Blue light flickered in Thor's eyes.
He stared at the pale monster before him, then at the black sword in its hand, and finally at the ruined Asgard behind him.
The palace had become rubble. Half the golden halls had collapsed. Black shadows spread everywhere.
Thor tightened his grip on Stormbreaker.
The six Infinity Stones embedded in the axe handle began to glow. Space, Power, Time, Reality, Mind, Soul—six colors intertwined in dazzling brilliance.
Gorr tilted his head.
"Another god," he rasped. "Good. I need more sacrifices."
Thor moved instantly.
Stormbreaker cleaved downward as all six Infinity Stones activated simultaneously. The Space Stone distorted distance, the Power Stone poured in destructive force, and the Reality Stone sharpened the blade beyond reason.
This strike could split a planet apart.
Gorr raised the Necrosword.
The two weapons collided.
BOOM!
The shockwave exploded outward. The Rainbow Bridge cracked further, and several distant structures collapsed instantly.
Thor narrowed his eyes.
Gorr was forced back three steps, deep craters forming beneath his feet.
But the Necrosword didn't break.
The black patterns across the blade writhed like living things, devouring something.
Thor felt it.
Part of the energy he had poured into the strike… had been absorbed.
"The Infinity Stones," Gorr smiled. "The strongest force in the universe. Yet before the Necrosword, they are merely food."
Thor said nothing.
He swung again.
This time, no Infinity Stones. Pure lightning.
Blue-white thunder crashed from the heavens, gathering around Stormbreaker and illuminating all of Asgard.
Gorr raised the Necrosword.
The black matter on the blade surged outward, forming a shield before him.
Lightning slammed into the shield with a shrill hiss.
Thor frowned.
His thunder could not illuminate that darkness.
Hang turned and walked toward Hela.
He crouched beside her, looking at her missing left arm.
There was no flesh at the severed edge. Only void.
Not a physical void—a conceptual absence. As though Hela's arm had never existed at all.
Hang extended his hand. The Laws of Life and Death activated simultaneously, intertwining into pale golden light.
The moment the light touched the wound, pain shot through him.
Not Hela's pain.
His own.
He frowned and carefully examined the energy lingering at the severed edge. It was an ancient darkness, purer than anything he had encountered before. It did not merely consume life—it denied existence itself.
But what interested him even more was something else.
Hela's Death Laws were rooted in Asgard itself. The closer she was to Asgard, the stronger she became. It was both Odin's shackle and the foundation of her power.
And that strike from the Necrosword had severed the connection completely.
Not temporarily.
Permanently.
Her left arm—and the conceptual bond tied to that portion of Asgard—had been erased.
"Interesting," Hang murmured.
Hela looked up, pale-faced.
"What are you looking at?"
"At how you lost." Hang rose and looked toward the battlefield. "That sword was designed specifically to counter gods. It didn't cut off your arm—it severed your divinity."
Hela's pupils contracted.
Of course she had felt it. Since that strike, her connection to Asgard had become faint.
The endless torrent of power she once possessed had dwindled to a trickle.
"Can you fix it?"
Hang shook his head.
"What's been erased can't be restored. Unless you find another dimension to anchor yourself to and establish a new connection."
Hela fell silent.
A thunderous crash echoed in the distance.
Thor was blasted backward by a sword strike, smashing into the palace ruins and sending debris flying everywhere. He quickly climbed back to his feet, the Infinity Stones on Stormbreaker glowing brighter than ever.
"You bastard!" Thor roared as he charged again.
Gorr stood motionless, the Necrosword held horizontally before him. His expression remained calm, his gray eyes utterly emotionless.
Thor's attacks were ferocious. Every swing carried enough force to destroy worlds. The Space Stone distorted distance, the Power Stone amplified destruction, the Reality Stone altered the axe's form.
The combination of three Stones was enough to cleave planets apart.
Yet Gorr blocked every strike.
The black substance on the Necrosword writhed continuously, devouring portions of Thor's energy whenever the weapons collided.
Not much at a time—but little by little, Thor's attacks weakened.
More troublesome were the shadows.
Gorr raised his left hand. Shadows within the ruins twisted and gathered into countless black spears that shot toward Thor from every direction.
Thor swung Stormbreaker, unleashing torrents of lightning that shattered the spears.
But new ones immediately reformed.
"Your lightning shines brightly," Gorr rasped. "But it cannot illuminate true darkness."
Thor frowned.
He realized the problem.
His lightning could destroy the shadow weapons—but not stop them from reforming.
Because those shadows originated from regions corrupted by the Necrosword.
Within those regions, light itself had been denied.
No matter how brilliant the lightning, it could not penetrate absolute darkness.
Hang rose to his feet and looked toward the battlefield.
Thor had become entangled by the endless shadow weapons. His thunder was powerful enough to obliterate dozens of spears at once, but new ones reformed the next second.
Gorr stood in the distance with the Necrosword before him, a sickly smile on his face.
He was wearing Thor down.
Hang stepped forward.
Gorr noticed him immediately, gray eyes turning toward him.
"Another god?" he rasped. "Or are you merely mortal? I sense no divinity in you."
Hang said nothing.
He continued walking forward, twelve laws circulating within him—Space, Power, Time, Reality, Life, Death, Mind, Alchemy, Body, Devouring, Darkness, Soul.
Every one under his control.
Gorr narrowed his eyes.
"Whatever you are… you deserve to die."
