Grandmaster Gast smiled. "If you can keep winning for a full year, the prize is your freedom."
Thor's eyes lit up. Win for a year and he could walk free? That at least gave him something to hope for.
Saitama, however, shook his head. "I just want a really satisfying fight. If you've got some tougher opponents, set them up for me. Once I'm done, I'll leave."
Uh?
Both the Grandmaster and the woman—Valkyrie—stared in a daze. That's why the bald guy volunteered for the fighting pits?
"Then rest easy. I promise you'll be satisfied. But first, a little problem to deal with." The Grandmaster grinned and looked toward an alloy chair being pushed forward. Strapped to it was someone who looked a bit like him.
"Took me a while to find you, little brother," the Grandmaster said with a pleasant smile.
The man on the chair trembled uncontrollably.
"But I pardon you," the Grandmaster added. The man immediately babbled his thanks—only the "pardon"… was of life itself. Before Thor and Saitama's eyes, the Grandmaster tapped the man with his staff, and the body slumped, melting into a boneless heap.
"Uh—by the gods! What is that smell?" Thor's scalp prickled. This Grandmaster was vicious.
The show of force worked—Thor was rattled. The salted-fish bald guy, though, barely reacted—if anything, he looked curious.
In Saitama's view, the system prompts spelled it out clearly: the Grandmaster and the rest were classified as "monsters," not Earth humans at all—basically another species—so acting nothing like humans was normal.
On the Grandmaster's personal orders, Thor and Saitama were placed in VIP cells, and their first bout was scheduled without delay.
Meanwhile—
Asgard.
The reek of blood blanketed the palace. Everyone who resisted the Goddess of Death, Hela, had become corpses—felled one by one by her own hand.
For this powerful, wildly ambitious woman, lack of subordinates wasn't the issue. She simply wanted to leave behind a sliver of memory—a past worth mourning—to prove she was Asgardian.
After all, all her power came from Asgard.
But sadly, just like those who had once sworn fealty to her and were butchered by Odin, these soldiers were loyal—to Thor, and to Asgard.
So Hela granted their wish: death was their best destination.
There was one exception.
The spineless Skurge, the bald captain of the guard whom no one valued, was the only Asgardian to bend the knee to her—for now.
He was weak, but having a living Asgardian by her side felt… right. At times, Hela still missed the days she rode at the head of Asgard's legions, carving up the cosmos.
With Skurge in tow, she walked through the empty palace, tearing down the ceiling murals.
To Skurge's shock, more murals lay beneath—scenes of Hela as the Empire's first war-general, charging across world after world, invincible and glorious.
In the end, Odin branded her ambition too great, and buried her—and the troops who were loyal unto death.
Only, by then Hela had gained a power even Odin could not snuff out. He could only seal her away.
None of this appeared in Asgard's histories. No one knew. The official record named only the invincible All-Father, who led their forebears to unite the Nine Realms, crowned supreme.
As for Hela and her fallen army? Not a word.
They headed straight to Odin's vault. It belonged to Hela now.
"Odin's treasures—fake." Hela brushed aside the Infinity Gauntlet on its pedestal. A mere imitation.
"Most of this is fake or useless. And this… it's much smaller than I expected." She gave a passing glance to the weakened fire giant Thor had slain in the dungeon earlier.
So proud—she seemed to disdain every treasure she saw.
Her gaze fell upon the place where the Space Stone should have rested. It was empty. The gem was in Loki's hands now.
"There used to be something decent here," she murmured. "I'll be taking it back soon."
She smiled faintly and stopped before a brazier of undying flame. "The Eternal Flame."
She plucked a blossom of fire from within. Rootless, it could not be extinguished, and blazed hotter by the second.
With the flame in hand, Hela's steps quickened, her voice tinged with long-lost excitement and anticipation. "Do you want to see true power?"
She looked back at Skurge, smashed the floor, and dropped—Eternal Flame in hand—into the black throat of a bottomless pit.
Firelight licked at the dark. Shapes emerged—countless skeletons lying neatly on the ground.
They looked almost peaceful, hands folded over chests, no traces of struggle. Each rested exactly in place—eerie, yet orderly.
As the light spread, Hela's body trembled ever so slightly. Her gaze fixed straight ahead.
Upon a colossal dais crouched a massive beast's corpse. Its black fur was intact despite the ages. Eyes sealed, sockets sunken, it knelt in eternal submission.
Nearly thirty meters long—a wolf-like monster.
"Fenris… my dear. What did they do to you?" Hela's heart clenched with pain.
This had been her most beloved mount, the partner who rode with her through blood and fire to expand Asgard's dominion. And these warriors lying all around—her elite, her loyal, her unyielding dead.
Back then, Odin declared Hela guilty of treasonous ambition, already "executed." The troops under her banner—their merits on the battlefield could not be denied. He couldn't bear to slaughter them.
But for the empire's peace, Odin hoped they would make the "right" choice.
In practice, he ordered their disarmament that same day, paid them generously, and sent them to this abyssal chamber to make their final contribution to Asgard.
They died quietly, together. The "best" ending.
In those war-torn times, with Odin's absolute prestige, even if he had ordered their execution, no one would have blamed him. He ended the chaos of the Nine Realms and raised Asgard's glory higher than ever. His subjects were proud—proud enough to accept that once the word "traitor" fell, those men would be swept away.
So they chose collective suicide.
Hela's chest burned. She could feel the roar and wail of wronged spirits in the dark, stirred to life and fury by her arrival. This was a conspiracy—righteous on its face, rotten at its core.
"With the Eternal Flame—rise anew!"
Hela's smile turned feral. All her pain, all her rage—she would let it loose.
She slammed the Eternal Flame into the floor. Green death-fire surged outward in a ring, howling across the vault.
Wherever it touched a corpse, a ghost-light kindled in empty eyes, and the dead slowly stood once more.
"I have missed you all so much," Hela said, smiling.
(End of Chapter)
[Check Out My P@treon For 20+ Extra Chapters On All My Fanfics!!]
[[email protected]/Draumel]
[Thank You For Your Support!]