Thor advanced before the final echo of the portal disappeared. He did not use a technique, prepare a sequence of attacks, or even attempt to evaluate the difference between them. All the divine energy accumulated inside his body was converted into speed and violence, transforming the God of Thunder into a blue mass that crossed the ruins of Asgard and struck Vergil with both fists.
Vergil crossed Yamato and Mjölnir in front of his body, blocking the impact, but the ground beneath his feet immediately sank. The crater expanded for hundreds of meters, crushing gardens, knocking down ancient trees, and splitting a golden road connecting the nearby towers. The air was thrown outward in a circular wave, tearing away rooftops, statues, and entire sections of the walls.
Thor did not allow him to recover his stance.
A knee struck Vergil’s side, followed by a descending elbow that he avoided by leaning his body away. The next fist came surrounded by an absurd amount of lightning.
Vergil disappeared in a blue cut and reappeared several meters behind him, but Thor followed the distortion in the energy and arrived almost at the same time. The strike passed close enough to burn part of his coat, and the discharge crossed the field behind them, exploding an entire forest.
Ancient pine trees were torn out by the roots, rocks melted, and divine animals fled while blue fire spread across the slopes.
Vergil spun Mjölnir in his left hand and released a black discharge into the god’s chest. Thor crossed his arms and received the lightning directly, but the demonic energy mixed into the thunder passed through his resistance and pushed him several kilometers. He dragged his feet across the ground, trying to stop his retreat and opening two parallel valleys before finally coming to a halt in front of a mountain.
Vergil appeared above him.
Yamato descended.
Thor raised his forearm, and the blade cut his skin before he managed to move his body aside. It was not a deep wound, but the dimensional cut passed through part of his divine protection and left a black line across his arm.
Thor seized Vergil’s wrist and tried to crush it with brute strength, but Mjölnir came from the side and struck his ribs.
The sound was dry.
Several ribs gave way, and Thor was thrown into the mountain behind him. The entire structure cracked when his body struck it. The first layer of stone collapsed, followed by the second, until half the peak disappeared beneath an avalanche.
Vergil remained in the air, supported by demonic energy, watching the dust and lightning emerging from the ruins.
"You are far too desperate."
The mountain exploded.
Thor emerged from within it surrounded by a storm so dense that Asgard’s sky began to darken. Lightning gathered over his body and traveled down his arms like living serpents. He brought his hands together and struck the air, releasing a mass of thunder that expanded toward Vergil. The attack swallowed kilometers of terrain, burned fields, destroyed a suspended bridge, and split a floating island in half.
Vergil crossed through the lightning instead of fleeing.
Mjölnir spun in front of him, absorbing the electricity and conducting it around his body. The energy that should have destroyed him was pulled into the hammer, darkened, and returned as a black wave crossed by red veins. Thor opened his arms and received his own transformed power, being pushed across the sky until he passed through three military structures.
Vergil landed on the ruined roof of a tower.
"Are you the God of Thunder or the God of the Hammer?"
Thor emerged from the wreckage, breathing heavily. His face was marked by the earlier punch, blood rested at the corner of his mouth, and the cut made by Yamato had not yet completely closed. Even so, his energy continued growing.
"Return Mjölnir."
"You did not answer."
"He is mine!"
Vergil subtly raised an eyebrow at the way Thor referred to the weapon, but did not correct him yet. He merely spun the hammer once, feeling the satisfied reaction of the consciousness trapped inside the artifact.
"Without him, you look lost."
Thor closed his hands.
"I do not need the hammer to crush you."
"Then stop looking at him."
The provocation worked.
Thor disappeared again, crossing the distance with a fist aimed at Vergil’s chest.
Vergil blocked with Yamato’s sheath, but the impact made the tower collapse beneath them. They fell through stone and metal, exchanging blows as they descended. Thor struck Vergil’s shoulder, Vergil answered with Mjölnir’s head against the god’s temple, and both passed through the lower floor before reaching the plaza below.
