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Cloaked by the Reality Stone, Hawk expanded his Seventh Sense, casting an invisible net over the entirety of Asgard. Unseen and unheard, he followed close behind Loki as the God of Mischief sprinted frantically into Odin's vault.
The right-handed Infinity Gauntlet.
It sat proudly on a pedestal, embedded with six brightly colored stones.
But the stones were counterfeit. That's why Hela, upon noticing, casually tipped it over and called it "fake."
The gauntlet itself was real, crafted in Nidavellir, but the stones were cheap imitations.
And obvious ones at that.
The explanation was simple... Because the genuine Space Stone—the Tesseract—was sitting quietly on a display stand just a few feet away.
Hawk's Seventh Sense swept over the glowing blue cube. A thought flickered in his mind.
An instant later, he quickly dismissed the idea.
The Space Stone was useless to him.
It could bend space, yes, but it couldn't bend time, and it certainly couldn't breach the barriers between multiverses.
So, it was redundant!
Hawk let the thought go and refocused his attention on Loki, who had just snatched the massive, horned crown of the Fire Demon Surtur and was carrying it toward the Eternal Flame.
Loki, clad in his distinctive long green and black leathers, drew a deep breath. He gazed at the skull while holding it over the blazing, eternal fire, his lips moving rapidly in a tense, almost franticmanner.
"With the Eternal Flame, you are reborn!"
FWOOSH!
As soon as the crown made contact with the Eternal Flame, the fire erupted violently, unleashing a surge of ancient heat.
The entire vault began to shudder violently.
Loki didn't stick around to watch. He turned and ran for his life. But as he sprinted past the display stands, he grabbed the Tesseract on the fly, tucking the Space Stone under his arm before scrambling out of the vault.
The very instant he crossed the threshold, Surtur, bathed in the Eternal Flame, was resurrected.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
The Eternal Flame ignited within the deep, empty eye sockets of the skull first. Two roaring infernos burst to life in the darkness, and Surtur, reborn from the ashes, opened his eyes.
The fire spread like molten lava, racing across every crack and crevice of the skull. Wherever it touched, the pale bone was consumed by a blinding, searing light. The flames surged downward, forming an invisible, burning spine.
Vertebra by vertebra, the fire built a towering, molten backbone.
The ground began to fracture.
No matter where you were in Asgard, you could feel the violent tremors shaking the realm.
Hela felt it too. She whipped her head around, her eyes locking onto the Golden Palace.
What she saw was destruction.
The Golden Palace was burning, layers of fire consuming the ancient structure.
The palace was cracking, shattering from the inside out amidst the spreading inferno.
The next moment, a colossal Fire Demon, its physical form completely reconstructed by the Eternal Flame, burst through the roof of the Golden Palace, wielding a massive, blazing sword.
Standing miles high, a towering titan of fire and ash, Surtur's voice boomed across the entirety of Asgard.
"TREMBLE BEFORE ME, ASGARD!"
"I AM YOUR DOOM!!"
"I AM YOUR RECKONING!!!"
With every word, with every swing of his massive Twilight Sword, Surtur destroyed the buildings and the earth of Asgard.
Structures collapsed, massive blocks of stone raining down like hail.
The ground ripped apart, releasing the Eternal Flame's fire that raced across the land like a wave of liquid fire, seemingly determined to burn the whole realm.
Hela stared at the titan destroying her kingdom and let out a furious, blood-curdling roar.
Taking advantage of the distraction, Thor and Valkyrie managed to slip out of Hela's attack range.
But the cost was unimaginable—the destruction of their home.
Odin had told Thor that Asgard was not a place, but a people.
Where the people of Asgard stand, that is Asgard.
But knowing that intellectually didn't lessen the great agony Thor felt as he watched his home burn.
But then, he saw the Hulk leap into the air, attempt to punch Surtur in the face, and get swatted back down like a fly. Thor snapped out of his sorrow.
After some frantic yelling, the Hulk grabbed Thor and Valkyrie, and with a massive leap, landed safely on the refugee ship packed with the surviving Asgardians.
Hela watched the ship pull away, then turned her fury back to Surtur, who was standing on her land, destroying her kingdom with impunity. She chose to deal with the Fire Demon first.
The reason was straightforward: her power stemmed directly from Asgard's soil. If Asgard was destroyed, she would fall too.
So—
"DIE!"
Hela tilted her head back, glaring up at the massive giant. She conjured massive, deadly obsidian spikes—Necroswords—and hurled them relentlessly at Surtur.
But against Surtur, a being whose sole, destined purpose was to annihilate Asgard, such attacks were nothing more than a minor annoyance.
Actually, saying they were a minor annoyance implied they even reached him.
Before Hela's Necroswords could even touch his molten body, they were instantly incinerated into fine ash by the raging aura of the Eternal Flame surrounding him.
