The collision in the sky was still ongoing. The continuously surging powers of god against god clashed without end.
Skadi was somewhat tense, unaware that deep within her consciousness, someone sighed.
What a... silly girl.
Deep in Skadi's mind, within the Gate of the Magic Mirror suspended in her consciousness, someone slowly opened her eyes.
This was a dark, profound boundary. It did not exist within the domain of Norse mythology. It had formed this connection only because its master shared an extremely close and special bond with Skadi.
And at this moment, that master could only shake her head with a faint laugh. She had Skadi's appearance, yet wore no luxurious gown or ornate headdress. Instead, her graceful figure was covered in a tight purple bodysuit.
She sat beneath a dark-purple sky, arms folded.
Around her, countless purple spears stood nailed into the wasteland, encircling her like a forest. They were countless versions of the divine weapon in Skadi's hand—Gae Bolg—not imitations, but the real thing, replicated through the wisdom of the Magic Mirror.
Her name was Scathach. In Celtic mythology, which bordered the Norse, she was the mistress of the "Land of Shadows," a realm between life and death.
She was a "transcendent" born within the past thousand years, yet one who had successfully surpassed life, death, and the world itself.
She had once been renowned throughout the world as a formidable warrior. With a mortal body, she slew gods, and from a goddess who shared the same origin as herself, she learned the originally unrelated Norse Runes and Gae Bolg: Barbed Spear that Pierces with Death, using them to temper herself. A thousand years ago, however, after encountering a god of the underworld from a foreign land, crossing blades with him and then befriending him, she gained insight into the boundary between life and death from him.
She attained transcendence.
And she glimpsed knowledge from beyond the world.
—Wisdom of the Magic Mirror.
Though she was not in the Norse lands, through her connection with Skadi, she could still observe the cause and effect of this matter. That was why Scathach knew very well...
That other "self" had been schemed against.
"With that fellow's abilities, how could he possibly have failed to sense Thor, God of Thunder, arriving? How could he possibly have been unable to avoid him in advance?"
Of course Rovi could have done it.
His clash with Thor, God of Thunder, had indeed come suddenly, but it had by no means been unavoidable. He had simply followed the flow and guided it there deliberately.
He wanted Skadi to lose hope in Asgard, step by step.
In the end, she would have no choice but to stay by his side.
To become his "knowledge consultant."
"King of the Wild Hunt... Rovi, was it?" Scathach murmured, a smile appearing on her pretty, valiant face. "Brave and cunning. I truly look forward to meeting you..."
Swaying slightly, Scathach stood and pulled one spear from the ground. Swinging it, she walked toward the depths of the Land of Shadows.
If her hands were itching for a fight, then she would find some Demonic Beast in the Land of Shadows and...
Indulge herself a little.
The Queen of the Land of Shadows smiled freely, brightly, and without restraint.
The voice in her mind faded, but Skadi's expression remained tense.
Above, the radiance gradually diminished, and the overwhelming force receded. Marks left by the shattered sky appeared. The domain drowned by thunder revealed a stretch of emptiness, while the area swept by the Wild Hunt's lance showed the scenery of the planet's original starry face.
The two who had exchanged blows still hung there.
Drip, drip, drip.
Blood slowly fell.
From both sides at once.
"A draw?" Thor, God of Thunder, lowered his eyes and looked at the arm that had once held his heavy hammer. Only emptiness remained there now. Pale light spread from the torn opening, and the blood dripping from it was a flowing, plain glow.
The god had lost an arm. He was bleeding.
The dead man had also suffered injury.
Rovi wiped away the blood at the corner of his lips. His chest felt slightly oppressed, but he also felt exhilarated.
His cloak snapped in the wind, his mask cold and grim. What Thor, God of Thunder, had suffered was an external injury, while his was internal.
Both had been wounded.
It had to be said that Thor, God of Thunder, was indeed powerful enough. After all, at this moment, even without activating his Machine God mode, Rovi in human form was already a being whose specifications surpassed those of an ordinary God-King.
On second thought, however, that was only natural. He was, after all, the second-strongest being in an entire pantheon, and a God of Thunder who, after experiencing death once, had relied on the technology of the Vanguard of the Umbral Star to undergo transformation and enhancement.
"Do you still want to continue?" Rovi asked loudly.
"Can you still continue?" Thor, God of Thunder's voice still carried a buzzing resonance. "Because I already can't."
A battle maniac was not the same as a complete lunatic.
Thor's hand had already been evaporated. Though this body shaped using "Sefar" as its prototype was powerful, recovering an entire arm still required time and rest.
Without a hand, he could not fight to his heart's content. More than that, he believed Rovi could no longer fight at full strength either.
In that case, continuing would be meaningless.
Better to stop.
"In the name of Thor, God of Thunder, I acknowledge your name as the 'Wild Hunt,'" he said. "But as the God of Thunder of Asgard, I also swear at this moment—"
"You are my greatest enemy. My mortal foe!"