Thor tried to seize the hammer during the fall.
Mjölnir changed her own weight.
The weapon slipped away from his fingers before he could close his hand, gliding through the air and naturally returning to Vergil’s control.
Thor noticed the movement.
The irritation on his face became confusion for only an instant, but Vergil saw it.
That was enough.
He threw Mjölnir.
Thor widened his eyes when he saw the hammer flying toward him. His right hand opened by pure instinct, and his fingers closed around the handle with the confidence of someone who had done it thousands of times.
Vergil rested Yamato over his shoulder.
"Try it."
Thor did not understand immediately.
Then Mjölnir roared.
There was no other way to describe it. The weapon vibrated so violently that the sound spread through the ruins like the growl of a colossal creature.
The runes across the metal lit up, but instead of their familiar blue, they released black and red lightning directly into Thor’s arm.
The god screamed.
Electricity crossed his muscles, opened burns across his chest, and threw him against the ground.
Thor tried to keep his hand closed, convinced it was some corruption left by Vergil, but Mjölnir increased the discharge.
The hammer struck repeatedly against the stones, forcing his fingers open.
Thor rolled away and remained on his knees.
"Mjölnir!"
The weapon remained on the ground, trembling.
He extended his hand.
"Friend, come."
The hammer did not move.
Vergil walked calmly through the wreckage while Thor stared at the weapon as though a fundamental law of the universe had just failed. Clouds still covered Asgard, but the storm had lost part of its organization. Without Mjölnir to direct it, lightning struck random places, destroying fields, towers, and the parts of nature that had survived.
"You do not understand," Thor said.
"I understand perfectly."
"You did something to him."
Vergil stopped in front of the god.
"Apparently, you were never very attentive to your divine weapon."
"Do not speak as though you know Mjölnir."
Vergil raised Yamato.
The sword remained inside its sheath, but the energy around it changed immediately.
Thor felt the difference.
It was not merely a weapon carried by a warrior. Yamato’s presence was mixed into Vergil’s soul so deeply that separating one from the other seemed impossible.
"This sword is part of me," Vergil said. "Not because I own her, but because we grew together. Yamato knows my energy, my intentions, and every change in my body before I even move. She is my blade, my friend, my companion, and my wife, bound to me until death by my soul."
Yamato vibrated softly inside the sheath.
Vergil passed his thumb over the guard.
"She is my everything."
Thor looked at the sword and then at Vergil’s expression. There was no provocation in that part. The Demon King truly spoke of the weapon as someone alive, important, and inseparable.
"And she is happy," Vergil concluded.
Yamato answered with another, stronger vibration, and a thin blue line traveled across the sheath. The reaction seemed almost proud.
Vergil then looked at Mjölnir.
The hammer continued trembling irregularly on the ground. The lightning around her did not seem aggressive now. It seemed unstable. Thor finally noticed something he had ignored for ages. The discharges were not trying to strike an enemy.
The weapon was crying.
"This weapon is frustrated," Vergil said. "She was treated like a tool, thrown at everything you wanted to destroy, and called a friend only when you needed her to return to your hand. You never asked whether she was satisfied. You never noticed when she tried to get your attention. You did not even know who she was."
Thor stood, still staring at Mjölnir.
"I do not know what you want me to say."
"I do not want you to say anything."
Vergil raised his left hand.
Mjölnir left the ground.
Thor tried to seize her, but the hammer moved away from his hand and flew directly toward Vergil. He closed his fingers around the handle, and the lightning immediately diminished. The weapon settled into his hand as though returning to the place she had chosen.
Yamato trembled.
This time, it was not a gentle vibration. The sheath released a small crack, and blue pressure escaped from the guard. Vergil glanced sideways at the sword.
"Do not start, you jealous woman."
Yamato vibrated again, clearly dissatisfied.
Mjölnir answered with a short, provocative discharge.
