"Rejoice!"
"His Highness Lothar, the great son of Thanos and the revered lord of the Chitauri Star!"
"From this day forth, the Nine Realms will no longer have a master named Odin!"
"The returning Prince Lothar will personally sound the death knell of Asgard!"
High above, The Other, holding the Mind Stone scepter and standing on a Chitauri mechanical behemoth, sang his praises with a fervent, booming voice.
Trapped in a sea of Chitauri soldiers, Thor's hands dropped in despair. Mjolnir, stained with the blood of countless Chitauri, fell heavily to the ground.
"No..."
"This can't be..."
"Father... Loki..."
"No..."
The large figure shook his head repeatedly. The mournful whispers, carried by the breeze that had been Odin's last breath, swept across Thor's face. Like a father's touch, it only intensified the rage in Thor's brow.
"No!"
"NO!!"
"NO!!!"
"LOOOTHAR!!!"
A heart-wrenching roar, followed by lightning crashing down from the sky. The vast Chitauri army was completely engulfed by a sea of lightning. The lightning came so fast it caught The Other off guard, interrupting his hymn.
In an instant, the battlefield was cleared. The golden-haired man standing under the sky finally looked every bit the God of Thunder he was meant to be.
Rumble!!!
Rumble!!!
Storm clouds gathered, and thunder and lightning roared. The corpses of Chitauri soldiers and the wreckage of warships rained down as the roaring thunder from the skies turned New York City into a scorched wasteland.
The enraged God of Thunder descended, his appearance filling the Avengers with both shock and hope. But his fist, just an inch away from Lothar's face, could not move forward. It was as if an invisible wall stood between them.
"Divine nature... awakened?"
With his hands now crossed on his chest again, Lothar raised an eyebrow in surprise, looking at Thor as if he were a rare specimen. If his previous calculations were correct, Thor was about 1,600 years old. As the heir to the Asgardian throne, he had only awakened his divine power of lightning now, due to the death of his father and brother?
That was incredibly unexpected.
At what age had Hela's divine power of death awakened? Was Thor even Odin's real son?
"No, Your Highness Lothar, this seems to be a secondary awakening," the dutiful Woz corrected, and a blue screen immediately showed Thor's current status.
"Based on the upper limit of the cellular activity values, Thor should have awakened his divine power of lightning a long time ago. However, for some unknown reason, Odin gave him the weapon that Lady Hela once used, which prevented Thor's newly awakened divine power of lightning from developing further, leaving it stagnant for many years."
On Woz's power data panel, Thor's sudden increase in power did not exceed his body's maximum detected capacity. This meant that this was not Thor's first awakening; it was more like his latent power, which had been dormant for many years, returning to its peak, triggered by the death of his family.
'Because Hela's power grew too quickly, he strictly controlled the growth of his second child's power to prevent him from becoming another Hela?'
As his thoughts churned, Lothar deduced Odin's intentions, all while pointing his right index finger at the struggling Thor.
"Too weak."
With a look of contempt, a burst of energy erupted from his fingertip. Trapped an inch away from Lothar, Thor's hair stood on end. The intense sense of danger forced him to react quickly.
But it was still too late.
Although he wasn't instantly decapitated, Thor's right arm was essentially useless. Everyone could see the stark white bone beneath the wound on his right shoulder.
"Thor!"
"Thor!"
"Calm down!"
Steve Rogers was the first to grab Thor. The legendary All-Father Odin was dead. There was no point in Thor going up there.
'Hulk! Hulk! Please, Hulk, come out quickly!'
The ragged Bruce Banner was slapping his own cheeks repeatedly. He had thought about what would happen after he was finally free from the nightmare of the Hulk, but he never thought he would one day be actively begging the Hulk to come out. What surprised him even more was that the usually volatile Hulk wouldn't emerge...
'He's scared...'
You want me to go out there so you can get me hit!
Hulk isn't dumb, Hulk is smart!
Bruce Banner was secretly pinching himself so hard he was bruised, but the "smart" Hulk still refused to show himself.
"Your Highness Lothar, this is the Space Stone that Loki found," The Other said, holding the Mind Stone scepter. He respectfully presented the Space Stone, which had fallen to the ground after Loki's disappearance, to the standing Lothar. This was one of the reasons for their visit to Earth.
"Now, there are only two left," Lothar said to himself, playing with the blue cube in his hand. His words caught the attention of Tony Stark, who was watching him closely.
"Ja—" Tony Stark held back the urge to call J.A.R.V.I.S. He still remembered how J.A.R.V.I.S.'s data had become corrupted and was forcibly shut down.
"Son of Thanos, Lothar... why?"
"You were once the savior of this planet. Why are you doing this?"
Natasha, her face bruised, followed the orders from Nick Fury through her earpiece. She suppressed her fear and stared straight at Lothar.
Slap!
Lothar slapped Natasha directly. He was so fast that none of the Avengers, whose injuries had been healed by Odin, could react.
"Now, tell me."
"Where is the Soul Stone?"
Lothar's hand shot out and gripped Natasha's throat, his eyes now fixed on the rest of the Avengers.
"Wait!"
"Wait!"
"What is the Soul Stone?" The sudden shift in events made everyone's heart pound faster!
"I think if you're willing to let go of Agent Romanoff and calm down first, then tell us what this Soul Stone is," Tony Stark, still wearing his high-tech leggings, spoke up immediately.
"I think we'd be very happy to help you find it."
"You are not in a position to bargain with me."
Lothar mercilessly tightened his grip on Natasha's throat, yet he left her just enough room to breathe. No one else could notice.
"Well then, am I in a position to bargain with you, Lothar?"
A deep, feminine voice resonated in everyone's ears. A man-sized fissure slowly appeared in the ruined sky over New York.
A figure slowly stepped out.
Her lustreless black hair was disheveled, and her black bodysuit, which perfectly showed off her slender figure, looked quite torn. A smile, one she hadn't shown in over a thousand years, appeared on her gaunt face.
The Other and Woz were completely stunned, watching the woman they believed to be dead walk step-by-step toward Lothar. She even reached out a finger and poked Lothar on the chin.
It was Asgard's former heir to the throne, Odin's first child—Hela, the Goddess of Death.
The scene fell into an eerie silence. The Other, who loved to sing praises, and Woz dared not utter a single word. They stayed obediently behind Lothar, watching as Lothar and Hela stared into each other's eyes.
"It seems Odin is dead," Hela said, a hint of regret in her tone. "What a shame. I wanted to kill him myself."
It was the same old stubborn style.
"Why have you aged so much?" After a long moment of gazing at the woman before him, Lothar sneered. This was the first thing he said since their reunion.
Hela's face darkened, and in an instant, a pair of blades materialized in her hands.
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