Skyl was fairly familiar with the plot of the first Thor movie. Thor's fall to Earth was ultimately just Odin's way of forcing his son to grow through hardship, to learn to see the world through a leader's eyes, and to stop acting like a hot-blooded idiot who solved everything with brute force.
A classic story of a prince brought low. In the end, as long as Thor was willing to sacrifice himself to protect his friends, he would have passed the test.
After half a month in New York, Thor had already shed much of his recklessness. Now he only needed one final push.
"Go on. Try again," Skyl encouraged.
Under the intense scrutiny of the S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel, they once more returned to the center of the crater.
Mjolnir stood planted atop its column of earth like the sword in the stone, waiting for its rightful king.
Thor seized the hammer. Lightning flashed across the sky, and the atmosphere itself seemed to answer his call. A fierce confidence surged back into him.
In that instant, he saw countless scenes from the hundreds of thousands of battles he had fought over the centuries. He had always won. Those glorious, brilliant moments had formed Thor's golden age. He had once believed that age would never end.
But life had struck him head-on all the same.
A true hero would never bow to bleak reality. Thor could not accept growing old as a mortal in some foreign land. That was no warrior's fate. Valhalla would never welcome a dead man who had ended so pathetically.
Thor prayed silently, Mjolnir, lend me your power. Let me take back everything I once had!
He yanked with all his strength.
The hammer did not move at all.
Thor broke.
"No! Mjolnir! Why?!"
For a moment, it was as if a sad soundtrack had started playing from nowhere. The S.H.I.E.L.D. agents at the scene instinctively looked around, only to spot the speaker sitting by Skyl's feet.
"Hello darkness, my old friend..."
Thor dropped to his knees, all strength gone.
Beside him, Skyl switched off the speaker, then reached out, took hold of the hammer, and casually lifted Mjolnir into the air.
Everyone around them froze.
The divine weapon had not rejected Skyl, but neither had it shown him any real fondness. It reminded him of the wands in Ollivanders: not cold, not warm, just indifferent.
Skyl knew he had strong compatibility with magical objects in general. If he were willing to spend the time and build a bond with it, Mjolnir would trust him the same way it trusted Thor.
The "science guys" Nick Fury loved to mock crowded around, marveling at the sight, all trying to guess how much strength could possibly be hidden inside Skyl's slim body.
"Maybe his bones are titanium and his muscles are hydraulic pistons."
"Even the Terminator couldn't lift that thing."
Thor stared in utter disbelief. More than anyone else, he knew brute force alone could never lift Mjolnir. There was only one possible truth.
His beloved little hammer had found someone new.
At that moment, he looked exactly like some miserable middle-aged office worker who had just discovered his wife was cheating on him.
One look at Thor's expression, and Skyl knew exactly what he was thinking.
"Let me state this very clearly," Skyl said with solemn seriousness. "I am a man of pure and faithful love. So don't worry. I'm not stealing your hammer."
Thor's expression only grew gloomier. "No. If you can lift her, then you are her new owner."
Skyl's eye twitched. "You're calling a hammer 'her.' Don't you think your tastes are a little weird?"
"You don't understand what a weapon means to a warrior. Mjolnir is not only my companion. She is my soul."
The prince of Asgard looked completely crushed.
"I definitely do not understand warrior weirdness. But your power does not come from a hammer. Even without it, you are still the God of Thunder. A wizard can still cast magic without a wand. True magic comes from within, not from some powerful external object."
"But Father stripped me of my godly power."
"It's only sealed. It never actually left you."
Mjolnir bore Odin's royal enchantment. Whoever lifted Thor's hammer would gain the power of Thor. But there was only ever one true God of Thunder.
Skyl could have taken the hammer into The Tower of Tomes, scrubbed away the seal, and handed it back to Thor. But if he did that, he would also be stripping a warrior of his pride.
"Thor, I have a question. What do you fight for?"
"For victory."
"Even if that means slaughtering defenseless civilians?" Skyl shook his head. "You've been on Earth for a while now. Have you taken the time to understand the wars this planet has suffered? Tens of millions died under gunfire like livestock. Soldiers' lives were burned like firewood. You see victory, but not the corpses of the innocent. You hear cheers, but not the cries of the people."
Thor paused. "I do not kill civilians."
"But once war begins, the people who are squeezed hardest are always the civilians. Food shortages. Not enough heat. Forced conscription. Mandatory labor. The blood and sweat of ordinary people flow like rivers, all so the war machine can keep running for one more second. In that kind of world, common people have no dignity. If all you want is war, if you drag Asgard into the flames, then all you will get is a kingdom in ruins."
Thor shook his head. "You do not understand Asgard's strength."
Skyl answered calmly, "You do not understand mine. If you want to know what it feels like to lose your kingdom and your home, I can help you with that."
Thor stared at him for a while, then suddenly flashed a foolishly self-assured grin. "Ha. You're joking."
Mora's Book hanging at Skyl's waist let out a low, sinister chuckle. "Master, let me feast on the brains and souls of the Asgardians."
