"Thank you!" Natasha said, nodding gratefully to Wanda as she recovered her balance.
"You're welcome!" Wanda responded with a smile. The chaos magic in her hands lit up with brilliant crimson energy, swirling and pulsing with reality-warping power. She flew forward to press the attack. Natasha also raised Mjolnir high, electricity crackling around the hammer, and rushed toward Hela with determined steps.
Hela pushed herself up from the frozen ground, her movements sharp despite the pain. She looked back at the gradually disappearing orange portal that had just been used to turn her own weapons against her, and a hint of dangerous anger flashed in her eyes, mixing with humiliation.
When had she ever been toyed with like this? Made a fool of on the battlefield? She, who had conquered the Nine Realms, reduced to dodging her own attacks!
But before she could dwell on her rage, before she could formulate a counterattack, a triangular pattern of mystical symbols appeared glowing in Quill's outstretched hand. A green storm of elemental power emerged from the pattern and reached out toward Hela like grasping tentacles of wind and energy.
Hela snorted angrily at yet another attack. An extremely thick Night Sky stone pillar rose from the frozen ground of Niflheim with explosive force, shooting upward and colliding head-on with Quill's green storm, the two powers meeting in a shockwave.
"Hahahhh!!!" Quill shouted loudly, his voice straining with effort. He exerted force with both hands, veins standing out on his neck. The green storm of Celestial power firmly held back the stone pillar summoned by Hela, the energies locked in contest.
Captain Marvel rushed past the energy clash and came at Hela from the side, her body glowing with photon energy. She threw a devastating punch that caught Hela in the ribs, the impact creating a small shockwave. The force sent Hela flying backward again, her body tumbling through the air.
Hela spun backward uncontrollably for hundreds of meters, the landscape blurring around her. She finally managed to dig her legs into the frozen ground, carving two deep furrows in the ice before managing to stop her momentum, ice crystals spraying everywhere.
After being beaten back repeatedly by Captain Marvel—punch after punch, each one driving her further away—although she had not suffered any truly serious injuries thanks to her supernatural resilience, Hela still became increasingly irritable and frustrated. She was the Goddess of Death! She should not be on the defensive like this!
At this time, Tony had finally finished changing into Mark 17. The part that had taken the most time wasn't the actual armor swap—that was quick. No, what had consumed precious seconds was that he had hesitated while looking at the Power Stone glowing purple within the Cosmic Orb, second-guessing his decision to use it.
Everyone gathered together in a loose formation and looked at Hela in the distance, who was catching her breath. Rhodes noticed the change immediately and looked at the Power Gem now embedded prominently in the arc reactor on Tony's chest, pulsing with violet light.
"You actually put it on!" Rhodes said, his voice a mixture of concern and awe. "You're really using an Infinity Stone!"
Several people turned their heads to look at Tony's new appearance more closely. The iconic gold and red Mark 17 armor now had some purple veins running through it under the influence of the Power Gem, the energy coursing through the suit's systems like glowing circuitry. The effect added an otherworldly sense of mystery and danger to the armor.
"This armor feels better than ever before!" Tony said, clenching his fists and feeling the raw power thrumming through every system. "Wanda! You did a great job with those enchantments! I can feel the difference!" Now he no longer needed to worry about the power problem that had always limited his armor's capabilities—he had essentially unlimited energy!
After putting on the new armor, Tony was eager to test it out, practically vibrating with anticipation. He was the first to reengage with Hela: "Come on! Let's go! Round two! Let's see what this baby can do!"
After saying that, he took the lead and flew toward Hela at high speed, his repulsors leaving purple-tinged trails. Seeing him charge forward, everyone took off and followed him back into battle, the team reforming their assault.
Tony fired a palm cannon emitting brilliant purple light at Hela, the beam infused with the Power Stone's energy. Hela's face darkened immediately, and she felt a genuine threat emanating from that attack—something far beyond the previous strikes!
