Destroying the Mothership

The wind swirled dust among the ruins, and Ye Mo stood motionless. Blood was still dripping from his right fingertip, but the wound had stopped emitting heat. The Regeneration process had been quite exhausting, and his left leg was now numb, as if it had been electrocuted several times.

He looked up at the sky.

The mothership was still hovering there, a vast, dark mass, like a charred sheet of iron covering the city. It didn't move, nor did it fire, but Ye Mo knew it wasn't completely dead. His consciousness swept over it, and he could feel energy still pulsating inside, trembling like a heartbeat.

"It's still breathing." He relayed the message directly to Thor.

Thor stood beside the broken wall, Mjolnir slung over his shoulder. His recent barrage of blows had been fierce; his armor bore several scratches, and his face was covered in dust. But his eyes shone brightly. He stared at the mothership for two seconds, then muttered, "It has defiled the sky."

As soon as he finished speaking, he kicked off with both feet.

A ring of rubble exploded from the ground, and he was launched into the air. Mjolnir began to spin in his hand, creating a whistling sound. Using the hammer's gravity, he surged upwards at a speed that left afterimages.

Ye Mo stared at his retreating figure, mentally calculating the time. This kind of high-altitude raid couldn't drag on for too long. Thor had just finished a battle, and his stamina was definitely running low. Moreover, the mothership's hull was thick; if the first attack failed to breach its defenses, things would become difficult later on.

Halfway through his flight, Thor encountered turbulence around him. These were spatial rifts left from the earlier explosion, distorting the air. Several pieces of Chitauri wreckage floated in mid-air like floating blades. Instead of dodging, he accelerated forward.

Mjolnir spun faster and faster, its Hammerhead beginning to gather electricity. A thin bolt of lightning struck down from the clouds, hitting the handle squarely. Then came a second, a third, the blue light growing increasingly blinding.

He stopped directly above the mothership.

With arms raised high, Mjolnir pointed downwards. He muttered something, which was unintelligible, but the surrounding air suddenly felt heavy, even the shards of glass on the ground vibrated.

Ye Mo subconsciously took half a step back.

The next second, Thor roared and slammed Mjolnir down!

The hammer flew out of his hand, trailing a thick bolt of lightning, like a nail falling from the sky, and pierced straight into the central core of the mothership's top. The impact caused a burst of intense light, illuminating the entire East Side of New York for a moment.

Then came the explosion.

First came a muffled thud from within, then flames erupted from the cracks. The mothership's armor began to peel away piece by piece, as if something was forcing it open from the inside. Energy pipes exploded one after another, and fire snakes darted wildly along the corridors.

Three seconds later, the core compartment exploded.

With a deafening roar, the entire mothership broke in two. The front half tilted and plummeted downwards, while the rear half continued to float upwards for a while before disintegrating. Debris rained down, some swirling, others crashing directly to the ground.

Ye Mo immediately began Mental Scan.

He needed to identify which pieces of debris were large enough to land in populated areas. He quickly marked several danger points in his mind and immediately used Telepathy to notify nearby rescue teams and survivors who hadn't yet evacuated. There was a kindergarten within the impact zone, so he contacted the person in charge directly and told them to evacuate the children immediately.

Only after he finished doing all that did he look up again.

Thor descended slowly from the sky, Mjolnir spinning once before returning to his hand. He crushed a concrete slab as he landed, and after standing still, he didn't speak, only gazing at the burning wreckage in the sky.

Ye Mo was also watching.

A particularly large piece of debris is falling, its edges flashing red; it's likely part of the reactor. It's hurtling through the clouds, gaining speed. Based on its trajectory, it will crash into the old town west of Central Park.

He was wondering whether he should warn someone when he noticed that the fragment had suddenly shifted direction.

It turned out that Thor had made the move.

He raised his left hand, palm up, and a bolt of lightning shot from his fingertips, striking the side of the debris precisely. The impact changed its trajectory, and it finally crashed into the Hudson River, sending up a water column hundreds of meters high.

A shout came from the riverbank, probably startling passersby.

Ye Mo breathed a sigh of relief and looked down at his hand. The wound had mostly healed, but his skin was still a little hot. He tried moving his fingers; it was fine.

"Well done," he said.

