"Be careful driving, Jane!" The car bounced up and down as the wheels hit the uneven desert terrain, making it feel like riding a boat. Professor Eric couldn't help but remind her.
"Okay, Professor," Jane responded. She was being as careful as she could, but the desert was just like that.
Meanwhile, Liu A'dou had turned on the camera, recording everything. Of course, he wasn't filming the outside, but rather the other three people inside the car. Daisy, the most energetic, made faces at the camera, while Jane appeared a little shy in front of the lens. As for the old man, Liu A'dou filmed him the least; after all, why not film the girls more when they were present?
Suddenly, the car shook, and a violent gust of wind kicked up ahead.
"Oh my God!" Jane swerved the steering wheel, sending the car veering off course.
Liu A'dou sat up straight, aimed the camera, and shouted, "It's a tornado!"
But Eric didn't think so. There was lightning in the tornado, which suggested it might be an electromagnetic storm. "Jane, don't be afraid. Drive closer so we can see it clearly."
"Got it, Doctor!" Jane steadied the wheel and continued forward. "This is so strange, what could it be?"
"Wow!" Daisy stuck her head out the window, feeling the wind and sand hit her face. "This is amazing!"
"Jane, be careful!" Eric warned.
The lives of everyone in the car were in Jane's hands, and it felt dangerous.
The lightning in the tornado grew brighter, reaching a peak. With a loud boom, a flash of blinding light erupted.
Ordinary people had no choice but to close their eyes, but Liu A'dou saw a figure falling from the tornado, accompanied by lightning. Then, the wind died down, and the lightning disappeared, leaving only silence around them.
"What happened?" Daisy was confused.
Eric explained, "I suspect it was a brief electromagnetic storm caused by a discharge from the clouds. Although the discharge was brief, its energy was immense—probably the total amount of electricity a power station generates in a year."
Liu A'dou learned something new.
The car had to stop where the electromagnetic storm had occurred so they could study it better.
"Liu, can we get the footage you took?" This was highly valuable research material.
"Of course, I can make a copy when we get back," Liu A'dou replied.
"Thank you!" Jane turned to thank him.
Bang—
The female driver finally showed her strength as the car's front hit something.
"Brakes! Oh my God, oh my God…" Jane muttered softly, hoping she hadn't hit anything important.
Everyone got out of the car and found a big man in simple underwear lying on the ground.
"Oh my God!" Jane let out a scream. She realized she had hit someone, and everything came crashing down on her. Her license would be revoked, and she might even go to jail. In that instant, countless bad consequences flashed through her mind.
Liu A'dou crouched down to check. The guy was an attractive European, muscular, and handsome. "He's still breathing, and it's steady."
Just as he finished speaking, Thor stood up, roaring at the sky, "Father, you cannot do this!" He spoke in a strange-sounding English.
"Hey, are you okay?" Jane asked with concern.
"Tell me, where am I? What country is this?" Thor, now furious after being cast down to Earth, was speaking in a way that confused everyone, making them even more fearful.
As the only young man in the group, Liu A'dou stepped forward. "Buddy, did you hit your head when you got hit?"
"It wasn't me who hit him," Jane nervously defended.
"Tell me, where exactly is this? Is this one of the Nine Great Realms?" Thor asked loudly, his voice booming.
Zing, a bolt of lightning struck Thor in the chest, and he convulsed a few times before collapsing.
"Daisy?" Jane didn't expect her friend to use the stun gun.
Daisy looked innocent. "Don't blame me. You saw how unstable he was. Look at his size—Liu would definitely not be able to take him on."
Jane had to admit Daisy had a point; Liu's smaller frame clearly wasn't a match for the giant man.
"You guys take him to the hospital. I'll stay behind to see if there's anything else worth filming, and then I'll walk back on my own," Liu A'dou suggested.
"This is the desert. We can't leave you behind," Daisy said, feeling uneasy.
"It's fine. There won't be any more big guys like that around. You guys go ahead. Besides, I might catch something else useful for your research," Liu A'dou insisted.
He managed to convince them, and they agreed. Together, they heaved the two-hundred-pound man into the car and watched it drive off.
Liu A'dou looked up at the night sky, thinking the hammer should be falling soon. He still wasn't sure what Diana's disappearance had to do with Thor's hammer.
Sure enough, only a few minutes later, a whooshing sound came from above, as if something had broken the sound barrier, falling rapidly toward the ground.
Liu A'dou quickly moved a few steps to the side, narrowly avoiding the hammer's impact.
Boom!
A cloud of yellow sand exploded into the air, blinding Liu A'dou's vision. When the dust cleared, Thor's hammer had created a new crater in the ground.
Clearly, Thor's hammer wasn't that heavy, as the destruction caused by the speed it fell wasn't as catastrophic as it could have been. According to the energy formula, the energy an object has is proportional to its mass and velocity. If Thor's hammer were truly that heavy, the damage caused by the fall at that speed should have been several times more intense.
So, Thor's hammer wasn't hard to lift because it was heavy; it was because the artifact recognized its master. Only those it acknowledged could lift it. Even though Thor's hammer was made from the core of a dying planet, that didn't mean it was particularly heavy.
Liu A'dou jumped into the pit and squatted down, tapping the cold, hard hammer. "Hello, is Pikachu home?" he muttered, clearly bored. Obviously, the hammer wasn't the one to kidnap Diana. The kidnapper had to be related to Thor, or perhaps Diana had been taken to the Immortal Realm.
"Tsk, let me see if I can lift this Thor's hammer." Liu A'dou gripped the handle, feeling the coolness of it. The handle and hammer were one solid piece, with a non-slip strap wrapped around the handle.
He exerted force, sinking his legs down, using his waist to power the movement, and trying to lift with his shoulders.
It didn't budge. As expected, if the artifact doesn't recognize you as its master, it can't be used. Liu A'dou sighed, releasing his grip and giving up. But that didn't mean he couldn't figure out a way to move the hammer. He could always dig up the ground around the hammer and move it along with the soil.
This kind of transportation used a very advanced principle, known as the Elevator Effect. It was the same reason Thor could lift his hammer while riding an elevator. This principle contained profound logic, mathematics, energy studies, and physics knowledge. In short, it was very advanced.
Placing the camera on the ground, Liu A'dou freed his hands, burned his Microcosmos, and plunged both hands into the ground, all the way to his elbows. The Microcosmos created a bowl-shaped gap in the earth, and then he lifted with all his strength. The ground, along with the hammer, was raised up.
Thor only lifted the hammer, but Liu A'dou, being a bit stronger than Thor, lifted both the hammer and the soil, making the total weight he moved greater than Thor's. Of course, that was just a joke. Liu A'dou wasn't actually trying to steal Thor's hammer. He wouldn't steal something useless anyway.
But if a person capable of lifting the Earth appeared, even if Thor's hammer had rooted itself on Earth, they would still be able to wield it—though it would no longer summon lightning. For such a strong person, the hammer would be nothing more than a trinket.