"You now have two choices,"
Hela said coldly. "Kneel, or die."
Her patience was wearing thin.
Yet still, not a single person knelt before her.
Instead, from within the crowd, the Warriors Three and the remaining Asgardian fighters stepped forward one by one.
"We will not kneel to you. Leave this place, Hela. This is the final command of the All-Father,"
Fandral shouted, gripping his longsword tightly.
"Leave?" Hela's expression darkened further. "Did you not hear me earlier? I am your new King."
"No matter who you are, leave Asgard or surrender," Volstagg added heavily.
Hundreds of warriors followed, forming ranks in front of Hela. Many of them held torches instead of weapons, their resolve clear despite knowing the outcome. They were facing someone who had crushed Thor with ease, yet they stood firm, offering their lives as a final declaration of defiance.
Hela laughed, a sound filled with scorn.
"Very well. Then come."
With a flick of her wrist, two pitch-black longswords appeared in her hands.
On the sorcerers' side, Diana leaned slightly toward Malrick and nudged him with her shoulder.
"Aren't you going to step in?"
Malrick shrugged calmly. "I already have."
Diana frowned. "What?"
"Do you remember your battle with Ares?" Malrick said quietly.
Diana froze, memories flooding back, the moment she had watched her mother fall.
"An illusion?" she murmured, scanning the area.
She quickly noticed Loki among the sorcerers, his eyes unfocused, clearly trapped within a mental construct. Based on her own experience, Diana understood that both Loki and Thor would soon undergo a violent surge of awakening.
She turned back toward the battlefield. "What about Hela?"
"Leave her to you," Malrick replied.
At that moment, Hela kicked Fandral aside and drove her blade straight through Hogun's chest. As she raised her sword to deliver the killing strike, a flash of radiant gold intercepted her attack.
Clang.
The blade was deflected.
Hela stepped back, narrowing her eyes as she studied the armored woman before her.
"Who are you? Another hidden child of Odin?"
Diana lowered her arm and met Hela's gaze evenly. "No. I am Diana, daughter of Zeus."
"Zeus?"
A bloated, decadent figure briefly crossed Hela's mind. She had never imagined he would have such a formidable daughter.
"So Olympus wishes to interfere in Asgard's affairs?" Hela sneered. "Good. I will kill you first, then Zeus, then rule Olympus as well."
Her arrogance was overwhelming. In her eyes, the universe itself existed only to be conquered.
Without giving Diana another chance to speak, Hela lunged forward, her sword carrying the pure authority of Death itself. Unlike Thor's thunderous displays, Hela's attacks were terrifying in their simplicity. Every strike carried fatal power, wounds that resisted healing.
Unfortunately for her, she faced Diana.
Diana was no longer the warrior she once was. Since her transformation into a true god, her strength had risen dramatically, and that growth was closely tied to Malrick.
As Malrick's own existence advanced toward the threshold of the Multiverse, even fragments of his essence carried unimaginable power. The remnants of his energy, left behind during his three-day battle with Diana, Wanda, and the others, had reshaped them profoundly.
When they awakened that morning, even Wanda had discovered that her bones rivaled Vibranium in density.
Diana, already near Skyfather-level, had advanced even further.
Hela's strikes were blocked effortlessly, each met with precise and devastating counters. Their battle surged from the shoreline into the sky, then higher into the clouds. Golden light tore through the darkness, illuminating the night again and again.
The Asgardians watched in stunned silence.
On the Kamar-Taj side, many sorcerers were visibly restless, eager to join the fight. If Malrick had not restrained them, Tony Stark would have already launched himself forward in his newly completed warp-drive armor.
To the Asgardians, the sorcerers of Midgard seemed more mysterious and terrifying with every passing moment.
All eyes turned toward the raging sky, awaiting the battle's conclusion.
Some among the sorcerers quietly hoped Diana would fall, simply so they could test themselves against the Goddess of Death.
Asgard, however, prayed as one.
Thor, their God King, had already fallen once. Their hopes rested entirely on their allies.
Then, suddenly, the dark ocean churned.
Serpentine arcs of lightning surged beneath the waves, growing brighter as they rushed toward the surface.
With a thunderous explosion, massive waves erupted skyward.
Thor rose from the sea, wrapped in crackling lightning, fully reborn.
"HELA!"
His eyes burned crimson. Without Mjolnir, guided only by his lock on her presence, he transformed into a bolt of lightning and shot into the sky.
Thor did not know that what he had experienced beneath the sea was an illusion. He only remembered watching Hela slaughter his mother, butcher the Warriors Three, and reduce Asgard to an army of the dead.
That vision shattered something within him and awakened the full might of his divine thunder.
In that illusion, he had told Loki to take the Eternal Flame, to travel to Muspelheim, to release Surtur and destroy Asgard itself. Because only through Asgard's destruction could Hela truly be defeated.
Thor charged Hela head-on, determined to buy Loki time.
Among the sorcerers, Loki trembled violently, his eyes snapping back to awareness. He nearly rushed toward the vault before meeting Frigga's terrified gaze.
"M-Mother?"
Reality crashed back into place.
Loki fell to his knees and wrapped Frigga in his arms, sobbing uncontrollably. Unlike Thor, he gained no sudden power, only painful clarity and maturity.
Above them, Thor joined Diana in battle, unleashing the most terrifying storm of lightning he had ever summoned.
It still was not enough.
Hela remained uninjured.
With a single counterstrike, she sent Thor crashing from the sky, blood trailing behind him as he fell once more.
She was Odin's eldest daughter.
Even with Thor's awakening and rightful claim to the throne, he remained far weaker than her.
In the end, it was Diana who subdued Hela.
Though Hela possessed endless stamina and immortality within Asgard, Diana's raw power eclipsed her completely. Bound by the Lasso of Truth and forced to kneel before Malrick, Hela raged helplessly, her divine power rendered meaningless.
"Damn you, daughter of Zeus!" Hela screamed. "You dare humiliate me? I am the God of Death. I am immortal!"
Her gaze swept across the battlefield.
Thor cradled Frigga, laughing weakly through tears.
Loki stared at her with pure hatred.
These beings, these so-called weaklings, dared to stand above her.
"You cannot hold me forever," Hela snarled. "When I break free, Death will come for all of you!