A flicker of confusion crossed Hela's mind.

Whatever. Didn't matter.

The girl clearly favored this honorific, it wouldn't be spreading across the Nine Realms otherwise. All that mattered was keeping her talking. Use the title, use it again, and maybe she'd get even more pleased with herself. More complacent.

"Lady Cabbage Witch..."

The corner of Hermione's eye twitched. Once.

"Lady Cabbage Witch..."

The corner of Hermione's eye twitched. Twice.

"Lady Cabbage Witch..."

Hermione's smile held. Her facial muscles did not.

Seventeen times.

Cabbage.

Cabbage again!

Even if God Himself showed up today, Hela was dying right here. Not even the Celestials could pull her back from that, she meant it.

Down below, the Asgardians watched the two of them go back and forth, their expressions drifting from raw terror to complete bewilderment.

Tom Riddle shrugged.

Getting the Prophesied Witch to sit through the word "Cabbage" seventeen times in a single conversation, Hela could call it a life well lived.

Hela knew it too.

The girl was rambling, obviously running out the clock.

But Hela didn't care. It was exactly what she wanted.

Every sentence bought her another inch. The underworld soil crept forward beneath her feet, and Asgard's essence flowed into her body strand by strand.

"Lady Cabbage Witch, that bubble tea you mentioned — once I rule the Nine Realms, I must try it."

"Of course." Hermione smiled warmly. "My treat. Double pearls."

They talked for over half an hour more.

Then Hela's expression shifted.

Her voice stopped.

The last patch of land vanished under the underworld soil. Asgard was hers, completely, finally, entirely.

The smile on Hela's face changed into something else.

"It's been a delightful conversation, Cabbage Witch."

A cold sneer. "But that's where it ends."

The politeness was gone. The pretense evaporated. What remained was naked condescension, nothing else.

"Cabbage Witch, you're still far too young."

"Did you think stalling me would give that old bastard time to recover?"

"Pity. I was waiting too."

"Now — Asgard is mine."

Hela threw her head back and laughed, the tyrannical aura of the God-King crashing outward like a wave, blanketing the entire realm.

"Even if you and Odin came at me together, you still wouldn't be my match!"

Down below, Odin's eyes snapped open. The color drained from his face.

His last connection to Asgard's essence, severed.

Hermione said nothing.

Instead, she tilted her head upward and looked into the deep of the starry sky.

She felt it. A presence, faintly familiar.

And she smiled.

A real one this time.

"Did you actually think I was waiting for Odin?" she asked.

Hela's brow furrowed.

The calm bothered her. Deeply.

"Stop bluffing! Within the Nine Realms, who is left to save you?!" Hela's voice cracked like a whip, murder sharpening every syllable.

She couldn't think of a single card this witch had left to play.

"Within the Nine Realms? Probably no one." Hermione's tone was light. "But who said what I was waiting for was anywhere inside the Nine Realms?"

She scoffed.

The words were barely out of her mouth when the sky changed.

It started at the center, a dark red bloom spreading outward, bleeding all the way to the horizon until the whole sky was the color of a dying star.

Then the starry canopy above seemed to catch on something invisible. Something vast. And it tore.

Straight down the middle.

The pressure that followed had no name for it. It simply fell, and the world buckled underneath.

Asgard's gravity exploded a hundredfold in a single heartbeat. Stone fragments rose into the air and then burst apart. A violent tempest of raw energy roared outward and stamped out the Helheim fires in an instant, snuffing them like candles caught in a hurricane.

Every soul in Asgard shuddered at once, not from fear, not from pain, but from something deeper. An absolute suppression that reached past flesh and bone and struck at the very level of existence itself.

From the tear in space, the roar of machinery thundered across the heavens.

And something stepped through.

A humanoid giant, dark red metal gleaming across every surface, star-chart patterns flowing and shifting along its skin like a living map of the cosmos. Several kilometers tall. No face, only 4 massive hollow voids where features should have been.

The giant's head tilted slowly downward.

When its voice came, it was cold. Enormous. It rang through every corner of Asgard without effort, without warmth, without anything resembling emotion.

"Hela of the Nine Realms."

The 4 hollow voids on its featureless faceplate lit up and locked onto Hela, suspended in the air.

"Why have you crossed boundaries and slain the Celestial infant Tiamut?"

The question landed like billions of thunderclaps detonating simultaneously. Thor and the others staggered, blood trickling from their ears.

Hela hung in midair and went completely blank.

What.

Slain a Celestial infant?

Tiamut?

What even was this thing?

Since breaking her seal, she hadn't left Asgard and Helheim for a single moment. Every waking hour spent wrestling Odin for the realm's essence. When, exactly, was she supposed to have gone out and slaughtered a Celestial infant?

But here, on her own home ground, in front of her Asgardians, in front of these outsiders, some colossal iron monstrosity had dropped out of the sky and was talking down to her.

Hela, who had never bent her neck to anyone.

Her brow snapped together. "What kind of creature are you? You dare trespass into the Nine Realms!"

