Just as Thor finally smiled because he had reclaimed his true power.
On the battlefield at the horizon, Peter and Hela were also smiling.
Peter looked at Hela, his eyes filled with the appreciation of meeting a worthy opponent.
This was what a real battle was.
Compared to her, someone like Infinity Ultron, who only knew how to use the power of the Infinity Stones to play with numbers like a carried scrub, was pure garbage!
On the other side, Hela was also smiling.
It was an acknowledgment more direct than any words.
"Fantastic!" After another fierce clash, Hela and Peter separated.
She looked at Peter, her voice trembling slightly with excitement,
"Yes, this is it! Just like this! Three thousand years! In the past three thousand years, I have never been this happy!"
As she spoke, the eerie green divine power on her body surged once again.
A rumble echoed from deep within the Earth of Asgard, and invisible divine power was forcibly extracted, merging into Hela's body.
Her aura climbed frantically, from thirty percent, to forty, fifty... all the way to her peak state.
"The power of this land belongs to me in the first place." Hela spread her arms, letting the divine power pour into her body,
"Now, let me see if you can still take it!"
The golden light of Celestial Energy also lit up on Peter's body. He looked at Hela, the corners of his mouth curving slightly:
"My pleasure!"
"Again!" Hela roared and charged forward.
The two clashed once more.
This time, the ground in the center of the Heavenly Palace was left with a deep crater over ten meters wide due to the aftermath of the battle.
In the distance, the massive hull of the evacuation ship shook violently because of this Impact, causing everyone on board to cry out in alarm.
It was entirely thanks to the cooperation of Thor's lightning and Frigga's energy, which formed a visible energy barrier, that prevented the civilians near the edge from falling off the ship.
The survivors looked at the two fighting frantically in the sky, their eyes unconsciously filled with worry.
Facing such a powerful Hela, could Peter... win?
Under the worried gazes of the crowd, time passed second by second.
As time went on, the attitude of the onlookers gradually began to change.
At first, their eyes just felt sore.
Then, hunger set in.
Big-Eater Volstagg unconsciously rubbed his stomach, then glanced at the watch on his wrist:
"Shit, has it already been five hours?!"
He looked up at the two in the sky in disbelief.
Violent crashing sounds still echoed in the sky, and neither of the two in battle showed any sign of deciding the victor.
"No way, I need to get something to eat," Volstagg muttered. He couldn't even care to watch the precious battle of the strong anymore as he turned and walked into the ship's storage cabin.
"Bring me a bottle of mead!" Loki shouted at Volstagg.
"I want a Bull of Heaven steak, medium-rare, and some Sea-scale Fish sashimi. I haven't eaten that in ages," Sif followed up with her order.
"Hey, isn't that your man's battle? You don't care at all?" Loki couldn't help but complain. "Don't you love him anymore?"
Sif rolled her eyes at him as if looking at an idiot:
"If the girl you loved had never lost in front of you, you wouldn't worry about her safety either."
Well, that was a powerful reason; Loki was actually left speechless.
Another two hours passed, and the vast majority of Asgardians gave up watching, either eating together or returning to their cabins to rest.
Only Thor was still staring at the battle in the sky without blinking.
The moon set and the sun rose; in the blink of an eye, a day and a night had passed.
Volstagg, who had slept until broad daylight, stretched and subconsciously glanced at the sky.
He found that the two figures in the sky still showed no signs of separating.
"No way, man. They're still not done fighting?"
"Every time they are knocked back, they stand up even faster," Thor explained to Volstagg after taking a sip of wine:
"It's breathtaking. Compared to them, my previous combat experience and skills are as shallow and laughable as a toddler's."
On the ship, he was the only one left who persisted in watching this long, drawn-out battle.
"Is it really that exaggerated?" Volstagg couldn't help but mutter.
His strength was several levels below Thor's, so he couldn't see the intricacies of it at all.
"It really is that exaggerated; they are the truly powerful ones," Thor said with a serious face. "Engraving combat into their very bones... compared to him, I am far too lacking."
On the evacuation ship, people had already gone back to doing their own things.
Sif had even set up a table and started teaching Loki, Frigga, and Hogun how to play Chess—this was a game Peter had taught her, and she had played it before with Felicia, Daisy, and Gwen.
"Chess!" Queen Frigga smiled as she pushed down her Chess pieces:
"Truly an interesting Midgardian game. Has Midgard developed to be this interesting now? Perhaps I should go and visit Midgard in the future."
...
In the blink of an eye, ten days and ten nights had passed.
After a full ten days of fierce fighting, almost the entirety of Asgard had been reduced to ruins by their battle.
Yet, the two in the sky still showed no signs of separating.
During the battle, they might be knocked back by each other for an instant, or suffer heavy damage for a round or two.
But in the next second, the wounds on their bodies would automatically heal, and they would dive right back into the fight.
They were like two tireless perpetual motion machines, continuously chasing, clashing, separating, and clashing again among the ruins.
The crowd of onlookers had changed who knows how many times.
Only Thor was still persisting, trying to learn something from their battle.
"Won't they really get tired?" an innocent child couldn't help but ask a soul-searching question.
The answer to the question was: they really weren't tired!
Not only were they not tired, but they were also one hundred percent deeply immersed in it, unable to extricate themselves.
Hela had never felt so invigorated. Even during the years she followed Odin to conquer the Nine Realms, she had never encountered such an opponent.
Those so-called warriors of the Nine Realms were like paper in front of her.
But this Earth man in front of her was different.
He was so powerful that Hela was forced to mobilize the entire power of Asgard to fight him, and yet she still couldn't knock Peter down.
This feeling... was simply too wonderful, so much so that a thought vaguely arose in her heart, wishing that this battle would never end.
Throne, revenge, conquest... all of Hela's previous obsessions became unimportant in her heart at this moment.
Because she had finally discovered what she truly wanted.
Did she really care about the throne? Did she really care if the people of Asgard were corrupted by peace?
No, that was a lie.
From the very beginning, what she pursued was nothing but the joy of battle!
On the other side, Peter was also feeling enraptured.
It wasn't because he could still learn anything from Hela; in fact, he had long passed the stage where he needed to learn.
The real reason that kept him going until now was actually...
He felt it!
At this moment, inside his body, the power of Haoshoku was gradually awakening.
No, the term 'awakening' was actually not quite appropriate, since Peter had been able to mobilize the power of Haoshoku from the very beginning.
But at this moment, he could vaguely feel that he was finally no longer just simply turning Haoshoku on and off.
This ethereal will was gradually becoming... something that could be completely controlled!
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