The two weapons remained on opposite sides of Vergil’s body, releasing incompatible energies that seemed to compete for attention. Thor watched the scene without knowing what to say. Throughout his entire life, he had treated Mjölnir as a companion, but had never stopped to consider that the hammer possessed preferences, irritations, and a will of her own at such an obvious level.
Vergil gripped Yamato’s sheath more firmly.
"You are still the first."
The sword finally stopped trembling.
Mjölnir vibrated even more.
Vergil looked at the hammer.
"Do not provoke her."
Thor approached slowly, without an attacking stance. His anger had not disappeared, but it was now mixed with something far more uncomfortable.
Shame.
"Mjölnir."
The weapon did not answer.
Thor took a deep breath. He appeared to be searching for words he had never imagined needing to use.
"I... did not know."
Mjölnir released a red spark.
"I thought we were satisfied with our battles."
The weapon vibrated strongly.
Thor tightened his jaw.
"I always trusted you."
Another tremor, more aggressive.
"You never failed me."
Mjölnir released a bolt of lightning toward him. Thor barely dodged, and the discharge opened a trench several kilometers long across the ruined plaza.
Vergil watched without any sympathy.
Thor looked at the hammer again.
"Partner, I promise I will be more attentive."
Mjölnir trembled even more.
Lightning gathered over the head of the weapon, and Vergil had to tighten his grip on the handle to stop her from flying at Thor on her own.
Vergil released an impatient sigh.
"You idiot. I already told you."
Thor turned his eyes toward him.
"Mjölnir is a girl."
The God of Thunder became completely still.
The clouds above Asgard continued turning, the Einherjar approached across the destroyed bridges, and other divine presences could already be felt on the horizon, but for several seconds none of it seemed to matter. Thor looked at Mjölnir as though he had just discovered that the companion he had carried for ages was a completely different person from the one he had imagined.
"A... girl?"
Mjölnir vibrated in Vergil’s hand.
This time, the movement was slow and unmistakable.
Yes.
Thor opened his mouth.
Closed it.
He looked at his own arm, where the burns left by the weapon were still releasing smoke, and then remembered all the times he had thrown her at mountains, giants, dragons, and armies without asking a single question.
"I called you brother for thousands of years."
Mjölnir released a bolt of lightning directly into the ground.
Vergil almost laughed.
Thor brought a hand to his face.
"That explains many things."
"It explains why you are stupid."
The god lowered his hand and stared at Vergil. Part of the anger returned.
"You stole the Bifröst."
"Yes."
"You took the Valkyries."
"They left by their own will."
"And you are holding Mjölnir."
"She came willingly too."
Thor tightened his fists but did not advance. Not while the hammer remained comfortable in Vergil’s hands and clearly refused to return.
In the distance, a massive horn sounded across Asgard.
It was not Gjallarhorn. It was a lesser military call announcing the approach of the internal armies. Hundreds of Einherjar occupied the bridges, and several divine figures began appearing between the towers. Vergil felt every presence, measuring strength, distance, and intention.
Thor heard it as well.
"You are surrounded."
Vergil looked around and then at Mjölnir. Black and red lightning returned to the hammer while Yamato released blue pressure from the other side.
"No."
He smiled.
"They are arriving late to watch."
Mjölnir vibrated with excitement.
Thor looked at the weapon.
This time, he noticed.
That vibration was not an order, a summons, or an involuntary discharge. It was anticipation. Mjölnir wanted to fight, but not for him.
At least not at that moment.
Vergil raised Yamato and Mjölnir at the same time.
The two energies met over his body, dividing the sky between black lightning and blue cuts. The bridges began cracking from the pressure alone, and the approaching gods slowed when they realized what awaited them.
"Let us discover," Vergil murmured, looking directly at Thor, "whether the God of Thunder can still fight while his girl is with another man."
Chapter 868: Mjölnir is a girl, you moron.
11 min read