The moment the words left her lips, Hela noticed something shift in Lothar's expression.
A visible fury flashed across Lothar's face. His left arm, still clamped around Hela's throat, suddenly tightened with terrifying force. Caught completely off guard, Hela was slammed back down into the ocean depths!
"Mmgh!"
"Mmmghhh!!"
"Mmmmmmgh!!!"
The suffocating pressure pierced through every nerve in Hela's divine body.
Her desperate thrashing at the surface sent up sprays of water, glittering like scattered jewels, but it was useless. She still couldn't break free from Lothar's grip.
"You—!"
"Are you insane?!"
Summoning her deathly divinity to force the seawater from her lungs, Hela burst back to the surface, eyes blazing with rage.
"This is the price you pay, the consequence of invading my memories," Lothar said coldly, his expression returning to the same ice-bound severity he'd shown when they first met.
"You think I wanted to see them?!"
"You were the one who forced it on me!"
"If you hadn't tried to hijack my power to patch up your soul, how the hell would I have seen any of it?!"
Smacked around for no good reason, Hela felt utterly wronged.
She hadn't done anything! Even the so-called 'invasion' of memories had been passive...
When had the Princess of Asgard ever been treated like this?
Lothar's brows furrowed at her words. His grip loosened, just slightly. Noticing the drop in pressure, Hela immediately tore free, leaping from the sea like a silver-scaled fish breaching the surface.
Splash!
Water exploded outward.
"If you didn't want me seeing your memories, fine! Then don't use my power to heal yourself!"
Clutching her sore throat, she glared daggers at the man who had turned back to face her.
"Tch."
Lothar's expression turned darker, but he said nothing.
Fine, he thought. I don't need her power. I can recover on my own. It'll just take a little longer.
And now that those pests blocking his path were gone, he could retrieve his physical body by himself, and leave this cursed place behind.
"You'd better forget everything you saw," Lothar warned. "Otherwise, I promise you, you're not walking out of here alive."
Hela stood still, watching him disappear into the distance.
He's… leaving?
Hela frowned, unconvinced.
Based on what she knew of Lothar's temper, she was getting off way too lightly.
Wait a second!
"That idiot… he's not planning to retrieve his body first and then come back for me, is he?!"
A chill ran down her spine at the possibility.
If Lothar regained his body… she'd be no match for him.
Even now, just him going Super Saiyan had beaten her soul, if he was whole again, he'd utterly dominate her.
The more she thought about it, the more certain she became.
And with that, she took off after him, not even bothering to dry off.
Lothar hadn't gotten far. If she moved fast, she could still catch up. And indeed, after a tense, twenty-minute sprint, she spotted him.
Falling.
Wait… falling?!
Hela's senses flared.
She looked around, no enemies in sight. Just Lothar, plummeting from the sky.
He hit the ground hard, and when he spotted Hela behind him, his face darkened. Without a word, he hurled an energy blast her way!
More cracks had formed across his already fractured soul.
"You got a death wish?"
Lothar gritted his teeth, forcing himself to stand and face her.
Going Super Saiyan had wreaked havoc on his spirit. While near Hela, he'd been able to leech off her deathly divinity to recover, but now that he was on his own, the weakness came crashing down on him.
"I need to retrieve my body too. What, you own this road now?"
Glaring right back at him, Hela strutted past with an exaggerated swing of her hips, keeping a cautious eye on him all the while. Lothar curled his lip in contempt, but said nothing.
Then—
BOOM.
The entire Time Training Ground suddenly shook with violent force.
...
The Dark Dimension.
A realm once devoid of sound or life now echoed with the roar of battle.
Blades flashed. Lightning thundered. The arcane power of extradimensional sorcery lashed through the void, and for once, Dormammu, the dread ruler of this realm, was being driven back.
"RAAAGHHH!!"
"WHY?!"
"ODIN! THANOS!"
His voice, usually imperious and cold, now quivered with a rare mix of rage and fear.
The power of Agamotto had always been formidable, enough to bar Dormammu's entry into Midgard, but never like this. Even here, in his own domain, Dormammu was being suppressed.
Because this time… Agamotto wasn't alone.
With him stood the Titan Thanos, and the King of Asgard, Odin.
Dormammu couldn't fathom how both had ended up here, together, fighting for Agamotto.
"Because of my son," Odin said.
"Because of my daughter," Thanos added.
The answers, though different, both cast a heavy shadow over Dormammu's twisted visage.
Your children… what do they have to do with me?!
"You'd better wrap this up," Agamotto cut in, panting. "I can't hold him much longer."
Dormammu had long since discarded his mortal flesh to become sovereign of the Dark Dimension, gaining powers beyond comprehension.
Even with Thanos' upgraded weapons and Odin clad in Destroyer Armor wielding Gungnir, Dormammu shouldn't have been this overwhelmed.
He was still one of the universe's most fearsome beings, a being beyond flesh.
But what left him reeling wasn't just brute strength.
It was Agamotto, playing support.
The ancient sorcerer had severed Dormammu's access to the eldritch energies of his own realm.
No endless fuel. No pure power to draw from.
Stripped of his infinite wellspring, facing Odin and Thanos at their peak and armed with specialized gear, Dormammu had lost his edge.
"You're not afraid I'll retaliate against your children?"
Dormammu hissed, using his unkillable form to evade blow after blow. The threat made both warriors pause, ever so slightly.
"You won't get the chance," Thanos said flatly, his massive blade slicing the void.
Odin chanted a spell in ancient Asgardian, hurling Gungnir like a lightning bolt through the shadows.
"Strike true, Spear of the Gods."
Agamotto alone remained uneasy.
And then, his expression changed.
He gasped. "That's… Cuba's energy. The Time Training Ground, it's been breached!"
He felt the shockwave ripple through the realms.
"No… That's impossible! Cuba doesn't have the power to shatter that field!"
Unless…
A dreadful realization struck.
Eyes wide, he looked up.
Dormammu laughed, mad, triumphant.
"Yes! My faithful disciple now wields the power of the Dark Dimension!"
He had always held something in reserve, a final gambit.
And now, it had been played.
"Lothar!"
"Hela!"
"Don't rush off so soon, Odin… Thanos…"
Dormammu's form surged with renewed might, eyes blazing with unholy fire.
"Now let's finish this, properly."
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