The lightning that came crashing down was the power of a god.
And the heavy hammer wreathed in that lightning was Mjolnir, the famed hammer of the thunder god of Norse mythology.
The one who had come was Thor.
Among the Norse gods, he was the mightiest deity second only to Odin.
He unleashed that vast, primal force of nature without restraint, yet it was not aimed at Rovi.
It was aimed straight at Skadi—the Ski Goddess, the pure maiden among the gods, and now, in their eyes, the "traitor" lured into "falling" by the Wild Hunt.
The pressure radiating from Thor was unstoppable. In the blaze of lightning, Skadi's delicate face went pale with horror. She wanted to retreat, but it felt as though the endless snowy mountains of Asgard were crushing down on her body, leaving her able only to struggle helplessly in place, her chest and hips trembling with the effort...
BOOOM!
Thunder struck. In the blink of an eye, the clash came.
A long spear, spiraling like a storm, swept across in front of the Ski Goddess. Its spinning tip collided head-on with the descending hammer, and storm and lightning tangled together, spreading outward in layer upon layer of whirling vortices.
The snow evaporated. The ground collapsed. Cracks spread downward in every direction. The area around where Rovi and Skadi stood was instantly shaved flat several yards deep, and when the dust and smoke finally cleared, a massive crescent-shaped crater had appeared before them.
A faint gleam fell from the heavens.
Still shaken, Skadi looked up ahead—
"KILLING SOMEONE RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME... ISN'T THAT LOOKING DOWN ON ME A LITTLE, THE WILD HUNT?"
Rovi's low voice rang out.
In that instant, he had once again donned the armor of the Machine God and put on that cold mask. There was laughter in his voice, but also that overwhelming stillness of death.
That chill had not changed.
And yet in Skadi's eyes, at this moment, it brought her an inexplicable sense of relief.
For an instant just now, she had truly thought she was going to die.
The might of that thunder was not something a Goddess of Ice and Snow like her could withstand. In all of Asgard, there were absolutely not many gods who could block a single hammer blow from Thor.
Among the gods, Thor was the proudest by nature—and the quickest to anger.
He was the least to tolerate betrayal.
Skadi should have realized it long ago...
That idea of clearing her name might have been nothing but wishful thinking from the very beginning.
The goddess's delicate face was still pale, and even the concern of that other "self" in her mind did nothing to help.
At that very moment, with his fur cloak whipping wildly in the gale, the hammer that had been knocked back by the clash fell into the hands of the figure suspended in the sky.
"DOING THIS RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME... ISN'T THAT A LITTLE TOO BRAZEN?" Rovi did not look at Skadi, nor did he pay any mind to the complicated, unspoken emotions of the goddess behind him. He merely raised his head and looked straight up at the fearsome thunder god.
Silver-white armor. A towering body. Dim blue cubes turning endlessly at his chest and on the backs of both hands.
He was extremely similar to Sefar, the source of the World Tree's power and the Vanguard of the Umbral Star.
Rovi had already crossed paths with him once before. Though that encounter had been fleeting, Thor's appearance did not surprise him. He also knew that, just like the World Tree, the source of Thor's power came from Sefar—which was why he was so powerful, so terrifying.
Even now, this was still an opponent Rovi had to face with the utmost seriousness.
Yes. Thor, the God of Thunder, possessed a scale capable of matching even the God-King of Greece.
Or rather, he too possessed the standing of a God-King. Myths had always blurred together in a great jumble; there had even been times when Thor was equated with Zeus, the Greek King of Gods.
He was strong.
So strong that Rovi did not dare underestimate him in the slightest.
Unless he manifested the full body of a Machine God, Rovi had no confidence he could completely suppress Thor.
Before, dying by Thor's hand would not have been such a bad thing.
Unfortunately, Rovi was one of the dead now. He had to find a way to "live" again first—only then could he die.
"You King of Giants, arrogant enough to steal Odin's power—I have no desire to make an enemy of you. Hand over Asgard's traitor, and I will leave at once!"
Thor's voice boomed from within that heavy armor, low and resonant, like thunder itself made manifest and exploding outward.
The sheer pressure of it made Skadi instinctively duck her head.
Rovi merely adjusted the mask on his face, his eyes of gold and fire shining through the narrow slits.
"AND YOU THINK YOU'RE WORTHY?"
