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*****
Fini was somewhat surprised by Karnilla's sheer durability. Back then, even Surtur had been knocked completely unconscious after taking a hit from a replica hammer, though that might have been because the hammer he conjured in Muspelheim had been significantly heavier.
Looking at Karnilla, whose expression radiated pure, unadulterated hatred, Fini had no intention of just letting her stand there and glare at him. He immediately launched his offensive once more.
"Explosion!"
Fini resolutely continued to employ his Explosion Magic.
This time, Karnilla did not dare to take the hit head-on. She took flight, dodging frantically in mid-air. Although she currently wished for nothing more than to tear Fini to shreds, the truth was that after successfully blocking his previous assault, she had already reached the absolute end of her rope.
It didn't take long for Fini to discern Karnilla's fading condition. Though he was quite fatigued himself, persisting for another hour or two wouldn't pose the slightest problem for him.
Following his devastating strike from moments ago, the morale of the Asgardian army soared exponentially. Even though Thor was still intensely preoccupied with the bizarre replica hammer, the current situation on the battlefield was clearly not the time to be asking questions.
Moreover, seeing Fini fight with such valor, Thor—as the crown prince of Asgard—naturally refused to be outdone. With a thunderous roar, he raised his weapon and slammed it furiously into the enemy ranks.
As the scales of victory tipped further and further in Fini's favor, Karnilla realized with absolute certainty that this battle was entirely lost.
However, as the old saying goes: where there is life, there is hope. She decided to surrender. While a full retreat would have been the superior alternative, in her current depleted state, she could at most ensure her own personal escape.
To preserve whatever strength and forces she had left, she chose to capitulate.
Karnilla was intimately familiar with the behavioral patterns and customs of Asgard, and she understood the inherent hypocrisy of Odin.
So long as she chose to surrender, submit, and accept their so-called 'peace,' Asgard might not even pursue further retribution for this rebellion.
Facing an increasingly ferocious Fini, Karnilla dared not delay any longer. Prop-ping up the very last remnants of her energy shield, she flew directly toward the most heavily crowded sector of the battlefield.
Witnessing Karnilla's sudden movement, Fini assumed she was attempting to flee. He quickly gave chase, but before he could even catch up to her, she abruptly halted in mid-air and shouted at the top of her lungs:
"Everyone, stop fighting!"
Upon hearing the direct command of their queen, the rebelling Norn soldiers were somewhat taken aback, but they nonetheless obediently ceased their attacks. Seeing this sudden development, the Asgardian soldiers turned their gazes toward Thor, waiting for his instructions.
Thor gestured for his troops to temporarily halt their assault, keeping a highly vigilant eye on Karnilla as she descended from the sky and landed right before him.
"We surrender!"
Fini, who had followed closely behind and was still intensely wondering what kind of scheme Karnilla was up to, couldn't help but blink in a daze upon hearing this declaration. He instinctively checked his internal system, only to find that the experience points had already been successfully credited.
It appeared the system had officially deemed Karnilla's formal surrender as an absolute victory for him.
Thor was equally astonished by the sudden turn of events, but as he swept his gaze across the immediate surroundings, he too understood that the enemy's defeat was already set in stone.
Thor was not a man who engaged in the wanton slaughter of the innocent, so he readily accepted Karnilla's surrender. As for Karnilla's faction, she was the absolute, uncontested ruler of Nornheim; thus, the moment she chose to yield, not a single one of her subjects dared to offer further resistance.
---
Looking at Karnilla as she was marched away under heavy guard by the soldiers, Fini couldn't help but feel that the battle had been a bit anti-climactic. Even so, the experience points harvested from Karnilla were by no means meager—twenty-eight points in total, which was practically equivalent to an entire month of his usual routine cultivation.
Although Karnilla had formally surrendered, a war of this scale could never be fully resolved in a single instant. There were still several minor, isolated battlefields scattered across other regions that required cleaning up.
Furthermore, regarding the final disposition and punishment of Karnilla, Thor still needed to await explicit, further instructions from Odin. Consequently, they would have to remain in Nornheim for a while longer.
As the sky gradually darkened and the various post-war administrative duties were finally sorted out, Thor at long last found the free time to seek out a thoroughly bored Fini. He immediately blurted out the question he had been holding in for hours:
"Earlier, when I watched you fighting Karnilla... did a hammer suddenly appear?"
"Yeah, it did!"
Fini nodded smoothly, offering a beaming smile as he replied, "Is there a problem with that?"
