Thor's newfound determination could not stop the trajectory of the apocalyptic fireball.
With a blinding, roaring flash of fire, the meteor descended from the heavens and crashed directly into the center of the desert town. The sheer kinetic impact swept through the surroundings like a hurricane, blowing countless storefronts and houses apart.
When the dust finally settled, the once-peaceful town had been reduced to a smoldering ruin. The residents who had successfully evacuated to the ridge wailed loudly; everything they owned had been turned to ash in an instant.
"I have to go down there!" Thor said, his jaw set. "This is my responsibility."
"Do you even know what that thing is?" Agent Coulson asked, stepping into Thor's path with a grim expression.
"I do," Thor replied solemnly. "It is Asgard's ultimate weapon. The Destroyer."
Those words made Coulson instinctively re-evaluate the threat level, stepping out of the massive blonde man's way. However, the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent did not choose to flee. Instead, he unholstered his sidearm and followed closely behind Thor, choosing to head directly into the impact crater.
At this critical, life-or-death moment, the little pink pig trailing behind them had absolutely zero heroic presence. Hawk was shivering behind a piece of drywall.
In the center of the town, a massive, silver metallic sphere emitting intense heat stood quietly inside a glassed-over crater.
This was the scene that greeted Coulson and Thor when they arrived.
Thor looked down at the sphere with a heavy, sorrowful gaze. A moment later, he cupped his hands and shouted toward the sky.
"Loki! The humans are not enemies of Asgard! Take the Destroyer back!"
Thor's booming shout echoed uselessly through the ruins.
The rainbow light of the Bifrost did not shine in the sky. Instead, the iron sphere at the bottom of the crater began to shift, its interlocking metal plates slowly unfolding.
Under the harsh desert sunlight, a giant, ten-foot-tall suit of spiked, silver armor stood up in the crater. A terrifying, molten-red light flickered to life deep within the armor's hollow faceplate, as if a lethal activation ritual had just been completed.
Having fought alongside the Destroyer in countless wars before, Thor had never felt such a crushing sense of pressure from this mindless automaton. Not until now, when they were standing on opposing sides.
The towering metallic golem stood before Thor, casting a long, dark shadow over the banished prince. Without his power, Thor couldn't even muster the physical strength to resist it.
"Loki, this war is meaningless," Thor pleaded, looking into the hollow, glowing face of the armor. "It will only cause the innocent people of Earth and Asgard to suffer the fires of war. If it is because your dignity as the newly crowned King has been provoked... then I am willing to use my life to end this."
After saying this, Thor stood in the shadow of the Destroyer and spread his arms wide, striking a pose of complete vulnerability.
At the exact microsecond he spoke those words of true, selfless sacrifice, **Mjolnir**—sitting miles away inside the S.H.I.E.L.D. base—suddenly began to vibrate, violent arcs of lightning flickering across its Uru metal surface.
A light breeze swept across the ruins, kicking up dust from the ground.
Several agonizing seconds passed after Thor finished speaking. During this time, the Destroyer remained entirely motionless, the fiery light in its visor dimming slightly.
Thor, who had closed his eyes to await a fiery execution, slowly opened them. A relieved smile appeared on his face.
'As I thought, Loki is still my good brother,' Thor thought silently to himself, tears welling in his eyes. 'Father's choice was not wrong.'
"Loki..." Thor whispered, taking a step forward.
Just as he was about to offer his brother a word of thanks...
The Destroyer's massive silver arm suddenly swung with the force of a freight train.
CRACK!
Instantly, Thor's mortal body was swatted away like a broken doll, flying through the air and crashing brutally through a ruined brick wall.
"Thor, you are entirely too naive!"
Light-years away, sitting upon the golden throne of Asgard, Loki sneered, his eyes emitting the exact same glowing red light as the Destroyer's visor.
After Thor was violently sent flying, the Destroyer began an indiscriminate, apocalyptic attack on its surroundings.
The S.H.I.E.L.D. strike agents Coulson had stationed around the perimeter opened fire. Countless tongues of muzzle flashes lit up the dust. However, the armor-piercing rounds simply bounced off the divine metal, failing to cause even the slightest scratch to the Destroyer.
The molten light within the Destroyer's helmet flared—a crimson so bright it was blinding.
"Retreat! Retreat!!" Coulson's shouts echoed frantically over the gunfire.
