Queen Frigga, who had been organizing tonics beside the golden throne, was startled by the divine shockwave erupting from Odin. The vial slipped from her grasp, shattering on the floor.
Turning toward her husband, she found his expression weighed down with a solemnity she hadn't seen in over a thousand years.
In all their millennia together, the times Odin had looked like this could be counted on one hand.
The last time was when his firstborn daughter had severed all ties with him in outright rebellion.
"What is wrong?" Frigga hurried to Odin's side.
Odin didn't reply immediately. He reached out, clutching Frigga's hand with white-knuckled force.
His hand was trembling.
Frigga's heart tightened instantly. Across the Nine Realms, very few things in existence could make the Allfather tremble.
"Listen to me, my love," Odin gripped her hand, his voice low, raspy, and dragged out from the depths of his throat with immense effort.
"During this coming Odinsleep... no matter what transpires across the realms, even if Earth itself is reduced to cosmic dust..."
He paused, his lone eye locking dead onto Frigga:
"...you must never, never, NEVER allow Thor to set foot on Earth."
For the Allfather to repeat the word never three times in succession spoke volumes of the existential crisis at hand.
Frigga froze: "Why? What on earth is happening on Midgard?"
Odin parted his lips to explain, but the inexorable pull of the Odinsleep was already dragging his consciousness down into the dark abyss.
He managed only one final, strained breath:
"That ancient prophecy... has finally arrived."
"If Thor leaves Asgard... he will leave us forever..."
As the final syllable faded, Odin's hand went limp, slipping from Frigga's grasp as he succumbed entirely to the Odinsleep.
Frigga stood frozen, an unprecedented wave of dread churning within her soul.
"Heimdall!"
For the very first time, the Queen of Asgard stripped away every shred of regal grace, screaming the gatekeeper's name at the top of her lungs.
"My Queen, I await your command."
"Seal the Bifrost immediately! Without my explicit decree, no one is permitted to leave Asgard—especially not Thor!"
Chernobyl.
Following the initial clash of sovereign wills, Wanda launched her first direct strike.
Without hesitation, she directed her Chaos Magic straight at Peter's core.
She intended to rewrite reality itself, redefining Peter's atomic structure on a molecular level—precisely as she had done to Gravik moments earlier.
Yet the moment the Chaos Magic made contact with Peter's body, a soft, radiant white aura flared around him—the Horse Talisman snapping into action.
The Faithful Steed: None shall harm my master!
White divine radiance and crimson reality-warping energy clashed violently across the surface of Peter's skin.
Every time Chaos Magic attempted to rewrite Peter's physical composition, the Horse Talisman instantly cleansed and restored it to absolute perfection.
Rewrite. Cleanse. Rewrite. Cleanse.
In less than a fraction of a second, the cycle repeated tens of thousands of times.
After endless micro-clashes, Wanda arrived at a frustrating conclusion: her reality-erasure was completely useless against Peter.
"Impossible!"
Wanda's tone turned sharp with rising panic.
She spiked her energy output. The scarlet vortex behind her expanded exponentially—from ten meters, to fifty, to over a hundred meters wide.
The sheer magical pressure made the barrier groan under extreme strain.
Her hands trembling, Gwen was forced to invoke an additional spirit syllable, upgrading the Santen Kesshun into the Shiten Kōshun barrier to fully withstand the apocalyptic magical onslaught.
Realizing that erasing Peter directly was a pipedream, Wanda abandoned that route entirely.
She raised both arms to the sky, and the earth groaned in response.
"OMG!"
"Holy mother of...!"
"What kind of visual effect is that?!"
Viewers worldwide watched in stunned disbelief.
Using raw telekinesis infused with Chaos Magic, Wanda hoisted every single structure across Chernobyl—including the massive subterranean military installation built by the Skrulls over decades—high into the stratosphere.
Under the influence of her magic, tens of thousands of tons of concrete and structural steel were compressed in an instant into razor-sharp, geometric spires.
She hurled them all straight at Peter like a catastrophic meteor shower!
Facing these hyper-dense metallic monoliths plunging from the sky, Peter merely wore a mildly conflicted expression.
Don't get the wrong idea!
He wasn't stressing over how to dodge.
Rather... he was debating which element would look coolest.
The Wood Release he had used back on Planet Ego? Or the Lightning and Fire Release he hadn't touched in a while?
After a brief second of deliberation, Peter made his choice.
"Henshin!"
His right hand swept across the Wizard Driver at his waist.
[Flame, Please!]
At the same time, the dial on the Omnitrix spun into position.
Heatblast Form + Celestial Energy +
"FIRE-RAT ROBE ENGAGED!"
With a booming roar, blinding golden fire erupted outward, encasing Peter's entire form.
While he hadn't channeled the Divine Dragon's power to manifest the Ultimate Fire Dragon, the amplification granted by Celestial energy surpassed even that tier of destruction.
Perhaps it could be christened... Zhurong Mode?!
Smirking slightly, Peter's silhouette flickered, materializing directly in front of the nearest falling monolith.
And then—
BOOM!
The instant his fist connected with the massive geometric structure, golden flames coiled around the steel like hungry serpents.
Within the span of a single breath, hairline fractures spiderwebbed across the dense metal.
With a crisp shattering sound, the colossal monolith disintegrated into dust.
Peter's figure was already flashing toward the next target.
Flickering through the sky at hypersonic speeds, he shattered the incoming projectiles one after another.
The raging golden flames incinerated the fragments so thoroughly that the sky rained molten iron sparks, creating an incandescent fireworks display.
Red-hot liquid metal rained down onto the earth, annealing the scorched soil of Chernobyl into a smooth, reflective sheet of solid steel.
Watching this breathtaking scene unfold, viewers across the globe were paralyzed in awe—even Wanda herself froze in shock.
"You possess enough power to terrify anyone in this world, but your combat instincts are nowhere near acceptable~!"
Carried by a calm, teasing voice, Peter cut through the heatwaves and appeared right before Wanda.
Panicking, Wanda attempted to conjure defensive barriers of solid force, but they were burned to cinders by Peter's golden flames before they could even materialize.
"Stay back!"
Wanda shrieked, making a desperate final counterattack, but it was far too late.
Before her magic could form, Peter raised his right hand, pressing his index and middle fingers together, and tapped them gently against the center of her smooth forehead...