Axel brought his boot down, driving Hela's face into the dirt.
He reached into her shattered back, found three intact ribs, and ripped them free with a sharp snap.
Hela yanked her head from the soil, her scream echoing across the dying realm.
"I yielded! Why are you still doing this?"
Axel struck her across the jaw with the extracted bones, smearing blood and dirt across her face.
He tapped the edge of the bone against her temple.
"You feel pain, not regret.
"And even if you did, your regrets mean nothing to me.
"You challenged me, you spoke out of line, and now we see how many times I have to take you apart before you learn."
He tossed the ribs toward Lex.
"Hold these."
Lex caught them and gestured toward the horizon.
"Axel, we are running out of time. Asgard is going to shatter completely within minutes."
Hela's eyes flickered with a brief spark of hope.
Axel caught her expression and grinned.
"Don't get your hopes up."
He slammed his heel into the ground.
A massive shockwave tore through the rock, severing a vast section of the planetoid before it could explode.
Axel extended his telepathic grip, stabilizing the landmass and pushing it into a stable orbit away from the blast zone.
"Problem solved. Now we can take our time."
In the distance, Clark looked at Thor with concern.
"Is your father going to step in? That is still your sister."
Thor winced while watching the growing pile of extracted biological material near Lex.
"My sister cannot die.
"If this somehow fixes her disposition, it might be for the best.
"My father is not stopping him, so I certainly will not."
Lex activated a temporary containment grid with his suit drones, organizing the bone fragments into structural sets.
"Axel, I have twenty-two knee components, but only sixteen collarbones.
"Focus on the upper torso.
"And stop taking femur bones. We have nearly thirty of them.
"If she can regenerate indefinitely, I want to test whether we can construct a clone from her tissue and determine which body her consciousness would inhabit."
"That is surprisingly thorough, Lex," Axel said.
He tore a large section of muscle from her hip and threw it over.
Lex ducked as the tissue splashed near his equipment.
"Axel! Watch the precision!"
"Fine, upper body then."
Axel flipped Hela over, detached two major pectoral muscle groups, and tossed them toward the grid.
Hela no longer screamed.
Her regenerative abilities continued rebuilding her body, but her expression remained empty.
Her mind had withdrawn completely from the endless physical trauma.
Her ambitions, her claim to the throne, and her desire to conquer the cosmos meant nothing while she remained pinned to the ground.
After several hours, once Lex had categorized enough biological material to fill a small transport, Axel finally stopped.
He lifted Hela by her hair.
Her face continued recovering as her skin knitted back together.
Her eyes remained fixed on the ground, refusing to meet his gaze.
Axel reached out, touched her shoulder to verify her condition, and tossed her aside.
"Boring," Axel said, stretching his arms.
"I expected you to last longer.
"Pain is one thing, but having your body reduced to raw material completely broke your spirit."
He nudged her shoulder with his boot.
"Fix your armor."
"Yes, sir..."
Hela slowly sat up.
Her face was pale, and she used the remaining power of her magic to restore her battle attire.
Axel turned toward Odin and Thor.
"Take her back.
"She is entirely useless as payment, so this does not clear your debt.
"Do not forget what you owe me."
Odin bowed his head respectfully.
"Understood."
"Let's move," Axel said to his team.
A moment later, his group vanished from the floating landmass.
Thor stared at the place where they had been standing.
"Father... I think we survived an encounter with something beyond our comprehension."
"Indeed," Odin replied, staring into the distance.
"We must fulfill our end of the agreement.
"We need the dwarves of Nidavellir to forge a proper gift for him."
Hela, struggling to stand on shaking legs, spoke in a quiet, hoarse voice.
"He needs gauntlets.
"Something durable enough to keep his hands clean."
Odin and Thor turned toward her in surprise.
Hela took a ragged breath, her hands trembling.
"Do not look at me like that.
"I am not insane.
"I hated your hypocrisy, but that man... his strength is absolute.
"Even the entity of Death that granted me immortality would not stand a chance against him.
"My immortality was not a gift today. It was a curse that kept me conscious through every second of it."
She looked up at Odin.
Her pride was completely gone.
"I thought conquering Asgard made me supreme.
"But I was just a frog in a well.
"You always warned me about the universe, Odin.
"Who did you meet that made you yield?"
Odin looked toward the stars, his expression heavy.
"I met the Celestials, my daughter."