” Dio said solemnly.