The Asgardian undead army that had followed Cul to conquer the Nine Realms thousands of years ago was summoned forth in this moment!
When that undead scourge, seemingly capable of devouring the very heavens and earth, truly manifested before everyone, the cheers that had just ignited across the globe came to an abrupt halt.
The smiles on the faces of billions froze, and the expressions of the Avengers became grave to the extreme.
But Peter, he laughed.
It was not mockery, nor was it a bluff; it was a genuine, heartfelt laugh that escaped his lips.
"You old geezer, being so polite, it makes one feel all warm inside~"
Cul naturally noticed the smile on Peter's face, a smile so radiant it was almost blinding.
He froze for a moment, his heart skipping a beat for no apparent reason.
An indescribable chill rose from the deepest depths of his heart, as if an invisible viper were slowly slithering up his spine.
But this absurd sense of unease lasted less than half a second before he forcibly suppressed it with the powerful pride of a God King.
"Impossible."
A mere mortal from Midgard, no matter how extraordinary, what could he possibly do against these undead cavalry?
These undead know no pain, feel no fatigue, and fear no death; as long as his divine power does not run dry, they can resurrect infinitely.
They are an eternal army, the cornerstone he personally forged thousands of years ago to conquer the Nine Realms!
If it hadn't been for Odin, that damned beast, backstabbing his own brother at the critical moment, the entire Nine Realms... no, the entire Universe would already be in his, Cul's, grasp!
Now that he had allowed this undead legion to see the light of day once more, even if Odin himself were standing before them, he would be unable to stop their charge!
What could this mortal possibly do in the face of this great army?
Showing such a smile at this moment was nothing more than feigned composure, a mere bluff.
Yes, that must be it.
Cul successfully convinced himself, and a cruel, twisted smile reappeared on his face.
He raised his scepter high, and the dark green gemstone at its tip erupted with an unprecedented, blinding light.
"Undead cavalry—charge!"
The moment the order was given, the undead army in the sky moved.
In that instant, ten thousand horses fell silent, and the heavens and earth changed color.
Tens of thousands of undead cavalry, clad in ancient armor, tightened their reins in unison. The skeletal warhorses beneath them, burning with eerie green flames, let out silent neighs as they transformed into a dark green torrent of death, diving downward.
The dense aura of death carried by the gathering of tens of thousands of undead caused the temperature within a radius of several kilometers to plummet by over a dozen degrees. Everywhere they passed, not a blade of grass remained, as if all life between heaven and earth would be swept up and devoured by them.
The projection in the sky faithfully transmitted this apocalyptic scene to every corner of the World.
The people who had just been cheering for the defeat of The Worthy were now plunged back into a deathly silence.
An army of ten thousand undead.
Such scale, such strength... relying only on The Arbiter and his team of fewer than ten heroes, how could they possibly win?
On the streets of New York, a mother holding her child tightly covered the child's eyes, yet she herself could not look away.
On the clock tower in London, citizens seeking refuge from the floods could not help but close their eyes and pray, hoping for a miracle to occur.
At this moment, the hopes of seven billion people worldwide rested on one person's shoulders!
The Arbiter, he was all of humanity's last hope.
But facing this overwhelming undead scourge, could he really... still have a way to resolve it?
On the battlefield, the Avengers also felt this suffocating pressure.
They certainly wanted to help Peter, but facing an army of this scale, even with the two boosts they had received, it was completely impossible for them to stop its charge!
"What to do? What to do?"
Everyone subconsciously looked toward Peter, expecting him to do something!
But Peter just stood there, hands in his pockets, even tilting his head leisurely.
His gaze passed over the surging, wave-like undead cavalry and landed on Cul in the distance, who thought he had the victory in the bag.
He spoke, his voice not loud, yet it clearly reached everyone on the battlefield.
"Old geezer."
This familiar address made Cul's eyebrow twitch violently.
"Have you never thought about one thing?"
Cul snorted coldly and did not reply. He disdained wasting words on a dying man who was about to be torn to shreds by his army.
But Peter did not need his response and continued on his own:
"Why did those three previous The Worthy of yours disappear without a trace?"
The moment the words fell, Cul's eyes widened, and his three capable subordinates involuntarily appeared before his eyes.
Kuurth, Nul, Skirn!
The soul connection between the three of them and himself had been severed by some kind of power.
He couldn't sense their existence at all, nor could he attempt to summon them from the Land of the Dead!
He hadn't thought about this carefully before, or rather, the successive blows from earlier had left him with no time to ponder such questions.
But now, when this question was posed to his face by Peter in such a nonchalant tone...
A strong sense of unease surged again, and that terrifying thought involuntarily appeared in Cul's mind—
Their disappearance was no coincidence!
The young man before him really possessed a means to make even divine souls vanish into ashes!
"Bingo~" A "Congratulations, you got it right" smile appeared on Peter's face, and he immediately took out the white banner from his storage ring.
With a shake of the banner surface, three figures that Cul felt incredibly familiar with appeared once again.
Kuurth, Nul, Skirn!
Their remnant souls had all been bound within that white banner.
And looking at their appearance, it was clear they were now completely at Peter's disposal!
"This gift you've given me... I will gladly accept it."
The moment the words fell, the Ten Thousand Soul Banner in Peter's hand expanded violently in the wind!
The banner surface, originally only two or three meters high, suddenly enlarged to the point of blotting out the sky and sun.
And in this very instant, the entire battlefield underwent a fundamental shift.
An indescribable, magnificent power poured out from the banner's surface.
That power was not fierce, not violent, and could not even be called sharp; it was simply... like an endless abyss, swallowing up all the intense death aura emitted by those tens of thousands of undead cavalry!
The undead cavalry charging in the very front row saw the dark green ghost fire burning in their eye sockets begin to flicker violently, as if they had encountered a natural predator.
Immediately after, the dark green flames representing Cul's divine power were forcibly covered and purified by a higher, purer power!
The ghost fires extinguished; the cavalry in the charge still maintained their posture of riding and holding the reins, but their forms eerily turned into ashes during this process.
Not just one, or two, but entire swaths of them dissipated!
The Asgardian heroic spirits, enslaved for thousands of years, had obtained long-awaited liberation in this moment.
The tattered armor fell off silently, turning into flying ash, and the bones disintegrated inch by inch in the soft light, vanishing into nothingness.
Streaks of souls, freed from their shackles and shining with a pale golden radiance, were drawn out from the remains.
They paused slightly in mid-air, as if bowing in salute toward Peter's direction, and then transformed into dots of light filling the sky, like weary birds returning to the forest or a hundred rivers returning to the sea, all of them completely absorbed into the Ten Thousand Soul Banner!
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