"The next time we meet, I will defeat you!"
Leaving those words behind, Thor, God of Thunder, raised his remaining arm and drew the heavy hammer that had fallen into the void back into his palm.
Then, with a violent roar, lightning appeared and vanished, and Thor, God of Thunder, departed with it.
Heaven and earth returned to calm.
Rovi let out a long breath, yet he did not land. Instead, he closed his eyes, sensing something...
Strands of lightning still coiled around the surface of his body. The influence of Thor, God of Thunder's power had not yet disappeared.
Thunder symbolized destruction.
But what came after destruction?
Just as grass and trees would grow lushly from the ground after it had been struck by lightning.
Thunder, too, could nurture life.
Within Rovi's body, within this shell of the dead, the "logic" of life likewise began to surface.
Extremely faint. Extremely small.
But—
"Born for the sake of death... I've already taken the first step!" The corners of Rovi's lips rose into a smile.
He lowered his body and descended toward the ground...
...
"A draw with Thor, God of Thunder?" Above the divine realm of Asgard, a god withdrew his gaze from the lower world with a grave expression.
In the eyes of the gods, the threat of this ruler of giants who had appeared in Odin's prophecy was unquestionably immense. Yet the threat they recognized had never been his individual strength, but the vast number of giants he controlled.
That was quantity, not quality.
The Giant King's own strength was beyond doubt, but before this, no one had ever imagined that he could rely on himself alone to contend with the strongest God of Thunder and leave both sides wounded.
Yes. Before this.
Now—the gods' perception had changed.
Even without relying on giants, the King of the Wild Hunt could still sweep across the sky and earth like a storm.
"Caw! Caw! Caw!" In the White-Gold Palace, ravens beat their wings. He ordered his personal guards, the Valkyries, to spread out to the four corners of the divine realm of Asgard.
To guard the four corners of the sky.
...
The Wild Hunt returned from the abyss, and he stood against the God of Thunder in the heavens.
He drove the storm, he led death, his eyes were the color of molten rock, and what he held in his hand was the flood that would destroy the world.
The God of Thunder marveled, the gods fell silent, and even the King of the Gods became deeply wary."
—Nibelungen Poems
...
This time, the gods shuddered.
But Skadi's eyes were especially complicated...
Rovi's feet touched the ground. The storm vanished, and behind the mask he removed, his complexion was somewhat pale.
"Let's keep going!" he said as if nothing had happened.
An internal injury that could have recovered in an instant had instead been deliberately allowed to show.
After displaying Asgard's "cruelty,"
it was time to display his own "goodness."
Skadi's brows drew together, and for a moment she had no idea what to say.
Concern?
Skadi could not bring herself to say it. No matter what, in her heart, she still believed Rovi was an enemy.
But mockery... was even harder to voice.
Because the goddess was, more or less, still a little moved. Moved that someone had opposed the strongest majesty of a Norse god second only to Odin for her sake.
And so, after thinking for a while, Skadi finally decided...
"Th-thanks!"
The purple-haired goddess turned her head aside, a faint blush appearing on her delicate, pretty face.
She looked rather unwilling about it.
After all, wasn't the fact that she had fallen into her current situation ultimately Rovi's fault too?
"You're welcome." Rovi yawned and waved a hand. The last remaining arcs of lightning on his armor completely faded. His unmasked face was still pale, and that deathly stillness remained, but compared with before, he was already somewhat better.
By plundering vitality from thunder and turning from death toward life, his condition had recovered to some extent. "Of course, it would be better if your attitude could improve a little."
"Thor, God of Thunder—he really doesn't hold back."
"My attitude is already good enough." Hearing this, Skadi grew slightly indignant. "If not for you, why would the God of Thunder want to kill me?"
"True." Rovi nodded as if this made perfect sense. "Then how about I send you back and let you explain everything to them properly?"
"..."
"Which is why there's no medicine in this world for regret." Rovi shrugged. "As long as you stand behind me, I will always protect you."
"Everything else might be a lie, but at least that sentence is true."
Rovi never disdained revealing his own purpose.
Skadi might be able to detect that many things had been deliberate on his part, but what he carried out was both open scheme and hidden plot in equal measure.
What did it matter if she knew?
What did it matter if she did not?
Skadi could only accept it.
And so Skadi fell silent.
Rovi did not mind. He could see the complexity in Skadi's heart, and that was precisely what he wanted...
A demon who manipulated the human heart. Thinking about it carefully, it seemed someone had once called him that.
And now—
"In a certain sense, it fits me more and more." Rovi exhaled lightly and turned his gaze beneath his feet. After the great battle just now, after the clash between the Norse God of Thunder and the King of the Wild Hunt, the land below had not suffered too much collateral damage, but it had still changed somewhat.
The ice and snow had melted, revealing bare rocky mountain slopes. The clustered vegetation lay wilted and pressed close to the ground. Ahead, the deep, dark valley surrounded by mountains still remained.
Rovi could sense that Fafnir was still inside.
