BOOM.
Laufey's fist connected with the stone floor where Arthur had been standing a microsecond ago.
Granite pulverized to dust. The shockwave cleared the falling debris of the shattered shield instantly, sending a tremor through the entire plaza.
Laufey straightened up, breathing heavily, expecting to see a crushed suit and a broken mage.
But there was nothing but a crater.
"Too slow."
The voice came from the left.
Laufey snapped his head around. Arthur stood atop a nearby garden wall, casually brushing imaginary dust from his shoulder. He looked completely unbothered, as if the destruction of his absolute defense was merely a data point.
"Phase One testing complete," Arthur murmured. "Time for Phase Two: Physical assessment."
Arthur was calmer than ever. Laufey was proving to be powerful, yes, but predictable. Perhaps he was old like Odin, his speed waning with age. Perhaps Loki's earlier sneak attack with Gungnir had injured him more than he let on.
Either way, the battle didn't worry Arthur. He could collect his data methodically.
His hands flexed, and golden-orange light began to radiate from his fists. Chi, refined through years of practice, hummed with barely contained power.
"Let's see how my strength compares to a Frost Giant's."
He Apparated directly at Laufey, fist driving toward the giant's chest.
Laufey was ready. He didn't care that the mage wanted to fight with bare hands. He was too angry to think clearly anymore. He wanted this mortal gone so he could return to finish Odin.
He easily sidestepped Arthur's punch, and a perfectly timed counter was already en route - a massive blue fist aimed to pulverize the mortal's skull.
But as the fist hit the smiling face, it shimmered and passed through.
An illusion.
Laufey's eyes widened as the real Arthur appeared in his blind spot, delivering a chi-enhanced uppercut to his kidney.
THUD.
It sounded like hitting a wall of solid rubber. Laufey grunted, but he barely moved. He backhanded the air where Arthur had been, forcing the wizard to Apparate away to avoid being turned into paste.
"Physical strike registered," Eve reported. "Damage dealt: Negligible. Target's baseline durability exceeds estimated parameters."
"Tough," Arthur muttered, landing on a pillar. "Time for round two."
He Apparated again. Same approach, same illusion trick. Laufey swung at the decoy, missed, and the real Arthur's fist connected with the Frost Giant's back.
But this time, the vibranium nanites in his fist pulsed.
The suit had absorbed the kinetic backlash from the first punch, the equal and opposite force that should have caused damage to Arthur's fist when it struck Laufey's body, and stored it.
Now it released that stored energy, adding it to Arthur's chi-enhanced strike.
Essentially double the power.
Laufey felt this one.
The Frost Giant King actually staggered, ice cracking along his spine. He spun with a roar, his massive arm sweeping in a killing arc—
Arthur was already gone, appearing ten feet away.
The pattern repeated. Arthur used Apparition and illusions in different combinations to hit Laufey over and over again, storing energy from each blow and adding it to the next strike.
But although Laufey was taking damage, his body's regeneration was enough to heal those small wounds before they could accumulate into anything meaningful.
"You jump around like a flea!" Laufey roared, his breath misting in the frigid air. "Stand and fight like a warrior!"
Arthur ignored the talk and went for another pass. He Apparated, feinted left with an illusion, and drove a right hook toward Laufey's ribs.
But Laufey had been fighting wars for three thousand years. He had learned Arthur's rhythm.
When Arthur's fist connected, Laufey didn't try to dodge.
He took the hit.
SQUELCH.
On impact, the ice on Laufey's armor didn't crack, it liquefied and then instantly re-froze, trapping Arthur's fist against the Frost Giant's side in a bond harder than steel.
"Got you," Laufey grinned, his teeth jagged and yellow.
He didn't bother with a weapon. He pulled his free arm back and delivered a devastating straight punch directly at Arthur's trapped form.
There was no dodging this time.
BOOM.
The impact was powerful. Arthur was ripped free of the ice-bond and launched across the plaza like a ragdoll. He smashed through a stone pillar, tumbled across the garden, and finally crashed into a heavy retaining wall, leaving a crater in the masonry.
