From the moment the thunder erupted, Soren had known Thor was involved.
But the scale of that power surpassed anything he believed Thor capable of unleashing. That wasn't the strength of a prince in battle. That was the fury of someone standing on the edge of death.
Yet even that wasn't what troubled him most.
Just before the thunder's explosion, Soren had felt a distortion in space, like reality twisting under pressure.
Another presence was here. By the time he arrived, the event was long over.
He was too late.
The ground still smoked, the scent of ozone thick in the air. Charred earth spread across the clearing like a black sunburst.
Soren knelt and brushed his fingers over the only remaining evidence of the battle, shattered fragments of Mjolnir.
Mjolnir was forged by dwarven kings, blessed by Odin himself. Nothing on Earth should have been able to reduce it to scraps.
Soren closed his eyes and let his senses unravel into the air. The spatial scars at the site were unmistakable. Bifrost's signature was disrupted, as though something had forced its way into the beam or corrupted the destination mid-transit.
"If unimpeded." Soren murmured, "This would've led straight to Asgard."
But interference…
No. Whoever was carried within that broken transmission wasn't going to reach their intended location.
He stretched his awareness farther, searching for a presence he had sensed, Odin's. But the faint silver thread of divine life that had always hovered at the edge of the cosmos…was gone.
For a long moment, Soren said nothing.
Even gods, rulers of the Nine Realms, conquerors of ages, could not escape the slow, merciless river of time.
Odin Allfather, the indomitable one, had finally been swept into history as dust. The realization was hard for Soren.
But the grief was short-lived.
Because something else lingered in the aftermath.
A will steeped in death so powerful it sent a faint tremor through Soren's body. This was no earthly being.
This was someone from elsewhere and someone far beyond the ordinary hierarchy of cosmic powers.
Someone who could crush Mjolnir like brittle glass.
A knot of dread coiled in Soren's stomach. If this unknown force headed to Asgard, the consequences would be catastrophic, not only for the gods, but potentially for the entire Nine Realms.
He couldn't allow that.
In the same breath as his decision, Soren vanished from the battlefield and reappeared within the halls of Everlife.
He moved through the familiar wards and stepped straight through the shimmering gate of the portal, his shortcut into the realm of the gods.
But the instant his boots touched Asgardian soil, his senses snapped to full alert.
Something was horribly wrong.
The golden palace was silent. Not a single guard flanked the portal, a place that was always watched. The air felt heavy and unnatural.
And beneath it all…
A cold breath of death spreading across Asgard.
Soren didn't waste another heartbeat. The Mind Gem flared on his brow, golden light coursing across his skin as his consciousness expanded outward.
His mental power swept through palace halls, across gardens, through forests and rivers, pushing farther, deeper.
All of Asgard trembled beneath his perception.
Soren's expression shifted the moment his mental senses brushed against two disturbances, both impossible to ignore.
The first pulsed from far below Asgard's golden streets, buried deep in the bedrock where no natural power should reside. The aura was identical to the one he had sensed earlier on the storm-scorched coast of Norway, but vastly stronger now… as if returning home had awakened it.
The presence surged upward in dreadful waves, so dense that even Soren, armed with the Mind Stone, could not pierce the layers of earth to see the truth beneath.
The second presence was far more familiar.
Heimdall God of Dawn, now clad in ornate golden armor that shimmered like a sunrise, though oddly paired with a wanderer's rugged attire.
He was urgently directing panicked Asgardians and ushering them toward a hidden path leading away from the palace.
Fear rippled through the fleeing civilians, so potent that Soren could feel it pressing against his mind. Something had terrified the entirety of the realm.
Because of that death-tainted aura… it had to be.
Without hesitation, Soren teleported.
Heimdall spun, hand instinctively reaching for a weapon as the air warped beside him. When he recognized Soren, his tense shoulders eased.
"Healer Soren." He breathed, though the worry never left his eyes.
"What happened?" Soren demanded. "Why is Asgard like this?"
"The doom of the gods has come."
"What?"
The God of Dawn continued ushering civilians even as he spoke, his voice heavy with old grief. "Ragnarök. The prophecy."
"The destruction of the realm… the fall of every god… the end of Asgard itself."
Soren felt a chill crawl down his spine.
Heimdall continued. "Odin knew his time was nearing. He told me and Loki alone what was coming."
"We prepared in secret and built shelters, hidden deep within the realm, for the civilians. When the signs appeared… this was all we could do."
Heimdall's expression was drawn tight as he explained,
"Not long ago, the All-Father passed… and with his death, Hela returned. Odin had imprisoned her for ages, longer than any of us can truly comprehend. Now that the seal has broken, she has regained her freedom."
Soren listened in silence as Heimdall continued.
"In Asgard, on our own soil, her strength is endless. The Goddess of Death grows stronger with every breath she takes in Asgard. We couldn't resist her."
"To prevent a total catastrophe, I had no choice but to evacuate the others and retreat."
Heimdall's recounting laid bare the fear beneath his calm.
But Soren wasn't satisfied yet.
"You said her name is Hela, Goddess of Death. Who exactly is she? Why is her power endless in Asgard?"