"SHE'S NOT A TRAITOR NOW. SHE WORKS FOR ME."
Even if she was only a "tool."
But insults needed bite, and when the moment called for it, Rovi did not mind saying something nice for effect.
Besides, setting aside the fact that Skadi still had her uses, Rovi's own nature alone would never allow him to sell out a companion.
And so Thor flew into a rage—or rather, into excitement.
He had only come to judge a traitor.
On that point alone, he had not gone against Odin's will. To wield thunder as heavenly punishment—this was the divine charge Odin had granted Thor. And if someone obstructed him and retaliated, then that was not Thor's fault, but Rovi's.
Even if Odin later rebuked him, Thor would still have grounds to argue his case.
So right now, he wanted only one thing:
A proper fight.
A proper fight... to settle which of them stood higher!
"Wild Hunt, let me see what you can do!" Thor roared. As he raised Mjolnir high, he drew down the sky and the thunder itself, blazing lightning seeming to wrap another massive layer of armor around that silver-white body.
Rovi tightened his grip on the long spear. With a single step, a crimson storm burst outward from him, sweeping wildly in all directions.
Cold and deathly still, the king of the dead stepped onto the battlefield of gods.
He shot forward like an arrow loosed from the string, and in a single instant his spear was already thrust before Thor, its spiraling tip pouring out a heavy and terrifying force.
Thor met it by raising his hammer.
Lightning and storm clashed once more.
The sky shook. The earth trembled. Snowy mountains collapsed in the blink of an eye, crumbling apart so violently that even Fafnir, hidden deep in the ravine below, let out a cry of terror—only to realize that the heavens had been sealed off by the power of god against god, leaving nowhere to flee.
Skadi stared fixedly at the scene before her...
He was protecting her.
Lost in a daze, the Ski Goddess, clever by nature, of course understood why Rovi was protecting her.
But her thoughts at this moment were still far too tangled to put into words.
Especially now that she had confirmed the naked killing intent directed at her by Thor—the same thunder god who had once treated her like his own little sister.
The Ski Goddess felt strangely lost.
The one who should have been her enemy was protecting her.
The one who should have protected her was wielding thunder and fury to kill her.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
They overlapped and collided. The heavy hammer smashed furiously against the long spear. Rovi twisted his wrist, almost like cracking a whip, and knocked Mjolnir back by an inch.
But Thor immediately used that tiny opening created by the recoil to unleash force again in the very next instant!
Even the atmosphere showed crack after crack under the violence of those collisions.
Behind the mask, Rovi's face remained quiet and still.
This clash could be called the first true battle he had fought since arriving in the North.
An even match.
A struggle against a mighty foe.
And in that struggle, something different from before rose within him.
In terms of sheer power, Thor was unquestionably formidable. His body was Sefar's body, and he could absorb every concept shattered by thunder and turn it into an endless source of strength for himself—growing braver as he fought, stronger as he fought.
And in terms of skill, though his attacks seemed rough, there was a natural mastery in them that made them appear almost artless.
Every hammer blow landed by instinct at the weak point or opening in Rovi's spearwork. Every attack hindered Rovi's movements.
If Skadi's martial skill had only just barely reached the realm of divinity, then Thor's power already stood at the very summit of that realm.
Even if Rovi could use his immense calculation capacity to predict and respond, that process still required time and transfer.
Thor did not.
His attacks flowed naturally, released as easily as breathing.
That, too, was a kind of "calculation."
But it was not the same as Rovi's.
Their power was evenly matched, but a gap had begun to open in technique. Rovi's spear thrusts were gradually being suppressed. Even the storm around him was being bound and constrained by the thunder.
Unless he manifested the body of the Machine God and used a higher scale of existence to overwhelm Thor,
it seemed Rovi no longer had any chance of victory.
And yet the more that became true, the calmer he grew.
As for the techniques for applying his own power—even after ascending to the Throne of Heroes and reclaiming that strength so vast he could not measure its limits even in his current state—they were still useful here.
So he was learning.
He was grasping Thor's martial skill, grasping his technique, grasping those attacks that flowed with seamless naturalness.
Though he was being suppressed, the eyes of gold and fire behind Rovi's mask only grew brighter and brighter.
He could feel it.
His "path" was right in front of him.
Just one more step...
Just a little more, and he would set foot upon it
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