An ant who stared a god in the eye, Lynn's arrogant counterattack

"Raise your head and tell me, what makes you think you can look me in the eye?"

Hela's voice wasn't loud, but it carried an extreme chill that could freeze the soul. The sound scraped directly into the brain through the eardrums, Lynn, the body of a low-ranking Asgard soldier, instinctively began to tremble.

The surrounding air seemed to be sucked out instantly. Lynn felt a sudden weight on his shoulders, an invisible pressure slamming into his back like falling rocks.

"Click... click click..."

His kneecaps cracked under the strain, and his calf muscles spasmed violently from extreme tension. Under the gaze of Universal-level Deity, every cell in this mortal body screamed for him to kneel and submit.

Lynn clenched his teeth, his mouth filled with the strong taste of blood. He resisted the urge to kneel, his boots leaving two deep footprints in the muddy, bloody water.

Instead of kneeling, he straightened his back little by little, extremely slowly.

Lynn lifted her eyelids. What came into view were Hela's dark eyes, devoid of any warmth, and the undisguised contempt on the corner of her mouth.

"Why should I?" Lynn's lips twitched, and the wound on his cheek, recently severed by sword energy, instantly reopened. Warm blood dripped down his chin, landing on his tattered leather armor. "Because I'm still standing."

He raised his hand, casually wiping the blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand, his gaze fixed on Hela's face like a nail. "And these lackeys that Odin was so proud of, now lie at my feet like mud."

Hela's narrow eyes narrowed slightly.

The thousands of Night Sky Sword suspended in mid-air emitted a deep hum, their tips simultaneously turning and locking onto Lynn. With a single thought, this reckless mortal would be turned into mincemeat.

But she didn't act immediately.

For thousands of years, she had seen countless people weep before her, and Deity grovel before her sword. But never had a lowly soldier without even a wield of magic dared to look at her with such scrutiny, even a hint of provocation.

"A mere insect that managed to survive being trampled to death actually thinks standing is an honor?" Hela sneered, stepping barefoot on the Valkyries's corpse as she slowly descended from the top of the mountain of corpses.

With each step she took, the blood on the ground automatically spread out to both sides.

"Your ignorance makes you look ridiculous, mortal." Hela stopped less than three steps away from Lynn, looking down at him condescendingly. "You have no idea who's standing in front of you."

"I know." Lynn met her gaze without flinching, his voice unusually jarring in the deathly silence of the battlefield, "Hela, the First Princess of Asgard, Executioner of the Nine Realms, Hela."

He paused, the sarcasm in his eyes growing even stronger. "Just another pathetic wretch used as a tool by his own father, someone he'd discarded like trash after he was done with him."

"Boom--!"

The moment those words were spoken, the Magnetic Field of the entire battlefield went completely out of control.

Dark red Thunder exploded violently within the thick, dark clouds. The severed limbs on the ground were instantly shredded into powder by the raging death currents, and a cloud of blood mist enveloped the two figures.

The mockery in Hela's eyes vanished, replaced by a terrifying killing intent capable of destroying the world.

"You're asking for it."

Hela raised her right hand, and a jet-black Night Sky Sword materialized out of thin air. The tip of the sword, like a venomous snake's tongue, pressed directly against Lynn's throat. The sharp blade easily sliced through the skin, and a trickle of blood meandered down the black blade.

Hela gripped the sword Hela, her hands bulging with veins from extreme rage.

Lynn's Adam's apple bobbed as his throat pressed against the cold blade. If he leaned forward even half an inch, his trachea would be severed.

But he didn't even blink.

"Did you hit a nerve?" Lynn's breathing became heavy due to the extreme pressure on his body, but his eyes shone with an astonishing brightness, revealing a fanaticism even more frenzied than Hela's.

Instead of dodging, he took a half-step forward.

"Laugh--"

The sword tip pierced the flesh even deeper, and the speed at which blood gushed out instantly accelerated.

Hela's pupils contracted sharply. She instinctively stopped what she was doing, her fingers tightening slightly around the sword. This madman!

