Deep in the valley, at some unknown depth below the earth, a massive black evil dragon curled up in that cramped space, trembling.
Fear, terror, unease... The enormous evil dragon was acting like a hamster that had run into its natural predator.
Its golden eyes flickered constantly.
Fafnir could sense that the clash between god and god above had already ended. That mighty power, which had made him feel as insignificant as dust, had gradually vanished.
Thor, God of Thunder, had left, but the King of the Wild Hunt remained.
Then he sensed the arrival of another god.
Loki, God of Mischief.
They seemed to have brought a heavenly horse.
They had given it to the King of the Wild Hunt.
A dragon's perception was extraordinarily keen, and the ultimate Dragonkind Fafnir could sense everything around him with even greater clarity.
Since neither the Wild Hunt nor Loki had hidden their movements, this information was easy for him to "see." That was why he knew Rovi had come looking for him in order to find a suitable mount.
And now, he already had a mount.
So he should be safe, right?
The thought surfaced, and the evil dragon instinctively wanted to breathe a sigh of relief. Then, in the next second—
The dragon's scales rippled layer by layer.
Like a mammal's fur standing on end.
"ROAR!"
A deep roar rose up. Black Fafnir lifted his head and howled toward the sky. Above, where those dragon eyes stared...
A pillar of light fell straight down.
"ROAR! ROAR! ROAR!"
Wherever the radiance passed, dragon scales churned. Violent pain tore endless roars from Fafnir, and the black evil dragon could no longer suppress himself. He spread his wings.
A fierce current of air appeared at the bottom of the valley, but the dragon breath he spat out collapsed layer by layer beneath the light of the storm lance. Fafnir beat his wings and rose.
At this moment, he only wanted to flee.
He did not understand why Rovi, having already obtained a mount, still insisted on hunting him down. He did not know what Rovi was trying to do.
Eliminate evil for the people?
Impossible.
The so-called evil dragon Fafnir bore the name "ultimate Dragonkind," but in essence, it was a curse of "dragonification."
Every evil dragon had once been a dragon-slaying hero. Every Fafnir had once been a human, or a demigod.
When the previous evil dragon died, its curse would fall upon another suitable person.
The dragonslayer would eventually become the evil dragon.
This was a cycle in the chain of fate, just like the "Ragnarok" prophesied by Odin.
So killing him would serve no purpose.
But no matter what, Fafnir knew he absolutely could not die here.
He did not want to die.
He still wanted to live.
An evil dragon was a monster of rampant desire, greedy for treasure and greedier still for the length of life.
He risked everything to flee. In that instant, his massive dragon body rushed upward, heedless of all else, straight for the sky.
The mountain shook once more. After suppressing the eight-legged, twelve-winged heavenly horse, Rovi raised the storm lance high. The faint light shining from its tip chased after Fafnir, drawing across the high, distant sky.
Skadi, whose vision had returned, opened her eyes, and a confused look appeared on her face.
Rovi, that man... what was he trying to do?
Skadi, who had come to understand more and more of Rovi's power, knew very well how strong he was. If he wanted to capture Fafnir or destroy him, there was no need to go to so much trouble.
And now—what he was doing looked more like a cat playing with a mouse.
Skadi's eyes instantly turned strange.
One could only say that a Demon King was still a Demon King after all...
Naturally, Rovi knew nothing of the goddess's change in mood beside him. Although he could calculate her inner thoughts through her expression and movements, under normal circumstances, he had little interest in prying into other people's secrets.
Of course, just as Skadi had thought, Rovi was indeed deliberately driving Fafnir onward.
The raised storm lance cut across the blue sky, leaving behind a brilliant trail. As it spun... the evil dragon let out one miserable cry after another.
Beneath the light of the firmament, many people were drawn by the evil dragon's cries and lifted their heads.
As a notorious monster, Fafnir was undoubtedly terrifying to behold. He had pitch-black scales, a hideous head, sharp claws visible whenever he opened his mouth, and the breath he exhaled was high-temperature dragon breath like molten lava.
In the past, countless warriors had failed to defeat him, and countless heroes had found it difficult to pierce that sharp shell.
Only now, the Fafnir everyone could see had none of his former awe-inspiring majesty left.
Of course, even so, under those roars, many people still felt fear rise in their hearts and instinctively wanted to flee.
He was, after all, a Divine Spirit-class monster.
"Neigh!" Rovi lightly pressed his legs against the heavenly horse beneath him, making it take two steps forward.
The dragon wailed. The dragon roared.
