"I lost! I admit defeat!"
Thor hurriedly shouted the moment he saw his friends get blasted away.
"If you knew this would happen, why bother resisting earlier?"
Damon grabbed Thor by the collar sticking out of the ground and yanked him up like pulling out a radish.
Without Mjolnir, Thor's divine power would fade rapidly—his control over thunder diminishing by the minute.
For now, a faint trace of divinity still lingered, protecting him from total collapse.
"Are Fandral and the others okay?"
Thor turned anxiously toward the faraway craters his friends had vanished into.
"Relax, they're not dead."
Damon made a casual swipe through the air, and in an instant, the pits where the Warriors Three had landed shifted through space—reappearing just a few meters away from them, as though he had exchanged the locations of entire sections of terrain.
Thor's heart skipped. That small gesture gave him a deeper appreciation of Damon's terrifying abilities.
"Thor, I'm fine! I can still fight!"
Volstagg struggled up from his crater, panting heavily.
"I'm all right too—just a scratch!"
Fandral and Hogun pulled themselves out of the ground one after another.
Thanks to Damon's mercy, Sif was in the best shape. She leapt out of the rubble, still agile and unscathed.
"Thor, what's going on here?"
Sif frowned warily. "Who's this monster of a man?"
"Just a misunderstanding!" Thor laughed, shamelessly brushing it off. "This is Damon, the Thunder God of Midgard. We were just… sparring!"
"'Sparring?'"
Fandral's face twitched. "Since when does sparring involve getting planted in the dirt like vegetables?"
"Cough! Cough!" Thor coughed awkwardly, about to retort—
—but then, the clouds above them began to churn violently again.
"What now?" Thor frowned.
"Don't look at me, I've got no idea," Fandral said, waving his hands.
"Maybe your father just woke up and is sending someone to fetch you home," Damon said quietly.
"Or… someone wants to send you to your home."
"Huh?!"
Before Thor could respond, a massive figure stepped out from the light of the Bifrost.
It was the Destroyer Armor, controlled remotely by Loki.
Without a word, twin beams of blinding red energy erupted from its eyes, scorching the air as they swept toward Thor and the others.
"It's the Destroyer! Be careful!"
Sif's face paled. She threw up her shield to block the blast.
But even the mightiest shieldmaiden of Asgard couldn't withstand it—
Within three seconds, she was sent flying like a ragdoll.
Her trajectory arced straight toward Damon.
He caught her effortlessly with one hand, and with the other, raised a finger.
An invisible barrier shimmered into existence before him, absorbing the Destroyer's beam entirely.
Then—
"Go back!"
With a soft command, the redirected energy spun in midair, arcing a perfect 180° turn—
—and slammed straight into the Destroyer's chest, blasting it backward dozens of steps!
"Loki," Damon said calmly, a faint smile touching his lips. "Didn't you learn your lesson last time?"
His voice wasn't loud, but it echoed eerily through the empty desert town.
The Destroyer gave no response—just stepped forward again, charging its core with even greater power.
"Oh?" Damon smirked. "You think wearing that scrap metal makes you invincible?"
He gently set Sif down behind him. "Thanks," she murmured quietly, then quickly warned:
"Be careful! The Destroyer was forged by King Odin himself—the All-Father! It's the ultimate guardian of Asgard's vaults!"
"It's said to be indestructible—and capable of annihilating anything!"
Thor shouted as well: "Damon! Give me the hammer! I'll help you destroy it!"
Damon waved him off wordlessly.
Instead, he reached into his inventory and pulled out—
a can of Popeye's Spinach (Three-Illegal Product).
He'd been curious about it since the update. Now was a good time to test its power.
With a crack, he squeezed the can—
The lid popped open with a hiss, and streams of green spinach gushed up like a fountain, automatically funneling into his mouth.
He gulped it all down in one go.
And then—
His muscles exploded outward.
His biceps ballooned like mountains, his legs thickened several times over.
A terrifying surge of energy filled every cell in his body—
like hundreds of Tsar Bombas going off inside his veins.
For a moment, Damon genuinely believed that if he stomped once, he could shatter the Earth itself.
"I am… the embodiment of power!"
He could barely resist the urge to test this might.
The Destroyer, oblivious to the danger, unleashed another beam—
several times stronger than before.
This time, Damon didn't bother blocking.
He simply crossed his arms over his chest, puffed out his torso like a classic superhero pose…
The beam struck him squarely—
and did absolutely nothing.
It was like being hit by a warm breeze.
Sif blinked. "Thor… your Midgardian friend… his chest muscles are glorious!"
Thor glanced down at his own chest—impressive, yes, but compared to Damon's?
He looked like soggy bread.
Volstagg nodded solemnly. "He's a real man."
Fandral added with a straight face, "With Loki controlling the Destroyer like that, he's the real weakling here."
Meanwhile, in Asgard's golden palace, Loki—holding Gungnir—watched the scene through the Destroyer's eyes.
Even across galaxies, cold sweat dripped down his forehead.
"What… what kind of monster is this?!"
Damon raised his right arm, his massive bicep flexing like a living mountain—
and slammed down a single open palm.
BOOM!
The supposedly indestructible Destroyer—crafted from Uru metal and blessed by gods—
was flattened in one strike.
When the dust cleared, it wasn't a body lying there—
but a neatly stacked pile of raw Uru ingots.
Thor and the others rubbed their eyes in disbelief.
"What… kind of technique is that?"
"This," Damon said lightly, "is called the Palm of Restoration."
Then he casually slapped downward again—
SLAP!
The ingots immediately reassembled back into the Destroyer's full armor.
"…So that's the real Palm of Restoration," Fandral muttered in awe.
Thor's mouth twitched. "That… that has to be magic. Definitely magic."
"If you say it is," Damon replied with a smirk, "then sure—it's magic."
He looked up at the dazed Destroyer—then uppercut it straight into the sky.
BOOM!
The armor shot into the air like a human rocket, disappearing into the clouds within seconds.
Three seconds later—it had already left the atmosphere.
Then, bizarrely, it circled the Earth three full times before crash-landing back in the desert.
Thor and the others couldn't even track it.
But Loki—whose consciousness was still linked to the armor—was utterly terrified.
His body might be in Asgard, but his soul was being dragged behind that flying armor like a loose kite.
Finally, as the Destroyer landed with a crash, Loki's control wavered—
and the armor dropped to its knees before Damon.
"Big brother… I was wrong!" Loki's voice trembled through the armor.
~~----------------------
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