A wicked eye opened on the book's cover and stared straight at Thor, making his skin crawl.
"Is there something wrong with your book?"
"Don't worry about it."
Skyl lightly stroked the spine. Mora shuddered and hurriedly shut its eye.
"Thor, once you understand how to fight to protect the people, you'll be able to reclaim the power you lost."
That opportunity came very quickly.
Six hours later, Thor and Skyl were in a fast-food restaurant in Puente Antiguo, eating burgers.
Then the Bifrost descended into the middle of town, and Thor's old friends from Asgard arrived in search of him.
They brought terrible news.
"Asgard has been destroyed."
"What?!" Thor could not believe it.
"Just now, a giant serpent swallowed half of Asgard, and the palace city fell into its belly as well. We escaped with our lives by sheer luck. Thor, we need you."
"What about Mother? And Loki?"
"Unfortunately, they didn't survive. Fewer than forty people in Asgard are still alive."
Skyl set down his burger. "What did the serpent look like? Was anyone with it?"
"A young woman warned us before the great serpent arrived," Lady Sif said, pain written all over her face. "She said Jormungand was coming to devour the world and told us to run. But we were too arrogant. We didn't understand how serious it was. That serpent stretched across the stars, a full light-year long. Even the stars looked like nothing more than specks on its scales. With a single bite, it shattered the divine barrier. The edge of its fangs grazed Asgard, and our divine realm was ruined."
Skyl nodded, then looked at Thor. "The cataclysm has arrived, God of Thunder. Are you ready to fight for the lives of an entire universe?"
Expressionless, Thor threw aside his fried chicken drumstick and grabbed Mjolnir from the table.
"I'm going to find that serpent, smash its skull in, and dig Asgard back out of its stomach."
Asgard, the divine realm.
This vast paradise drifting through space, dwelling place of the gods, had once been a landmass tens of thousands of kilometers across. Surrounded by a spherical atmosphere, with seas of cloud banked along its edges, it held mountains and rivers, lakes and grand palaces, endless halls and towering courts standing like an ancient forest. Everything had gleamed with splendor beneath a bright and beautiful sky.
Its highly advanced magic and technology had brought tremendous prosperity. No one suffered from hunger or cold.
The people of Asgard had lived rich, contented lives, feasting and reveling day after day. Their songs rose to the highest clouds and fell to the deepest valleys, echoing through the cosmos in praise of Odin and the heroes, in praise of the people and the natural universe.
But now its sky had gone completely dark. After the outer planetary shield shattered, the atmosphere had bled away at a terrifying pace. Rivers froze solid. The broad land was broken into an asteroid belt. The remaining large fragments of earth were desolate and ruined.
Only one day ago, this had still been a prosperous kingdom, home of the guardians of the Nine Realms.
Now its heroes had fallen into a serpent's belly, and the world was nothing but wreckage.
The one responsible was still lingering among the ruins.
Gali landed on a broken piece of earth and glared angrily at Jormungand, who was coiled around a hilltop. It looked like a block of translucent turquoise, its slender two-kilometer body faintly glowing. Smooth and scaleless, with a head shaped like a cone, it was not actually a snake at all, but an unimaginably enormous tapeworm.
"Alita!" Gali shouted the name she had given it. The thin atmosphere did a poor job of carrying sound, so she began rhythmically patting the cosmic tapeworm's body instead. That was the signal she and her child had agreed on.
The giant tapeworm sensed Gali's presence and lowered its head toward her. Beneath Jormungand's soft skin, a brain glowed brightly, its neural pulses shining as vividly as stellar fusion. Then a frail, gentle girl's voice sounded out.
"Mom?"
"Alita, no more eating. You're coming home with me!"
"No, Mom. There's never enough to eat at home. I don't like being hungry."
At that moment, the few surviving warriors of Asgard, led by the divine guardian Heimdall, came over the slope from the far side and charged Jormungand without fear.
Their blades struck the creature and carved long, deep wounds, breaking the skin and making her flinch in pain.
"Why are you hitting me?"
The Asgardians roared back, "Monster! Look what you did! You destroyed our homeland!"
The cosmic tapeworm shifted slightly, and to the people on the ground, it felt like a freight train rumbling past them.
Jormungand looked around in a daze. "What happened here? I was just hungry. I only took one bite."
Their once-beautiful home had been destroyed. Their beloved king and queen had fallen into the serpent's belly. The surviving Asgardians' eyes were red with hatred. Even if they could barely hurt Jormungand, they still cursed her furiously.
Jormungand shrank back under the abuse. Her body rapidly contracted, and in the blink of an eye she became a tiny little snake barely three inches long. She slithered across the ground, found a crack in the rocks, and burrowed deep inside to hide.
The Asgardians looked ready to dig up the entire world just to drag their enemy back out.
Gali spread her arms and stood in front of the furious Asgardians. "Stop it. Don't yell at my child."
The Asgardians immediately leveled their weapons at her.