It's a universal truth.
There's always a bigger fish.
Hela beat Thor like a mother disciplining a child.
And now, Surtur was beating Hela like a father disciplining his daughter.
Yeah... The circle of life.
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Hovering invisibly, Hawk watched the entire scene unfold. He observed Hela, clearly overwhelmed, her power visibly waning as Surtur methodically destroyed the source of her strength—Asgard itself. Hawk mentally noted the mechanics of her power loss.
And then—
Hawk glanced at the refugee ship, which was now safely out of range, and prepared to make his move.
The destruction of Asgard was imminent.
It was time for him to enter the stage.
Soon, as Surtur tore Asgard apart, the World Tree cosmos, which was sustaining severe damage, began to bleed heavily into the primary universe's temporal flow.
Because of this, the refugee ship carrying Thor and the others was now technically sailing through the space-time of the primary universe.
Standing near the viewport, Thor looked back at the rapidly shrinking, burning ruin of Asgard.
Just then, a booming roar carried across the void.
Surtur gripped his massive Twilight Sword with both hands, raised it high above his head, and drove it straight down, plunging it deep into the heart of Asgard.
In an instant.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
A ring of blinding white light burst from the point of impact, spreading outward in a perfect circle at terrifying speed.
Wherever the light touched, everything was reduced to nothingness.
The grand palaces, the majestic mountains—everything that made up Asgard was instantly erased, as if wiped from the canvas of reality by a cosmic eraser.
The moment the blinding white light completely engulfed the realm.
Asgard vanished.
And with it.
Surtur vanished as well.
After all, he was standing on Asgard's soil. When Asgard vanished, Surtur disappeared as well.
It happened in that exact fraction of a second—Thor and Heimdall aboard the ship, watching a blinding flash erase their home.
In that very moment—as the temporal current of the primary universe opened its jaws to swallow what remained of the World Tree...
Hawk, who had been waiting for this precise moment, sitting cross-legged with his eyes closed, snapped them open without a shred of delay.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The compressed power of his Cosmo, which Hawk had been restraining and suppressing to its maximum, suddenly detonated. He unleashed it in just a fraction of a millisecond.
In a flash.
The white light of Asgard's destruction, having reached its zenith, was instantly eclipsed by a burst of the most dazzling light.
Whoosh!
Vanaheim.
Jotunheim.
Alfheim and Nidavellir.
And most importantly... The void where Asgard had just been, and the collapsing structure of the World Tree itself—all of it vanished in an instant.
Disappeared without a trace, leaving nothing behind.
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Heimdall, standing next to Thor, ready to offer words of comfort, stared at the empty space where the World Tree had been just a second ago. His golden eyes widened to their limits.
"This..."
Heimdall was in complete disbelief. He squeezed his eyes shut, then snapped them open again, turning to look at Thor in shock.
"I can't feel Asgard anymore. I can't even feel the World Tree."
"..."
And it wasn't just Heimdall.
Thor, having lost an eye but finally grasping the true core of his power, having officially stepped into the realm of a True God, stared at the empty void where the Nine Realms used to be. He was just as stunned.
In fact, his shock ran even deeper than Heimdall's.
Because Thor looked down. He raised his hands, clenching them into tight fists, testing his strength.
He was still strong.
But—
"I can't feel my divine power."
"WHAT?" Heimdall looked at Thor, his confusion deepening into alarm. "What do you mean you can't feel your divine power?"
Thor looked up, meeting Heimdall's gaze. "My power is gone."
Yes... He was still technically a god. He could still survive the vacuum of space.
But his divine power, the elemental force he commanded, was no longer present.
Or rather, his divine authority!
At this moment, Thor could no longer feel his connection to the lightning. It was like a passionate romance that had ended in a brutal, unexpected breakup the very next day.
Heimdall drew in a sharp breath. His mind raced.
"Is it because Asgard was destroyed?"
"No, my power is tied to the World..."
Thor shook his head, ready to clarify that his power was connected to the World Tree itself, so even if the primary universe consumed the World Tree, his power should still have persisted.
But just as he was about to speak.
Suddenly, a familiar trace of electricity crackled between Thor's fingers, sparkling over his palm.
Clearly, his divine power had returned.
Heimdall watched the lightning spark to life. A thought seemed to cross his mind. His dark face broke into a strained, accommodating smile as he looked at a thoroughly confused Thor. "Haha. Very funny, Thor."
Heimdall assumed Thor had been making a dark joke to cut the tension and relieve the stress of losing their home.
He was just glad Thor still had a sense of humor.
Thor opened his mouth to explain that he wasn't joking, but seeing the look of forced relief on Heimdall's face, he knew it was pointless.
So, Thor was left completely bewildered, having no idea why his power had vanished one second, only to return the next.
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