Dust billowed.
Laufey stalked toward the rubble, confident in his victory.
"Fragile," he sneered. "Mages always break."
In the rubble, a hand shot up, gripping a broken stone.
Arthur pulled himself out of the wall. He shook his head, clearing the ringing in his ears.
"Armor integrity at 88%," Eve reported calmly. "Kinetic dampeners absorbed 94.7% of impact force. Minor internal bruising detected. Healing charm recommended."
Arthur had already cast the healing charm silently, mending the bruising in seconds.
"Alright," he said, his voice dropping to something harder. "Warm-up is over. Let's try the full cocktail."
He clenched his fists.
First came the gold. Chi blazed around his knuckles, the life-force of a dragon making the air itself vibrate with power.
Next came the purple. The vibranium weave of his suit hummed, glowing with the stored kinetic energy from Laufey's massive punch, converted into weapon-ready force.
And finally, the orange. Arthur twisted his wrists. Eldritch energy sparked into existence. The geometric constructs of the Mystic Arts spun and locked into place, forming a translucent magical gauntlet around each fist that amplified everything it contained.
Three layers. Chi, Vibranium, and Eldritch magic. Combined.
Laufey stopped mid-stride. He looked at the multicolored energy swirling around the tiny mortal's hands.
For the first time since Arthur had begun fighting with his fists, Laufey's instincts screamed danger.
The Frost Giant King didn't wait for Arthur to attack. He lunged forward, an ice-blade forming in his hand, pressing the offensive with everything he had. His movements were a blur of frozen death.
Arthur didn't try to block.
He danced.
Apparition. Illusion. Portal.
Laufey's blade passed through an afterimage as Arthur appeared three feet to the left. The Frost Giant's follow-up strike hit empty air. A massive fist crashed through a portal that deposited the force harmlessly into the void between dimensions.
"Incoming ice barrage, ninety-degree arc," Eve warned.
Arthur Apparated as a storm of frozen spears erupted from Laufey's position. The deadly projectiles shredded the ground where he'd been standing.
"Overhead strike, two o'clock."
He shifted left. Laufey's ice-hammer cratered the stone beside him.
"Frost wave, point-blank range."
A portal opened in front of Arthur, swallowing the wave of killing cold and depositing it somewhere in the endless void.
Laufey pressed harder. Faster. More desperate. His attacks came from every angle—blades, spears, hammers, storms of frozen death. Any one of them would have killed a normal human instantly. Would have challenged most Asgardian warriors.
None of them touched Arthur.
He moved like smoke, like shadow, like thought itself. Apparition carried him away from direct attacks. Illusions drew strikes toward empty air. Portals redirected forces too large to dodge. And through it all, Eve's warnings gave him precious milliseconds of additional reaction time.
But Arthur wasn't just defending.
Every time Laufey overextended, Arthur struck back. Chi and vibranium and eldritch energy combined into blows that actually hurt. A strike to the ribs that cracked ice-armor. A hit to the knee that made the Frost Giant stumble. A punch to the jaw that snapped Laufey's head to the side.
Small damages. Accumulating.
Laufey could feel the truth: if that tri-layered fist landed clean on something vital, it would be very bad for him.
And Arthur knew the inverse: if any more of the Frost Giant's full-power strikes connected, it would be equally bad for him.
They fought across the plaza, leaving devastation in their wake. Ice and shattered stone erupted around them. The beautiful Asgardian gardens became a battlefield of craters and frozen debris.
Neither could land a decisive blow.
Neither would back down.
Just when the battle was intensifying, the sky lit up.
A beam of rainbow light tore through the clouds in the distance, striking the ocean beyond the city. The Bifrost, but wrong somehow. Continuous. Uncontrolled.
Laufey froze, his head snapping toward the light. "The Bifrost?"
"Target distracted," Eve noted. "Exploitable opening detected."
"Time for the final test," Arthur said, his voice dropping.
He Apparated behind Laufey, his tri-layered fist already drawn back. Chi blazing gold. Vibranium humming with every joule of stored energy. Eldritch constructs spiraling with geometric precision.