The giant's voice didn't change.

"I am Herald Collier, dispatched by order of the Prime to bring Hela of the Nine Realms to justice."

"Sinner Hela, step forward. Answer for the death of Tiamut."

Sinner.

The word hit Hela's ears and a vein jumped on her forehead.

Within the Nine Realms, she was the one who spoke like that to others. No one, no one, had ever dared point that word at her.

She laughed, the fury burning so bright it came out as amusement. "What bullshit Tiamut? I don't know what that is."

She looked down at Odin. Then at Hermione.

The old man couldn't have summoned something like this.

That meant the witch had.

Impressive-looking. But size had never determined power, and Hela had never been intimidated by things that looked impressive.

She had seized complete control of Asgard. Its full essence ran through her now. Her confidence was absolute, there was no one in the universe who could stand against her.

"You're that ugly," she said, "and you think you have the right to call me to account?"

"Whatever you are — play your tricks in front of me, and you die here."

She snapped.

Her right hand drove forward.

"Die."

10,000 Necroswords, each hundreds of meters long, screamed through the air in a black torrent, loaded with endless deathly divine power, and slammed toward the colossal figure with everything she had.

The figure barely lifted its head.

"The Prime's word is never mistaken." Its voice was flat. Unimpressed. "Sinner Hela refuses to confess. She speaks in defiance and provokes the Celestials."

"The Prime has authorized me to judge and execute her on the spot."

HUMMM!

The core at the giant's chest detonated into blinding white.

A beam of pure energy, hundreds of meters across, swept downward. It vaporized the entire torrent of black swords in a single pass, erased them like they had never existed, and kept going, carrying the force of something that could split stars, driving straight down onto Hela.

BOOM, BOOM, BOOM!

Two forces beyond any ordinary dimension hit each other head-on.

The light that erupted swallowed half the sky.

The shockwave tore downward. What remained of Asgard's palaces crumbled in swaths. The underworld soil was carved open, a trench hundreds of kilometers long, gouged clean through.

The Asgardians were thrown like leaves in a storm.

Hermione was already gone.

The instant the two forces made contact, she had slipped into a chain of rapid Apparitions and vanished, reappearing at the far outer edge of the battlefield without a scratch.

➤ Next: The Might of the Qian Blue Ice Flame

Chapter 392 - The Might of the Qian Blue Ice Flame

The center of the battlefield.

Netherfire roared toward the sky. Cosmic energy swept across everything.

Hela swung her black sword, braving destruction beams to hack wildly at the colossal body, sparks scattering in every direction.

The more she fought, the more shaken she became.

Her opponent's strength was unlike anything she had ever encountered.

His defense was extraordinary, and the cosmic energy radiating from his every movement was as vast as an ocean, easily matching Odin at his peak.

If she hadn't just thoroughly devoured Asgard's origin and drawn on Helheim's ceaseless power flowing in behind it, she would have been badly wounded in the very first exchange.

"Damn thing! Where on earth did you come from?!"

Hela gritted her teeth against the violent surge of energy tearing through the sky, savage fury flickering in her eyes.

The battle was deadlocked, but this was her home ground. The origin power had no limit. She was certain: keep wearing him down, and she would kill this arrogant fool eventually.

The sky was completely swallowed by the colossal metallic body.

Dark red cosmic rays tore through the heavens, colliding in midair with Hela's black-green death power in a violent, continuous explosion.

Between heaven and earth, nothing remained but the pure roar of destruction.

Shockwaves rolled out in waves. The apocalyptic sight froze everyone where they stood.

BOOM!

Another heavy, bone-rattling exchange.

The light died.

In midair, two figures hung kilometers apart, staring each other down.

The giant's metallic frame was covered in cracks. Large chunks had shattered and peeled away, energy sparks flickering inside, cosmic power bleeding outward in visible ripples.

Hela was no better off.

Her horned helmet had split down the middle. Her dark green armor was riddled with charred holes, and blood dripped steadily from her arms.

The hot-blooded rush finally drained away.

Hela gasped for air, eyes fixed on the battered giant across from her, a cold feeling settling down her spine.

She had completely mastered Asgard's origin. She had Helheim pouring power into her without end. By any measure, nothing in the Nine Realms should have been her match.

And yet.

An emissary whose name she had never even heard had appeared out of nowhere and fought her to a standstill, leaving both of them wrecked.

And this was only the emissary.

Worse, from the giant's own words, there was a Supreme Sovereign standing somewhere behind him.

Regret stirred in Hela's chest for the first time.

She was beginning to think those arrogant words had come a little too soon. She should have talked first.

Across the way, the 4 hollow voids on the giant's faceplate flickered unevenly.

"The law of Death..."

For the first time, something fractured in that cold, flat voice.

"A mere false god of the Nine Realms — why does your body contain a portion of the law of Death?!"

His words echoed through the void.

Hela had no idea what he was raving about.

What law?

On the outer edge of the battlefield, Hermione's gaze shifted, a faint awareness crossing her face, as if something had clicked.

