A crack in her defenses, a mortal moving the pieces for a god
A strong, metallic taste of blood churned in his throat; each breath felt like swallowing shards of glass. Lynn slumped onto the rough Obsidian floor, blood still seeping from the wound on his neck where his fingernails had pierced it. He ignored it, simply raising the back of his hand to casually wipe his mouth, a cold smile creeping across his face.
Outside the palace, the sound of war drums rolled in like muffled thunder, shaking the shattered bones on the ground.
The blinding golden light tore through the perpetual gray gloom of the Underworld.
"The vanguard of Asgard." Lynn spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva and looked up at Hela, who was standing at the edge of the hall.
Hela's face was terrifyingly grim. Bathed in golden light, the Asgard Legion resembled a drawn sword. In the front ranks, heavily armored infantry wielding massive Uru Metal shields marched in perfect unison, their shields linked together to form an indestructible wall of steel. Behind them, the staffs of Rune gleamed with destructive energy. On the flanks, rangers riding Pegasus let out high-pitched neighs, their wings whipping up gusts of wind.
On the other hand, in the Underworld, the undead berserkers, bathed in holy golden light, let out painful howls and instinctively retreated, their already loose formation instantly turning into chaos.
"Odin's lackey." Hela gritted her teeth, her five fingers clenching into a fist, and the Night Sky Sword rapidly condensed in her palm. A terrifying Death Force erupted from her body, and the savagery in her eyes boiled, preparing her to charge into the enemy ranks alone, just as she had done for thousands of years before, and tear everything apart with the most primal violence.
"Are you going to your death again?" Lynn's hoarse voice suddenly rang out in the empty hall.
Hela stopped in her tracks, whirled around, and glared at him. "Shut up! You ant! You think I can't kill them all?"
Lynn propped himself up on one knee, swaying as he stood up. He tugged at the chain around his neck, producing a crisp metallic clang. "You can kill a hundred, a thousand. But most of your divine power is sealed. Once you've exhausted your strength and killed off this vanguard, what will you use to fight when Odin's main force arrives? Will you use your head to ram the Gungnir?"
He met Hela's cannibalistic gaze and said, enunciating each word clearly, "Give me command. I'll show you what it means to kill without a knife."
Hela narrowed her long, narrow eyes, scrutinizing this mortal who could barely stand. In the past, anyone who dared to make such a request to her would have been reduced to a human stump long ago. But Lynn's soul-searching analysis just now was like a poisoned thorn, deeply embedded in her most vulnerable spot.
"You?" Hela sneered, but her sword-wielding hand unexpectedly dropped. "If my army is wiped out, I'll cut off pieces of your flesh and feed them to the Ghoul."
She raised her hand, and a ball of eerie green Underworld Fire danced in her palm before slamming it into Lynn's chest.
This is not an attack, but the absolute control of the Underworld army.
Lynn felt the cold, Underworld Fire burning in his chest, a barely perceptible smile playing on his lips. He knew Hela had given in. Once this arrogant Deity began to rely on his mind, she could never leave him. The most lethal weapon against Yandere wasn't submission, but rather demonstrating the irreplaceable value she lacked.
Lynn closed his eyes, and a vast stream of information rapidly constructed the battlefield terrain in his mind. In front of the hall was an open area, but to the left was a Death Marsh shrouded in poisonous miasma all year round, and to the right was a steep Obsidian cliff.
He suddenly opened his eyes, a flash of extreme rationality and violence crossing his gaze.
"Ghoul, all retreat to the left edge of the swamp and feign defeat." Lynn coldly issued the first command through the Mind Link.
The Ghoul Legion outside immediately let out a chaotic roar, dropped their rusty weapons, and scrambled away towards the swamp.
Upon seeing this, the Asgard Pegasus Rangers immediately sounded their pursuit horns, broke away from the main force's cover, and swooped down from the flank.
"Fool." Lynn scoffed.
"Berserker, infiltrate underground and circle around to the right side of the cliff."
"Shield formation, keep advancing!" The Asgard commander raised his longsword. The heavy footsteps shook the ground. Seeing the enemy in front of them fleeing, they immediately increased their pace, trying to flatten the palace in one fell swoop.
However, as they stepped into the open space in front of the main hall, the Obsidian floor beneath their feet suddenly cracked under the weight. Lynn had already anticipated that this terrain was riddled with holes due to the erosion of the Underworld Energy.
"Detonate the underground Underworld Energy."