And the purple crystal embedded in his suit's chest began to glow.
The Power Stone
—
Arthur had acquired the Power Stone, one of the six Infinity Stones, three years ago.
Carol had provided the coordinates to the barren planet Morag. The only issue was distance. The journey would take months, and Arthur had no intention of tying up Carol's time for that long. Instead, he sent a clone aboard a leased alien vessel. The clone had patience to spare and plenty of time to train during the long transit.
Once the ship landed on Morag, Arthur had opened a portal to join his clone personally. Taking the Orb from its resting place and replacing it with a convincing fake had been trivially easy after that.
Using the Stone was another matter entirely.
Direct contact with an Infinity Stone was suicide. But through careful experimentation, Arthur had developed a method to siphon small amounts of power from the Stones, storing it in specially enchanted crystals that could safely channel the energy.
The purple crystal in his suit held a fraction of the Power Stone's might. A blue crystal held a similar fraction of the Space Stone's. Not the full power of the Infinity Stones, that would still be lethal, but enough to provide a significant boost when he needed it most.
His suit had empty slots for four more crystals.
Someday, he would fill them all.
—-
Purple energy flooded through Arthur's body.
The Power Stone's essence - safely buffered, carefully channeled - amplified everything. His chi burned brighter. His eldritch constructs solidified into something that looked almost physical. His striking power increased tenfold.
Four layers now. Chi, Vibranium, Eldritch magic, and power stone.
"Power Stone auxiliary crystal engaged," Eve reported. "Warning: Current power output exceeds safe operational parameters. Recommend limiting exposure to thirty seconds."
Arthur ignored the warning. He appeared directly in front of the distracted Laufey, mid-air, his fist glowing with the power of a collapsing star.
He aimed for the temple. A killing blow.
Laufey's survival instincts screamed. He turned at the last microsecond, raising his left arm to block—
CRUNCH.
There was no resistance.
The Power Stone-enhanced punch obliterated Laufey's ice armor on contact. It hit the forearm and kept going, disintegrating bone and flesh and ice alike. The limb simply ceased to exist from the elbow down.
Laufey howled, a sound of agony that shook the palace walls, as he was blasted backward. He crashed through a statue of Bor, shattering the ancient stone, and slumped to the ground.
His left arm was gone. Vaporized.
Arthur landed softly, steam rising from his armor where the excess energy was venting.
"Target critically damaged," Eve reported. "Left forearm: Destroyed. Combat effectiveness reduced by estimated 40%."
Laufey staggered to his feet, one-armed and bleeding.
Ice crystallized over the stump, stopping the bleeding and stabilizing the wound. His regeneration was working overtime, but it couldn't replace what had been completely destroyed.
"You—" His voice was a ragged snarl. "You struck at a distracted foe. No honor—"
"This is war," Arthur interrupted flatly. "Not a tournament. Now, do you want to know what distracted you?"
He pointed at the blazing Bifrost beam.
"That's your son," Arthur explained. "Loki. He's turned the Bifrost onto Jotunheim. He's destroying your planet right now. Killing your people to prove to Odin that he's a 'true' Asgardian."
Arthur watched Laufey's face, expecting horror. Expecting desperation. Expecting something.
Instead, Laufey looked at the beam, then back at Arthur.
And sneered.
"Let them die."
Arthur went still.
"The realm has been dying since Odin stole the Casket," Laufey continued, bitter satisfaction coloring his voice. "My people have suffered for a thousand years, growing weaker with each generation. If the Bifrost destroys what remains..." He shrugged with his one remaining arm. "Then perhaps it is a mercy."
Arthur stared at him.
He'd fought monsters before. But there was something uniquely repulsive about a king who watched his own civilization burn and felt nothing. Who shrugged at genocide because it was convenient.
"I was going to give you a choice," Arthur said quietly, the synthesized voice of his mask losing all traces of humor. "Surrender or die."
He stepped forward, the stone beneath his feet cracking from the sheer pressure of the magic gathering.
"But looking at you now... I don't think I will anymore."