POV: Baldur.
Australian Desert, 2010.
The moment the god disintegrated.
I ponder over the words he said to me before dying, trying to understand them. Unfortunately, I don't remember anyone holding the title of god killer. If only he had given me a name, I might recall. Marvel beings, especially villains, have hundreds of titles.
(Anyway, he said he's coming, so I have to prepare.)
"Alice, I want you to allocate all your available resources to detect any ship or being that enters Earth, no matter if it's just a small meteorite. I want to know."
"Understood."
I stand up and leave the gigantic crater. There's nothing left behind as the body disintegrated, so I don't need to dispose of anything to prevent it from falling into Hydra's hands. I must return to Genosha and stay on high alert.
I mount Sleipnir, and as I'm about to head home, I see space distort beside me, revealing the Ancient One. I look at her torn clothes and several cuts on her body in shock. There aren't many beings that can harm her in such a way.
"What happened to you?" I ask immediately.
"You have to go to her, she's in danger!"
I immediately know who she's referring to.
"Alice, where is Amora!?"
Alice immediately locates Amora's coordinates, who is in the middle of Egypt. I see that the Ancient One is not wearing her ring to create portals, so I let her ride on my back and dash with Sleipnir faster than ever to Egypt.
From above, I see a vast ocean of sand. It only took a second to reach the coordinates Alice gave me. Below us, I see a being surrounded by darkness with his back to me. He's holding Amora by the neck, lifting her from the ground, and in his other hand, I see a black dagger heading towards her body. I leap off Sleipnir and rush as fast as I can towards them.
"DON'T YOU DARE!!!!"
I shout when I realize I won't arrive in time, trying to divert the attention of the man covered in darkness, but he doesn't stop. I see the black dagger pierce Amora's abdomen, and all I feel is anger and fear. A second later, I'm behind the man. I swing Sigel with all the strength I possess. It wasn't a skilled blow, it was just a barbaric swing, spinning a spear like a baseball bat. The spear hits the man's face.
"BOOM!"
The force propels him upwards so fast that he breaks the sound barrier, crossing the sky, but I don't care about him. I catch Amora's body before she falls onto the sand. Holding Amora in my arms, I look at her injuries. There's a large bruise covering half her face, but the most severe wound is a few inches below her heart. The wound isn't bleeding, but I can see the same black veins spreading through her body, the same type of wound that killed the other god.
"Baldur....."
She smiles happily at me, looking at me with only one eye, the other closed due to swelling.
"It's okay now, you can leave everything to me."
"Okay... I'll rest a bit then."
After those words, she faints in my arms.
"Sleipnir."
When I call Sleipnir, he descends from the skies and lands a few meters away from me, with the Ancient One still mounted on him. I carry Amora to them and place her in front, letting the Ancient One hold her.
"Please help her."
"Don't worry, I'll do everything possible to heal her."
The Ancient One has much more experience with magic than I do. If there's anyone on Earth who can heal this type of wound, it's her. I take a square-shaped silver device from my belt and hand it to her.
"If you need anything from Genosha, just press the communicator. Alice is already aware of the situation, you now have the full support of my realm. I don't care if you ask for the moon itself. I guarantee I'll fetch it for you, just please save her."
"I'll do my best."
"Take her wherever you want, Sleipnir."
Sleipnir stomps its hooves and takes off, crossing the sky in the opposite direction from which we came, leaving me alone in the desert, just waiting.
"BOOM!"
It doesn't take long before an explosion occurs a few meters in front of me. After the sand clears, I can see my enemy. He has a bluish almost white skin and yellow eyes, his teeth are thin and pointed like a shark's, he has no hair, only two things that appear to be tentacles protruding from the top of his head. I can't see any injury from the blow I gave him earlier.
(Great. I don't want him to die so easily.)
"What's your name?" I ask.
"Does it matter? You'll be dead soon," he replies.
His voice is cold and cuts through me like a knife. But he's not wrong, his name doesn't matter, he'll be screaming in pain soon.
We move at the same instant and attack at the same moment, me spinning my spear, and he creating a sword of darkness to attack me. When our weapons clash, the whole desert trembles.
"BOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMM!"
The shock of our weapons causes the desert sand to spin, creating a hurricane with us at the center. I take a step back and attack again, this time with Sigel's blade engulfed in golden flames.
"BOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMM!"
Once again, he defends, and the flames now turn all the sand in the hurricane into glass. We're now in the center of a poorly made glass tower. My enemy creates another sword with his free hand and attacks me, aiming to cut off my head. I move my body backward, narrowly avoiding it, then kick his chest. With the force of the kick, I jump backward, somersaulting away from my enemy.
"HAA!"
