Hel-fire.

Arishem pressed two fingers together. The green flame snuffed out instantly, collapsing into nothing.

His vast voice rolled across the void once more.

"You have not lied."

"The aura of Helheim. Unmistakable."

"Asgard must provide an explanation."

The words settled.

Then Arishem's colossal body began to twist. Dark red energy folded inward, collapsing into a violently spinning black hole.

A few seconds later, it was gone.

The universe went quiet.

As though none of it had ever happened.

On Earth, time resumed its flow. People went on with their lives, completely unaware of what had just occurred.

The Eternals stood frozen where they were, unable to collect themselves for a long time. The only coherent thought any of them could form was that they had survived.

Thinking back on it — that presence alone had been enough to paralyze them. Just the aura.

Faced with power that simply exceeded comprehension, every last one of them felt only a deep, hollow helplessness. Before a Celestial, they couldn't even summon the impulse to resist.

...

Meanwhile.

Tens of thousands of light-years from Earth, deep in the void.

The Asgardian ship was cutting through a warp channel at speed.

In the pilot's seat, Hermione sat with her eyes closed, resting. A gem hovered beside her, pulsing with soft green light.

For a single instant, everything had gone still. The universe had stopped moving. She had been the only thing in the world capable of thought, of motion.

She had felt it clearly — the Time Stone flaring to life, wrapping around her, cutting her off from the freeze like a sealed room.

Someone had stopped time. Briefly, but unmistakably.

Without the Time Stone, she knew of exactly one person capable of that.

The Ancient One.

Except the Ancient One was gone.

Combined with what had just happened on Earth, there was only one answer.

The Six-Barrel Celestial. Arishem.

He was investigating Tiamut's death.

About 10 seconds later, the space beyond the green light gave a faint shudder.

Time snapped back to normal.

Hermione exhaled slowly.

Without the Time Stone, she would have been completely helpless. No ability to act, no ability to resist. Just standing there, waiting for whatever came next.

The heady confidence of breaking through to Level 7 magic evaporated without a trace.

She thought about what she'd just witnessed. Those Celestials and their abilities. Casually sculpting stars with their hands. Collapsing into black holes.

And now, stopping time.

Power at that level wasn't something she could face head-on. Not now. Not even close.

Was that what she had waiting for her down the road? Beings like that as enemies?

A sharp sense of urgency settled into her chest.

"One thing at a time."

She let out a slow breath.

"Sort out Asgard first. Everything else comes after."

...

The ship dropped through the final jump point, and the golden palace spires of Asgard appeared in the viewport.

Except they weren't golden anymore.

The palace was on fire.

Massive pillars of flame clawed at the sky, thick smoke churning in dark columns. What had once been a gleaming, glorious skyline had already half-collapsed into rubble.

And the Hel-corruption was worse than she'd expected. When she left, it had covered roughly half of Asgard. Now it had swallowed two-thirds of the realm.

"That fast?"

Hermione's brow furrowed.

She'd only been gone so long. How was Hela already on the verge of finishing this? Whatever happened to Odin holding the line?

The ship touched down. She stepped out.

Destruction everywhere. The ground was littered with the wreckage of undead warriors and the bodies of Asgardian soldiers.

BOOM!

A massive impact shook the air in the distance. The ground trembled beneath her feet.

Hermione looked up. At the edge of her vision, gold and green energies were tearing against each other in violent bursts, throwing off blinding flashes of light.

The center of the battle.

She didn't hesitate. Her body dissolved into a rush of wind and vanished.

The battlefield was chaos.

The screams of combat, the crash of weapons, smoke rolling in black waves, Hel-fire scattering in every direction.

At the center of it all, two figures.

Odin, golden armor gleaming, Gungnir in hand, trading blows with a woman in dark green.

Hela.

Asgard's former Goddess of Death. Odin's firstborn.

She moved like something that had been waiting to be unleashed for centuries. Black hair whipping behind her, the great horned crown on her head radiating a cold, eerie glow, her presence was overwhelming.

She raised one hand and swept it through the air.

Hundreds of black swords materialized out of nothing, blotting out the sky above Odin in a wall of black steel.

"Go."

They launched as one.

Odin drew a breath and Gungnir spun, fast, precise, a blur of gold. Spear-shadows wrapped around him in a seamless rotating shell.

CLANG. CLANG. CLANG.

The black swords hammered down. He caught every single one.

Not far off, Banner had already gone green. Hulk was in the middle of a brawl with a massive undead wolf, Hela's pet, Fenrir. The thing stood over 10 meters tall, green Hel-fire crawling across its body like a second skin.

