The battle above Sakaar had devolved into absolute madness.
After the first fighter had been torn from the sky, fear and greed replaced reason. Pilots lost all discipline, ramming into the fray like hornets.
New waves of wanderers and mercenaries pushed forward, only to be swallowed by the chaos. A few survivors, recognizing a disaster when they saw one, fled as fast as their engines could carry them.
Valkyrie watched it all unfold, her earlier skepticism burned with the wreckage falling from the heavens.
She had underestimated Soren. Badly.
What she had seen so far… it wasn't an exaggerated legend. It was a fraction… just a fraction… of what he could really do.
Her expression shifted from doubt to a more cautious respect. And a faint, reluctant fear.
Thor, on the other hand, was completely unfazed. He simply crossed his arms and observed the sky as if he were watching a familiar play.
"If Soren couldn't deal with a few dozen ships, that would be a surprise."
Above them, the chaotic cluster of fighters and champion warriors grew into a storm blooming like fireflowers across the sky.
At times whole ships fell burning into the ruined streets below, detonating again upon impact. Warriors equipped with Grandmaster's best artifacts retreated, refusing to throw themselves into such a stupid, uncoordinated death trap.
The result was bizarre.
The building Soren and the others stood in remained untouched, a silent island in a sea of destruction.
Beyond it, the battle raged like a storm encircling a lone dagger of stone.
And outside that ring of chaos?
Dozens more mercenaries crouched, waiting. Hoping the moment the carnage thinned out, they could pounce on whatever remained.
But the chaos only escalated.
Every minute brought more ships and more explosions.
The war circle widened tenfold as the storm devoured entire neighborhoods. Streets, towers, and plazas vanished beneath smoke and flame.
Sakaar burned like a dying star.
"…!!?" Grandmaster watched in horror.
The city he had shaped over centuries was crumbling before his eyes.
Buildings he personally commissioned collapsed in cascading waves of rubble. Entire blocks were charred wastelands.
"Soren! Soren!" Grandmaster's voice cracked into a shriek.
His massive projected image materialized above the battlefield, eyes bloodshot, fingers shaking as he pointed at the raging dogfight.
"STOP! ALL OF YOU, STOP THIS AT ONCE!"
But the fighters in the sky didn't hear him or rather, they didn't dare stop. The instant anyone slowed, they were shredded by stray fire.
Grandmaster's commands were nothing compared to the instinctual terror of being torn apart.
Soren watched the humiliation unfold, arms lazily wrapped around Freyja's waist.
As Grandmaster's towering projection howled in impotent rage, Soren's lips tilted in a satisfied arc. The chaos was enough to sting Grandmaster's pride.
But Soren wasn't interested in just stinging him.
He wanted the cosmic elder to bleed.
"Since you want them to stop…" Soren murmured, loosening his hold on Freyja as he stepped toward the shattered opening of the building,
"…I'll give you your wish."
The others stared at him…
Soren inhaled once and released everything.
A power he hadn't unleashed in a long time surged out of him, snapping like a star being born. His magnetic field erupted in an invisible shockwave, expanding outward with near-infinite force.
"Give me…" His voice was almost gentle.
But the world seemed to listen. "…fireworks."
Every warship in the sky froze.
Struts twisted violently as if the heavens themselves had grabbed hold of them.
Dozens, hundreds of fighters hung suspended in midair tilted and caught like flies in amber.
BOOM
BOOM
BOOM
A chain of explosions ripped across Sakaar like a cosmic firestorm… thousands of cores igniting in the same heartbeat.
What should have been harmless bursts from individual fighters became a single catastrophic eruption. One fireball blended into the next, then the next, until the heavens transformed into a blazing ocean of destruction.
In the span of a breath, the inferno expanded outward, swallowing the battlefield and then the sky itself.
Half the capital of Sakaar vanished beneath a curtain of flame.
Grandmaster's enormous projected image flickered in shock…
And then the fire washed over him, shredding the hologram into static.
A heartbeat later, the sound caught up.
BOOOOOOOOM!
Thousands of explosions merged into one colossal shockwave. The blast hammered the city, flattening entire avenues.
Buildings crumbled like sandcastles against a wave.
Towers split down the middle before collapsing into clouds of dust. Civilians were thrown off their feet, some vanished in the storm of debris before they even had time to scream.
Those nearest the center never had a chance.
"No!"
High in his palace, Grandmaster released a shrill cry. His aura burst outward like a physical force, vaporizing every sculpture, masterpiece, and ornament in the room.
Cosmic fury cracked across his skin.
…
Meanwhile, back at the epicenter of devastation…
Thor could only stare. This?
This was… impossible.
If Soren hadn't encased the entire building in layers of spatial shielding, they would all have been dust particles drifting across the ruins.
Even Hulk who prided himself on being the strongest, stared at the inferno with confused eyes.
"Soren…" Freyja's voice trembled despite herself. "Wasn't this a bit… too far? They were just being used by the Grandmaster."
She was a goddess of war, but even she had never seen so many die in a single instant.
The scale of destruction left her heart twisting at the needless deaths of those dragged into a fight they never understood.
Before Soren could answer..
"No." Valkyrie cut her off.
Valkyrie's tone was cold. Edged with something Thor recognized all too well… old pain.
Freyja blinked at her, confused.
Valkyrie's gaze fixed on the burning horizon. "Mercy toward an enemy is cruelty toward yourself and toward the people you're trying to protect."
Her voice didn't waver.
Thor felt that line like a punch to the chest. Those were words forged from trauma, words of someone who had watched comrades die because she hesitated.
He glanced away, sighing softly as memories flickered in Valkyrie's eyes.