Lightning triggered a violent explosion, blasting the Destroyer away in an instant!
Boom!
The shockwave warped the surrounding space, smashing apart the terrifying black tornado.
In the blink of an eye, all the clouds were shattered. The Destroyer was sent flying several kilometers like a falling meteor, crashing down and collapsing the ground.
Steve grew more and more in control.
At this moment, he felt the hammer in his hand was linked to his very life. Every movement carried the power of thunder!
After sending the Destroyer flying, Steve didn't pause. He swung the hammer and flew after it.
Thor's signature hammer-flight was being used by Steve to absolute perfection.
Thud!
Steve landed again, hammering the Destroyer over and over like he was forging iron.
The sequence was overwhelming. Every strike sounded like thunder exploding right beside your ears, like heavenly lightning crashing down!
But Bant could see it clearly. Captain America had the Destroyer completely unable to fight back, yet the actual damage he dealt to the Destroyer was extremely small.
Still, just as Steve said, he now had more than enough stamina to slowly wear Loki down. Forget a day, even ten days and ten nights wouldn't be a problem.
If it dragged on like this, even if the Destroyer could hold, Loki in Asgard probably didn't have that much divine power.
On the Quinjet.
Because Steve's strike had shattered the storm clouds that covered them, Fury and Coulson could now clearly see the situation on the battlefield.
Obviously, Steve had the upper hand completely.
"I didn't expect this hammer to be this powerful," Fury said in surprise. "Looks like the Asgardians' power is beyond our imagination."
Even though Steve was winning, Fury didn't rush to celebrate.
As Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., he had more to consider.
Loki had only deployed a single machine, and the situation had already become this enormous. Who knew how many hidden threats and weapons of mass destruction the Asgardians still had?
From the current situation, Fury could also infer Loki's position.
Clearly, this prince's prestige in Asgard wasn't high. That was why he could only send a single machine to Earth instead of bringing an army down on their heads.
But the problem was, no matter how low Loki's prestige was, he had already become Asgard's true controller. Once the wheels of war began to turn, stopping them wouldn't be easy.
And it would be like a snowball. It would only get bigger and bigger.
Captain America might be able to defeat the Destroyer, but if Asgard truly launched a full-scale invasion, Steve alone would be a lone tree in a storm.
Very quickly, Fury thought of Asgard's other prince.
Since Loki had put on this fake show, it proved that the exiled prince, Thor, had far more popular support in Asgard.
Nick Fury quickly formed a rough plan in his mind.
From what he knew, that guy named Thor looked dumb, but in truth he wasn't smart at all. He had been played around by his younger brother until he spun in circles.
Maybe because this kind of thing was common in human history, Fury saw through Loki's tricks at a glance. In that case, if he exposed Loki's scheme and supported the crown prince's return, it might avoid an interstellar war and even turn Asgard into Earth's ally.
Fury felt like a master strategist.
Then he turned his head, scanned the surroundings, and frowned hard.
"So where's our Asgardian prince?"
Coulson froze. "I think he didn't get on the plane…"
Thor really hadn't boarded.
When Loki launched his attack, Thor had been knocked unconscious. When Nick and the others fled in a hurry, they never even thought of that unlucky bastard.
Fury's face instantly went dark, and a motherfucker nearly slipped out.
With the battlefield this dangerous, that big idiot was probably dead already…
Fury's face turned even darker.
They had already offended one Asgardian prince. If the other one died on Earth too, then war would be completely unavoidable.
Thinking of that, Fury couldn't care less that the fight hadn't ended yet. He shouted at once, "Land immediately! We have to find that Asgardian!"
The S.H.I.E.L.D. agents moved at once. Luckily, Steve had already knocked the Destroyer several kilometers away, pulling the battlefield far from them. Otherwise searching would have been impossible.
"Boss, we couldn't find him!"
After a long while, Coulson and Brock both shouted back, covered in dust.
"It's over. Did that kid really die?" Fury covered his face, eyes shut tight. For a moment, he felt exhausted in both body and mind. Then he spoke again. "Expand the search area! No matter what, even if he's really dead, I want the body found!"
If war was truly unavoidable, then at least he could study Asgardian biology and see if they could invent targeted weapons.
Americans were good at that kind of thing.
In reality, Thor wasn't dead, of course.
Forget the fact that Loki couldn't bring himself to kill Thor. Even if he dared, Bant wouldn't let Thor die on Earth.
If this kid actually died, Earth's enemy wouldn't be Loki anymore. It would be Odin, the God-King who conquered the cosmos and ruled the Nine Realms!
Against that level of opponent, even Thanos from Avengers 3 and 4 wouldn't be enough.
On all of Earth, only the Ancient One could hold on for a while, and even then, how long was uncertain.
Bant might look like he wasn't afraid of Odin, but in truth, that was only because he'd seen the movies and comics and understood Odin's current state, so he dared to entertain the idea.
In recent years, Odin's Odin Sleep had grown longer and longer, and Ragnarok was drawing near. A few years meant nothing to Asgardians.
Under those circumstances, Odin truly didn't care much about the treasures in the vault anymore.
And whether in the movies or in the comics, after Loki brought the Destroyer to Earth, Odin never reclaimed it.
But if Thor or Loki died, that would be a different matter entirely.
However, the ones who saved Thor and took him away weren't Bant.
It was the Warriors Three and Lady Sif.
Those four Asgardian warriors arrived a little later than the Destroyer. So while the Destroyer and Steve were fighting with such huge momentum, nobody noticed them, except Bant.
"That's the Destroyer!" Fandral, one of the Warriors Three, shouted in shock the moment they reached Earth.
"I knew Loki was going in and out of the vault for a reason. He must be plotting something!"
At the same time, they noticed the figure fighting the Destroyer in the distance. He looked like a war god, raising Mjolnir and smashing the Destroyer again and again.
"Is that Thor?" Sif narrowed her eyes, looking toward the distance.
"Who else could it be?" Hogun said confidently.
"But didn't he lose his divine power?"
"I think the All-Father only wanted to teach Thor a small lesson. If it's not him, could it be a Midgardian?" Hogun said with disdain.
He turned his head aside and spotted a blond man with his face pressed into the ground, half-buried in sand, unconscious.
He let out a snort.
"A weak Midgardian. How could it be?"
"Let me remind you."
At that moment, a deep voice sounded behind them. The four Asgardian warriors immediately turned around and saw a tall alien whose entire body seemed to be made of green crystalline matter.
Bant ignored the fact that they were on full alert. He pointed at the Thor lying on the ground and said, "That 'weak Midgardian' is your prince."
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