"You brought this demon here!"
"You led the devil to us, you deserve to die!"
"Give me back my family! Give me back my child!"
Faced with the refugees' grief-stricken accusations, Gali froze, unable to say anything.
All she could do was apologize in a small, wounded voice. "I'm sorry."
The Asgardians did not accept it. They kept shouting at her and began pelting her with stones.
Gali ended up crouching on the ground with her head in her arms.
Several enraged Asgardians grabbed her by the arms, pinned her against a boulder, and prepared to behead her.
Gali trembled all over. She could feel the unbearable pain in their hearts, and her compassion nearly destroyed her ability to act. She did not resist at all.
Just as she was about to lose her head—
"Stop!"
A ringing voice cracked through the air like a bolt from a clear sky, halting the execution just in time.
Heimdall spun around.
That voice belonged to Thor. The roar that came out of him was so powerful that it had once sent the raging beasts of Alpha Centauri running.
Thor and Skyl, along with the others, stepped through a portal and arrived in the ruins of Asgard.
The God of Thunder stood there in shock at the sight of his homeland.
This place no longer resembled the glorious, advanced Asgard he knew. It looked like a ring of shattered stars in space. Broken landmasses floated everywhere.
Skyl drew a showering portal above his head that opened directly beneath Gali's feet. She dropped through it and crashed into his arms.
Gali burst into tears. In the low temperature, the crystal tears froze almost instantly into strings of ice, even sealing her eyelids shut.
"Skyl, I messed up! I should never have touched that pen. I'm sorry!" She buried her face against Skyl's chest. The frozen tears on her face struck his magical shield and shattered with little cracking sounds.
Skyl patted her on the back. "Where's the pen?"
"Alita ate it," Gali explained.
Alita was Jormungand.
The Asgardians gathered around, clustering around the son of their king.
Thor looked at them and asked in a trembling voice, "My father... and the queen?"
The only answer he received was a grief-stricken shake of the head.
"Then Loki? Is he still alive?"
"Lord Loki was in the palace city too. I'm afraid he did not survive either."
"That snake!" Thor roared. "Where is it?!"
"It's hiding in the rocks."
The furious God of Thunder swung Mjolnir and smashed the ground apart with a single blow. Jormungand had been fast asleep in hiding, but now she was jolted awake. Her body suddenly expanded, and she looked at everyone in confusion.
Gali shouted, "Alita! Come here!"
"Mom."
The instant Thor saw the world-devouring serpent, hatred flooded his heart. Without another word, he swung his hammer and called down lightning on her.
Two thousand bolts of thunder burst across Jormungand's body, dazzling and radiant like silver trees blooming over blue mountains. The furious lightning tore through her skin and scorched her flesh. Jormungand let out a pained cry like tumbling boulders, and from her head came a psychic echo, the shrill scream of a little girl.
"Why are you hitting me? It hurts!"
Thor went full monster-slayer. "Filthy beast! I'll cut open your belly and rip Asgard back out!"
His hammer moved like lightning. With a furious throw, Mjolnir shot through the air and slammed into Jormungand, hurling her hundreds of yards away. She crashed into a floating landmass with a deafening impact, kicking up smoke and dust, smashing boulders apart, shaking heaven and earth.
The Asgardians had no pity at all for the creature that had destroyed their home. Seeing Thor unleash such divine power, they immediately burst into excited applause, stomping their feet, slamming their weapons together, and singing a hero's war song. The atmosphere was tragic and frenzied all at once.
When Gali saw Jormungand injured, maternal love surged through her. She was only eight years old herself, but that fierce love still drove her to rush forward and stop Thor.
Skyl also did not want the conflict to continue. Jormungand's mind was still extremely immature. She had no sense of morality, no understanding of good or evil, and could not comprehend why these people hated her. And despite the fact that she was currently just getting beaten around, she was still a universe-level calamity who had eaten the Creator's Pen and could rewrite herself with new traits at any time. If she truly got enraged, then every single person here would end up swallowed in one bite.
Skyl yanked Thor back with chains of magic. "Don't be reckless. Asgard can still be saved."
Thor was dragged back to the ground, but he was still furious, arguing with Skyl even as he struggled.
After taking several heavy blows, Jormungand was torn open and bruised raw, and now she was clearly getting angry too. A dangerous red glow began to spread across her body.
"I'll eat you! I'll eat you!" The childish, clear little girl's voice had turned irritable.
Then she suddenly opened her enormous mouth.
It was like staring into a whirlpool abyss, filled with black fangs. An infinite gravitational pull on the level of a massive black hole erupted from inside her maw. Even starlight bent across the surface of her body, and the wreckage of Asgard began to be dragged toward her.
Everyone watched helplessly as the beast's open jaws rapidly expanded before them, like falling over the edge of a waterfall. The pull was so overwhelming that not even light could escape it.
"Skyl! Use that unbeatable wizard brain of yours and think of something! We're getting sucked in!" Thor was no longer arguing now. He was screaming.
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