While the Dark Elves were attacking the barrier, Marcus stood over the cursed warrior whose body he had systematically destroyed. Although this enemy no longer had any ability to move, Marcus still felt that something was fundamentally wrong with the situation.
This was the first time Marcus had encountered a cursed warrior in person. Apart from knowing that the cursed warrior's body was stronger than Thor's, he didn't have much detailed knowledge about these transformed Dark Elves.
"I keep feeling like there's something off about this guy," Marcus muttered, studying the motionless form.
Marcus could sense something was wrong, but he couldn't quite identify what it was that was bothering him.
Marcus's eyes suddenly lit up with golden light, and the power of Asgard burst forth instantly. Just like Heimdall, golden energy radiated from his eyes as he attempted to see deeper into the cursed warrior's condition.
But Marcus wasn't using his void power, after all. Although the energy was manifesting through his eyes, he still couldn't see exactly what was wrong with the cursed warrior's body.
This made Marcus want to use his void power for a more thorough examination, but when he saw the barrier control center with energy flowing through it nearby, he suppressed this impulse.
Odin had been concerned about his void power contaminating Asgard from the moment he'd arrived. If Marcus used it now, it would easily pollute the barrier and might affect Asgard's divine power core from this location.
"This is really troublesome," Marcus said with frustration, "but throwing him away from here shouldn't be a problem."
No matter what the cursed warrior could do in his current state, as long as Marcus moved him away from this area, whatever happened wouldn't affect the safety of the barrier.
BOOM!
Marcus stomped on the ground, surrounded by red light, and charged toward the cursed warrior's position.
The cursed warrior, who had no power to resist, was knocked away by Marcus in an instant.
However, as he flew through the air, the lava-like cracks covering his body suddenly began to glow brightly, and the cursed warrior's form started expanding rapidly.
"So you're planning to self-destruct!" Marcus realized with alarm.
As he spoke, Marcus let out a low roar, and energy instantly spread throughout his body. The next moment, he transformed into a rhino completely wrapped in gray metal, looking like he was wearing a layer of armor.
BOOM!
The cursed warrior exploded directly in front of Marcus. This was the only tactic he had left, and his goal was to destroy Marcus, the powerful enemy who had defeated him.
The massive explosion swept outward in all directions, enveloping Marcus's body and destroying the surrounding buildings.
With a thunderous roar, Marcus rushed out of the dust cloud raised by the explosion. At the same time as the cursed warrior exploded, he had activated Rhino's steel skin ability.
This power completely absorbed the damage caused by the cursed warrior's explosion, converting it into gray steel skin that covered Rhino's body, providing enhanced defense for Marcus.
However, although the explosion caused no harm to Marcus, it inflicted considerable damage on the Asgard Palace.
The surrounding buildings were destroyed in the blast, and the passage behind him leading to the barrier control center collapsed and turned into ruins because of the explosion.
The cursed warrior's explosion was devastatingly powerful. The blast even affected the operation of the barrier control center, causing problems with the barrier that had been running very stably.
The Dark Elves who were attacking the barrier suddenly discovered that the defensive field seemed to have weakened after their prolonged assault, and some of their attacks were now passing through the barrier.
"Excellent! Continue the attack and completely destroy this barrier!" Malekith, the leader of the Dark Elves, commanded from his flagship.
Following their leader's orders, the attacks from the Razor ships and warships became more intensive and focused.
The barrier, which was already experiencing technical problems, was finally breached under this high-intensity bombardment.
"The defense barrier has been destroyed?" The soldiers guarding the palace were shocked. They hadn't expected that these unknown enemies would be able to destroy the barrier through such methods.
"Stay alert and prepare to engage the enemy!" Fandral, one of the Warriors Three of Asgard, was the first to respond, commanding the surrounding soldiers with his sword drawn.
These sudden attacks by hostile forces were obviously malicious in intent, so they had to be treated with the utmost caution.
However, the Dark Elves immediately opened their ship hatches and deployed their own army.
Compared to the soldiers of Asgard, the Dark Elves were obviously much more tactically sophisticated, and they didn't even consider engaging the Asgardian army in hand-to-hand combat.
As they emerged from their ships, they threw fist-sized objects at the assembled Asgardian forces.
Buzz!
The objects made a buzzing sound in the air and opened up at the moment they reached the Asgardian army, transforming into vortexes with extremely strong gravitational pull that instantly twisted and destroyed any soldiers within their range.
These were the black hole grenades that the Dark Elves had mastered.
After witnessing this devastating display, Fandral hurriedly commanded loudly: "Stay away from those black holes!"
Before the battle had even truly begun, the Asgardian army was suffering casualties from the black hole grenades thrown by their opponents. This was definitely not a good start.
However, among the Dark Elves, there weren't many such black hole grenades available. After that initial round of grenade throwing, Fandral never saw the same tactic used again.
"Stop them!" Fandral roared.
With his battle cry, the Asgardian army and the Dark Elves began to fight in earnest.
The Dark Elves all raised their energy weapons and fired at the Asgardian army, while the Asgardian soldiers raised their shields to block the energy beams shot by the Dark Elves.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
During their battle, the ground began to shake violently.
A figure with a red energy trail was rushing toward them. Fandral could see clearly that it was a very heavy-looking armored form.
He was familiar with this armor because he had seen the same type of transformation on Earth during their last encounter, and the person using the armor was Marcus.
Every time Marcus took a step, they could feel the ground shake once.
That figure was rushing toward them with unstoppable force.
"Get out of the way!" Marcus shouted at the Asgardian army blocking his path, running faster and faster as he charged toward the Dark Elves.
The unstoppable momentum made many Asgardian soldiers disperse and clear a path for Marcus.
So Marcus rushed into the Dark Elf forces in full view of everyone, and those Dark Elf soldiers who had just jumped out of the Razor spacecraft were directly crushed in front of Marcus's charge.
Not only did they fail to resist Marcus's assault, but they allowed him to rush directly into their spacecraft. In just a few breaths, Marcus had charged completely through the ship and emerged from the other side, and the spacecraft turned into spectacular fireworks the moment he exited.
"By the gods, what kind of monster is this?" everyone exclaimed in shock.
This guy had actually blown up the spacecraft directly. Even Asgard's defense turrets would find it difficult to destroy a spacecraft with a single shot, but Marcus had directly demolished the Razor ship.
After dealing with one spacecraft, Marcus finally stopped moving. He stood in place and looked up at the remaining ships flying around in the air, as well as the massive battleship.
"That battleship is quite interesting," Marcus observed with obvious interest.
Seeing this strange-looking battleship, the first idea that came to Marcus's mind was to transform this vessel into his own spacecraft.
Although Howard had already built a flying machine for him, who would complain about having too many spaceships?
Looking up at the flying Razor spacecraft, Marcus snorted, bent his legs, and leaped into the air. The moment he jumped up, the ground was instantly crushed into a huge crater.
His trajectory took him directly toward the nearest Dark Elf vessel, and the soldiers on both sides watched in amazement as this armored figure launched himself like a missile toward their aerial enemies.
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