Now she was neither in Asgard where she could draw unlimited power, nor was she in her prime after millennia of imprisonment. So she did not dare to take the blow head-on, her instincts screaming danger. She decisively chose to dodge, diving to the side.
The palm cannon carrying the devastating power of the Power Gem landed where she'd been standing and completely flattened a small hill behind her position, vaporizing the rock and ice in a massive purple explosion.
"Woo-hoo! This feels amazing!" Tony looked at the flattened hill and the crater he'd just created, exclaiming with boyish excitement at how powerful his attack had been. "I love this thing!"
Hela looked at the scene of destruction behind her, at the smoking crater, and narrowed her eyes in calculation. She shot a Night Sky Sword at Tony at lightning speed, the projectile moving faster than sound.
Tony destroyed it effortlessly with a Power Stone-enhanced palm cannon, the purple beam obliterating the dark blade. He passed through the explosion and continued shooting at Hela with sustained fire.
Hela dodged the palm cannon with a graceful backflip, her body arcing through the air. She also dodged the coordinated long-range attacks from Wanda and Quill that came from different angles, weaving between the magical blasts with practiced ease.
Captain Marvel rushed to close quarters again and swung her glowing fist at Hela's head. This time, Hela was fully prepared for the attack. She stretched out her right hand to catch Carol's fist, stopping it mid-swing, and then immediately punched Carol in the face with her left hand, putting all her strength behind the counter.
But Carol was completely unmoved by the strike to her face, her expression not even flickering. Instead, she increased the photon energy and strength in her captured hand again, pushing forward relentlessly. She drove Hela's own blocking palm backward against Hela's chest, using the Goddess of Death's own arm against her.
Although Hela was surprised by Captain Marvel's overwhelming strength and durability—the woman hadn't even flinched from a punch that would shatter stone—she had also experienced Carol's ability before in their earlier exchanges. So when Carol exerted force for the second time, Hela also pushed back with all her might, channeling her rage into raw power. The two forces collided and partially offset each other. Although Hela could not completely block or match Carol's strength, she didn't fly backward directly like before. Instead, she only had to take two staggering steps back, maintaining some control.
"Damn it! If we were in Asgard, in my realm, you would never be able to beat me!" Hela snarled in frustration, her face twisted with anger. "I would crush you all!" She was clearly very annoyed—she had access to far more powerful strength potentially, but she couldn't tap into it here in this frozen wasteland.
Captain Marvel didn't bother to pay attention to her impotent rage and empty threats. How could anyone be stupid enough to voluntarily give their enemy a chance to become stronger? To fight them on their home ground? There was no one so foolish as that!
Behind Carol, Thor rushed over with his body surrounded by crackling sparks and lightning, moving like a living thunderbolt. With the powerful inertia of his charge, he threw a devastating electric punch at Hela.
The concentrated thunder attached to his fist struck Hela first, electricity coursing over her body. Hela gritted her teeth and endured the painful electric shock, then stretched out her hand to try to grab and strangle his neck, to choke the life from him.
But Thor's arm was longer than hers and his fist reached her first, the geometry working in his favor. After Hela realized this at the last moment, she decisively shifted her body sideways to avoid the full-force blow aimed at her chest.
Then she stretched out her hand and swung it in a vicious arc, delivering a hard slap across Thor's face that echoed across the battlefield. The strike made Thor's head snap to the side. It was not particularly damaging in terms of injury, but it was extremely insulting—treating him like a misbehaving child rather than a warrior!
Thor covered the place where he'd been slapped, his cheek stinging and red, and took two steps back. He looked at Hela with genuine confusion, not understanding why she'd chosen to slap rather than strike properly.
Hela's face was flushed with anger beyond her usual rage. It was bad enough that Captain Marvel had punched her in the chest repeatedly! But then Thor had tried to do the exact same thing! Didn't he see how torn and tattered her clothes were by now? Didn't he have any sense of propriety?