"Where on earth did you get a hammer like that?"
Thor couldn't help but press for answers. It wasn't that he inherently minded Fini using a hammer as a weapon, but that particular hammer looked far too identical to his own Mjolnir, save for the fact that it was literally a hundred times larger. It left him with a nagging, uncomfortable sensation of being completely overshadowed.
"I imagined it!"
Fini answered with complete candor. The Golden Ars Magna was a reality-warping magic that granted whatever the caster desired, so that massive hammer truly had been manifested purely through his imagination.
Naturally, Thor didn't believe a single word of this explanation. He stared at Fini intently for a long moment before finally muttering with a distinctly disgruntled huff, "Mjolnir is still the superior hammer!"
Fini rolled his eyes dramatically, completely opting out of arguing over the matter.
A month later, when all the remaining civil unrest across Nornheim had been thoroughly quelled, Fini—who had been diligently tags-along with the military cleanup operations solely to farm experience points—had finally managed to nearly top off the experience bar required for his ninth draw.
Inside the Royal Palace of Nornheim.
This grand estate had originally served as Karnilla's personal residence, but since she was currently taking up occupancy in a prison cell, the palace had temporarily been commandeered by Thor and Fini.
Within the vast, expansive martial arts training field, Fini and Thor were currently locked in a fierce sparring session.
"Hammer!"
Fini focused his mind and issued a silent command. An oversized, gargantuan replica of Mjolnir abruptly materialized directly above Thor's head.
Even though this was far from the first time he had laid eyes on it, Thor still felt a profound sense of sheer awkwardness every single time this massive hammer appeared.
However, having sparred with Fini several times by now, he was well aware that aside from being significantly heavier than it actually looked, this manifested hammer possessed no special attributes whatsoever. It was vastly inferior to the actual Mjolnir resting in his hand.
Grip-ping his weapon tightly, Thor swung upward to smash it right back.
Duang!
The smaller hammer collided violently with the massive one, producing a deep, muffled boom. Yet, the object sent flying through the air from the impact was actually the giant hammer Fini had constructed using the Golden Ars Magna.
Fini didn't mind the outcome in the slightest. After all, this was merely a bootleg replica of Mjolnir created via the Golden Ars Magna; compared to the genuine artifact, it was bound to fall short by a considerable margin.
Gazing at Thor, who had been driven knee-deep into the solid ground by the sheer kinetic recoil of the clash, Fini unhurriedly utilized the Golden Ars Magna to instantly transmute the solid earth beneath Thor's feet into a thick, treacherous swamp.
Sensing the sudden shift in the terrain, Thor immediately raised Mjolnir, intending to invoke its flight to soar out of the quagmire. However, he had barely made it halfway up before a precisely timed blast of Explosion Magic struck him dead-on, sending him careening backward.
The innate physical durability of Asgardians was exceptionally high, and Thor was easily the foremost pinnacle among them. Even after taking such a direct hit, he suffered no significant damage.
The intense sparring match continued.
With the versatile assistance of the Golden Ars Magna, Fini was vastly stronger now than he had been during his initial days in Asgard. It was incredibly difficult for Thor to even close the distance and get near his person. In terms of long-range capabilities, Fini possessed his water mode for absolute defense paired with the raw output of Explosion Magic. Thor was simply no match for him in a ranged shootout.
As the battle of attrition dragged on, Fini ultimately secured the victory, though he found himself thoroughly exhausted by the time it concluded.
Lying flat on his back upon the stone floor of the training grounds, a profoundly joyous smile blossomed across Fini's face. This happiness stemmed not merely from defeating Thor, but far more importantly, from the fact that after a solid month of relentless effort combined with this final victory...
He was at long last fully eligible to execute his ninth system draw.
Bearing the painful lessons of his previous draws in mind, Fini did not rush to trigger the mechanism immediately. Furthermore, regarding this particular draw, he had already carefully formulated a deliberate plan: he was going to travel directly to Muspelheim to conduct it.
Because within the realm of Muspelheim, the ambient environmental conditions allowed the Golden Ars Magna to operate at its absolute peak efficiency. Activating his luck-enhancing buffs in that specific location would undoubtedly yield the absolute best possible fortune.
Filled to the brim with profound excitement and anticipation for the upcoming ninth draw, Fini turned his head to look at Thor, who was currently sitting off to the side looking thoroughly depressed over losing the match, and prepared to inform him of his impending departure.
(End of Chapter)