That evil dragon was hiding there. As a notorious fierce beast of the Norse, a monster that had once made countless heroes pale at the mere mention of its name, at this moment, it could only hide beneath the deep valley and tremble, not even daring to poke its head out.
It did not dare—and more than that, it could not.
Thor, God of Thunder's renown alone was already enough to make all things tremble. As for the King of the Wild Hunt, who had led endless storm giants up from Jotunheim, he was the very reason Fafnir had instinctively hidden here.
Though he had fought a battle with Thor, God of Thunder,
Rovi's objective had not changed.
Fafnir was still his target. But before that...
"After Thor, God of Thunder, do you want to fight me too, Loki, God of Mischief?" The coldness that had spread before was gone now, and the currents rising between the endless mountains carried a faint dry heat, the residue left in the air after being scorched by thunder. But Rovi's voice, carried with it, still made Skadi freeze.
She abruptly turned her head and looked to one side. Among the jagged, exposed rocks of the mountain, something faintly shifted.
"Oh my, oh my. As expected of someone who could fight that fellow to this extent." A frivolous, playful voice rang out, and a figure appeared from within.
It was a rather tall, slender "person," wearing a felt hat and loose clothing, their face painted with clownish makeup. It was impossible to tell whether they were male or female—or perhaps they had no such distinction to begin with.
Because Loki was the ever-changing lord of transformation, the god of mischief.
Loki spun once in place, then placed a hand over their chest and bent in a bow. "Great King of the Wild Hunt, I have no intention of making an enemy of you!"
As Loki said this, their sly eyes swept over the storm lance still gripped tightly in Rovi's hand.
They recalled the radiant, brilliant power that had collided with the God of Thunder just now.
The smile at the corners of their mouth grew even brighter.
"I have only come to offer you a gift."
A gift?
Rovi raised an eyebrow.
"Is that so?" he murmured in thought. "Then let's see whether this gift is enough to buy your life."
Cold light shone, a glimmer appearing at the raised tip of the spear.
Loki paused. Immediately afterward, the face covered in makeup could not help twitching.
Rovi's threatening intent was extremely obvious, and it made Loki go stiff. The God of Chaos was full of transformations, and they also liked nimble, ingenious changes.
But there was one thing they hated most.
Direct, straightforward, reckless inflexibility.
That was why Thor, God of Thunder, was Loki's natural counter.
And at this moment—Rovi, who had blocked off every escape route with a single sentence, was somewhat similar.
Fortunately, Loki really had come to offer a gift.
"You are seeking Fafnir in order to find a fine steed, but Fafnir is ultimately an evil dragon. Even if you can make him change his form, it still does not quite suit the name of the 'Wild Hunt.'"
"I have come to offer you something worthy of it!"
Loki had come to deliver a horse.
Rovi was, to some extent, surprised.
In legend, Odin's mount had been given by Loki as well—the eight-legged heavenly horse Sleipnir. That was Loki's offspring, born after Loki transformed into a mare and mated with the divine horse Svadilfari. It was also a divine beast on the level of a god.
Loki gifted it to Odin, adding still more radiance to the already dazzling glory of the King of the Gods.
And now, Loki would grant Rovi something of equal worth.
"Neigh!"
A steed's cry rang out, bringing gusts of wild wind. Behind Rovi, Skadi kept retreating. Her eyes were covered by a black storm, leaving her unable to see the path ahead.
But Rovi saw it clearly.
At the center of that storm was a black divine horse, tall and wondrous. It had twelve pairs of wings of varying sizes, and like Odin's mount, it also had eight legs. Its whole body shone with a storm-wreathed, miraculous radiance.
"This is Sleipnir's brother, a divine horse no less splendid than Odin's mount!" Loki introduced. "Great King of the Wild Hunt, I give him to you."
"For what?" Rovi's expression did not change. He only asked.
"To let this dull and tedious world welcome true change!" Loki laughed loudly. "Because I am the God of Chaos, and so—I hate things that never change."
Concepts bestowed Divinity, and Divinity influenced the formation of personality.
As the incarnation of the concept of "chaos," Loki's personality was already like this by nature.
And as Odin's sworn sibling, they were not afraid of punishment from Thor, God of Thunder, either.
That was why Loki acted without restraint.
That was why Loki dared present a gift to Rovi.
Rovi understood. "I'm very satisfied with this gift of yours."
He leapt up.
The back of the eight-legged, twelve-winged heavenly horse sank slightly. Its many hooves lifted and fell in intricate succession.
After an instant of struggle, it was tamed.
The King of Storms had mounted a steed of storms.
"Go on, go on, great King of the Wild Hunt!" Loki's figure gradually vanished as they departed, but their laughter sounded even more unrestrained. "Let this dull and tedious world change because of you!"
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The storm raged, and wild currents churned. Rovi raised the lance in his hand.
The Authority of the "Wild Hunt" was gripped even more firmly.
He lifted the lance in his hand—
And swept it down into the depths of that valley!
---
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