"But it's a pity, the Nine Realms you conquered, including Asgard, will soon belong to us Dark Elves!"
Odin shattered Malekith's crimson storm with a strike of his spear and snorted coldly, "Pure delusion!"
"Hahaha!" Malekith laughed, channeling more Aether Particle within him, as the crimson energy coalesced into a sky-obscuring storm that swept toward Odin.
Inside the Golden Palace, an even more brutal battle had already begun again.
On Hela's side, she was fighting two opponents at once, wielding mjolnir into a dark green storm, with Death Divine Power thunder exploding wildly throughout the corridor.
But the two Cursed Warriors coordinated flawlessly; one would take her heavy blows head-on, while the other seized the opportunity to attack her openings.
When she tried to take one down first, the other would force her to retreat with a near-suicidal attack.
Even more troublesome was that they seemed completely incapable of feeling pain.
Hela smashed one of their shoulder armors with a hammer blow, revealing the charred bone beneath, but the Cursed Warrior's movements didn't falter in the slightest; instead, it used its injured arm to grab the handle of mjolnir directly.
"Get off!" Hela roared, her Death Divine Power erupting and blasting the opponent back, but the other's fist was already slamming toward her back.
She barely dodged to the side, but the fist grazed her ribs, shattering her armor and tearing her skin; before the blood could even flow, it was corroded black by the cursed energy.
The situation on Mavuika's side was even worse.
The siege of three Cursed Warriors left her with almost no room to breathe.
While the Eternal Flame could suppress their dark energy, the opponents didn't give the flames any chance to spread; once the flames touched them, the tainted Cursed Warrior would immediately retreat, while the other two attacked twice as hard, forcing Mavuika to retract her flame defense.
They fought like Beasts that knew neither pain nor fatigue, yet they still retained sharp combat skills.
The Cursed Warrior in front held a giant axe condensed from dark energy with both hands, each swing carrying the power to tear through space.
The one on the left extended sharp bone blades from its hands, attacking from tricky and vicious angles.
The one on the right completely abandoned defense, slamming into Mavuika's flame barrier again and again like a battering ram.
sun-blaze thousand suns danced rapidly in Mavuika's hands; the blade collided with the giant axe, clashed with the bone blades, and scraped against the armor, sending sparks flying everywhere.
Her footwork remained agile, allowing her to perform short-distance flight and evasion within the limited space.
Even so, she could still feel the pressure constantly increasing.
These Cursed Warriors were truly the aces of the Dark Elves, exceptionally powerful.
If it were any other Asgardian warrior here, they would likely have been defeated by now.
Due to a momentary lapse in coordination, the Cursed Warrior on the right shattered the flame shield Mavuika had hastily erected, and the bone blade thrust toward her throat.
Mavuika tilted her head to dodge, and sun-blaze thousand suns slashed back, severing one of the opponent's arms.
But in that instant, the Cursed Warrior on the left seized the opportunity, and the bone blade sliced across her left shoulder, deep enough to see the bone, causing golden-red divine blood to spray out.
Almost simultaneously, a muffled groan came from Hela's side.
In order to relieve the pressure on Mavuika, she had taken a heavy punch from the Cursed Warrior in front, leaving her chest armor dented and blood spilling from the corner of her mouth.
The sisters stood back-to-back, breathing heavily, their bodies covered in wounds.
The five Cursed Warriors surrounded them in the center, their crimson eyes like five ominous lanterns in the dim corridor.
They did not attack immediately, but were adjusting their positions, making their energy connection tighter, while the dark aura climbed step by step.
Mavuika quickly scanned the battlefield; the corridor had been completely reduced to ruins, the walls on both sides had collapsed entirely, revealing more rooms and passages behind, but sounds of battle were coming from those places as well.
Clearly, the Dark Elves' airborne troops were wreaking havoc throughout the Golden Palace, and there would be no reinforcements in the short term.
And their situation was very dire.
The fatigue brought on by continuous fighting began to show.
From the high-intensity battle in Muspelheim, to the absorption and fusion of the Eternal Flame, and then returning to Asgard to immediately face the Dark Elves' surprise attack, both sisters' divine power and stamina were nearing their limits.
Hela's Death Divine Power was bottoming out, and Mavuika's stamina was also being rapidly depleted.
"This won't work; we must find an opportunity to end this quickly!" Mavuika said in a deep voice.
Hela wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth, nodded, a trace of determination flashing in her eyes.
She suddenly threw mjolnir, and countless bolts of thunder erupted from the hammer, pouring down onto all the Cursed Warriors like a violent storm, temporarily restricting their movements.
At the same time, the Death Divine Power within her erupted without reservation, condensing five giant black swords tens of feet high around her, which slashed fiercely toward the Cursed Warriors.
Mavuika understood, and the flame divine power within her also erupted with full force, the flames enveloping the giant swords Hela had condensed, making their lethality even greater.
The two's divine powers became intertwined in this combined attack.
However, just as their divine powers were intertwining and merging, an accident occurred.
Mavuika was surprised to discover that the dormant, warm golden Reverie Rule suddenly awakened the moment it touched Hela's pure and dense Death Divine Power.
The warm golden light shone from Mavuika's chest, quickly suffusing her entire body.
At the same time, the three forces within her—the golden Asgardian Divine Power, the fire god origin from Natlan, and the white-gold flames of the Eternal Flame...
The moment the Reverie Rule awakened, they actually began to spin, collide, and then fuse uncontrollably!
This was not a simple stacking of power, but... a sublimation of essence.
The Asgardian Divine Power provided the framework of "order," the fire god origin provided the vitality of "change," and the Eternal Flame provided the cornerstone of "Eternity."
When the three forces were completely integrated, Mavuika opened her eyes.
Her eyes flickered with the light of flames, like two Burning stars.
At that moment, the entire Golden Palace, no, the entire Asgard, everyone still alive felt it.
Mavuika slowly landed, her appearance having undergone a subtle change.
Her fiery red long hair had changed into a strange color flowing with a golden-red-white halo, each strand seeming to contain a tiny Sun within it.
Her amber eyes were brighter, and the Sun-shaped pupils now seemed to have turned into real Suns; wherever her gaze fell, even the shadows became warm.
Her battle armor had disappeared, replaced by a simple white-gold robe woven from light, the hem of which moved without wind, shedding tiny sparks.
"Hela..." Mavuika spoke, her voice calm and majestic: "Step back."
Hela subconsciously stepped back.
Mavuika looked at the five Cursed Warriors, raised her right hand, and gently pointed her index finger.