The wall of dark-red fire shattered like glass.
Odin walked through the falling embers without so much as a flinch, his cloak billowing, the runes along its hem burning brighter with every step.
Behind him, the cloaked figure of Heimdall stood sentinel, his golden eyes a passive, all-seeing lighthouse in the gloom. He made no move to attack, but his presence was a reminder that any attempt to flee or trick their way out would be instantly neutralized.
"Retreat is not an option I am offering," Odin said, his voice a low rumble that seemed to come from the ground itself rather than his throat. "You brought a wolf dressed as a lamb into my presence and expected me to simply... pet it?"
"Wolf?" Morgana snorted, rolling her shoulders as Hunger finished sealing itself around her limbs, black plates humming with a hunger of their own. "Flattering, but I prefer to be called the big dick bad wolf. Now... Do you have a Little Red Riding Hood for me, or are you planning to be my grandma?"
Odin's single eye narrowed. He slowly shifted his focus to the red-haired collector.
"Madam X," he said, ignoring Morgana's taunts completely. "You offered me a gift soaked in lies. That is not a gesture of goodwill. That is a declaration of war."
Augusta took a long drag from her cigar, the end glowing like a tiny, angry star in the oppressive gloom. She blew out a stream of smoke that momentarily obscured her face.
"Nothing personal, All-Father," she said, her voice a low, dangerous purr. "Business is business. Your offer was good, but hers was better."
Odin's single eye widened slightly, then a slow, cruel smile spread across his face.
"So be it," he said. "I will take the gift... and the liars with it."
Gungnir moved.
One moment Odin stood twenty feet away. The next, the spear was a silver blur, and Morgana barely had time to bring her blood sword up before the impact sent her skidding backward, her armored feet gouging trenches in the dead earth.
Clang!
"Tch—" She hissed through gritted teeth. The vibration alone had rattled up through her arms and into her skull. "That's some serious arm strength for an old fart. How many times do you jerk a day?"
Odin didn't answer with words. He answered with action. He pressed forward, but Augusta didn't give him the chance to press the advantage.
"O Flame, Burn!"
Twin pillars of crimson fire erupted from the ground on either side of Odin, twisting inward, converging into a spiraling column meant to swallow him whole. For a heartbeat, the dead plain lit up brighter than it had in centuries, red light chasing away the bruised purple sky.
Odin raised his free hand. A rune flared to life in the air before him—old, angular, humming with a cold blue light that seemed to drink the heat right out of the flames.
The fire column collapsed in on itself, guttering out into smoke and ash.
"...Seriously?" Augusta's eye twitched. "You can't just... dispel my fire! It's not some cheap parlor trick! It's divine! Do you know how much divine essence that fire cost me?"
"Then perhaps spend it more wisely," Odin replied, and vanished.
"Behind you!" Morgana yelled, and swiftly spun around, using her sword like a bat.
CLANG!
The flat of Gungnir connected with the flat of her blood sword. The force was still astronomical, but Morgana held on by twisting her hips, letting the power flow through her body and into the ground.
Augusta, however, seized the opening. She slammed her foot down, and a circle of blazing runes burst to life around Odin.
"O Flame, Bind!"
Chains made of solidified dark fire shot from the runes, wrapping around Odin's limbs and torso, coiling tighter and tighter, searing into his cloak and the flesh beneath.
Morgana saw her chance. She lunged, her blood sword glowing with an inner crimson light as she poured her power into it, aiming for the throat.
"Die, you one-eyed bastard!" she roared.
But then Odin laughed. It wasn't a loud, booming laugh. It was a dry, rasping chuckle that held no mirth, only an ancient, chilling contempt.
He easily dodged her attack by tilting his head right at the last second. Her sword missed, and then he raised Gungnir, aiming at her heart.
"Heh... A one-trick pony," Morgana smirked. "Always aiming for the same spot."
She didn't dodge; she instead let the tip of the spear hit her chest.
However, there was no blood or wound.
Using her transformation magic, Morgana shifted her heart to another place along with all her vital organs. Then she hollowed out the area around her chest, making it completely empty. The tip of the spear passed through the opening without hitting any vital organs.
Then with her blood sword, she slashed Odin's arm, cutting through the robes and leaving a deep gash on his arm.
"Agh!" Odin grunted, not in pain but in surprise. He took a step back, looking at the wound on his arm. It wasn't bleeding, but it was there, a clear cut into his divine flesh.