I feel a pain in my ankle, and when I look back, I see a black thorn protruding from my foot. His shadows can also extend. Not missing the chance, he attacks me again with his two swords.
"BOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMM!"
"BOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMM!"
"BOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMM!"
"BOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMM!"
Each blow I block creates an explosion around us. His strength is ridiculous and only increasing, his attacks are also getting faster. If I stay in this situation, I'll be at a disadvantage. Above us, a golden lens several meters wide appears, covering us.
"Burn!"
The gigantic beam of light falls from the lens, covering us. I don't suffer any damage, but I doubt it's the same for him. When the beam of light disappears a few seconds later, to my surprise, the first thing that happens is a black sword piercing through my shoulder.
Without time to feel pain, I focus on the second sword coming towards my neck. Unable to move backward, I hold Sigel tightly and release a burst of heat and energy from my body as a source.
"BOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMM!"
The explosion turns me into a small sun, causing my enemy to recoil, removing his sword from my shoulder. With the enemy away, I look at my wound, activating my magic to heal it. But to my surprise, the wound isn't healing, no matter how much energy I use.
"Interesting. You're the first god who has given me so much trouble. What kind of god are you? A god of war? I've killed hundreds of them. A god of death? I love to see the fear on their faces when they're about to die."
"You'll find out," I tell him.
I turn the flame at the tip of Sigel into a huge whip of flames, my enemy does the same with his shadows, and the two whips clash, spreading flames and darkness all over the desert. The standoff doesn't last long, my whip wraps around my enemy's ankle, it seems I have better control. I pull Sigel and spin the black being, making him crash into the sand dunes, spinning like a top. When he reaches maximum speed, I hurl him upwards and then pull him down with all the force I have.
"BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!"
He crashed to the ground with such force and speed that the desert sands exploded upwards like a volcano eruption which then turned into a rain of sand. I know this isn't enough to stop him, and shortly after, several tentacles of darkness emerge from the storm, attempting to strike me. I dodge all that I can and counterattack those I cannot avoid.
"HAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
From behind me, I hear a roar of anger, and when I turn, I see him swinging a black axe, trying to split me in half. I twist my body and defend against the axe with Sigel's handle, but his tentacles attack and pierce my back. I exert myself to avoid screaming in pain, the tentacles are trying to consume me, but if I dodge, I'll be cut in half by his axe, and he knows it. He releases one of his hands, and a dagger appears in it, then he attacks, aiming for my left eye. I turn my head, dodging the blow, and as I do, he loses his balance, giving me enough time to punch him in the face, making him recoil. I make my flames cover my body, destroying the black tentacles that were piercing me.
(The sandstorm has become a disadvantage.)
My body releases my golden energy as I take off into the sky at high speed.
(I have to find a better place to continue the fight.)
"Where are you going? They all try to escape in the end, but they all end up being tortured until they beg to die when I catch them."
The voice comes from in front of me, where the being shrouded in darkness is flying at a speed superior to mine. He crashes into me and grabs my neck, I have no room to wield my spear, so I punch him in the face with all my might. To my surprise, he doesn't seem to feel it.
"Let me give you a preview of the pain you'll feel!" he gives me a sinister smile as he speaks.
The darkness covering his body turns into several tentacles with tips as sharp as needles, and they all attack my entire body.
"Hnnnh"
We continue to rise until we leave Earth's atmosphere. All I can do is endure the pain the tentacles are causing me, they are slowly piercing my skin, then my flesh, and after a while, my bones. If I weren't in the vacuum of space, my screams would be heard all over the world.
I know I only have one way out of this situation: kill this bastard. I increase my speed as much as I can. He doesn't want to kill me, he wants to torture me, so he won't kill me immediately. We're crossing the universe faster and faster, traversing galaxies in no time. When I feel like I'm far enough from Earth, I start. I draw in the dark energy torturing my body into my dimension, reducing my pain long enough to form a proton star in my hand, the same blow that destroyed a good part of the realm of the ice giants.
(T/N: 💀)
I could never use this blow again because of its destructive power. If I use it on Earth, it would be incinerated and destroyed within seconds. So he doesn't discover the star, I formed it with my palm closed, and when it was complete, and the idiot was still smiling seeing my suffering face, I surprised him when I opened my palm. Inside my palm is a golden star whose light illuminates all the darkness of space. My enemy understands that I was planning something, and with his free hand, he creates a black sword trying to kill me, but I'm faster. I hit his chest with my open palm, making the small star explode into a supernova.
The explosion of light and heat from the supernova devoured everything around us. I see several unknown planets and moons destroyed by the initial explosion. I can only pray that they are uninhabited. The explosion threw us in opposite directions at astonishing speeds, all I could see before passing out from the pain of my injuries was a beautiful golden supernova burning everything in the vacuum of space.
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