Hela did not retreat after landing her blow.
Her figure drew close to Odin like a phantom, dark green light gathering at the fingertips of her left hand as she clawed toward Odin’s face.
Odin tilted his head to dodge, but he was a fraction of a second too slow—Hela’s fingertips swept over his left eye, and her dark green divine power erupted at that moment, directly piercing the lens of his pupil.
“Ugh—!”
Odin let out a muffled cry of pain.
Golden blood gushed from his left eye socket, flowing down his cheek.
The eye that had once peered through the Nine Realms lost its light at that moment.
He stumbled back a few steps, propping his body up with the Eternal Spear against the ground.
His other hand covered his injured eye socket, golden liquid seeping through his fingers.
Hela stood before him, the dark green light on her longsword slowly fading.
Her breathing was somewhat rapid, but it was from excitement rather than fatigue.
Looking at Odin’s wretched state, the curve of her lips grew wider.
It was a smile that mixed victory, relief, and some complex, indescribable emotion.
“You have lost, Father,” Hela said, a strange tremor in her voice.
“Now you must admit it.
I am more suited to rule Asgard than you, and more suited to lead the Nine Realms toward a more glorious future—”
She did not finish her sentence.
Because at that moment, Odin suddenly raised his head.
From his intact right eye, golden light poured out like a torrent.
The golden blood from the wounds pierced by the tentacles actually began to flow backward.
The wounds healed at a speed visible to the naked eye, and his aura surged in an instant to a height that completely surpassed any previous moment.
“Hela.” Odin’s voice was no longer low, but carried a rumbling resonance like thunder, causing the air across the entire battlefield to vibrate with his words.
“You said I am old, and you said I am slow.
You are right, I admit it all.” Odin slowly straightened up, the golden light on the Eternal Spear flaring as blindingly as a scorching sun.
His white hair drifted in the surging divine power, and his single eye held the weight and accumulation of Asgard’s thousands of years.
“But Hela—” He raised the Eternal Spear.
The light gathering at the tip could no longer be described as merely dazzling; it was almost a materialized golden flame, burning and rising in the night sky, illuminating everything for miles around as if it were day.
“You forgot one thing.”
Hela’s smile vanished.
She instinctively sensed something extremely dangerous descending, but she was already too late to make any reaction.
“I am still the King of the Gods!”
Odin’s voice resounded through the heavens of Asgard at that moment.
The Eternal Spear left his hand, turning into a brilliant, almost sacred pillar of golden light that shot toward Hela with a roar.
The speed of that light surpassed the limits of Hela’s perception.
It was so fast that she could not even see the spear’s trajectory, only feeling an overwhelming expanse of gold flooding her vision.
She instinctively raised her longsword to block, but her defense was as fragile as paper before that golden light.
The moment the longsword made contact with the golden light, it shattered into countless flying fragments, her dark green divine power crushed like a thin layer of ice.
Hela was hit head-on by the pillar of light.
Her body was sent flying like a stone thrown from a catapult, leaving a long trail of dark green light in midair before crashing heavily into the highest tower of the Golden Palace.
With a deafening crash, a massive gap was smashed into the top of the tower.
Rubble and debris rained down, and Hela’s body was embedded in the ruins of the tower, falling completely still for a moment.
The Eternal Spear traced an arc through the air and returned to Odin’s hand.
Odin stood leaning on his spear.
His left eye was still bleeding, and the golden light in his right eye slowly faded.
His body swayed slightly, and a trickle of golden blood seeped from the corner of his mouth, but he still did not fall.
“Hela,” he spoke, his voice returning to that low, weary tone.
“It is over.”
The sounds of slaughter on the battlefield gradually subsided at this moment.
Every gaze that could still move looked toward the gap at the top of the Golden Palace, toward the motionless, dark green figure embedded in the ruins.
One breath, two breaths, three breaths.
Then, a low cough came from the ruins.
Hela propped herself up from the rubble.
Most of her armor was shattered, and her dark green battle skirt was covered in cracks.
Her left arm was twisted at an unnatural angle, clearly broken.
Blood poured continuously from the corner of her mouth, mixing with dust as it dripped from her chin.
Her long hair fell in disarray over her shoulders, but the light in her dark green eyes had still not gone out.
“…It’s not over yet,” she whispered, her voice hoarse but clear, every word carrying a burning stubbornness.
“As long as I can still stand, it is not over.”
She supported her body, attempting to stand up from the ruins, but just as her knees left the ground, a powerful surge of golden divine power descended from the sky, pinning her firmly in place.
“I said, it is over.” Odin’s voice came from below, carrying an unquestionable authority.
Yet, if one listened closely, beneath that authority hid something more painful than a knife cut.
Odin raised his right hand, and golden divine power condensed in his palm into a complex runic array.
The runes expanded and rotated above Hela’s head, forming ring after ring of closely aligned sealing patterns.
Each ring contained Asgard’s oldest and most powerful binding strength.
“You betrayed Asgard,” Odin’s voice sounded in the night wind, each word striking like a hammer heavily against his own chest.
“You betrayed the peace of the Nine Realms, betrayed the people who trusted you, and betrayed everything you once swore to protect.”
Hela raised her head to look directly into Odin’s single eye.
The stubborn smile still hung on the corner of her lips, but in her eyes, something was shattering.
“Then kill me!” she said, her voice calm to the point of being icy.
Odin fell silent for a long time.
Odin finally spoke, his voice carrying an undeniable tremor.
“According to Asgard’s law…”
He slowly pressed his right hand down.
The sealing runes began to rotate faster, and golden light poured down like flowing water, wrapping Hela’s body layer by layer.
“I will banish you to Helheim, that boundary land between life and death.
You will spend long ages there, until—”
“Until what?” Hela’s voice suddenly rose, carrying a trace of struggling rage.
“Until you die?
Or until I admit that you were right?”