He raised his left hand. Shadows surged from the ruins like a black flood and swept toward Hang.
Hang stopped.
He neither dodged nor defended.
He simply stood there and allowed the black torrent to crash into him.
Gorr's smile froze.
The shadows struck Hang as though hitting an invisible wall—then gradually vanished.
The black matter flowed across Hang's skin before disappearing like drops of water into the ocean.
"How is that possible?" For the first time, Gorr's voice wavered.
Hang glanced down at his hand.
The essence of those shadows was dark energy released by the Necrosword. Coincidentally, he possessed two laws that perfectly countered it—the Law of Darkness and the Law of Devouring.
The Law of Darkness allowed him to understand and control darkness itself.
The Law of Devouring allowed him to transform any energy into nourishment.
Together, Gorr's shadow attacks were nothing more than snacks delivered to his doorstep.
"Your shadows," Hang looked up at Gorr, "taste pretty good."
Gorr's expression changed.
He stopped wasting words and charged directly at him. The Necrosword carved through the air, leaving behind a pitch-black trail as it slashed toward Hang's neck.
The strike was impossibly fast—even Thor couldn't react in time.
But Hang moved.
He raised his right hand and caught the blade between two fingers.
Gorr's pupils contracted.
The black substance on the sword writhed violently, trying to invade Hang's fingers. But the moment it touched his skin, the Law of Devouring absorbed it completely.
"Your sword," Hang said calmly, "is essentially a living abyss. It devours everything—including you."
Gorr's face grew even paler.
Of course he knew the sword's price. Every use consumed a portion of his own life force.
But he didn't care.
His hatred mattered more than his life.
"You think you understand something?" Gorr snarled, trying to wrench the sword free. "This is the sword of godslaying! It can kill any god!"
"But I'm not a god."
Hang released the blade.
Gorr staggered backward several steps, the Necrosword trembling in his hand.
"My power," Hang said slowly, "doesn't come from divinity. Not from faith. Not from the gift of any dimension."
He raised his right hand.
All twelve laws activated simultaneously, converging into a fist-sized sphere of light in his palm. The orb shifted constantly between colors, each hue representing a different law.
"My power… is something I seized for myself, piece by piece."
Gorr stared at the orb.
For the first time, fear appeared in his gray eyes.
He could feel it.
The energy within that sphere far surpassed any god he had ever encountered.
"What… are you?"
Hang didn't answer.
Instead, he looked at the Necrosword in Gorr's hand with a strange gleam in his eyes.
It was the look of someone staring at exquisite food.
The essence of the Necrosword was a living abyss with the instinct to devour all things.
His own concept was Greed—possessing the same endless hunger.
What would happen if two such powers collided?
Hang genuinely wanted to know.
He stepped forward, walking toward Gorr.
Gorr stopped moving.
For the first time in his endless slaughter of gods, genuine confusion appeared in his eyes.
The Necrosword was a god-killing weapon, designed specifically to target divinity.
Any being possessing divine essence would be weakened, consumed, erased before it.
Yet the man before him radiated power greater than most gods… while lacking divinity entirely.
"What the hell are you?" Gorr rasped.
Hang didn't answer.
He was sensing the Necrosword.
The black blade trembled slightly in Gorr's grasp, its patterns writhing ever more violently. Hang could feel it clearly.
Gorr wasn't controlling the sword.
The sword was controlling Gorr.
The Necrosword possessed its own will.
An ancient will. A starving will. A will that could never be satisfied.
Hang's consciousness followed the trace left by their earlier contact and plunged deep into the sword's interior.
He saw endless darkness.
He saw the lingering souls of slaughtered gods.
And he saw a being far greater than the blade itself.
A sleeping deity.
No—not a deity.
Something older than gods.
It existed before the birth of the universe. Before light itself.
It was darkness incarnate.
The embodiment of the void.
Knull.
God of the Symbiotes.
Hang withdrew his consciousness, a smile curling at his lips.
"I understand now," he said softly. "You think you're wielding the sword, but in reality… the sword is wielding you."
Gorr's expression twisted.
"Shut up!"
He swung again, even more savagely this time. Black matter surged from the Necrosword, transforming into dozens of sword waves that slashed toward Hang from every direction.
Hang remained where he stood.
The twelve laws circulated within him, with Darkness and Devouring pushed to the forefront.
The instant the sword waves touched him, they were absorbed into his law domain like moths flying into flame.
To him, Gorr's attacks were simply nourishment delivered directly to his doorstep.
"Your sword is very interesting." Hang looked up at Gorr, his eyes gleaming with chilling light. "I really want to know what would happen… if I ate it."
Gorr's pupils shrank violently.
For the first time, true fear gripped him.
Not fear born from a gap in strength—but instinctive terror.
The man before him was looking at him the same way one looked at a delicious meal.
In the distance, Hela knelt atop the Rainbow Bridge, staring at Hang's back.
Her expression was complicated.
Shock. Reverence. And emotions she couldn't fully understand herself.
Once, she had been Asgard's greatest warrior. The Goddess of Death. Odin's eldest daughter. Proud her entire life, bowing to no one.
But now, she had been gravely wounded by one mortal—
And another mortal stood before her enemy, gazing down upon him as though evaluating prey.
She remembered the day Hang had subdued her.
At the time, she had refused to accept it, believing she had merely been careless.
But now she understood.
From the very beginning, that man had stood at a height she could never hope to reach.
And he was still growing stronger.
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