Marvel: Starting as a Time Criminal, Stealing Powers

Twenty-five days!

Only twenty-five days!!!

In that short time, the other party had gone from just learning phantom magic to proficiently controlling shadows, performing instant phantom teleportation, and even creating large-scale illusions more perfect than his own!

At this moment, old Loki truly believed Cassandra must still be messing with his mind. Otherwise, how could he witness something that completely defied logic?

This has to be fake!

It must be an illusion!

"Hahahaha!"

"It's real, Loki. You'll have to accept it," Russell patted old Loki on the shoulder sincerely. "I just happen to be better at magic."

You call this comforting? Old Loki almost suffocated on the spot.

If you're just "better," then what does that make me?

Over 2,600 years of life, and it turns out I've been living like a joke?

It was too much to handle!

Russell blinked and stopped rubbing salt in the wound.

In fact, if he focused purely on speed and didn't care about mastery, he could've progressed even faster.

With two top-tier magic abilities stacked, he felt he was probably already close to the standard version of Doctor Strange.

But even so, he had hit a bottleneck.

If the difficulty of creating illusions was a 10, then turning illusions into reality was a 1000!

The gap was immense.

What made it worse was his lack of magical knowledge—he had nothing to draw on.

That only made things harder.

There was no point continuing brute-force training. He needed deeper understanding and knowledge of the arcane.

Russell fell into thought.

The time tablet had been cracked.

Maybe his first destination should be Kamar-Taj?

But after thinking about it for a moment, he dismissed the idea.

He'd have to go eventually—but not yet. He had a better target in mind for now.

Over the next few days, Russell took the little wolf girl to the moss plains. Loki in this world was useless, so it was relatively safe.

As for supplies, there was nothing to worry about—he could bring them from other timelines.

The only regret was that when he found the enemy base the day after killing Cassandra, it was already abandoned. Even Ant-Man's suit was gone.

He had no idea what happened.

Let's just say the Red Devil got lucky. Otherwise, Russell would've taken him out too.

Teleportation was just too useful.

After finishing all preparations, Russell began his first time-travel journey!

Time-space coordinates:

2017.09.26

Asgard!

In a quiet corner of Asgard, an orange portal appeared out of thin air, and Russell stepped through.

A green shimmer passed over him, changing his appearance into that of an ordinary Asgardian man.

With that done, he quietly waited.

Ten minutes later, he checked the time tablet.

The timeline was stable. No branching.

"The Doomsday Line is such a goldmine."

Russell muttered to himself and turned invisible.

He didn't remember the exact day of Ragnarök—it hadn't been clearly stated in the movies—but old Loki did.

Right now, there were only five hours left until Asgard was destroyed by the fire demon.

So, he came to collect the spoils.

Hela's divine power and the Eternal Flame of Surtur were both valuable assets.

But he didn't plan to fight head-on.

Hela was practically invincible in Asgard.

And Surtur, in his Doomsday form, capable of destroying Asgard with a single sword swing, didn't exactly look like someone you could mess with casually.

So, sneaking in for loot was the smarter move.

He remembered how, right after he first arrived in this world, Iron Man died because of him, triggering the system and allowing him to loot the [Curse of Knowledge] item.

So he boldly guessed: as long as someone important died, the system's loot function should activate.

Over the next few hours, Russell didn't steal from the vaults, fearing it might alter the plot and stop Doomsday from happening.

Instead, he hid at the top of Asgard and quietly waited for the endgame.

Soon, he witnessed an epic blockbuster unfold with his own eyes.

Thor, Valkyrie, and Banner returned by spaceship.

Thor lost an eye in battle with Hela, then awakened new power. A massive fight broke out. Hulk transformed. Loki helped save the day.

Then Surtur awakened from the Eternal Flame and became a towering thousand-meter-tall bringer of destruction, raising his giant sword to destroy Asgard.

That's when Russell finally moved.

Both hands formed pistol gestures—one aimed at Surtur, the other at Hela.

"Biubiu~~~"

He grinned excitedly and fired two micro blood arrows.

The first hit Surtur's thigh—but didn't even break the surface. Just a tiny black mark.

Surtur didn't even flinch.

But the second arrow was unexpected.

Just as it was about to strike Hela in the head, she suddenly tilted to dodge and looked in his direction.

"Damn little bug!" Hela roared—but didn't pursue.

Because at that moment, Surtur's sword was coming down.

"Go to hell!!"

She summoned an obsidian spike infused with the power of death, launching it to intercept the sword.

Seeing this, Russell didn't hesitate.

Even if he missed, he was still part of the event now.

He teleported directly into the Grandmaster's ship (his phantom teleportation could target specific space coordinates and didn't require mental imagery like Kamar-Taj's teleportation).

He slipped out of the hatch and blended into the crowd.

He was worried that if he left too early, the system wouldn't register his involvement and he couldn't loot anything.

Beside the porthole, Loki noticed a rude civilian shoving his way in and frowned.

Does this man know who he's standing next to?

Still, as a heroic figure, he forced a smile and stepped aside.

He assumed the man would at least say thank you.

But Russell didn't even look at him.

Loki's face twitched. How dare this guy ignore me?

He silently decided to teach the guy a lesson once Thor wasn't around.

Then—Asgard exploded.

The dazzling light bloomed one final time in the vastness of space.

"Asgard is gone..." Thor said with sorrow.

Loki was about to comfort him—when he heard someone beside him mutter in confusion:

"Something's off. Why isn't there any system feedback yet? Was the explosion not complete?"

"Surtur, are you even trying? Is the sword not plugged in all the way?"

The voice wasn't loud, but both Thor and Loki heard it clearly—they weren't ordinary people.

Thor frowned.

How could any true Asgardian say something like that...?

He was annoyed, but chose not to speak.

Loki, however, wasn't so reserved.

A sneer crept across his face. Thor might let this slide, but I won't!

"What's your name!?"

He tried to imitate Odin's commanding tone.

"How dare you speak such nonsense at a time like this! What's your intention!?"

Russell was annoyed and turned to look at the familiar face before him. His irritation doubled.

"You better watch your tone."

"Unlucky brat."

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