Hela took a slow breath, forced a thin smile, and addressed the colossal figure.

"Lord Emissary, is there perhaps... some misunderstanding between us—"

She never finished.

Everything changed.

A slender figure flashed into existence behind Hela without warning.

The spatial ripples hadn't even settled before ice-blue flame was already burning in Hermione's palm.

She flung the Qian Blue Ice Flame straight at the back of Hela's heart.

Hela's senses were razor-sharp. She spun on instinct, bringing the Necrosword around in a sweeping arc.

"Cabbage Witch, you dare ambush me?!"

She caught sight of the flame and curled her lip.

This again?

In every earlier exchange, Hermione's fire had run hot enough, but it scattered the moment her death power slammed into it. Clearly the Cabbage Witch had run dry. Repeating the same stunt, of all things.

"And that's the best a sneak attack gets you?"

Contempt settled across Hela's face.

The blade struck the ice flame.

The expected annihilation never came.

The pale blue fire clung to the sword like a disease, spreading along the pitch-black blade with terrifying speed.

In an instant it reached the hilt and leapt to Hela's hand.

Hela flinched. Disbelief broke across her face.

Something was wrong.

This was wrong.

She had faced Hermione's flames before. Her read on them had been clear: tricky, but nothing that could cut through her current divine power. Even battered as she was from the fight with the giant, she was not something magic of this caliber should be able to touch.

So why wasn't her death power extinguishing it?

Bone-deep cold climbed from her palm upward, burning through skin, locking her blood still.

Hela poured everything into her divine power.

The moment it made contact with the ice flame, it froze solid. Not resisted. Frozen. It couldn't fight back at all.

"Impossible!"

Hela screamed, and for the first time, real panic was in it.

The power inside her surged in a frenzy, throwing itself at the ice on her hand.

It did nothing.

The ice-blue flame ignored every obstacle. It tore up her forearm and swallowed half her body in a single breath.

"No! This is impossible!"

A scream of pure terror.

Too late.

The flame swept past her neck. Swallowed her chin.

Pale blue ice bloomed from the inside out.

Hela's scream cut off.

Her entire body became an ice sculpture, sheer terror and disbelief sealed forever onto her face.

All life extinguished.

Hermione raised her hand. Gungnir streaked across the distance as a shaft of golden light and dropped into her palm.

Purple light swirled along the shaft.

"Farewell."

The spear left her hand.

BANG!

The ice sculpture shattered.

Hela's body disintegrated instantly, scattering into a cloud of fine ice dust that drifted on the wind and was gone.

The Goddess of Death of Asgard. Gone, just like that.

The instant she fell, every trace of green netherfire blanketing the ground extinguished at once.

The eerie light in the eye sockets of countless undead warriors died at the same moment. Like puppets with their strings cut, they collapsed one after another, crumbling back into lifeless dry bones.

Across Asgard, the necrotic soil began to fade. The cracked earth slowly knit itself shut. The origin power of Asgard flowed back into place.

Odin closed his eyes.

A long moment passed. He opened them.

He looked at the ice crystals drifting across the sky. His lips moved.

He said nothing.

Silence fell over the battlefield.

Everyone stood with their heads tilted back, watching the girl in midair lower her spear.

The Hela who had made Odin cough blood, blinded Thor, and driven everyone to the edge of despair, finished in a single strike?

The giant in the air had gone just as quiet.

All 4 hollow voids stayed fixed on Hermione, unmoving for a long stretch of time.

No face. No expression. But he was just as stunned as the rest of them.

Thor's mouth hung open. He hadn't moved.

"Hermione... what... what just happened?"

Hermione landed, glanced up at the ice dust still drifting down from above, and said calmly:

"Simple. I wasn't using my full strength from the start."

"Why?" Thor asked.

"Not because I didn't want to," she said. "Because I wasn't sure enough."

"Against Hela before she fully absorbed Asgard's origin, my strength and hers were roughly even. Strictly speaking, I was actually a shade weaker."

"So I couldn't guarantee the Qian Blue Ice Flame would kill her."

"One failed strike, and she'd have her guard up. There would never be a second chance."

Thor's mouth worked silently.

"That's why I spent all that time only clashing with her head-on using Gungnir."

Hermione turned the spear in a slow, lazy arc.

"Then I threw Fiendfyre at her a few times on purpose, let her cut it down — just to build a habit in her head."

"The more effortlessly she killed it, the more certain she became that my magic couldn't touch her."

The realization moved through the crowd in a wave of slow nods.

That explained it.

A witch setting her magic aside entirely just to brawl in melee combat.

"Once this Lord Celestial helped me wound her and her divine power started to slip..."

"That was when I moved."

"At that point, Hela had no guard against me at all. She handled the Qian Blue Ice Flame out of pure habit, the same way she'd dealt with Fiendfyre every time before. Already weakened, already expecting nothing, she fell to a single blow."

"And that's what you're looking at now."

➤ Next: Give You Face and Call You Uncle; Don't Give You Face and Put You Six Feet Under