Her movements didn't seem fast; every step was as elegant as a dance, but with each stride, the ice beneath her feet melted into a boiling lake.
With every swing of her sword, Burning cracks were left in the space along the blade's trajectory.
Wherever she passed, Frost Giants fell like stalks of wheat; those closest were even vaporized instantly by the high temperature.
"Stop her!" The Frost Giant leader charged personally, his battle-axe carrying a bone-chilling cold current as it slashed toward Marvica Odinson's neck.
Marvica didn't look back; she swung her sword behind her, and sun-blaze thousand suns collided with the frost battle-axe.
There was no sound of metal clashing, only the hiss of flames devouring ice and snow.
The Frost Giant leader's axe blade began to Melt the moment it touched the sword's edge, and the Frozen runes on the axe handle extinguished one by one.
He watched in horror as the golden-red flames spread along the battle-axe to his arm; everywhere they passed, the innate ice of the Frost Giant seemed like a joke.
"Aaaaah—"
The Frost Giant leader screamed; in just one encounter, he had already lost the strength to struggle.
With a gentle push from Marvica, the Frost Giant leader flew backward along with his axe, crashing through three ice walls before stopping.
He struggled to climb up, only to find his right arm charred and carbonized, his frost lineage completely incinerated.
Meanwhile, Marvica had already moved far away; she was like a slowly moving Sun, plowing a Burning trench through the Frost Giant's military formation.
Frost beasts tried to block her—hill-sized Icefield Mammoths and building-tall Frost-Fang Sabretooths—but as they drew within a hundred meters of her, they began to wail, Melt, and collapse.
A Frost Dragon dove down from the clouds, opening its maw to spit out a dragon breath capable of freezing rivers.
Marvica looked up, her left hand making a grasping motion toward the dragon breath.
A pillar of fire soared into the sky, colliding with the dragon breath and whipping up a hurricane-like Impact.
The two were at a stalemate for a moment, but then the fire pillar dispersed the Frost Dragon breath, roaring as it completely engulfed the Frost Dragon in the air.
The Frost Dragon wailed, falling from the sky while its entire body burned with flames.
"Is this the sun goddess of Asgard... She is simply a walking natural disaster..."
Surviving Frost Giant warriors began to retreat, fear spreading like a plague.
On the other side of the battlefield, another kind of fear was harvesting lives.
It was a dark green meteor of death.
Hela's landing was much more violent than Marvica's.
She smashed directly into the ice like a cannonball, the Impact knocking thirty surrounding Frost Giants into the sky.
When she stood up from the crater, mjolnir was already resting on her shoulder, the lightning arcs swirling around the hammerhead turning the falling snowflakes into ash in mid-air.
"Time to warm up!" Hela grinned, revealing forest-white teeth.
She didn't have Marvica's wide-range flames, but her killing was more direct and more efficient.
With the first swing, mjolnir traced a simple arc; lightning surged from the hammerhead, sparks flying in all directions.
The Frost Giants who took the hit head-on didn't even have time to scream before they, along with their armor, weapons, and ice shields, were turned into splashing ice shards.
And this was only the beginning.
Hela held mjolnir high above her head, the hammerhead pointing toward the sky.
"Rumble—!!!"
Thunder roared, dark clouds were torn apart, and hundreds of lightning bolts poured down like a rainstorm, each one precisely hitting a Frost Giant.
The struck giants collapsed trembling; almost none were left standing.
At the same time, Hela's empty left hand made a grasping motion.
Death Divine Power surged from her palm, condensing in the air into several black swords. These were not the translucent energy bodies from their previous sparring, but materialized creations of death with blades flashing with sharp light.
"Go."
The black swords scattered as if they had lives of their own, each one locking onto a target.
They ignored physical defense, penetrating ice armor and bypassing shields to pierce the vital points of the Frost Giants from the most tricky angles.
Some giants had their hearts pierced, with the heart withering the moment it jumped out of the chest; some giants had their heads sliced off, with no blood at the severed neck, only black ash gushing out.
Some giants tried to block, but the black swords suddenly vaporized, slipped through the gaps in the armor, and tore them apart from the inside.
Hela herself strolled through the military formation, carrying mjolnir.
Her pace seemed leisurely, but every step landed on the rhythmic point of the battlefield.
Whenever a giant summoned the courage to charge, she would casually swing the hammer, smashing both the person and their weapon deep into the ice layer.
Whenever a frost mage tried to launch a sneak attack, a black sword would stab out from the Shadow, cutting off their casting gestures.
Her fighting style was completely different from Marvica's. Marvica was purification, Burning, and transforming all cold into warmth; Hela was harvesting, termination, and returning all life to death.
A frost beast charged at Hela, its every step making the ice field tremble, kicking up ice waves as its giant claws swiped down.
Hela looked up at the sky-blotting giant claw and smiled cruelly.
She advanced instead of retreating, leaping toward the giant claw. mjolnir spun in her hand, the hammerhead absorbing a massive and terrifying amount of kinetic energy during the rotation.
"Boom—!!"
Hammer and claw collided.
Starting from the point of contact, the beast's giant claw—flesh, bone, and ice armor—disintegrated layer by layer, blood splattering everywhere.
Then Hela jumped onto its head, placing one hand gently atop it as the black Death Divine Power instantly spread and coiled upward.
Disintegration spread like a plague: arm, shoulder, torso...
Ten seconds later, that beast no longer existed; only a patch of drifting black ash proved it had ever lived.
Hela landed, stepping into the center of the black ash.
She shook mjolnir, and the blood and ice shards on the hammerhead vanished completely, leaving no trace.
She looked toward the Royal Court, where a pillar of blue light soared into the sky—a sign that the casket of ancient winters had been fully activated.
"Are you finally willing to take the field yourself, Laufey?" A flame of excitement ignited in Hela's eyes. "Let me see if the so-called King of Frost is worthy of dying under my hammer."
On the bow of the flagship, Odin looked down over the entire battlefield.
His gaze was like the most precise magic instrument, observing all the critical nodes of the battle simultaneously.
He saw Marvica's flame domain steadily advancing, with Frost Giants fleeing in panic wherever she passed.
He saw Hela's death harvest was efficient and cold, with anything attempting to block her path turning to ash.
He saw the warriors of Asgard following in the footsteps of the two princesses, like a golden tide submerging the ice field.
Odin did not choose to act.
It wasn't that he couldn't, but that it wasn't necessary.
This was a stage belonging to his daughters, a moment for them to prove the power of Asgard's new generation to the Nine Realms.
And their performance had exceeded his most optimistic expectations.
"Your Majesty." Brynhildr stood by his side, the Valkyrie leader's face full of shock.
"The growth of the two Highnesses is truly too fast; even the Frost Giants are completely no match for them..."
The corners of Odin's mouth rose slightly: "They will surpass me. This is my greatest pride, and also Asgard's greatest fortune."
Just then, the blue light pillar in the direction of the Royal Court suddenly expanded.