Facts were facts. No matter how miserably Thor shouted, no matter how worried he was about Mjolnir, nothing would change.
As Hela continued to apply force, Mjolnir trembled constantly, letting out a wretched cry.
When the pressure Hela placed on Mjolnir reached a critical point, an ear-piercing crack exploded in the next second.
Hela's finger bones sank deep into the patterns on the hammer's surface. The divine weapon that had once shattered mountains and withstood countless attacks actually cracked layer by layer like glass. Silver fragments fell through her palm with a soft rush, and the few pieces left were casually ground into powder between her fingers.
A hoarse gasp came from Thor's throat. His entire body froze in place, and the hand clenched around empty air trembled violently.
He watched helplessly as the final shard drifted down from Hela's fingertips and struck the ground, leaving a tiny pit.
That had been the weapon that had accompanied him since his youth, the symbol of Asgard's power. Now it had become dust crushed in his opponent's palm.
His long hair fell over his face, but his shoulders collapsed uncontrollably, as if every bone in his body had been pulled out.
At the same time, after witnessing this astonishing sight, Loki, who was hiding behind Harry, went rigid. The fake smile peeled from his face in an instant, leaving only pure shock behind.
He subconsciously reached for the dagger hidden in his sleeve, but his fingertips stopped the moment they touched the cold metal. He did not have the courage to draw it.
Against a power capable of crushing even Mjolnir, what did his little tricks amount to?
At that moment, he recalled the ancient stories about the Goddess of Death. Now those stories were no longer legends, but blades hanging over his neck.
Damn it, they were both the children of All-Father Odin, so why was Thor so pathetic compared to Hela?
Frigga also stared blankly at Hela's open palm, where fragments of the hammerhead still remained.
She suddenly understood the true meaning behind Odin's final warning that Hela was far stronger than they imagined.
She also understood that if they wanted Asgard to be spared from the fated end of Ragnarok, they had only one option, they had to ask Harry Potter for help, to seek the protection of this Sorcerer Supreme whose reputation spanned the entire multiverse.
As long as they could obtain Harry's protection, they would no longer need to fear Ragnarok!
To Thor, Mjolnir was the most important existence in his life, even more important than his girlfriend.
So when he saw Mjolnir crushed by Hela, his pupils suddenly contracted into pinpoints, and a beast-like roar burst from his throat.
As if all reason had been stripped away, he charged at Hela barehanded. The lightning bursting from his fists was more violent than ever before.
But most of his strength had come from Mjolnir. Now that he had lost the hammer's guidance, the power of Thor, God of Thunder, within him scattered like an out-of-control wildfire. It looked mighty, but in truth, it was feeble and unstable.
"Monster!" he roared, swinging a heavy punch. His knuckles went white from the force as he smashed toward Hela's face with a wind that tore through the air.
Hela did not even turn aside. She only raised two fingers and lightly pressed them against the surface of his fist.
Thor's fist froze a few inches from the tip of her nose, and the lightning was annihilated inch by inch at her fingertips.
"This is the prince of Asgard?" Hela scoffed. With a slight twist of her wrist, Thor's massive body suddenly flew backward like a puppet with its strings cut, slamming heavily into one of the stone circle's pillars. The entire formation hummed from the impact, and shattered stone rained down onto his armor.
Thor struggled to his feet, blood seeping from the corner of his mouth. The shoulder guard of his armor had caved in from the collision.
He lifted his head and let out a deafening battle cry. Silver-white lightning suddenly surged around him, wrapping along his arms in serpentine coils, only to be swallowed the moment it touched Hela.
He charged again, driving his knee toward Hela's abdomen. But Hela's figure suddenly turned into a plume of black smoke in place, and in the next second, she appeared behind Thor. A cold sword blade was about to slash toward the back of his neck.
But just as the blade was about to fall, a magic array suddenly appeared behind Thor and blocked the attack for him.
Hela stared at the golden magic array in surprise. Then, through the connection of energy, she immediately discovered Harry nearby.
She swept her cloak and turned toward Harry, questioning him coldly.
"What is this? Does a mage from Midgard intend to interfere in Asgard's internal affairs?"
Hela had been sealed for at least several thousand years. Before she was sealed away, Kamar-Taj did not exist, and naturally, neither did the title of Sorcerer Supreme.