FWOOSH!
A continuous, devastating beam of pure disintegration energy shot out from the helmet. As the Destroyer slowly turned its head, the beam swept across the ruins.
Coulson, who had sprinted for cover, poked his head out from behind a shattered concrete wall. The S.H.I.E.L.D. agents who had been bravely fighting back just moments ago had been instantly vaporized, leaving nothing but scorched, smoking shadows on the pavement.
The devastation in Coulson's eyes was beyond words. However, his cold, tactical reasoning told him that rushing out with a handgun would be entirely futile.
The only hope left to resolve this apocalypse was the little pink pig currently cowering behind his legs.
"Why are you looking at me like that, Baldy Uncle?" Hawk squeaked, shrinking back.
Coulson didn't reply. He scooped Hawk up like a football and began sprinting desperately toward the rear fallback vehicles. Having Hawk pick up Mjolnir again was his absolute last resort.
"Waaaaah!! Put me down!!" Hawk shrieked, his pink pig body bouncing and shaking incessantly under Coulson's arm. "I can run by myself!"
The erratic sprinting, diving, and dodging through the rubble almost made Hawk vomit his breakfast on the spot.
Hearing Hawk's desperate pleas, Coulson immediately let him drop.
"Follow me!" Coulson yelled over the explosions. "I'll take you back to the hammer!"
As soon as Hawk's hooves hit the ground, his beady eyes lit up. He began to sprint on all fours with surprising speed.
'Get the hammer?!' Hawk thought happily. 'I can play with the tingley lightning again!'
In the empty, smoking wasteland of the town, the sight of a man in a suit and a pink pig sprinting away was quite conspicuous.
Sitting on the throne of Asgard, Loki—observing the battlefield through the Destroyer's sensors—couldn't help but grit his teeth when he spotted the livestock.
"Die, you stupid pig!" Loki hissed.
The humiliating memory of being electrocuted and defeated by a farm animal surfaced in his mind. The Destroyer's destructive rampage suddenly stopped. Its massive, glowing faceplate locked directly onto Hawk's fleeing form, and a concentrated laser beam blasted out.
Hawk, who was still happily fantasizing about playing with Mjolnir, suddenly froze as the searing heat enveloped him.
ZAP!
A horrifying aroma of roasted pork instantly wafted into Coulson's nostrils. He stopped running, his blood running cold, and turned his head to look back.
Hawk's previously tender pink body was now completely charred, smoking black from head to hoof.
"It... it hurts so much," Hawk whimpered, collapsing into the ash. "Meliodas! Come save me..."
Seeing that the pig wasn't dead yet—and somehow possessed enough absurd durability to still speak after taking a direct hit from a divine weapon—Coulson hurried back and scooped the smoking animal up.
Just as he turned to flee with Hawk in his arms, the Destroyer's visor flared again. A second, much larger disintegration beam fired, following closely behind them.
Holding Hawk tight, Coulson closed his eyes and accepted his death.
However, a moment later, no searing pain came.
Coulson slowly opened his eyes. The first thing he saw wasn't the towering Destroyer armor.
It was the back of a short, blonde-haired young boy standing casually in front of him, one hand resting on the hilt of a broken sword strapped to his back.
"Yo! Hello," the boy said cheerfully, glancing back over his shoulder with bright green eyes. "Take care of Hawk for me, will ya?"
Before Coulson could even process the boy's appearance, the blonde figure vanished in a blur of impossible speed.
BOOM!
A massive cloud of thick dust erupted directly in front of Coulson. When the shockwave cleared, the invincible, ten-foot-tall Destroyer armor was lying flat on its back in the dirt, a massive dent caved into its chest plates, utterly unable to get up.
Meanwhile, Meliodas was floating quietly in mid-air, his hands casually tucked behind his head.
"Honestly, where the heck has Hawk called me to this time?" Meliodas muttered, sniffing the air. "The atmosphere is so murky, and there's absolutely no sign of any Magic Power around."
After casually knocking down Asgard's ultimate weapon with a single physical strike, the Dragon Sin of Wrath didn't even give the armor a second glance. The surrounding environment made him feel a bit uncomfortable.
It wasn't until he looked up and sensed the strange, cosmic barrier separating this realm from his own that he finally understood.
It seemed his favorite talking pig had accidentally summoned him to an entirely new world.
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