The Talisman (4,800 extra)

The Golden Oak Kingdom.

The newspapers reported the tragedy that had unfolded in the Pandora Empire in bold, eye-catching print.

The disaster-stricken scene sent chills down the spine of everyone who saw it.

As for middle-class and wealthier families, they sat by their radios, listening to lectures on atomic energy with faces dark as water.

Never before had war frightened them so much.

In the past, hundreds of thousands of soldiers and over a million civilians killed or wounded would have counted as World War-level casualties.

But now, it was merely the prelude to a civil war in the Pandora Empire.

With just one Sword of Thor, an army of hundreds of thousands and everything within a radius of several thousand meters could be wiped off the face of the earth without hesitation.

The resulting social panic had left both the Golden Oak Kingdom and the Bauhinia Federation scrambling to deal with the fallout.

Though they had never heard the term "nuclear intimidation," the people of both countries now found themselves under the very real threat of the Sword of Thor.

Left with no choice, they had to announce that they possessed weapons as powerful as the Sword of Thor. Led by scientists from both countries, they planned to invite the Pandora Empire and the Free Alliance Army to sign a peace treaty.

They couldn't help it; the events in Pandora had terrified them too. The leaders on both sides had acted like madmen, nearly tossing the Sword of Thor around like a toy.

The consequences of abusing such a weapon were well understood not only by Pandora's scientists, but by them as well.

But the two opposing sides, now gripped by mutual fury and suspicion, wouldn't listen to a word of reason. The Sword of Thor strikes they had