So she merely regarded the person before her as a powerful mage.
Ever since breaking free, Hela's sealed divine power had been rapidly recovering. Feeling the immense strength within her body, she spoke with condescending arrogance.
"It seems that when I unify the Nine Realms, I will need to cleanse those ants hiding in Midgard.
"Although you are truly weak, if you suddenly turn against me while I am conquering the universe, you may still become a somewhat troublesome nuisance."
Although Harry's magic array had helped Thor block the attack, part of its force still pierced through the array and landed on him.
Just now, Thor had felt a tremendous force pour in through the back of his neck. Every bone in his body seemed to groan, and stars exploded before his eyes.
He dropped heavily to one knee, his hands braced against the cold soil. That first exchange alone made him understand just how enormous the gap was between himself and this sister related to him by blood.
But when he heard what Hela said to Harry, his eyes lit up slightly. He climbed up from the ground, pointed at Hela, and mocked her without any politeness.
"You? A forgotten woman sealed away for thousands of years, and you still want to defeat Harry? Are you dreaming?"
Hela found Thor's attitude somewhat puzzling. From their clash just now, Thor should have glimpsed the tip of the iceberg that was her power.
Why, after facing such overwhelming strength, would Thor still believe that she could not defeat this slightly powerful mage before them?
Hela temporarily ignored Harry. She believed that as long as he remained within her sight, he could not escape her control. Whether she killed him sooner or later made no difference.
So she walked straight toward Thor, one slow step at a time, until the shadow of her black robe completely swallowed him. Hela sneered.
"Look at you. You almost don't even have the strength to stand anymore. How could someone like you ever be worthy of Asgard's throne?
"On top of that, you actually believe your own strength is inferior to this mortal's. Without understanding anything at all, you also believe I am weaker than this mortal.
"You don't even have the pride of a god anymore. Then let me tell you now, the Asgardian gods are the strongest beings in the entire universe!
"Asgard's spear can pierce all things. Asgard's shield can withstand everything. Wherever the sound of our horns echoes beneath the heavens, that land belongs to Asgard.
"Odin has already stepped off the stage. Now it should be I, Hela, the Goddess of Death, who leads Asgard toward the future that was always meant to belong to it!"
Thor was not convinced by Hela's words. Because of his past experiences, he had long since lost his former arrogance and become much steadier.
The corner of his mouth curved into a mocking smile as he said to Hela, "You can try. Maybe then you'll understand just how large the gap between you and Harry really is. That gap is even greater than the gap between you and me!"
Her history of invincibility had made Hela arrogant, but while her mind was arrogant, her tactics remained cautious.
Thor's mysterious confidence made Hela suspicious, but it also made her more careful.
She decided that once she fought that mage from Midgard, she would go all out immediately.
She could not afford to overturn everything because of a moment of carelessness.
Hela suddenly vanished from where she stood and appeared in front of Harry in an instant. The twin swords in her hands gleamed with a coffin-like matte finish, and the black mist coiling around the spines of the blades writhed madly, corroding everything it touched.
She intended to kill Harry in an instant and plunge Thor into true despair.
But to her surprise, even though she had pushed her speed to the limit, Harry's eyes still locked firmly onto her.
Harry's wand spun in his palm, forming a silver-gray wheel of light. Purple-gold lightning surged from the wand tip and condensed in midair into a long sword flickering with runes.
Liquid lightning flowed along the sword's edge. Every inch of the blade hummed as if it imprisoned a thunderstorm.
He turned sideways to avoid the black sword sweeping toward him, and the lightning sword struck downward in the same motion. When it collided with Hela's twin swords, the energy ripples that erupted shattered the surrounding stones.
Hela had not expected her attack to be blocked so easily by Harry. Her pupils contracted sharply. Her gaze shifted, and her left sword suddenly flew from her hand, turning into black lightning that stabbed straight toward Harry's back.
But when the left sword was still a meter away from Harry's chest, it was suddenly covered in ice, then frozen in midair.
Just like that, the two of them continued fighting. But throughout the entire process, Harry never once launched an attack on his own initiative.
Gradually, Hela finally discovered something strange about their battle. No matter how desperately she attacked, she could not break through Harry's defense.