"The gods of Asgard are nothing but a bunch of bandits in golden armor!" Lynn, with the blade pressed against his throat, stared intently into Hela's eyes, his voice hoarse yet each word piercing the heart, "Slaughter is slaughter, plunder is plunder! That old bastard Odin, your hands are stained with the blood of the Nine Realms, you climbed to your Throne over the corpses of countless beings!"

Lynn let out a cold laugh, his laughter filled with undisguised contempt. "Now he's old, scared, and wants to wash the blood off his hands to become some kind of benevolent god-king? He packages Asgard as a messenger of peace, but treats you, his greatest contributor, as something filthy and unseen, trying to lock you away forever in a dark Abyss!"

Hela's breathing stopped.

Every word Lynn uttered was like the sharpest boning knife, precisely stabbing into the deepest scars of her soul and then violently stirring them.

This was the deepest hatred in her heart, the most extreme resentment she harbored towards Odin and the entire Asgard. For thousands of years, no one dared to mention this matter in front of her, let alone dare to expose Odin's hypocrisy in such a way that it tore away the veil of pretense.

"What do you know..." Hela's voice was squeezed out from between her teeth, with a slight, almost imperceptible tremor.

"I know you deserve that Throne more than that hypocrite!" Lynn suddenly raised his voice, his roar echoing across the empty ruins.

He raised his hand and grabbed the Night Sky Sword pressed against his throat.

The sharp blade instantly sliced through his palm, and blood dripped from between his fingers onto the mud.

Lynn seemed oblivious to the pain. He gripped the blade and forced the tip away from his throat, bit by bit. Staring at Hela's exquisitely beautiful face, slightly distorted by shock and rage, he spoke, each word deliberate and deliberate:

"Wherever your sword points, that is the land of Asgard. Only your purity, only your carnage, is worthy to rule these Nine Realms! And you..."

Lynn released his blood-stained hand and pointed his bloody fingertips directly at Hela's nose.

"You, the true king, are wasting your time here with a bunch of Valkyries? You've been driven mad by an old hypocrite with a few broken chains?"

Lynn's eyes revealed extreme contempt, a condescending attitude as if he were the supreme Deity, and Hela was just an ignorant child.

"Isn't this even more ridiculous than those useless people who died on the ground?"

Dead silence.

A deathly silence.

The wind stopped, and the thunder ceased. Only the faint sound of blood dripping from Lynn's hand onto the ground could be heard.

Hela stared intently at the mortal before her. In all her years of life, having conquered countless galaxies, she had never seen such an arrogant, reckless ant.

How dare he lecture her? How dare he point his finger at her and call her ridiculous?

But what chilled Hela even more was that this ant's words resonated with the madness deep within her soul. He not only showed no fear of her killings, but instead revered her brutality and regarded her as his only queen.

This unprecedented sense of belonging, intertwined violently with the anger of being provoked by ants, caused Hela's chest to heave violently.

"Arrogant insect..."

Hela suddenly chuckled softly. The laughter, initially suppressed, gradually grew into a wild, battlefield-wide roar. Her shoulders trembled as she laughed, and the Black Thorn Crown on her head emitted a chilling, eerie light with her movements.

"You've succeeded, mortal."

Hela abruptly stopped laughing. She casually dismissed the Night Sky Sword stained with Lynn's blood, her eyes filled with Death Energy that seemed almost palpable.

She looked at Lynn as if she were looking at a masterpiece of art, or as if she were looking at a toy about to be taken apart.

"You've successfully angered me, and you've successfully piqued my interest." Hela slowly raised her right hand, her pale fingertips lightly touching the air.

A pure, black, Death Force silently condensed at her fingertips. The surrounding space began to twist and collapse eerily because of the appearance of this power.

"I won't let you die so easily."

Hela's lips curled into a cruel smile as she approached Lynn step by step, her voice as soft as a lover's whisper, "I will infuse this divine power into your body. I will tear your soul apart, inch by inch, bit by bit, crushing your bones."

A sickly light gleamed in her dark eyes. "I want to see your arrogant bones shattered completely, I want to hear you utter the most beautiful wail in the Nine Realms beneath my feet."

The black, Death Energy at his fingertips, powerful enough to Oblivion a soul, carrying a chilling cold, pressed straight towards Lynn's heart.