The two Quinjets crossed into the floating island's perimeter, and the World Serpent sensed them at once.
Pathetic. That was his first impression. Asgard had sent a single goddess and the Destroyer. Everyone else was human. Did they really think this was enough to stop him? Had Asgard fallen so far?
The old man had entertained grander ambitions before, but the interference from that unknown force had reversed his recovery. The power that had climbed back to a third of its peak was now sliding backward—he was operating at less than a tenth of his full strength. If Odin himself descended, or even a handful of lesser gods, he would genuinely lose.
That hesitation was why he'd slowed the island's advance.
But sensing how weak this strike force was, his confidence surged back. A tenth of his power was more than enough for a bunch of mortals.
"Bring me their heads." His voice was ice. Skadi, the Goddess of Ice and Snow, showed no expression. Without a word, she led the main force north, drawn by something deep in her instincts even though her conscious mind was gone.
The Quinjets had barely touched down and the hatches were still opening. Daisy was about to say a few words to boost morale when she saw the Asgardian quartet charge out with swords and axes raised, bellowing "For Asgard!" at the top of their lungs. The four of them roared forward with the momentum of a vast army.
"What is wrong with these people..." Daisy stared after them, exasperated. The enemy was still miles away. On Earth, you'd be dead from exhaustion before you even reached the front line.
"Solid war cry, though." Iron Man stood beside her. "You didn't come up with one for our side? We look pretty underwhelming by comparison."
Don't worry, Captain America will handle your battle cries eventually, Daisy thought. I'm not embarrassing myself like that.
She turned to Storm instead. The two had worked together enough times that a single glance conveyed everything.
Storm summoned a massive bank of thunderclouds. Rolling, churning, alive with lightning that hung on the cusp of discharge. The storm reshaped the battlefield—perfect cover for her subsequent abilities, and thick enough to block satellite surveillance from above.
"Let's go!" Once word came through that Cyclops's team had engaged on the other side, Daisy's three-person group plus the Destroyer charged in.
To showcase Asgardian "valor"—or perhaps hoping to let them probe the enemy's strength first—Daisy's group held back, flying at moderate speed and trailing the quartet by several hundred meters (about a thousand feet).
The enemy appeared quickly. Their clothing was ragged, their ranks a menagerie of species. Dark-skinned elves. Towering frost giants. And far more numerous than either: Earth humans in medieval garb—farmers, knights, men and women of every description.
Just like Sif's quartet on this side, the enemy's own Asgardians led from the front. Their minds were gone, but the traditions drilled into them across millennia remained intact. Under the World Serpent's control, his Asgardians still charged ahead of everyone else.
The two groups of Asgardians—separated by a thousand years—collided.
"Sacrilege! This is sacrilege against warriors!" For an ordinary human, faces from a millennium ago meant nothing, but Sif and her companions recognized every single one. Some had been good friends. Comrades.
Sif's shield was a recent replacement. Daisy had shattered the original during their fight, and to make amends, she'd requisitioned a supply of Adamantium from S.H.I.E.L.D.'s armory and had a new shield made for Sif. It wasn't as good as Asgardian metal, but it offered solid protection.
A hulking, bald Asgardian swung a serrated greatsword straight at Sif. She recognized him, and rage ignited in her chest. One quick sidestep past his cleave, and her longsword carved a diagonal line across his throat. The head separated cleanly. The stump oozed only a thin trickle of dark, viscous fluid—his consciousness had died long ago. What remained was just a walking shell. Killing him was mercy.
The Warriors Three felt the same fury. With battle cries of their own, they plunged into the enemy formation.
Physically matched but separated by the gulf between wits and emptiness, the four tore through the enemy ranks like a gale through dead wood. The enemy's only answer was numbers—cut one down and two more emerged from behind.
The World Serpent had ravaged the Nine Realms. The soldiers and civilians who'd fallen beneath his feet were beyond counting. He had cannon fodder in endless supply; the only reason he didn't deploy them all at once was insufficient control over so many puppets.
Daisy watched the battle unfold and had to concede that Cyclops's strategy had been sound. Against an endless tide like this, being surrounded would be lethal—everyone except the flyers would drown in the swarm.
Stark rocketed out with repulsor blasts scything through clusters of enemies. The Destroyer's energy supply seemed bottomless—each beam vaporized a swath of foes. Storm was in her element, barely breaking a sweat, calling down bolt after bolt of lightning into the enemy ranks.
Everyone was engaged. Everyone except Daisy.
It wasn't arrogance that held her back. Something was out there, waiting for her. She could feel it.
A shrill whistle split the air. An ice spear hurled from extreme range punched clean through the Destroyer mid-rampage.
"The enemy's attack carries potent energy damage. The Destroyer requires a reboot and tactical recalibration." Loki's voice came through from a dimension away.
He didn't need to tell her. Daisy had already seen the newcomer.
A woman standing two meters (6.6 feet) tall, with features of breathtaking beauty. Even with her eyes blank and vacant, her face lost none of its radiance.
The woman's expression was utterly flat. She tilted her head as if searching for something. At her side, a massive swirl of frost coalesced, and from it stepped a wolf—fur of pure silver-white, eyes a burning crimson. Following its mistress's silent command, the wolf raised its head and scanned the surroundings, helping her search.
Two stripes sat above the right eyebrow and two more below the right eye, adding an air of cold mystery to her glacial beauty. She materialized another ice spear with a casual wave, her vacant gaze sweeping methodically through the crowd.
"That's Skadi and the Winter Wolf Kaldr!" Sif's shout carried across the battlefield. The Goddess of Ice and Snow outranked them all by eons. She belonged to an impossibly ancient era when humanity still lived in the wilds and the gods ruled sky, land, and sea. Gods from that age were on another level entirely.
"Skadi? Goddess of Ice and Snow?" Daisy laughed and drew her sword. This was the one. Her opponent.
Goddess? Please. This was an Eternal, plain as day. When most of the Eternals departed Earth, the stragglers were absorbed into the various divine pantheons. Skadi was obviously one of them.
The tells were unmistakable. With the exception of Thanos—born a freak among his own kind—Eternals were uniformly gorgeous. Handsome men, beautiful women, biologically immortal without a drop of divine power. The pinnacle of genetic evolution.