The center of the halo was not the starry sky, nor any known location, but a void devoid of all matter and energy.
There was no color in the void, no temperature, no distinction between up, down, left, or right—only a hollow sensation that made one dizzy, like looking down from the edge of an abyss.
Loren stepped into the halo.
Hela did not hesitate. She followed behind Loren and entered that void.
When her foot landed in the void, she felt something hard beneath it.
It was not the ground. Space itself had been compressed into something solid.
She could walk, run, and jump, yet there was nothing beneath her feet—only a supporting force existing on the level of space itself, unlike anything she had ever experienced.
She looked around.
The void was infinite, with no boundaries, no up or down, and no points of reference.
Only she and Loren stood face-to-face in a pure white nothingness.
"Where is this?" Hela asked.
"A pocket dimension I created," Loren said.
"It exists in no dimension, no timeline, and no known universe.
Only my will can sustain its existence. Here, there are no rules, no restrictions, no laws—only my will."
Hela's green eyes lit up.
"No rules?"
"None."
Hela smiled.
This time, her smile was not cold or mocking. It was genuine excitement from the bottom of her heart for the battle to come.
Her body began to change amid her laughter, not because she was transforming, but because she could finally unleash without restraint the power she had accumulated in Hel for thousands of years.
Her armor dissolved in black energy, was reforged, dissolved again, and reforged once more, becoming a harder new form with dark crimson patterns flowing across its surface.
Her long hair drifted in the energy field,