"Not bad," he said, a genuine look of surprise on his face. "Not bad at all. You are..."
He didn't get to finish his sentence.
"...an idiot for underestimating me!"
Crimson tendrils erupted from the wound on Odin's arm.
They were not his blood. They were hers.
The droplets from Morgana's sword that had struck his flesh had not fallen away. They had burrowed, tiny seeds of sanguine malice, waiting for the command. Now, they bloomed.
"Blood Garden: Thorned Embrace!"
Barbed vines of crystallized blood, sharp as shattered diamonds and hungry as leeches, exploded from the gash. They coiled up his arm with vicious speed, biting deep into divine muscle and sinew, seeking to crawl towards his heart and throat.
"!!!"
For the first time, a flicker of something other than cold fury crossed Odin's face—a spike of genuine alarm. He roared, a sound that shook the chains of fire still binding him. Blue-white energy, the raw power of the God-king, erupted from his skin in an annihilating aura.
The dark fire chains shattered into fading embers. The barbed blood vines on his arm blackened, cracked, and began to dissolve.
But they had done their job. They had stolen a second of his focus, broken his stance.
"NOW, AUGUSTA!" Morgana screamed, her own body trembling from the effort of maintaining the blood parasitic spell.
The former fire goddess was already in the air, having leapt back the moment her bindings broke. She wasn't casting. She was compressing. All the heat, the light, the furious essence of her being, drawn inward into the palm of her raised hand until it became a tiny, swirling singularity of black and crimson.
"O Flame, Heed the final candle," she whispered, her voice carrying the weight of a dying star. "And in your darkness, find your most blinding dawn."
She didn't throw it. She simply opened her hand.
The singularity fell. Not with a roar, but with a silent, all-consuming hunger. It hit the ground between Morgana and Odin, and for a split second, there was nothing.
Then, there was everything.
Gravity itself warped around it, pulling Odin down towards it even as the light within it burst forth. It wasn't an explosion of fire. It was more like a supernova compressed into a single point.
Odin's eye blazed. He could not dodge. The gravitational pull was absolute. But he didn't panic, not yet.
Heimdall, too, showed no signs of panic. He simply stood his ground as if everything that was happening was a mere play.
THUD!
He did the only thing he could. He planted Gungnir point-down before him, gripping it with both hands—the wounded one still smoking from the dissolved blood thorns.
"Asgardr standa!"
A dome of layered realities, of countless shimmering, interlocking rune-shields, flared into existence around the All-Father. Not just in front, but a complete sphere of divine protection. Not just simple protection, but everything inside the dome would be in a separate dimension.
It was the ultimate defense of the All-Father, the accumulated sovereignty of a pantheon.
"..."
The supernova touched the dome.
There was no sound. There was only light—a light that was also an absence, a screaming whiteness that consumed all other perception.
The dome held for a breathtaking, terrifying moment, the runes flashing through cycles of creation and destruction faster than thought.
Then, a crack.
A single, hairline fracture appeared in the outermost layer.
For Morgana, it was enough.
WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH!
Thousands of blood-crafted weapons—swords, spears, axes, and even a few... well, pointy dicks—manifested around the battlefield. They shot towards that single, weak point in Odin's defense, a crimson meteor shower aimed at one microscopic flaw.
"Take this, you one-eyed fucker!"
CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! BOOOOOM!!!
The Supernova finally detonated.
The dome shattered like the grandest stained glass. Odin was blasted off his feet, Gungnir ripped from his grasp to clatter and skid across the glassified ground fifty yards away. He landed hard on his back, his cloak in tatters, the arm Morgana had wounded now a mess of blackened, cracked flesh and sizzling divine energy.
"..."
Silence, thicker and heavier than before, crashed down.
Heimdall, from his distant perch, took a single step forward. His golden eyes were wide. The Watcher had seen something unforeseen.
Morgana panted, leaning on her knees. She consumed too much divine energy in that last attack and felt her legs were like jelly. Augusta dropped from the air, landing unsteadily, her form flickering at the edges from the sheer expenditure of power.
"Did... did we get him?" Augusta rasped.
The answer came in a deep, ancient voice.
"Gungnir… Hear the All-Father's call."
"By the blood of Ymir that still stains the roots of the World Tree
By the oath I swore upon the Well of Urd
By the nine worlds that answer only to me
Gungnir, spear of destiny, Pierce the veil between worlds.
Let none escape thy path.
Let none withstand thy judgment.
From my hand, to the heart of fate—
Gungnir… FLY!"