Boom!
The heavy Uru Metal shield formation instantly lost its footing, and hundreds of heavily armored infantrymen in the front ranks screamed as they sank into the bottomless cracks. The seemingly indestructible steel wall crumbled instantly.
At the same time, the Pegasus Rangers, chasing the Ghoul, charged into the skies above the Death Marsh.
Lynn stood on the steps and snapped his the Snap crisply, "Drag those rotting corpses from the swamp down here."
Tens of thousands of rotting arms suddenly emerged from the swamp's mud, gripping the Pegasus's legs tightly. The high-ranking rangers plunged into the poisonous miasma like dumplings being dropped into boiling water, swallowed up by the toxic mud before they could even utter a scream.
"Back row mages, prepare to bombard!" The Asgard commander roared desperately, his eyes bloodshot.
But before the mages could even raise their staffs, hundreds upon hundreds of undead berserkers pounced out from the shadows of the cliff on their right, like mad dogs. They didn't attack the mages, but instead lunged at their fragile bodies, tearing at them with their fangs.
The crisp cracking of bones breaking mingled with piercing screams, and blood flowed through the cracks in the Obsidian, the heavy stench of blood completely masking the original putrid smell.
Carnage.
A one-sided Carnage with no suspense whatsoever.
The commander's tactical prowess, which he was so proud of, was utterly shattered by Lynn's unconventional and ruthless fighting style. He desperately swung his longsword, but couldn't even touch the enemy, and was eventually tackled to the ground by several berserkers.
In less than half an hourglass's time, the once invincible Asgard Vanguard was completely annihilated by Lynn's series of traps and exploitation of the terrain.
There was no clash of divine power, no earth-shattering magical collisions. Only the purest tactical crushing and psychological calculation.
Lynn stood on the steps of the main hall, the night wind ruffling his blood-stained robes. He looked down at the battlefield below, littered with severed limbs, his gaze as indifferent as if he were watching a dull drama.
"This is the elite force you were talking about?" Lynn turned his head to look at Hela beside him. "A bunch of idiots who can't even read the terrain."
Hela was stunned.
She stared at the battlefield below, which had been captured with almost no casualties, her mind reeling.
She was used to crushing everything with sheer force, used to braving enemy fire head-on. She had never imagined that war could be fought like this. This mortal, who didn't even possess magic, was manipulating Asgard's elite like puppets!
Hela slowly turned her head and looked at Lynn.
That pale, blood-stained profile now held a fatal attraction in her eyes. He was clearly so weak that he couldn't even block one of her fingers, yet his composure in controlling the situation was more dazzling than any Deity.
Hela's breathing quickened. She looked at Lynn, at the bloody mark on his neck that she had pinched herself. Suddenly, the chain around his neck seemed so glaring. This man shouldn't be chained to the ground like a pet; he should stand at the highest point, looking down on these ants with her.
An unprecedented, morbid fanaticism ignited in Hela's eyes.
For the first time, she witnessed the terror of intellectual superiority, a terror that terrified and excited her even more than mere slaughter. Her fingers trembled slightly, and an extremely twisted possessiveness grew wildly in her heart like weeds.
Real World. New Mexico.
The rain poured down, and the wind tore at the makeshift tactical tents.
Coulson stood in front of the monitor screen, his brows furrowed in a deep frown. All the electronic equipment around the Meteorite Crater was paralyzed. The Ghost-Spider hanging upside down in the shadows was like an unstoppable assassin in the dark, keeping S.H.I.E.L.D..'s elite agents at bay. Anyone who dared to cross the line would be instantly stunned by high-voltage Bioelectricity.
Just then, a piercing sound of metal breaking came from the outskirts of the camp.
"Sir! Someone has broken into the quarantine zone!" came the agent's terrified shout over the Communicator.
Coulson abruptly looked up at the window.
In the rain, a Blond Man, muscular man, not even wearing a raincoat, braved the strong winds that could blow a person away, and with his bare hands, he tore a large hole in the barbed wire mesh woven from special steel.
"Fire! Stop him!" Coulson yelled, grabbing the walkie-talkie.
Bang bang bang!
A barrage of gunfire rang out in the torrential rain. But the bullets struck the Blond Man as if hitting a thick steel plate, splashing water but doing nothing to stop his advance.
The burly man's eyes were fixed on Mjolnir in the center of the Meteorite Crater, ignoring all the gun barrels around him, and he strode forward through the mud.