To prevent the Destroyer from causing collateral damage, Clark intercepted it outside.
"Buddy, you can't go any further."
However, the Destroyer had no intention of negotiating. In response to Clark's blockade, it simply turned its head and fired a beam of energy at him.
"You're too slow!" Clark taunted as he dodged the attack with a quick sidestep. Then he charged forward, reached the Destroyer, and landed an uppercut with his left hand right under its head.
For some reason, Clark had recently developed a particular fondness for punching enemies in the head. When asked why, he could only say—it just felt right.
The Destroyer, hit by the punch, was sent flying like a sandbag.
"Huh?!" In faraway Asgard, Loki immediately sensed something had gone wrong when the Destroyer was knocked back. Perhaps too confident in the weapon's strength, he had let the Destroyer act autonomously after issuing the initial command.
After all, he was juggling both Asgard and Midgard, and he had already informed Laufey—according to the timeline, Laufey should be arriving in Asgard soon.
But after the Destroyer was sent flying by a single punch from Clark, Loki felt something was off. He closed his eyes and shifted his perception to the Destroyer's location. Just as the Destroyer got back on its feet, Loki saw something terrifying.
It was a fist—not a huge one, but still just a fist.
BOOM!!!
"ARGH!" That single punch forcibly severed Loki's vision link from the Destroyer.
"How is this possible?! How can there be such a powerful human in Midgard?!" Loki clutched his head in disbelief, dazed from the feedback. After all, he was a sorcerer—his physical endurance was nothing like a warrior's.
As the one controlling the Destroyer, Loki could only give it basic commands like move and attack. He wasn't like Odin, who could fight expertly through the Destroyer.
In the past few days, controlling the Destroyer had felt like watching four movies in VR—you get the experience, but not the control. Worse still, getting punched by Clark gave him a full dose of the visual shock and the painful disorientation of being launched through the air.
Frightened, Loki instinctively cut off his link to the Destroyer.
After battling it for a while, Clark realized the Destroyer was just a sturdier toy.
Yes, a toy. Its energy beam took over a second to charge, and its movements were sluggish. Though its attacks were faster than the average human, its targeting was so slow that Clark could easily dodge them.
With such limitations, how was it supposed to fight Clark?
To be honest, even in the movies, Coulson managed to escape the Destroyer's attacks—so under Loki's control, it really was a weapon meant for scaring children.
That said, its armor was truly tough. After fighting for quite a while, Clark still hadn't left a single dent on it—it was simply impervious to his blows.
Clark understood why—his own attack power wasn't high enough. While his strength had grown significantly in recent days, it was still only the foundation.
For example, his lifting strength had increased from several hundred tons to several thousand. That's a huge improvement by human standards—but in the Marvel universe, where powerhouses abound, it was still not enough.
Unless his power reached into the tens of thousands of tons, it would be difficult to truly shake things up in the later stages of Marvel battles.
Seeing that conventional attacks weren't working, Clark decided to try out a new technique. During his last fight with the Ancient One, he hadn't fully charged up, so he didn't yet know how strong her technique truly was.
But now things were different. The slow-moving Destroyer was the perfect test subject.
So Clark dodged the Destroyer's attacks while gathering energy in his right hand.
At first, the Destroyer continued to chase him. But eventually, Loki realized that Clark wasn't fighting back—just dodging. He didn't know why, but a thought crossed his mind: he didn't care about fighting Clark right now. His real goal was to ensure Thor never returned to Asgard.
Still, Loki had observed enough of the fight to understand that, while the Destroyer couldn't defeat the caped man in tight spandex, Clark also hadn't been able to harm the Destroyer.
So, under Loki's control, after another failed attack, the Destroyer abruptly stopped pursuing Clark and started heading toward the energy signature that marked Thor's location.
"Trying to leave?" Clark muttered. The Destroyer wanted to leave—but Clark wasn't letting that happen. His right hand was charging up and couldn't be used, but he still had his left hand—and his legs.
Clark soared in an arc, landing in front of the Destroyer, then kicked it hard using momentum to send it flying back.
"Damn it!" Loki cursed, opening his eyes in frustration. He slammed the Eternal Spear onto the floor and shouted angrily.
He never imagined Asgard's most powerful weapon could be batted around like a sandbag—completely unable to escape.
The Destroyer was the strongest asset Loki could deploy. If he ordered Asgardian soldiers to kill Thor, they'd likely rebel on the spot.
After all, compared to the war god Thor, Loki's reputation in Asgard barely reached "tolerated." He was well aware that most of his life, he had done little more than cause trouble. He understood the massive gap between him and Thor in terms of prestige and public support.
So he never dared send Asgardians to deal with Thor.
Because pitiful Loki, after spending thousands of years in Asgard, never even tried to cultivate his own loyal followers. Isn't that ironic? Thor, Sif, and the Warriors Three were all legitimate elites.
But maybe that was Odin's doing. He never intended to let Loki inherit the throne. He certainly wouldn't allow him to build a power base that might challenge Thor. While Odin treated Loki like a son, deep down he knew Loki wasn't truly his own blood.
To Odin, Loki was never meant to be king—Loki just didn't know that yet.
Back on Earth, Thor felt similarly low and disheartened. Not only was he worried, but he was also concerned for Clark. He'd heard the legends of the Destroyer since childhood, and he never doubted its power. So when Clark rushed to confront it, Thor blamed himself—blamed his own weakness, blamed his inability to lift Mjolnir.
Overcome with guilt, Thor once again returned to where S.H.I.E.L.D. had secured the hammer.
"Father… I know now what I did wrong. I shouldn't have violated the peace treaty between Asgard and Jotunheim. I shouldn't have started that battle. I understand that now. So I accept any punishment—even exile."
"But whatever happens to me, the people of Midgard are innocent. If the Destroyer keeps going, Midgard will fall."
"So, Father… I don't know if you can ever forgive me. But I beg you. I want to lift this hammer again. I want to protect those in danger."
No one knew if Odin could hear this heartfelt plea, but deep in the Odinsleep, his remaining eye twitched slightly.
Meanwhile, in Coulson's earpiece, the technician's panicked voice rang out again. "Sir! The hammer's electromagnetic field has reached critical levels—no, it's still rising! Wait—ugh!"
Before he could finish, the signal cut out. A loud buzzing noise burst through the comms, causing Coulson to rip the earpiece out of his ear.
But he didn't need any more warnings. He could already tell something was happening with the hammer. Mysterious runes began glowing across Mjolnir's surface, and the air around it started to shimmer—like the heat haze off pavement in the summer.
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