Beneath the beam of light condensed from storm, the dragon crashed toward the lush cover of the World Tree above.
Where was that?
That was...
"The entrance to the divine realm of Asgard!?" Skadi cried out at once.
She could see it very clearly. The direction Rovi was driving Fafnir in was indeed the passage leading to the divine realm of Asgard.
What was he trying to do?
Was he formally declaring war on the gods of Asgard?
Skadi could not understand.
Although declaring war would not be strange. Rovi, who could rival Thor, God of Thunder, and command countless storm giants, certainly had the strength to do so.
But it was still far too soon.
And far too hastily prepared.
After all, Asgard did not have only Thor. There was also Odin above him.
Wait... Why had she unconsciously started calculating this man's chances of victory?
Skadi abruptly shook her head and stopped the inexplicable thoughts in her mind.
A gust of wild wind swept across her face.
The goddess suddenly felt an inexplicable panic.
But over there, the evil dragon had already been driven by Rovi into the passage to Asgard.
A monster invading the divine realm naturally drew a response from Asgard.
Because of Rovi's battle with Thor, God of Thunder, the gods who had originally scattered had now gathered once more in Valaskjálf. If before, their attitude toward the threat Rovi posed had been vigilance, then at this moment, besides vigilance, there was also a measure of fear.
If Rovi could rival Thor, God of Thunder, that meant he could easily kill any god other than Thor, God of Thunder, and Odin.
Even though Odin had already ordered them not to provoke that person for the time being, giants and gods were sworn enemies. Under that terrifying disparity in strength...
They still could not help wanting to take some measures.
"Did you notice?" In the resplendent divine palace, one god spoke. "Thor, God of Thunder, originally had a chance to defeat that ruler of giants. If Skadi had not intervened—"
"Yes, exactly. I noticed it too," another god echoed. "It seems she truly has betrayed us."
"I had thought there was still a little room to turn things around..."
"We gods doted on her so much, yet she still dared betray us gods!"
"Just as Thor, God of Thunder, said—for such a traitor, punishment is necessary!"
In truth, to put it plainly, it was only because Skadi held far too many of the gods' secrets.
In a corner, Loki, who had returned from Midgard, revealed an even more delighted smile.
The God of Mischief saw through the gods' guilty consciences in an instant.
Of course the gods felt guilty. Skadi had once been the goddess most beloved by the gods. She was like Ishtar of Mesopotamia: the gods loved her and doted on her, yet because she was the purest, they had once pursued her bitterly.
Although Skadi had treated every male god who tried to court her with disdain, to the point that those gods could not even meet her, they had once written letters to Skadi countless times in order to curry favor with the Goddess of Ice and Snow, telling her many, many "secrets."
If those secrets were learned by a sufficiently powerful hostile force... then for the gods standing here, it would be a fatal blow.
That was why, after seeing Rovi's power and feeling fear, the gods' first reaction was actually to target Skadi.
They did not dare rush straight at him the way Thor, God of Thunder, had.
Naturally, they could only take measures against the relatively weaker Skadi.
"I propose," one god said, "that we shatter Skadi's 'concept' within the divine realm."
Asgard was a divine realm.
A "heaven" where the Authorities of the gods converged.
The essential concepts of the gods all existed here.
But if one was shattered...
A god, too, would perish.
Though it would only be the shattering of the personality, for gods, the replacement of personality was the replacement of old by new. A new god and an old god would be completely different individuals.
They wanted Skadi dead. They wanted all of Skadi's secrets to vanish with her.
Even if this enraged Rovi, so long as they remained within the divine realm of Asgard, gathered the radiance of the gods to oppose him, and had Odin's protection, there was nothing to fear.
If Rovi could even shatter the divine realm... then no matter what the gods did, they would fail.
Either way, if they could not win, death awaited them.
Naturally, they would choose the possibility of survival.
As their thoughts moved, the gods began to act. They manifested the "concepts" that formed their divine essence: flame, earth, light... Many divine Authorities gathered in this highest, holiest White-Gold Palace.
Loki watched coldly and did not join in.
They were, however, happy to see it happen.
At least the gods had begun to move.
To the God of Chaos, as long as all things could change, it was a good thing...
Within the radiance of the gods, ice and snow descended and appeared. Pure and untainted, like the purest ice crystal naturally condensed into being.
That was the manifestation of the ice and snow concept.
It was Skadi's essence.
She had been forced out from the divine realm by the gods.
And then—
She would be shattered by the gods as well.
But at that very moment, a massive roar suddenly echoed out.
