Loki stumbled through the haze of dust and smoke, clutching his side. His breath came in shallow gasps, each one shuddering with effort. Blood had soaked through the thin fabric of his robes, and when he looked down at his hands, he saw that his skin what was left of it was turning gray.
Dead gray clearly it was being corrupted.
The veins beneath were black, spidering up his arms like cracks in porcelain. The magic… it was rotting him.
"Morpheus," he spat, voice raw. "His magic… it's still inside me."
He staggered back beside Helga, panting hard. "You need to heal me. Now."
Helga didn't speak right away. Her wand was trembling in her hand, her silver mask cracked at the edge from a deflected curse. She looked at him and her face said everything before her words did.
"I can't," she whispered.
"What?"
"I said I can't, Loki." She turned toward him, fierce in the dimming light. "It's not poison. It's not a curse you can lift. That's Morpheus's magic it roots itself into your magic. It consumes you, to effect you to such a degree he must've used a lot of energy."
Loki stared at her. "So that's it?"
"I'm sorry."
He clenched his jaw, shoving past her. "No. I'm not going to die like this."
The battlefield rang with distant screams, the clang of steel on steel, and the shrieks of magical creatures dying by the hundreds. In the eye of this chaos, Loki summoned every drop of strength he had left. He pushed through the pain, the rot, the curse eating him alive.
Ten versions of him burst out in all directions. Dozens of illusions scattering, some limping, some crackling with barely-held spells. A cloak of confusion. One last trick.
And the real Loki, hidden among them, ran straight at Morpheus.
Morpheus didn't blink. He turned to Herpo. "Now."
Herpo shook his staff and vanished in a swirl of black smoke then reappeared behind the real Loki in a flash. His basilisk fang dagger plunged forward but Loki twisted, deflecting the blade with his own shimmering knife. His copy illusions were collapsing as the real one surged forward, face twisted in pain and rage, blades in both hands.
"NOW!" Loki screamed, pushing through, blades swinging in wild arcs.
Morpheus sidestepped the first. Let the second slice catch his ribs.
Let it hurt.
Then he smiled, just slightly.
That was when Herpo struck.
He didn't lunge he flowed. His body mid-shift between man and serpent. A single motion. No wasted energy.
One hand caught Loki's arm. The other slid the basilisk fang up through his ribs and into his heart.
The scream that followed wasn't human.
Loki's eyes widened. He dropped the blades. His mouth opened, but no words came only a wheeze, and then silence. His illusions fizzled out one by one, like lights dying in fog.
Herpo stepped back, letting the body fall.
Helga stood frozen.
Her mask trembled. Her eyes didn't.
Morpheus lowered his hand. His ribs bled freely. "He fought well."
Herpo wiped the fang clean and turned toward her. "Brother, I'll kill her for you. I know it must hurt."
He moved toward her, casual, like she was already dead.
Helga raised her wand, but her stance was faltering. She was hurt. Badly. Her robes were scorched from curses, and her arm trembled with exhaustion. Still, she faced them.
Herpo stepped in—
Then the world exploded.
BOOM.
A blinding light tore through the battlefield, as if the gods themselves had struck the earth.
Morpheus was thrown backward, his body lifted clean off the ground.
Helga hit the sand hard, skidding with a scream as shards of glass and molten debris whipped through the air.
Herpo smashed into a stone pillar and cracked it down the middle.
The sky pulsed white, then red, then white again.
***
The air had changed.
The charge in it was almost unbearable now. The hairs on the necks of the living stood on end, and even the dead were restless, shifting where their bodies lay. All eyes turned toward the epicenter of the chaos toward Thor.
The once-god of thunder had grown.
Massive, monstrous, a grotesque silhouette of what he once was. Lightning rippled under skin that was no longer skin, cracking open in glowing seams across his arms, his chest, his face. Chunks of muscle tore open, only for blinding arcs of energy to spark in the gaps. His body wasn't bleeding it was breaking. Becoming something else.
Something unnatural.
He raised his hammer, now fused with his hand like an extension of his corrupted form, and bellowed to the sky. "I WILL NOT LOSE!"