"ROAR!"

Hulk drove a fist into the side of Fenrir's skull. The wolf's head snapped sideways from the impact, then its jaws yawned open and clamped down on Hulk's shoulder.

The two of them hit the ground rolling, a snarling tangle of green muscle and dead flesh.

Across the field, Thor had Mjolnir moving and lightning howling around him. He was at the head of what was left of the Asgardian forces, cutting into Hela's undead army. The undead pressed forward like a tide, no concept of self-preservation.

"For Asgard!"

Thor brought Mjolnir down.

A thick column of lightning hammered from the sky and blew dozens of undead soldiers into scorched wreckage.

Wanda was sweeping red energy waves across the lines, each blast carving out whole sections of the undead mass.

Loki held layers of illusions in the air. Kaecilius worked with conjured magic chain-whips. Luna threw Blasting Curses. Sif and the Warriors Three were deep in the fighting, giving everything they had.

Only Agatha and Tom Riddle were not on the outer perimeter.

They were right beside Hela. Purple magic rolled off Agatha in waves, tendrils of Dark Dimension energy coiling around her, reaching out constantly to disrupt Hela's attacks.

Tom Riddle was working differently, and nastier. No direct confrontations. He was Apparating all over the field, slipping into the gaps between Hela's strikes at Odin and hitting her from blind angles with Dark Magic, one dirty trick after another, chipping away at her focus.

Neither of them was putting up huge numbers. But they were keeping her off-balance.

Every time Hela lined up a killing blow, one of them broke her rhythm.

Odin caught the opening. Gungnir drove forward with everything he had.

The spearhead, thrumming with divine power, hit Hela square in the chest.

She flicked the Necrosword. One casual motion. The strike deflected cleanly away.

Then Hela stopped. She lowered her weapon and turned to look at Odin with something like contempt.

"The great All-Father." Her voice carried across the entire battlefield, thick with mockery. "Reduced to calling for help from his Midgardian subjects."

She let the word hang there.

"You're not the Odin I remember. That one had some fire in him."

Her gaze swept over him slowly.

"Looking at you now, old man — I almost feel sorry for you."

Odin steadied himself and shook his head.

"Midgard stopped being my subject a long time ago. You've been in Helheim too long, Hela. The Nine Realms moved on without you."

That landed exactly where it hurt.

➤ Next: Odin vs. Hela

Chapter 388 - Odin vs. Hela

"You still dare mention Helheim?"

The smile vanished from Hela's face. Fury flared in her eyes and she snapped:

"Did you think I wanted to stay in that godforsaken place?! Who caused all of this?!"

She raised her hand. More Necroswords materialized behind her, crowding the air in a dense, bristling wall.

Death energy erupted from her body. The temperature around her plummeted.

"It was you! Odin!"

"You sealed me away in that damned place for thousands of years!"

"And now you have the nerve to stand here and lecture me?"

Odin went silent.

He knew she was right. He had sealed his own daughter away with his own hands. That was a fact nothing could change.

"Hela. Stop."

He spoke slowly, a faint plea buried beneath the words.

"Otherwise the backlash will claim you. Sooner or later."

"Backlash?"

Hela threw her head back and laughed, wild, unhinged, on the edge of something broken.

"When you grow old, you abdicate. You don't cling to the throne."

She pointed at him, eyes heavy with contempt.

"Do that, and maybe, out of pity, because you are my father — I'll let you keep your miserable life."

She raised her longsword.

"Then you will open your eyes wide and watch. Watch how I reclaim the Nine Realms. Watch how I conquer the universe!"

"Every race in the cosmos will kneel at my feet. Every last one."

Odin closed his eyes and exhaled slowly.

Hela had been swallowed whole by hatred and ambition. There was no reaching her. Persuasion was pointless. He tightened his grip on Gungnir and attacked again.

"Come on, then!"

Hela sneered. A thousand Necroswords swung behind her, all pointing at Odin in unison.

They clashed again.

In the distance, Hermione narrowed her eyes.

Odin's strikes looked fierce. But she noticed something. His fighting style had shifted completely from what she'd seen on the training grounds.

No multiplication from Gungnir. No lightning threaded into his blows. He wasn't even using spatial locking.

Just the bare basics — divine force and parrying.

She watched his movements slow, his breathing turn ragged. Every swing of Gungnir looked like it cost him something he couldn't afford to spend. Meanwhile Hela fought harder with every exchange, her power swelling as if the battle itself was feeding her.

Odin's divine power was nearly dry. He couldn't sustain this much longer.