The gods froze.
A black evil dragon burst into the White-Gold Palace. His enormous mouth opened like an abyss, and at the same time, he swallowed that white essence.
Then he smashed through the window and vanished without a trace.
The entire process came too suddenly. Only after the evil dragon disappeared did they finally react...
Skadi's "concept" had been plundered away.
And what was that evil dragon?
"Fafnir?" Loki laughed out loud. "Heh, heh heh... ha ha ha ha... Interesting. Too interesting!"
"To think he actually came up with using Fafnir to accomplish this!"
"That fellow is far more interesting than I imagined!"
What was Fafnir?
He was a notorious evil dragon of the Norse, a Divine Spirit-class monster.
But in a certain sense, Fafnir's essence was similar to that of the gods—both were manifestations of certain aspects of nature.
The difference was that the gods' personalities were clear, while Fafnir was more often controlled by instinct.
The boundary between god and demon often lay precisely there.
Yet a similar essence also meant a similar aura. If Rovi himself entered Asgard, he would inevitably provoke violent rejection from Asgard. Fafnir, however, would not.
None of the gods had thought of this.
So they let him come and go.
Let him run wild...
"An evil dragon has invaded the divine realm!"
"Valkyries, alert, alert, alert!"
Clear yet cold, machine-like voices sounded at the edge of the divine realm. The Valkyries—the personal guards of Odin, gallant female warriors—stood there.
They received the gods' order and instantly went on guard, beginning to form ranks to resist that evil dragon inexplicably attacking heaven.
However, the roaring wind arrived before their eyes in the blink of an eye.
The enormous black evil dragon directly smashed apart the Valkyries' formation before it could take shape. Amid thunderous rumbling, he fell into the passage leading to Midgard.
Some Valkyries staggered as they were swept aside by the dragon's tail.
Others were knocked down to Midgard together with the evil dragon's hideous head.
The leader of the Valkyries, a female warrior with loose silver-white hair, the warrior named Brynhildr, opened her eyes in utter confusion.
Before her eyes, wind and snow whirled, and there were few traces of human habitation.
Having left the divine realm, the connection with the gods in her mind had been severed.
Unlike other divine warriors chosen from the human world, the Valkyries were "dolls" made by Odin.
Their duty was to obey the orders of the gods and Odin.
And now—
The connection was severed.
Brynhildr stood frozen in place, not knowing what to do.
Far away on the other side, Rovi also raised his hand at the same time. The evil dragon, fanning wild winds, fell from the sky and obediently opened his mouth, spitting out the shadow of the "Ice and Snow."
Skadi saw clearly what it was, and the goddess could not help freezing in place.
So this was why he had driven Fafnir into Asgard.
Fafnir was a monster.
His instincts were stronger than his self, but he could still understand Rovi's meaning.
If he did not want to die, this was the only thing he could do.
"For you!"
Rovi tossed the light and shadow manifested from that corner of the "Ice and Snow" concept to Skadi.
Skadi raised a hand to catch it, her face full of shock. "You—"
What greeted her, however, was Rovi's half-smiling expression. "Don't tell me you never considered what that group of gods might do to you."
"The so-called self is safest when you hold it in your own hands." Rovi leaned down from atop his steed, looked at her, smiled... and reached out, pinching her chin.
He lifted the goddess's delicate face, still shocked and faintly complicated. "I told you. As long as you are still behind me, I will protect you."
"But I will also warn you: do not trust me!"
He withdrew his hand and straightened again. "I'm also doing this to keep a knife from stabbing me in the back one day."
Skadi looked at the "Ice and Snow" in her hand, then at the tall figure reaching out toward the evil dragon Fafnir.
What would the gods do to her?
In truth, Skadi had already thought of it.
They would shatter her concept and replace her personality.
The gods wanted to kill her.
That sudden panic just now had come from exactly that...
He had protected her again.
It was clearly protection with another motive. Skadi clearly knew Rovi had his so-called schemes, so why...
Why was he so gentle to her?
Skadi wavered.
Inevitably, irresistibly... the humanity within a god's personality made it impossible to suppress that feeling.
"Let's go!" Fafnir crouched at Rovi's feet, curled up, and transformed into a black hound.
Rovi sat astride the heavenly horse gifted to him by Loki and turned sideways to look back at the goddess. "For the time being, I still can't set you free!"
---
bonus chaps
100 stones -> 1 chapter
200 stones -> 2 chapters
300 stones -> 3 chapters
and so on
discord.gg/wisetl
patreon.com/wisetl