All around him, the enemy army recoiled. Even angels and demons backed away, their pride giving way to instinct. Lightning lashed out from Thor's body in chaotic bursts, striking blindly, turning demons to ash, melting metal from angelic armor. Even the hardened Valkyries hesitated, wings trembling midair.
Anubis landed beside Khufu, eyes fixed on the horror unfolding before them.
"He's going to blow," Anubis said, his voice ragged, fangs bared.
Khufu didn't respond at first. His hands flexed at his sides, brow furrowed in unreadable calculation. "We're out of time."
"Do you have a countermeasure?" Anubis asked, already preparing his staff.
Khufu shook his head slowly. "Not for this."
And then like an answer from the gods a red flare burst into the sky, crackling and pulsing like a heartbeat. All over the battlefield, commanders and lieutenants saw it.
Morpheus's signal.
Immediately, Khufu raised both hands into the air and shouted, "Wards! Now!"
Every surviving commander echoed the call.
From the trenches, from the towers of conjured stone, from craters lined with ash and ruin wizards, witches, and magical beings slammed their palms into the sand, chanted incantations passed down through generations. Ancient symbols lit up around the base of the pyramid, previously hidden, now awakening. Runic formations sparked into glowing patterns. Pulses of invisible magic began to rise.
The anti-magic wards activated.
A hum filled the air. A low, deep vibration that made every tooth ache.
And then Thor screamed.
It was raw, primal, the howl of something being unmade. He clutched his head as the magic began draining from him, strips of lightning peeling away from his body, sucked downward into the burning sand. His massive form staggered.
"NO!" he roared. "NO! I WON'T LET THIS END HERE!"
He lurched forward, trying to move toward the pyramid, but the ground resisted. The wards were slowing him, pulling him down, sapping him. Even his hammer so long the source of his power was dimming.
Lightning danced up his arms, twisting like vines, trying to escape him. His flesh kept ripping, glowing cracks growing wider.
"I will win," he snarled. "I will… I will…"
The words dissolved into madness.
From the ridges beyond the field, Bjorn was shouting over the chaos, swinging his axe and conjuring stone ramparts to shield his men.
"Behind the walls!" he roared. "Conjure barriers! Use anything! Now!"
Ahmed sprinted between wounded soldiers, his hands glowing with healing light as he desperately sealed wounds, restored breath to broken lungs, and cried out spells to reinforce their minds.
"We don't have time!" someone shouted.
"Make it!" Ahmed barked.
Goblins disappeared into sand trenches, gripping enchanted blades, while centaur archers galloped in wide circles, firing volleys of enchanted arrows upward to intercept the few remaining demons who hadn't yet fled Thor's instability.
Back at the pyramid, Khufu stepped forward.
He looked up at Thor barely human in appearance now, a mass of light and rage. Then, without a word, Khufu turned back to the pyramid. He raised both arms.
The sands around the pyramid surged, rising like a tidal wave.
A wall of earth, rock, and gold sand transformed by ancient transfiguration wrapped itself around the pyramid in a protective dome, taller than any siege weapon. Khufu stood before it, arms spread wide like a man about to embrace an old friend.
He looked across the battlefield, toward the direction of Morpheus's flare.
"I'm sorry, my friends," he whispered, and a tired, gentle smile played across his face.
Thor's scream tore through the heavens.
The explosion wasn't fire. It wasn't magic. It was pure a rupture of raw energy that defied comprehension. The sky split open. The battlefield turned white.
Everything everything was engulfed.
Sand was vaporized. Stone turned to molten glass. Demons and angels alike vanished in the light. Even the sky seemed to recoil.
The sound hit a second later, a thunderclap so massive it broke bones and sent shockwaves through every creature still alive. The sand barrier around the pyramid cracked in a dozen places, then shattered. Chunks of molten rock rained down.
Inside, the pyramid stood scorched, cracked, the very foundation groaning.
The anchor at its center pulsed weakly. Not destroyed… but wounded.
All across the battlefield, nothing moved.
Thor was gone. And in his place a crater of glass and the stench of death.