The explosion of the Helgate did not sound like iron shattering.
It sounded as if the world itself were being torn in two.
The shockwave hurled the skeletal guards like dead leaves in a storm. Fuku felt a violent jolt run through his entire arm, the golden heat of his finger racing up to his shoulder. For a single heartbeat, he thought his soul might fracture, crack under the force he had just unleashed. Yet the sensation was too intoxicating, too addictive to release—the raw power burning in his veins was impossible to let go.
"By the gods… it actually worked…" he whispered, his voice choked as he stared at the ruins of the gate.
A gaping chasm now occupied the place where the supposedly impregnable black iron had stood. Beyond it stretched the Bifrost—or what remained of it: a jagged path of fractured, shimmering light, suspended in the void between worlds, snaking upward toward the heights of Asgard like a shattered river of crystal.
"Move, thief!" hissed Jormungandr, sharper, more urgent than ever. "The Hounds have sensed you. If Garmr catches your scent, not even I will be able to hide you."
Fuku didn't need to be told twice. He leapt through the debris of the gate, dust and twisted metal swirling around him like ghostly particles. Behind him, a ripping howl erupted—so deep, so primal, it made his very essence tremble. Garmr, the monstrous guardian of the dead, had awakened, and its fury filled the air.
"You said Asgard wasn't guarded!" Fuku shouted as he ran, his footsteps hammering against the translucent light of the Bifrost, which rippled beneath him like liquid glass.
"The city is empty of warriors, not monsters," the Serpent replied. "Climb. Do not look back. The path of the dead is narrow and fragile, but for a man who has tasted the Origin, it is a ladder."
The Bifrost shook under his feet, its light wavering and casting shifting shadows that seemed eager to devour him. The vast void on either side beckoned, but the heat in his glowing finger gave him the certainty of a titan: he would not fall. He could not fall.
As he ascended, the gray mists of Helheim began to dissipate, replaced by a blinding golden radiance. But it was not the warm sunlight of Midgard. This light was harsh, cold, humming with ancient magic, carrying an unfamiliar scent: ozone, burnt runes, and a tang of iron. Fuku inhaled deeply; the taste of danger mingled with a savage thrill.
Then he saw them.
Six figures stood already on the path, gathered in the shadow of a shattered Bifrost pillar. Ragged, filthy, emaciated—they looked just as out of place as he did in this world of crumbling gods. Fuku recognized them instantly: the Six Rats of the Understreets, his former crew, the only men who knew his methods, his madness.
"Boss?" one of them muttered. Tall, lean, a scar running across his throat. "Is that really you? We thought the fog got you."
"We'll save the reunion for later," Fuku replied, stopping just long enough to seize him by the shoulder. "The gates of Hell are open, and the gods are too busy dying to stop us. You wanted the heist of the century? It's right above our heads."
The six men looked up. Far above, Asgard's spires pierced the clouds, glowing with a flickering, desperate light—fragments of gold dying in the chaos. Ruins stretched as far as the eye could see: walls torn apart, statues decapitated, fragments of rooftops suspended in the void. Asgard was a golden corpse, frozen in silence.
"We're going to… steal from the gods?" one asked, half terrified, half laughing.
"No," Fuku replied, watching his incandescent finger, its golden light rippling across his pale skin. "We're going to steal the universe. And we start with their immortality."
They moved as one—a pack of shadows climbing toward the light, agile and silent despite the fragile path. The wind of the Bifrost whistled around them, and the void seemed to reach for them, yet none faltered. They knew their leader. They knew the prize.
When they reached the outskirts of the City of the Gods, the scale of the war became clear. Vast portions of the golden walls had been torn away. Statues of Odin and Thor, once majestic, lay decapitated, toppled by the sheer force of the Titans' assault from distant realms. The silence after each ruin was almost sacred, heavy with the smell of metal, dust, and ancient blood.
Asgard was a ghost city.
A majestic golden corpse, waiting to be plundered.
Fuku stopped at the edge of the Great Plaza. In the distance, he could see the shimmering leaves of the Tree of Life—Idunn's Orchard. The air there smelled of spring and ancient power, a scent so sweet, so forbidden, that it made Fuku shiver with desire and hunger.
"There," Jormungandr murmured, his voice dripping with hunger. "The apples. Take them. Bring them to the roots of the World Tree, and I will make you a King."
Fuku looked at the orchard, then at his crew, then at the sky where the thunder was slowly fading. A King? No. Fuku did not want to be a King. Kings had responsibilities, invisible chains that bound them. Enemies. Rules.
He wanted something else. Freedom. Totality. Immortality.
"Let's move, boys," he murmured, eyes fixed on the golden fruit. "Time to see if those apples taste as good as they look."