Galactus held the rank of a creator god, but among the great cosmic entities, his raw power was weaker than several of the others. In the comics, he also had a habit of suffering embarrassingly ridiculous defeats, getting flattened for no apparent reason. On paper he was overwhelming; in practice he could be weirdly hilarious. That was how the running joke came to be: the invincible Galactus falls again.
Skyl didn't dare underestimate him because of that. A dying camel was still bigger than a horse, and Galactus wasn't dying at all. He was a whole lot bigger than a horse.
Getting to trade blows with someone on this level was an exceptionally rare experience.
So Skyl showed him the utmost respect.
He opened the Book of Mora and used hidden summoning magic to command the stars. The ancient pulse of the universe synchronized with the divine realm. The apocryphal domains devoured by The Tower of Tomes slowly began to reconstruct themselves through the joint chant of Mora and Skyl.
As obscure, esoteric incantations spilled from his lips, the stars in the distant reaches of the black and boundless heavens began to tremble. Their spectrum shifted into a strange and sinister green, and thread by thread, that light descended over Asgard, weaving together a neural network that stretched across tens of millions of miles.
Magical energy traveled through the ganglia formed by converging starlight. A single pulse carried power equal to the radiation a sun released in one full minute.
Using the Daedric body of the Book of Mora as the vessel, magical wisdom as the lever, and mental force as the fulcrum, Skyl pried at the power of the stars themselves, interfered with the Higgs field, and bent space-time.
The flat fabric of space-time began to curl into a sphere. Once it closed, it would form an independent pocket universe, and inside it, the laws of physics would fall under Skyl's control. At that point, he would hold every advantage of time, terrain, and circumstance. It should be enough to handle Galactus.
Galactus saw what he was doing, felt a jolt run through him, and immediately charged forward to stop the ritual spell.
Thor jumped in front of him.
"Hey! Ancient god! If you want to touch Asgard's friend, you'll have to get through me first!"
The sky-tall giant lowered his body and threw a punch. It was fast—so fast Thor was caught completely off guard.
The thin atmosphere was squeezed into a sonic boom by the sheer force of the punch, and a violent shockwave blasted forward in the direction of the strike. Thor was launched like an iron slug fired by a ton of TNT, hurtling straight toward Skyl, who was floating in midair.
Seeing the living cannonball coming, Skyl had no choice but to break his concentration and use telekinesis to cancel Thor's momentum.
The instant his mental force touched Thor, it felt like trying to stop a speeding bullet train with a fishing net.
Skyl grunted, pressed a hand against Thor's back, and the two of them were shoved backward for a mile before they finally crashed into the ruins of a palace and came to a stop.
That punch had smashed Thor's nose flat. The handsome blond god now looked like the Hunchback of Notre Dame. Thankfully, his healing factor was strong. He jammed his fingers into his nostrils and yanked, pulling the collapsed bridge of his nose right back into place.
"That was incredible." Thor's tone turned grave. "We can't fight him head-on."
Skyl looked at him. "The mighty Thor is afraid?"
"Hey!" Thor cried out, offended, then sheepishly nodded. "A little. I mean, look at the size of him. One of his fingers is thicker than our waists."
Skyl nodded. He flipped through the Book of Mora to the Alteration section, then to the subsection Encyclopedia of Enhancement Spells Suitable for Humanoid Creatures. Then he started piling buff after buff onto Thor. Bursts of colorful magical light exploded around him like someone trying to yank fireworks out of the ground by force. Thor's face was smeared with layer after layer of spiritual energy, and his body swelled like a water balloon.
The spells cast through Mora's power carried the taint of an alien god. Tentacles even began to sprout from Thor's face. Once the effects wore off, he would need to undergo a purification ritual, or the contamination would become severe.
But the price of these spells was enormous, and so were the results.
The God of Thunder transformed into a titan. His skin turned black like wrought iron, and the beating of his heart sounded like a massive war drum of stretched hide. In pure physicality, he was now nearly equal to Galactus. The two hundred-foot giants stared at each other from afar, battle lust flowing in both their eyes.
"Skyl, got a weapon that feels right in the hand?"
Skyl cast an Engorgement Charm on the hammer. Mjolnir did not resist his magic, and so it too expanded, growing as large as a house. Now it fit Thor's grip perfectly.
