It had to be said—as the All-Father's weapon, Gungnir possessed power that was all but limitless. In Odin's hands, cleaving a planet was routine. In Loki's, it was barely a glorified staff; on any given day, he couldn't draw out even a hundredth of its true capability. A thousandth.
Perhaps the All-Father took some quiet satisfaction in watching his two sons fight side by side. Or perhaps it was in deference to Daisy, the outsider. Either way: with the combined strength of all three behind it, Gungnir managed to radiate the faintest glimmer of its true nature.
The spear's tip barely glowed—scattered sparks that looked like a stiff breeze could snuff them out. But its penetrating power left Atomic Cutting in the dust.
Scales. Muscle. Bone. Jörmungandr had no defense against Gungnir whatsoever. The spear entered through his belly, exited through his back, and in the next instant it was back in Loki's hand.
A penetrating wound ten centimeters (four inches) in diameter looked like nothing on a creature stretching several kilometers. But Gungnir carried a special effect: decay. The flesh around the wound began losing vitality almost immediately, turning to dead matter within moments. The grey-black deterioration spread rapidly outward, threatening to engulf the entire body.
At full power, Jörmungandr could have fought it off. But his strength had bottomed out. Against a hit carrying an instakill effect, he had almost nothing left to resist with.
His body stopped responding. He plummeted from the sky.
He knew he had lost today. A flash of hatred passed through Jörmungandr's eyes. As long as fear existed in the world, he would be reborn—which was precisely why Odin had always chosen to seal him rather than kill him.
Even cut to pieces today, in a hundred years or a thousand, fed by the fear of every sentient being across the Nine Realms, he would rise again. He would keep rising, until the day the prophecy was finally fulfilled—until Thor destroyed him at the cost of his own life.
The prophecy was a problem for another time. Right now, he would deal Asgard one final wound. Gathering the last of his strength, his tail sent Thor flying miles away. Then he adjusted his trajectory and let gravity do the rest—mass and velocity converging on the crowd below.
"Stop him!" Frigga cried.
No one needed the order. They could all read the stakes. The serpent at half-strength had already pushed them to their limits; if he reached Odin and fed, was there any path through this?
"Get back—everyone move!" Loki shouted urgently at the warriors crowding the field, herding the mass of them and threading acceleration magic through the crowd so they could retreat in something resembling order.
Daisy's stomach lurched. She grabbed Frigga—who had been fighting from range throughout—and teleported her clear. Then she launched herself skyward, unspooled her lasso, and pulled.
It wasn't enough. Strength had never been her strong suit. She pulled from above, but she couldn't arrest Jörmungandr's descent.
The impact point shifted by a fraction. Jörmungandr closed his eyes, hatred filling them to the last.
His body slammed into the Bifrost.
The bridge—already eaten through with craters from the acid breath—gave way completely. Hundreds of Asgardian warriors tumbled loose and swept downward alongside chunks of stone and Jörmungandr's corpse, falling into the deep, unknowable Void below.
Among them: Loki, who had stayed until last to direct the evacuation. And Volstagg of the Warriors Three.
Inside the Void, the rules of sorcery shifted. Loki felt his magic stutter—the energy flows here obeyed different laws. He could only watch as he and hundreds of Asgardians continued to fall into the dark below.
Fortunately, Daisy held the line. The Void had its own gravity. She spread all five fingers, spinning out a web of gravity lines—a vast net—trying to catch everyone at once.
"Quickly—someone move that serpent's body! I can't hold this much longer!"
She lasted one second before calling for help. Too many people; she couldn't track each one individually. She'd netted the serpent's corpse along with everyone else.
However this serpent had been nourished, it was heavier than an aircraft carrier—and it wasn't entirely dead. The body kept struggling, which accelerated her drain with every passing moment.
Thor had been sent flying by the last tail-strike and had only just clawed his way out of a mountainside. He heard her shout and raced back—but he was already too late.
"I'm losing it…" Daisy's hair whipped around her. Her power was stretched to its absolute maximum. No matter how much she vibrated the field, gravity in this configuration could only generate so much force—and this body was like a planet. The net slowed, and slowed, and still they sank toward the Void.
"Forget about me—save the others!" Loki's voice boomed from below—louder than she had ever heard it. For a man who always spoke with effortless composure, the shout sounded like it had been torn out of him.
Loki couldn't see what gravity was or how it worked—nothing like sorcery—but he could feel the flow of energy around him. He drove Gungnir into the serpent's corpse and tried to find an angle to lever the mass clear.
He lacked the strength for it. The old saying—four ounces deflecting ten thousand pounds—is a metaphor. To actually deflect ten thousand pounds, you still need something behind the lever.
He watched Daisy begin to buckle. He bit down on his back teeth, something hardening in his chest. Blue light flared at the corners of his eyes—he had no choice but to draw on his bloodline.
Frost Giants were called giants for a reason. Giants were known for their strength.
His bloodline was diluted; the boost wasn't enormous.
The corpse shifted slightly. Not nearly enough.
He could see Daisy—an outsider who owed nothing to Asgard—still grinding her teeth to hold the net. Something in Loki's expression went clear and certain. He stopped calculating. Stopped turning over the old question of his heritage. Whether God-King by self-proclamation or inheritance, it didn't matter anymore. He had made his decision.
"Loki—don't!" Thor's voice cracked with panic. He'd just arrived, hammer still swinging, and he saw it the moment he landed.
Loki paid him no attention. He took Gungnir in both hands, sprinted forward with everything he had left, and used the full force of his charge to drive the serpent's body out of the net. The momentum carried him with it.
He fell into the Void.
Thor's arm shot out and caught nothing—not even a corner of a cape. Mjolnir strained against his command. Any further and the spatial turbulence would have swept Thor in as well.
Thor's sense of responsibility had grown since those earlier days. He forced the grief down. There was no time. Asgardians still needed pulling to safety.
They were heavy—always were. Daisy had been using her power in sustained bursts and could barely maintain the net, let alone haul hundreds of people upward on her own.
Thor raced. Three people at a time, five, he flew them back to solid ground.
The Bifrost teetered on the edge of total collapse. Hundreds of Asgardian warriors stood helplessly at the near end and watched their comrades hanging above the Void, too far to reach, too many to carry.
Daisy's thoughts screamed—can't anyone get the flying skiffs out here?!—but every bit of concentration was locked into maintaining the net. She couldn't spare the breath to speak.
With Loki gone, was there a single person in Asgard who had any sense?
Fortunately, Frigga had sense. She hadn't understood what was happening at first—but once someone explained, she gave the order without hesitation: launch the skiffs.
Called skiffs, but in practice flying vessels.
Thirty of them, five or six soldiers each—working in concert, working quickly—they finally brought every suspended Asgardian back to solid ground.
"I am absolutely done…" With every last warrior free, Daisy let out a long breath. Soaked in sweat, she dropped straight onto the Bifrost's crumbling surface and decided she was never moving again.