Not So Friendly Anymore

Chapter 43: When Gods Bleed

(Hey everyone, I'm so sorry for making you all wait so long. But I've been busy between starting University and starting my first job, things have been hectic to say the least. Please forgive me for making you all wait 🥹🙏)

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The impact rang like a funeral bell.
Stone shattered beneath Peter's feet, spiderweb cracks racing across the balcony and down into the city streets below. The shockwave rippled outward, flattening banners, buckling shields, knocking Einherjar from the walls as gold and shadow collided inches from Peter's chest.

For a moment, the world existed only in pressure.

Gold against black.

Web against blade.

Will against hatred.

Peter gritted his teeth, both hands locked on the staff, muscles screaming as the Necrosword pressed closer, hungry, screaming, remembering. Faces flickered along its edge: gods begging, gods raging, gods breaking.

He twisted.

The staff flared, runes igniting in rapid sequence as Peter redirected the force sideways instead of back. The Necrosword skidded off in a screaming arc, carving a canyon through the marble battlements and exploding into the streets below in a plume of shadow and debris.

Thor did not waste the opening.

"NOW!"

Mjolnir struck Gorr square in the chest, lightning detonating outward in a blinding sphere of white-blue fury. The Butcher was hurled backward through the air, slamming into the invisible barrier of Asgard's inner wards with enough force to make the sky bend.

Odin followed immediately, Gungnir flashing as he hurled the spear.

The weapon became a line of sunlight, punching through Gorr's shoulder and pinning him to the warded firmament. Divine energy flared, searing shadow, forcing a scream from Gorr's throat for the first time.

Not pain.

Surprise.

Einherjar surged forward as one, war cries shaking the city. Arrows of light and spears of star-metal rained down, slamming into Gorr's position in a relentless barrage.

Susan pushed her power further, her shields expanding into layered lattices that wrapped the battlefield, stabilizing collapsing structures, reinforcing warriors mid-charge, and catching falling debris to hurl it back as weapons.

Sable moved like death given form, darting through the chaos, firing point-blank into shadow-things clawing free from the rift, her enchanted rounds detonating inside them, turning them inside out in flashes of silver light.

For a heartbeat,

It worked.

Gorr hung pinned, battered, shadow boiling around him as the Necrosword writhed violently, screaming in fury.

Then Gorr laughed.

Low. Quiet. Almost fond.

"You still fight like heroes," he said, lifting his head despite Gungnir through his flesh.

Not outward.

Inward.

The shadows around Gorr collapsed into him, compressing, folding, feeding. The spear of Odin shattered with a sound like breaking suns, fragments dissolving before they hit the ground.

Gorr stepped free.

The wounds vanished.

The laughter stopped.