Thor didn't turn around, he just grunted in response.

The two stood there, one on the broken wall, the other in the middle of the ruins, separated by a pile of rubble and charred metal frames. The wind was still blowing in their direction, carrying the smell of smoke and acridity.

Two more small fragments landed in the distance with two loud thuds. A police car's siren suddenly went off by itself, but no one bothered to turn it off.

Ye Mo suddenly remembered something and asked, "What were you reciting just now?"

Thor then turned to look at him. "It's an old Asgard saying, meaning 'In the name of thunder, end this calamity.'"

"Oh." Ye Mo nodded. "That sounds impressive."

"It's meant to intimidate," Thor said, slinging the hammer back over his shoulder. "Otherwise, the enemy wouldn't be afraid."

Ye Mo smiled. He wanted to say something else, but then he heard a noise above him.

Looking up, another piece of debris was falling, even larger than the first. It was irregularly shaped, tumbling over, and its edges were on fire. At this speed, it would hit the city center hospital within ten seconds.

Before he could speak, Thor had already moved.

This time, instead of using lightning, he leaped thirty meters into the air, flipped in mid-air, and slammed Mjolnir head-on into the wreckage. The impact sent him flying, but he regained his footing in mid-air, pulled back, and pushed the wreckage towards the riverbank.

It eventually landed on the riverbank buffer zone, blasting a large crater.

Thor landed back on the ground, this time unsteady, his knees buckling to steady him. He caught his breath and shook his arms.

"Are you alright?" Ye Mo asked.

"They won't die," Thor said. "Next time, just have them build smaller spaceships."

"I'll tell Thanos, 'He should be careful about the size next time he comes.'" Ye Mo said.

Thor glanced at him. "You're bored?"

"Just reborn, full of energy." Ye Mo shrugged. "Let's not talk about this, look over there."

He pointed to the last section of the mothership still floating in the air. The thing had started to leak air, like a deflated balloon, slowly descending. But it hadn't exploded yet; there might still be survivors inside.

Thor squinted for a few seconds, "I'll go check."

"No," Ye Mo stopped him, "Going up there now is suicide. Who knows if there's a self-destruct program inside, or some kind of damn trap hidden there."

"Then let it fall?" Thor asked.

"Let it rot on its own," Ye Mo said. "The most important thing for us right now is to stand still and make sure no one else climbs out to cause trouble."

Thor paused for a few seconds, then nodded.

He walked back to the broken wall, sat down against it, and placed Mjolnir on his lap. He tapped the handle lightly with his fingers, as if checking for cracks.

Ye Mo didn't leave. He stood there, continuing to scan the city with his consciousness. Some signals were lost, while others were still flashing. He marked several locations that needed further processing and memorized them.

The wind blew again.

This time it brought ash, and a faint smell of burnt metal. A thin sheet of iron floated down from the sky, swirling around, and finally landed on the ground between the two of them with a soft tinkling sound.

Thor glanced at the sheet metal.

Ye Mo also read it.

No one spoke.

After a while, Ye Mo said, "Do you think Loki might actually be a little envious of you?"

"Why?"

"Because you can fly, while he can only teleport. And your hammer can even curve, while his broken scepter can't even open a door."

Thor didn't laugh, but the corner of his mouth twitched.

"If he really wanted to fight, he wouldn't have hidden underground," Ye Mo continued. "It means he knows he can't beat you in a head-on fight."

"And what about you?" Thor suddenly asked, "Are you afraid of him too?"

Ye Mo was taken aback for a moment, "I'm not afraid of him, but I'm afraid of him being annoying. You know, he's lost so badly, why hasn't he run away yet?"

"Because he doesn't believe he can lose," Thor said. "That's the most dangerous kind of person."

Ye Mo nodded, about to say something, when he suddenly noticed something unusual.

He closed his eyes, Mental Scan instantly covered an area of five kilometers.

No new signals.

There are no energy fluctuations.

But something just felt off.

He opened his eyes and looked at the last remaining section of the mothership's wreckage.

It was still falling, but its speed had changed. It wasn't the constant speed of free fall, but rather... it felt like it was being controlled.

He immediately called out, "Thor!"

Thor looked up.

In that very second, the piece of wreckage suddenly exploded!