The black mist on the ground slowly flowed back into Shin's body. He stretched out a hand, strange lightning dancing around him, as a replica of Thor's hammer slowly formed in his palm.
Shin still couldn't lift the real Mjolnir, but by using the powers of the Munch-Munch Fruit, he directly merged Thor's hammer into his own body, allowing him to borrow its power.
Once he had merged with the hammer, whether he could lift it or not became irrelevant. The integration itself enabled him to access its abilities.
"What kind of ability is this?" Quicksilver asked uneasily from the sky. As someone with super speed, he instinctively disliked hovering mid-air with nowhere solid to stand.
"This is one of my powers," Shin replied casually, briefly mentioning the powers of the Dark-Dark Fruit and Munch-Munch Fruit. "Getting Thor's hammer was easier than I expected. I was half-worried Gungnir might come flying down from the sky."
"This is Thor's hammer?" Wanda asked, reaching out curiously to touch it. She hesitated slightly due to the crackling lightning, but Shin willed the energy to subside.
"But shouldn't we be looking for Thor? What's the point of taking his hammer?" she added, confused after feeling the artifact's strange aura.
"It doesn't mean much. I just wanted to try it out," Shin said with a smile. "I'll give it back to him when the time comes."
While Mjolnir was important to the Asgardians, it wasn't irreplaceable.
Frankly speaking, it was more of a mystical tool than a divine weapon like the Gungnir, and Odin didn't place that much value on it. In the comics, there were at least a dozen hammers among the Aesir with similar power and form.
The only one truly attached to it was Thor himself more out of familiarity than any intrinsic rarity. Mjolnir might be considered a treasure of Asgard, but it was far from the only one of its kind.
That was why Shin dared to take it. If it had been the Gungnir, and Odin was still alive, Shin wouldn't have touched it no matter what.
After swinging the hammer a few times, Shin eventually shook his head. The weapon didn't suit him. He also realized Mjolnir was more like a conduit for channeling power than a source of power itself.
That energy likely came from the World Tree, granted through the title of Thor. This explained why anyone who lifted the hammer gained the power of the Thunder God.
In other words, Mjolnir was similar to the Infinity Stones remove it from its universe and it will lose its effect.
As for Thor, Shin guessed that when he used Mjolnir, it served to draw out and shape his own latent thunder power, rather than merely channeling borrowed divine force from the World Tree.
In the comics, Shin knew that Asgard's three generations of kings had passed down divine power in an attempt to create a supreme god Thor who could prevent Ragnarok.
As a result, Thor possessed immense potential, so vast that even his physical body struggled to contain it. Perhaps Mjolnir served as a conduit to help him manage and control that energy.
Regardless, the quality of lightning energy inside Mjolnir was exceptional and an ideal sample for Shin's training. In just a short time, it had already advanced the transformation of the lightning nature chakra within his body. For now, it served as a superb training accelerator.
Just as Shin was discussing this with Wanda, a flare of energy suddenly surged from the ground, heading straight toward him.
"Hey, buddy! That hammer doesn't belong to you. But how the hell did you lift it?"
A sarcastic voice echoed from within a red-and-gold suit of armor it was none other than Tony Stark, aka Iron Man, who had just traced Mjolnir's location.
"Tony Stark! We finally found you, you cold-blooded murderer!"
Quicksilver shouted furiously before Shin could respond. With a burst of power from his legs, combined with ultra-lightweight from the Light-Heavy Rock Technique, he launched toward Stark like a rocket.
Tony was startled, but the Iron Man armor's reflexes were far faster than his own. Almost as soon as the thought crossed his mind, the suit raised an arm and blasted an energy beam at Quicksilver.
While flying through the air with boosted speed that could rival his land velocity, Pietro was far less agile in midair.
He saw the energy cannon clearly, on the ground, it would've been easy to dodge such a linear attack, but in the air, he couldn't change direction fast enough.
As a result, he was hit squarely in the head, coughing up blood from the impact.
Luckily, thanks to the Light-Heavy Rock Technique, he didn't plummet to the ground but instead hovered. At this height, hundreds of meters up, even his enhanced physiology wouldn't have survived a direct crash.
"I don't even know you! What the hell!?" Tony shouted, just as Wanda's red energy began to wrap around his armor. The suit groaned under the pressure, metal creaking ominously.
Shin could tell Wanda was holding back. Forget comparing her to the destructive level of the Phoenix Force her reality-warping powers alone could instantly kill Tony Stark if she wanted.
Having been deeply developed by Apocalypse, Wanda's powers had matured far beyond a normal mutant's. If she whispered "die" right now, Iron Man, beneath all that armor just a regular human, would fall dead on the spot.
That was the truth. Pietro couldn't do it, but Wanda, still only a teenager, could end Stark in seconds. She simply hadn't done so because she'd never killed anyone before.
Despite all their talk of revenge, their fury came mostly from PTSD, shattered memories, destroyed homes and dead relatives leaving them disoriented and full of grief.
Otherwise, Wanda didn't need to "find" Tony Stark. Her powers worked across space. He couldn't defend against her superpowers or magic. One thought from her was all it would take.
But now, with Tony suddenly in front of her, the long-harbored hatred found its outlet. If Shin didn't intervene, Iron Man might very well die here at the hands of the Scarlet Witch.
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