Sure enough.

Even with Agatha and Tom Riddle fighting at his flanks, Odin could no longer hold her back.

The necrotic earth spread without stopping, already smothering more than half of Asgard. As Hela stripped away its source, Odin's presence began to collapse, like something foundational had been yanked out from under him.

A vicious glint crossed Hela's eyes.

A colossal Necrosword condensed into being. Dozens of meters long.

It swept out in a wide horizontal arc.

Odin barely raised Gungnir to meet it.

CLANG!

The force knocked Gungnir aside. Odin's chest was wide open.

"Die!"

Hela's grin turned savage. Several black swords followed in an instant, driving straight into Odin's chest.

CRACK!

The golden armor shattered.

Odin grunted. The impact launched him backward through the air, a great spray of blood leaving his mouth before he hit the ground.

The armor absorbed most of it. But the death energy imbued in those blades tore through what the armor couldn't stop. The damage was deep.

"Father!"

Thor's eyes went wide with pure rage. He hurled Mjolnir with everything he had, lightning detonating around his body as he transformed into a howling streak of thunder and charged straight at Hela.

Hela glanced at him. She flicked her hand.

Necroswords condensed instantly and launched toward him in a volley.

Thor swung Mjolnir, trying to bat them aside. There were too many. One blade cut in from the flank, he had no time to dodge. The tip drove straight through his left eye.

"AHHH!"

Thor screamed and dropped from the sky, slamming into the ground with a crash that shook the earth.

Hela looked down at him. Mockery settled across her face.

"My foolish little brother."

"You have no idea how vast the gap between us truly is."

---

On the other side of the battlefield, Fenris locked his jaws onto Hulk's massive green body and hurled him like he weighed nothing. Hulk hit the ground trailing blood, wounds carved so deep the bone showed through, green blood soaking into the earth beneath him.

Undead warriors flooded forward in an endless tide.

"Damn it, why won't these things stay dead?!"

Wanda was furious, Chaos Magic churning and roiling around her in violent waves.

The Witch Cult members looked no better. The undead were no match for any of them one-on-one, but that didn't matter, every time they wiped out a wave, new ones clawed their way up from the ground immediately. An inexhaustible supply.

The battle line kept shrinking.

Soon everyone had been driven back to where Odin knelt, the situation dangling by a thread. Odin was down on one knee, barely holding himself upright with Gungnir propped beneath him.

Hela hovered above, looking down at the cornered survivors. A victor's smile spread across her face.

"It's over."

She spread her arms wide and laughed at the sky.

"From this day forward, Asgard officially changes hands!"

"I, Hela, am the true master here!"

Her laughter rang out across the ruined battlefield, arrogant and absolute.

Frigga held the wounded Thor against her chest, her eyes full of despair. Around them, the faces of the remaining Asgardians had gone the color of ash.

Hela's gaze swept past them. It landed on Agatha, Wanda, Tom Riddle, and the rest of the Witch Cult.

They had impressed her during the fight. Especially the old woman radiating purple magic, and the man who'd slipped through shadows dealing Dark curses, between them, they'd disrupted her killing blows more than once.

"Interesting."

She studied Agatha, a flicker of genuine admiration in her eyes. "Pure Dark Dimension power. Dormammu must be dead. He'd never let someone else steal his power if he weren't."

She spoke from on high, unhurried.

"I don't know what Odin promised you to make you bleed for him."

"But you've proven yourselves. You're worthy of serving under me."

"Join me."

Hela tilted her chin up, tone carrying all the weight of someone who did not expect to be refused. "I'll put you to great use. Once I've conquered the Nine Realms, your names will echo across the universe. Power, resources, longevity — name it. Whatever you want." She let the offer hang in the air, then added: "It's far better than dying here alongside this decaying old relic."

The Asgardians' faces went white.

If these mages switched sides, it was over. Completely, irreversibly over.

Hela believed she'd been generous. More than generous. She'd even kept her tone civil, which cost her something.

The Witch Cult didn't even blink.

Agatha let out a cold scoff. Tom Riddle's expression didn't move a muscle. Wanda rolled her eyes.

Hela stared at their collective look of flat, unimpressed disdain, and something in her went rigid.

"Since you don't know what's good for you," she said, her voice dropping to something colder and quieter than a shout, "you can die alongside him."

She began to raise her hand.

And then a voice rang out across the battlefield, clear, cool, cutting through the chaos like it had all the time in the world.

"If you want to recruit members of my Witch Cult, shouldn't you ask me first?"

➤ Next: Showdown — Steel and Blood