The Cursed Warrior charged again; this time, Hela did not meet it head-on.
She slid to the side, her movements light as a ghost, brushing past that massive body.
At the moment they crossed paths, she clenched her left hand, and a slender, nearly transparent black sword coalesced in her palm. The tip of the blade pierced precisely toward the joint between the Cursed Warrior's neck armor and helmet.
That was the weakest point of the entire suit of armor.
"Clang!"
With a harsh screech of metal, the sword tip pierced half an inch before being jammed by a brutal force.
The Cursed Warrior didn't even look back, swinging a backhand punch at Hela's flank.
Hela abandoned the sword and retreated, the wind from the punch grazing her armor and leaving three deep scorch marks.
"Tsk." Hela frowned, glancing at the black sword stuck in the gap of the armor, which was being rapidly "digested" by Crimson Runes.
This monster was more troublesome than she had anticipated.
But Hela was Hela, after all.
The Goddess of Death of Asgard, the blade that conquered the Nine Realms, Odin's sharpest daughter.
After the stalemate, Hela changed her tactics.
mjolnir and the black sword no longer swung with full force but instead flicked, stabbed, parried, and swept like a venomous snake, every attack aimed at the Cursed Warrior's joints, eye sockets, throat, and armpits.
Those parts were relatively fragile even with the protection of armor.
At the same time, her footwork became more elusive, no longer moving in straight lines but shifting and maneuvering like a dance within the limited space of the corridor, using the walls, pillars, and even the ceiling for three-dimensional mobility.
The Cursed Warrior's strength remained violent, but it was meaningless if it couldn't hit.
Every one of his heavy punches hit empty air, and every charge shattered a wall yet failed to catch that dark green afterimage.
Meanwhile, Hela's attacks were like a steady drizzle—not fatal, but constantly accumulating.
By the tenth time mjolnir struck the same knee joint, the Cursed Warrior's movements finally showed a visible sluggishness.
By the fifteenth time the black sword pierced the same armpit gap, the Crimson Runes on the surface of the armor began to flicker unsteadily.
On the twentieth time, Hela flashed behind him, gripping the hammer with both hands, compressing her entire Death Divine Power to the limit, and slammed the hammer into the back of his head—
"Click!"
A clear cracking sound—not the skull, but the armor.
That layer of Black Heavy Armor, which had absorbed countless amounts of Death Divine Power, finally reached its weight-bearing limit, a spiderweb-like crack splitting open from the back of the head.
The Cursed Warrior made a sound for the first time—not a scream of pain, but a low growl squeezed from deep within his throat, like a wounded Beast.
He spun around abruptly, grabbing the handle of Hela's mjolnir before she could retract it. A terrifying brute force erupted, as if he intended to hurl the hammer along with Hela away.
But just then, a golden-red light illuminated the corridor.
Mavuika had arrived.
She arrived immediately after clearing out the Dark Elf fodder on the perimeter, witnessing the stalemate between Hela and the Cursed Warrior.
Without any hesitation, sun-blaze thousand suns was unsheathed.
"Hela, get down!"
Mavuika's voice and sword arrived simultaneously.
Hela instantly let go and leaned back.
The Flaming Light-sword swept over her, piercing accurately into the crack in the Cursed Warrior's chest armor.
When the Eternal Flame met the cursed armor, it was like sunlight meeting ice and snow.
"Hiss—Aaaaah!!!"
This time, the Cursed Warrior let out a cry of genuine agony.
The sound was unlike a human voice, more like the wailing of a thousand souls being burned simultaneously.
His chest armor turned red, softened, and melted at a visible speed. Flames surged from the cracks, igniting the filthy dark energy within his body.
He released mjolnir, his hands frantically clawing at his chest in an attempt to extinguish the flames.
But those were no ordinary flames; it was the Eternal Flame, a conceptual Burning. What he clawed away was not fire, but his own carbonizing flesh.
Hela seized the opportunity as mjolnir returned to her hand. She stepped forward, gripping the hammer with both hands. The hammerhead traced a full arc in the air, all her Death Divine Power condensing into a single point.
"Die!"
The hammer fell, striking the Cursed Warrior's neck.
This time, the armor neither absorbed nor dispersed the impact.
Dark green Death Lightning erupted from the hammerhead, like ten thousand fine needles piercing every gap in the neck, then exploding inward.
"Pfft—"
The head flew up, blasted entirely away from the body by the force exploding from within.
The head, covered in tattered armor, spun through the air. The crimson flames in its eye sockets rapidly dimmed and died out before hitting the ground with a "thud," rolling a few times and turning into a lump of black-smoking charcoal.
The headless torso stood frozen for two seconds before collapsing with a crash.
The armor rapidly corroded and weathered, the flesh inside Vaporize into foul-smelling black smoke, eventually leaving behind only a hollow, crack-ridden set of black plate.
Hela leaned on mjolnir, panting, fine beads of sweat seeping from her forehead.
She looked at Mavuika: "Timely arrival, sister."
"It's not over yet." Mavuika did not lower her guard, her golden eyes scanning the end of the corridor.
"More are coming."
As if to confirm her words, heavy, rhythmic footsteps echoed from both sides of the corridor simultaneously.
On the left, two tall dark shadows stepped out from the corner; on the right, three equally hideous figures slowly appeared.
Five in total, all in the same Black Heavy Armor, the same Crimson Runes, and the same eye sockets Burning with cold flames.
They were indifferent to the remains of their companion on the ground, not even glancing down.
Five pairs of "eyes" locked onto Mavuika and Hela simultaneously. There was no anger or hatred in their gaze, only a pure command to tear their targets apart.
"Five..." Hela tightened her grip on mjolnir, an almost crazed curve tugging at the corner of her mouth.
Mavuika's expression was solemn. The instant the thought flashed through her mind, the five moved simultaneously.
The two on the left charged straight at Hela, one in front and one behind, sealing off any room for evasion.
The three on the right pounced toward Mavuika in a fan formation—one attacking head-on, two flanking from the sides.
Their movements were perfectly synchronized, like a single will inhabiting five bodies.
The battle entered a fever pitch in an instant.
...
High in the sky outside the Golden Palace, Odin and Malekith had also long since begun fighting.
Malekith manipulated the Aether Particle, its crimson energy taking myriad forms—sometimes turning into sharp spears, sometimes into massive tentacles, and sometimes condensing into a storm, attacking Odin frantically.
The Aether Particle was essentially the Reality Stone, one of the six Infinity Stones. Its power was outrageously formidable; every attack carried the terrifying might of warping reality, and even when facing Odin's Eternal Spear gungnir, it did not fall behind in the slightest.
If it weren't for the fact that Malekith could not yet fully exert the power of the Reality Stone, even someone as strong as Odin would likely only be able to barely resist at this point.
"Conquering the Nine Realms just now must have made you very proud, hasn't it?" Malekith taunted as he attacked.