Hela's body tightened, and she instantly withdrew every attack she had unleashed.
The entire power of Asgard surged around her in a defensive barrier…
"…" Soren watched her without triumph.
Hela's strength had surpassed every estimate. Space and time alone weren't enough to end her, attempting to overwhelm her with a single power was meaningless.
There was only one option left.
His final card, a technique even he did not wish to use.
Time and Space Annihilation.
Soren joined his hands slowly, the Time gem and Space gem resonating violently. Their magic circles bled into one another, their forces clashing and collapsing.
It was not a harmonious fusion… it was a forced union of two absolute forces.
He never wanted this.
If he unleashed this attack, it would be Ragnarök in truth. Not the symbolic one written in prophecy… but the obliteration of an entire realm.
Yet Hela would not yield. She refused every chance to retreat, to repent, to stop her descent into madness.
Now Soren could only choose the lesser catastrophe.
The energy between his hands distorted violently, rupturing space. Cracks opened around the merging circles, tiny voids that devoured light and matter.
The moment those two forces touched, Asgard itself trembled…
Hela's expression shifted from grim determination… to dawning horror.
She could feel that if that attack detonated, it wouldn't only end her.
It would erase Asgard itself.
"STOP!" Hela's scream tore through the shaking realm.
Abandoning all pride, she hurled herself toward Soren. Asgard was everything to her… her anchor, her strength, her birthright.
Without it, she was barely above a common god. Without it, her dreams of conquering the Nine Realms were a delusion.
She could not, would not… LOSE IT.
But Soren only shook his head, sorrow clouding his eyes. "…It's too late."
"Time and Space…. ABSOLUTE ERASURE."
A silent wave of pure erasure, a force that denied existence. The wave swallowed everything in front of it.
Hela struck the front of the blast head-on.
Terror still etched across her face. Her body, still lunging forward, simply… stopped. As the annihilation wave tore through her, the divine aura surrounding her collapsed like dust.
The power of Asgard she had summoned, billions of years of accumulated of divine force vanished in an instant.
Her life was extinguished. Her power was undone.
And with her death, Asgard itself shuddered like a dying beast.
Its colors drained.
The realm that had stood for ages, radiant and proud, began to crumble. Entire mountains fractured and dissolved.
The Bifrost cracked apart like brittle glass and the golden halls disintegrated into motes of fading light.
Then, finally… Asgard died.
The realm shattered and dissolved into the same darkness that consumed its queen.
…
From a distant point in space, Soren watched in silence.
He had teleported away the moment he released the technique, but the destruction reached even his vantage point, light itself buckled and evaporated, leaving only a black void where a kingdom had once floated.
"…So this is the price."
He opened a portal to the medical hall.
Without looking back, he stepped through. His silhouette vanished into the shimmering rift, leaving the corpse of a god-realm behind him.
Long after he departed, the cosmic laws finally began to mend the torn space. Slowly, painfully, the void refilled itself.
The universe knitted the wound shut.
But Asgard was gone… a glorious realm lost forever.
✦••┈┈••✦••┈┈••✦
Everlife Medical Center
In the quiet halls of the Everlife Medical Center, the atmosphere was thick with tension.
Hulk, Thor, Freyja, Valkyrie, and the others waited with the same nervous pacing, fidgeting, staring at the doors as if willing Soren to appear.
Valkyrie broke the silence first. "Do you really think Soren can defeat Hela?"
Soren had surprised her many times, first in the arena on Sakaar, then again when he felled Surtur with a casual ease she still didn't fully believe.
But Hela was the Goddess of Death, the one who commanded an entire realm's power.
Valkyrie felt unsure.
"He will return. I believe in him." Freyja's worry was plain, yet her voice didn't waver.
Hulk nodded approvingly. "Hulk knows. Soren is strongest."
"That death lady, she's not stronger than him."
It was rare praise from Hulk, and Thor even raised an eyebrow. But before anyone could comment…
A ripple tore through the air.
"Glad to know you think so highly of me, Hulk." A voice echoed through the courtyard.
Everyone turned at once.
Relief washed over their faces like sunlight breaking through a storm.
"Soren!" Freyja moved ran straight toward him. She threw herself into his arms, her body trembling against him.
The fear she'd held in had finally broken.
No one teased her. After all this time, it was clear to all of them that Soren already held a place deep in her heart.
Soren wrapped an arm around her. "I'm fine. I'm right here."
It took a moment before Freyja loosened her grip and stepped back, face flushed crimson. She lowered her head and moved quietly to Soren's side, staying close but saying nothing.
Hemdal still recovering frowned. "Soren… something is wrong. My sight, my vision can't find Asgard anymore."
Thor looked at Soren with a calm heaviness. He already sensed the truth, but hearing it would make it real.
Soren held his gaze for a long second. "Asgard is gone."
The Asgardians' expressions tightened with shock and grief.
"It… it isn't your fault, Soren. Truly." Thor's breath caught, but he forced a strained smile.
His voice wavered, the grief bleeding through.
"Even if Asgard still stood… without its people, without its soul… it would no longer be the home we loved."
He put a hand on Soren's shoulder. "You saved what mattered."