Thor seized the giant hammer and charged forward, engaging Galactus in brutal hand-to-hand combat. He dodged a straight punch, spotted an opening, and brought the hammer crashing into Galactus's jaw, knocking him clear out of the atmosphere.
Drops of divine blood scattered from the hammerhead like starlight.
That blow had clearly broken through his defenses.
Thor threw back his arm and roared.
The Asgardians erupted in cheers.
When Gali saw her father get hit, she was furious and frantic. She flew in front of Thor and shouted, "Stop! This is all a misunderstanding! Stop fighting!"
Thor was desperate to save his homeland. Of course he couldn't allow Galactus to interfere with Skyl. The moment that primeval god came hurtling back as a magnificent pillar of light, Thor immediately braced himself.
When Gali saw she couldn't persuade him, she turned to plead with her father instead. But Galactus was in no mood to listen. He waved her away.
"Galacta, let your father teach you how to fight. In the future, you too must use strength to defend your honor."
Cosmic energy flooded his body, and he transformed into a state of pure photons. In an instant, he flashed in front of Thor, drove a right hook into his stomach and doubled him over, then wrapped his left arm around Thor's neck, yanked him down, and followed with a knee that exploded into his face.
Boom!
A photon mushroom cloud burst across Thor's face.
The smooth, merciless barrage was so fast Thor didn't even have time to react. He was battered dizzy by an impact as terrifying as a supernova. More than a dozen of the tentacles laced across his face burst apart. When he coughed blood, he spat out over a dozen shattered teeth with it.
The wounded giant spilled divine blood like a rainstorm.
Thor was dazed senseless. Acting on warrior instinct, he swung Mjolnir wildly. When the hammer struck Galactus, it felt like slamming into a swamp of dense sludge. Most of the impact was simply swallowed up. Aside from making Galactus sway slightly, it did nothing.
A cold smile tugged at Galactus's stern face. He grabbed Thor by the head and drove in hook after hook to the stomach and chest. Hill-like bulges rose along Thor's back, while his chest and abdomen caved in like meteor craters. Then Galactus slammed him into the ground and pounded him over and over. At that moment, saying the mountains split and the earth cracked was no exaggeration at all.
"Urghhh!"
Thor exploded with lightning and forced Galactus back, but his steps were already staggering.
Not far away, Skyl continued the unfinished spell, chanting at full speed so fast his lips nearly sparked. Seeing Thor barely holding the line, he flicked a glance toward Jormungand. She had already coughed up most of the Pen of Creation. Once he reclaimed that pen, this disaster would more or less be over.
Galactus's gaze passed over Thor and locked onto Skyl like a searchlight.
In that instant, every hair on Skyl's body stood on end. The primal survival instinct still existed, after all. The sense of impending death hit like an alarm clock going off beside his head, enough to make the heart and lungs seize up.
But it did not interrupt his chant.
His mind remained perfectly calm.
In a span so brief it was barely one-fourteenth of a finger snap, Galactus's massive body flashed into place before Skyl.
Then the photon-charged fist came down.
Skyl looked up, and it was as though the sun itself were falling toward him.
The hidden incantation on his lips had already reached its final stretch. The evil, grating sounds were like a hacksaw dragged across glass.
At the last possible instant, Gali flashed above Skyl and spread her arms, placing herself in front of the punch.
Galactus's expression changed. It was already too late to stop the blow.
In Skyl's eyes, Gali's back was reflected against a storm of blazing white charged particles, radiant and dazzling.
Just before her body was completely swallowed by that punch, Skyl spoke the final word.
The light of the stars went out all at once.
So did the gale-force shockwave from Galactus's punch.
Gali hovered in midair, her body covered in wounds. The dust above the ground froze in place. So did the Asgardians' songs of grief, the leaping lightning, and time itself across that entire region.
Everything had stopped.
Only Skyl could still move.
He caught the battered Gali in his arms, pressed a hand to her forehead, and murmured softly, "[Whole Again], [Whole Again]..."
Only after her injuries eased a little did he finally let out a breath. Then he looked up at Galactus, who stood there silent as a statue.
Galactus's body twisted ever so slightly. He was trying to force his way into Skyl's event stream and break free from the time stop.
Skyl snapped his fingers, and time began to flow again.
Galactus stared at the tiny wizard, his expression uncertain and shocked. "You?!"
Skyl smiled at him calmly.
"So what's it going to be? Surrender now, or take an ass-kicking first and then surrender?"
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