The storm was already alive when Thor struck the ground.
Lightning tore downward from the sky in a blinding column, slamming into the black stone cliffs where mountains rose straight from the sea like broken teeth. The impact split the earth open, sending shards of rock screaming into the air and boiling the water below into white fury. Thunder followed, not as sound but as force, a pressure that crushed the air and made the world shudder.
Thor stood at the center of it, feet planted wide, Mjölnir clenched in his fist.
Rain lashed against him, driven sideways by winds that howled like wounded beasts. His red cloak snapped violently behind him, heavy with water, its edges torn and scorched from earlier strikes. His armor bore fresh scars, deep grooves cut by blades that should not have existed, each mark glowing faintly as divine metal struggled to heal.
Across the fractured battlefield, the ground darkened.
Shadows gathered unnaturally, pooling and thickening until they rose upward, forming her.
Hela emerged from the earth itself, whole and unhurried, as though the world had merely been holding her shape in reserve. Her boots touched stone without sound. Rain slid off her form, refusing to cling. Half her face was cold, sharp beauty, untouched by time. The other half was death laid bare—bone pale as moonlight, hollow and eternal.
She surveyed the destruction Thor had wrought and smiled.
"You always arrive like a catastrophe," she said, her voice calm, precise, carrying easily through the storm. "No warning. No restraint."
Thor turned toward her fully, lightning crawling over his arms and across his shoulders like living veins. His eyes burned bright blue, reflecting the storm above.
"And you always leave rot behind," he answered. "I won't let you walk free this time."
Hela tilted her head slightly, studying him as one might study a familiar weapon. "You say that every time."
She raised her hand.
The ground answered instantly.
Black blades erupted from the stone in violent succession, jagged spears of obsidian death tearing upward in a widening arc. The earth screamed as it was split open, cracks racing outward toward the cliffs. Thor moved without hesitation, launching himself forward as lightning detonated beneath his feet, propelling him into the air.
Mjölnir spun.
The hammer struck the ground with world-breaking force.
Thunder exploded outward, pulverizing the rising blades into dust and shards. The shockwave ripped across the battlefield, throwing waves high into the air and collapsing sections of cliff into the sea. The ocean answered with a roar, water surging upward before crashing back down in towering sheets.
Thor landed hard, knees bent, hammer raised again. His breath came steady, controlled, though pain burned hot along his ribs where an earlier strike had landed. He welcomed it. Pain meant resistance. Resistance meant the fight still mattered.
Hela walked forward through the destruction, her steps slow, deliberate.
"Strength," she said, gesturing at the shattered land, "without purpose. Thunder without inevitability."
She vanished.
The air behind Thor screamed.
He twisted just in time as Hela reappeared at his back, her arm already transformed into a long, serrated blade. It drove forward, piercing armor and flesh in one brutal motion. Divine blood spilled freely, glowing bright against rain-soaked stone.
Thor roared, the sound ripping through the storm.
He slammed his elbow backward, lightning exploding from his body in a violent pulse. Hela was hurled away, crashing into the cliff face with enough force to split it open. Stone fractured and collapsed, vanishing into the raging sea below.
Thor staggered, ripping the blade free from his side. Blood poured down his armor, steam rising where it met cold rain. His vision blurred for a heartbeat, then sharpened again as fury took hold.
Mjölnir flew from his hand.
The hammer struck Hela mid-air as she pushed herself from the shattered rock, pinning her against the cliff. Thunder followed, one strike after another, each blow heavier than the last. The mountain groaned, cracks spreading outward like veins beneath skin.
For a moment, the storm hesitated.
Then Hela stepped forward.
Mjölnir fell to the ground behind her, its power repelled as though it had struck an unyielding truth.
She rolled her shoulders slowly, bone and flesh knitting together seamlessly. Her expression remained calm, almost bored.
"You still don't understand," she said, advancing. "You can destroy anything that lives. But I rule what comes after."
She lifted both hands.
The sea below surged violently, water pulling back as if commanded. From its depths rose the dead.
Ancient warriors clawed their way onto the rocks, armor rusted, bones cracked, weapons fused to skeletal hands. Drowned kings and forgotten soldiers stood again, eyes burning with sickly green fire. They moved without sound, without hesitation, drawn toward Thor by her will.
An army of endings.
Thor reached out, and Mjölnir snapped back into his hand, lightning flaring brightly as it returned.
He stood alone against them, bloodied and breathing hard, yet his mouth curved into a grim smile.
"I've faced worse," he said.
The storm answered.
Lightning poured down from the sky, slamming into Thor's body and flowing through him, filling every vein, every scar, every wound with blinding power. The clouds tightened overhead, spiraling inward, thunder rolling in deafening waves.
He charged.
The battlefield dissolved into chaos.
Thor tore through the dead like a living thunderbolt, hammer rising and falling in devastating arcs. Each strike shattered bodies into ash and fragments, lightning leaping from one target to the next in wild chains. The ground burned where he stepped, stone melting and cracking under divine force.
Hela moved among the destruction like a shadow, striking when openings appeared. Blades formed from her limbs, her back, the very air around her, slashing and piercing with merciless precision. She cut deep, again and again, each wound meant not to kill but to weaken, to remind him that even gods could be worn down.
Thor answered with fury.
He hurled Mjölnir through ranks of the dead, the hammer carving a path of ruin before returning to his hand. He leapt high into the air, bringing it down with such force that the ground collapsed inward, forming a massive crater that swallowed dozens of bodies whole.
They collided again at the center of it all.
Thunder and death met in a blinding explosion of force.
Thor slammed Hela backward with a hammer strike that sent her skidding across broken stone. She twisted mid-fall, digging her heels in, blades erupting behind her to anchor herself. The earth screamed as she stopped, then lunged forward again, faster than before.
Her blade caught Thor across the chest, carving deep. He staggered, nearly falling, then roared and answered with a headbutt that cracked against her skull like a falling mountain. She reeled, bone exposed further, shadow spilling outward like smoke.
The storm intensified.
Lightning no longer fell from above alone—it arced sideways, downward, inward, drawn by the violence below. The sea boiled. The mountains split further, ancient rock groaning under stress it had not felt since the world was young.
Thor felt it then.
A pressure beneath the ground.
Something shifting far below, something vast and slow, stirred by the residue of their battle. He ignored it, forcing his focus back to Hela, but the sensation lingered, heavy and unsettling.
Hela noticed his hesitation.
She smiled wider.
"You feel it too," she said softly, almost kindly. "The world remembers what it buried."
Thor raised Mjölnir again, lightning blazing around him, pain screaming through his body but drowned beneath purpose.
"Then let it remember this," he said.
He charged once more, thunder screaming his name as hammer and death collided again—unaware that their violence was sinking deep into the bones of the world, where ancient things slept and listened.
—End of Part I