I have added this story to my Patreon. You can support me and read the 40 latest and advanced chapters there. It also fed and motivate me to write more chapters!
Link: Patreon.com/Heroicverse
—------------------—
As soon as the Ten Thousand Soul Banner appeared, the cloudless sky instantly became overcast.
A cold wind howled, causing the surrounding stevedores watching the commotion to shiver involuntarily.
The pitch-black Ten Thousand Soul Banner also sensed something "delicious" at this moment.
Countless profound runes seemed to come to life, shifting frantically to create a terrifying suction force.
Kuurth's divine soul, which had just left Bill Foster's body and was preparing to flee back to Cul to report, had no room to struggle against this terrifying suction and was forcibly dragged over.
The shadow emitted a silent shriek—a mental wail filled with resentment and terror.
It twisted into various shapes, attempting to break free from the banner's constraints, but it was all in vain.
The Ten Thousand Soul Banner was originally a supreme Yin treasure meant for collecting and refining souls.
Although Kuurth's remnant divine soul was pure, without Bill as a host, it was ultimately like a floating weed without roots. How could it contend with such a malevolent artifact?
The shadow was pulled into the banner bit by bit. Its tyrannical aura was visibly worn away and purified, finally transforming into a wisp of extremely pure Yin energy that flowed into Peter's body through the banner's pole.
Hiss~
Peter felt a surge of cool, refreshing, and strange energy rush straight to his head, as if he had downed an entire bottle of ice-cold soda in the middle of summer. His whole spirit was invigorated.
An indescribable comfort emanated from the depths of his soul, making Peter clearly feel that his divine soul had grown a bit stronger.
Additionally, as expected, with the enhancement of his soul, his speed of absorbing divine power from the Nine Realms and his maximum capacity had both increased significantly.
This divine power entered his body and immediately turned into top-tier nourishment, fully nurturing every corner of his physique.
This caused Peter's already superhuman physical attributes to continue growing at an astonishing rate.
His perception and control both became a bit clearer and more acute.
"Good treasure, what a truly good treasure!"
Peter praised, unable to resist shaking the Ten Thousand Soul Banner in his hand.
The banner moved without wind, seemingly responding to its Master's praise.
Within the banner's space, Kuurth's soul was bound by countless tiny runic chains, letting out indignant roars, yet it could only watch helplessly as it was refined bit by bit into nourishment for Peter.
Before long, the malevolent energy within him would be completely drained by Peter, turning him into Peter's Soul Servant with no connection left to Cul.
After dealing with Kuurth's soul, Peter's gaze fell upon the Breaker of Stone hammer on the ground.
Buzz, buzz, buzz!
The hammer also seemed to sense the total demise of the soul. Its body vibrated violently as if guided by something, preparing to flee the scene immediately.
"Hmph~ trying to run?"
Peter curled his lip and then unhurriedly twisted the Omnitrix on his wrist.
Dual God Resonance, activate!
Golden inscriptions covered The Arbiter's Battle Suit, causing Peter's control over divine power to skyrocket.
He reached out toward the hammer that was about to fly away.
"Come back to me!"
His word was rule!
The Breaker of Stone hammer seemed to be grabbed by the throat by an invisible giant hand. The divine power runes originally flowing on the hammer's body melted and disintegrated rapidly under Peter's power, like winter snow meeting a scorching sun.
Losing the support of divine power, all its supernatural abilities failed instantly. With a 'thud,' it fell from mid-air and was finally pulled by an invisible force to fly obediently back into Peter's hand.
"Tsk tsk, it really is ugly."
While complaining about the hammer's bizarre design, he tapped the face of the hammer with his finger, producing a crisp metallic 'clang.'
"But the materials are indeed solid! With such a large piece of uru metal, if it were used to forge sword-type artifacts, I could probably make four or five of them."
As if to confirm his thoughts, the system prompt sounded at just the right time.
[Detected golden God-level item available for sacrifice: Hammer of the Stone Breaker]
[Item Description: One of the eight divine hammers forged by Cul, the 'Serpent' and God of Fear, using a large amount of uru metal for his 'Worthy.' The wielder receives a massive strength boost and gains divine power to control the Earth element.]
[Sacrifice can yield: 20,000 points. Sacrifice now?]
As expected, this incident was indeed related to Asgard.
No wonder even the Bifrost Bridge was closed.
The God of Fear, Cul the "Serpent"...
Peter searched his memory for the name and recalled seeing information about this guy in his past life.
This guy was apparently Odin's older brother and a former God-King of Asgard.
He was later overthrown by Odin for being too tyrannical and sealed in the depths of Earth's oceans.
Hiss~ thinking about it this way... that old fellow Odin isn't very loyal!
What happened to the alliance we agreed on!
When his own mess backfires, he just shuts the Bifrost Bridge and ignores whether Earth lives or dies?
Damn it, once this incident is over, I'll definitely go to Asgard and extort a hefty sum out of him.
As for this Cul the "Serpent."
The corners of Peter's mouth curled into a dangerous arc.
He didn't take this so-called "God of Fear" seriously at all.
Just an old antique who had been locked up for thousands or tens of thousands of years. Odin himself was nearly in the grave; even if his sealed brother escaped, how much power could he have left?
If he still had his peak combat power from back then, he would have stormed Asgard long ago.
Would he need to stage this drama of descending hammers and cause destruction all over Earth?
From the information provided by the soul of Kuurth he just absorbed, these so-called "Worthy" were essentially just power banks for Cul.
They were causing destruction everywhere on Earth just to spread fear and recharge Cul, helping him recover his former strength.
Looking at it this way, A crisis?
What crisis!
I only see a kindhearted old Grandpa wanting to send me a warm inheritance!
Eight divine hammers forged from uru metal mean a minimum of 160,000 sacrifice points.
Add to that the divine remnant souls within the eight Worthy, plus the life savings of the big boss Cul himself...
Hiss! This wave is really going to be a fortune!
But business is business.
"System, don't you think such a large piece of uru metal... selling for only 20,000 is a bit of a loss?"
"Can we negotiate? Raise the price a bit. The material cost alone is worth more than that!"
The system did not respond for a long time, acting as if it didn't care whether he sold it or not.
"Stingy system!"
"Since you're being unfair, don't blame me for being unscrupulous!"
As Peter spoke, his storage ring flashed, and he directly stored the Breaker of Stone inside.
In any case, he wasn't short on sacrifice points at this stage. After the last shopping spree, he still had exactly 300,000 sacrifice points left!
Why be in such a hurry to sacrifice the hammer to this dog system?
Such a large piece of uru metal, and there were eight of them in total!
If the system didn't give a fair price, he might as well find time to bring back that Dwarven smith who forged Stormbreaker for Thor!
Then he could melt down all the hammers to forge other artifacts.
At that time, every one of the Superheroes under him would have a divine artifact!
Even looking at the entire Universe, Earthlings would be able to walk tall!