The mage before her was like a neutron star blocking her path, completely sealing the road ahead and leaving her unable to advance another step.
After one collision, Hela's arrogance made this almost humiliating style of battle unbearable. She glared at Harry and rebuked him angrily, refusing to admit defeat.
"Mage of Midgard, do you not have even the slightest spirit of a warrior?
"Even if I am not your opponent, you cannot humiliate me like this. Hela, the Goddess of Death, will not be insulted!"
Harry raised an eyebrow. "Then, as you wish."
Because their battle had been far too intense, and even a near miss was enough to destroy several kilometers of the surrounding environment, Harry had pulled their battlefield into the Mirror Dimension without Hela noticing.
Now, since Hela could no longer wait to lose, he would satisfy her.
The two faced one another on the scorched grassland. Their auras continued to climb, and both of them understood that the next attack would decide victory and defeat.
In Hela's palm, the black mist representing death grew denser and denser until, in the end, it formed dozens of gigantic swords several hundred meters long behind her.
The surfaces of those gigantic swords were all engraved with death Runic matrix markings. Anyone struck by them would be corroded by death. If the difference in strength between the target and Hela was too great, they might even die outright from the death of their soul.
Hela was now instantly consuming all the divine power in her body and condensing it into this one attack.
This strike could even rival the power she possessed at her peak.
But even so, Hela did not relax at all. The mage from Midgard opposite her still looked completely calm, as if the strongest attack she was now unleashing was no different from her previous ones.
Even so, Hela's fighting spirit remained at its peak. In her past campaigns, she had faced far too many powerful enemies.
If she lost her will to fight the moment she was weaker than her opponent, she would have died long ago.
After charging her power to the limit, Hela suddenly waved her hand. The dozens of gigantic swords behind her shot forward instantly, breaking the sound barrier in the blink of an eye and carving pitch-black traces of death through the Mirror Dimension before converging on Harry.
Even more astonishing was that these gigantic swords possessed a tracking effect of their own, and even carried the certain-hit property of Gungnir.
This meant that if Harry did not have a countermeasure, he would be struck by dozens of gigantic swords at the same time.
If such a powerful attack landed, even Odin would be injured.
In her past campaigns, Hela had used this move to kill countless enemies.
This was also her strongest attack now!
The gigantic swords were extremely fast, arriving in front of Harry in the blink of an eye.
But for the truly powerful, the flow of time was never fixed.
To Harry, the gigantic swords flying rapidly toward him were only drifting as slowly as feathers.
At the instant the swords were about to touch Harry, when victory had begun to appear on Hela's face, and under the worried gazes of Thor and Frigga, Harry slowly raised his wand within space-time accelerated dozens of times over.
The wand was instantly wrapped in green magical light, condensing into a massive sword several meters long.
The body of the disintegration greatsword trembled continuously as Harry kept pouring magic into it. Even the scattered disintegration rays leaking from it tore apart the surrounding Mirror Dimension, revealing the darkness between dimensions.
Harry raised the disintegration sword and slowly swung it downward.
By the time he swung the disintegration sword to its lowest point, a green wave of disintegration sword energy, condensed from high-density disintegration beams, thundered into existence.
In the next instant, the disintegration sword energy collided with Hela's gigantic swords!
The moment the two forces met, the world sank into a brief silence.
Green annihilation and dark-purple death bit into each other. The shockwave that erupted destroyed everything around them. The clouds in the sky were shattered, revealing fragmented light beyond.
Dark-purple death attempted to suppress green annihilation with its immense volume, but the annihilation, only one-tenth the size of death, was a hundred times denser.
Crack.
When the first crack sounded, the gigantic swords began to disintegrate at astonishing speed, broken down by the green sword energy.
The green disintegration sword energy pressed forward, like a living viper, drilling through the cracks and into the core of the gigantic swords. Wherever it passed, dense energy was broken down into the most primitive particles. Even the flying metal fragments were annihilated the instant they touched the disintegration sword.
The green tide advanced toward Hela with unstoppable force and swept past her in the blink of an eye.
When Thor could finally see the center of the battlefield clearly, he found a great spray of blood bursting from Hela's chest.
The incomparably proud Hela, Goddess of Death, collapsed just like that.
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