Thor followed her angry gaze and also realized with dawning horror that Hela's clothing was indeed already badly damaged from the sustained combat—torn, ripped, barely holding together. Her outfit was dangerously close to complete failure, and the whole battle was starting to look less like a noble combat and more like they were brutalizing a woman whose clothes were falling apart.
He glanced back at the assembled Avengers behind him and made a quick decision. He decided to go all out and end this battle as quickly as possible, before things got even more awkward!
After all, Hela was his sister no matter what had happened between them! He couldn't really let her become completely exposed in battle, could he? That would be humiliating for everyone involved!
At Thor's signal—a quick gesture and meaningful look—Captain Marvel and the others slowly retreated, backing away and leaving space for Hela and Thor to finish this one-on-one.
Thor raised his hand, and Stormbreaker flew to him from where it had fallen. The magnificent axe spun through the air as a huge bolt of lightning fell from the sky like divine judgment and struck Thor directly. The electricity enveloped him completely, empowering him.
"Sister! Come on!" Thor held Stormbreaker ready, his entire body surrounded by dazzling blue-white electric light that made him look like a god of old. He stretched out his other hand toward Hela in a beckoning gesture, deliberately provoking her. "Let's finish this!"
Hela set her sights on Stormbreaker, studying the weapon carefully. It was something she had never seen before in all her long life, but she could sense that its power was even greater than that of Mjolnir! This was a true king's weapon!
She didn't dare to be careless or underestimate it. She took a deep breath, calmed her racing mind, and focused. A Sword of the Night Sky appeared in her hand—her most powerful manifestation. Then she rushed toward Thor with desperate speed.
Thor had absolutely no intention of holding back or showing mercy. He gathered all his divine strength, all his lightning, all the power of Stormbreaker itself. He swung the axe down at Hela with devastating force, vowing to decide the outcome with this single move!
Stormbreaker exuded absolutely terrifying power as it descended. The moment the axe began to fall, a ball of extreme plasma—superheated beyond anything earthly—appeared from the axe blade, growing larger as it fell.
Hela stabbed upward at Thor with all her strength, pouring everything she had left into the attack. She tried to confront Stormbreaker head-on, to match power with power!
But she had catastrophically underestimated the weapon's might. The Night Sky Sword shattered like glass the instant it collided with Stormbreaker, the dark blade exploding into fragments. The axe continued its arc unimpeded and struck her chest with the full, devastating force of Thor's thunder.
Before Hela could even change her expression, before the pain could fully register, she was sent flying by Stormbreaker. She flew hundreds of meters backward, her body a ragdoll in the wind. She crashed heavily into a distant hill with enough force to create a crater, and the impact immediately knocked the fight out of her. She lay still in the rubble.
The power of this attack even surpassed Thor's legendary confrontation with Thanos that had been shown in Avengers 3! Even Hela in her absolute prime, empowered by Asgard, might not have been able to withstand such a blow—let alone her weakened state now!
Thor looked at the collapsed mountain in the distance, his expression grim and resolved. A flash of lightning appeared in his eyes, and he raised Stormbreaker one final time. A dazzling bolt of lightning that illuminated the entire frozen landscape fell from the sky and directly split the entire mountain into pieces, reducing it to rubble and ensuring Hela could not immediately recover.
Hela's battered body flew high in the rubble and debris, tumbling through the air amid the rocks, then fell heavily to the frozen ground below. She landed with a sickening thud and lay motionless, as if she had completely lost consciousness.
Captain Marvel flew quickly to Hela's side and knelt down. She reached out carefully to check the Goddess of Death's pulse at her neck. After a moment, she looked up. "She's still alive! Her pulse is weak but steady. What should we do with her?"
Hearing this, Thor slowly turned his head to look at Odin, who had been watching the entire battle from a safe distance with Frigga at his side. The decision of what to do with Hela—his daughter, Thor's sister—was ultimately a family matter.
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