After leaving the Land of Shadows and returning to the present world, Rovi opened his eyes.
At his ears, he heard the serpent's hiss, the wolf's furious howl, and the dragon's roar.
But what drew his attention most was the giant's roar.
"Ymir?"
Rovi closed his eyes slightly and cast his consciousness toward the top of the World Tree, toward the giants' realm, Jotunheim.
Inside the temple dedicated to the Ski Goddess, Skadi said nothing.
She only silently gripped the corner of Rovi's cloak... took a deep breath, and gathered her courage.
From here on, she would be the enemy of the gods.
But so long as Rovi stood in front of her, Skadi somehow felt no fear at all...
Jotunheim was still a dim, dry world. Rovi's will descended there, forming an illusory shadow.
He lifted his eyes and looked at this place that seemed silent, yet he could still hear that ceaselessly echoing roar. "The Wild Hunt, is it?"
"That would be me." Rovi smiled.
He could not see any definite figure before him, but Rovi knew that the being speaking was right in front of him.
All things were him.
The sky, the earth, and the dried-up riverbeds within Jotunheim were no exception.
"I am Ymir, the primordial giant." Amid the roaring wind, that voice continued. "I am the first Chaos, and the source of all things. Outsider, even you should show reverence when you see me!"
"I know. You don't need to repeat it like that." Rovi exhaled, his expression showing not the slightest surprise.
Of course he knew.
In the Norse mythological worldview, the formation of the world began with Ymir, born from the void and chaos of Ginnungagap.
Ymir was the first life in the world. He and Audhumla, the world's first animal, a cow, were born together in Ginnungagap.
Ymir grew on Audhumla's milk and gave birth to countless giants, while Audhumla brought forth Buri, the earliest ancestor of the gods.
Giants were the symbol of chaos, while Audhumla was the manifestation of order.
In the primordial beginning, when all things intermingled, order and chaos were inseparable. But after the giants and Buri were born, all things gradually stabilized, and chaos and order became mortal enemies.
And so the giants and the gods began a long, drawn-out war upon that primordial earth.
In the end, Ymir, the primordial giant, was killed by the three progenitors of the gods: Odin, Vili, and Vé, the grandsons of Buri.
The three divine ancestors used Ymir's enormous body as raw material to create the sky, earth, and sea. In doing so, they completely separated the world from chaos and brought it into the orderly age of the gods. They imprisoned Ymir's descendants, the frost giants, within Jotunheim, making it difficult for them to escape.
Yet although his shell had been dismantled into sky, earth, and sea, the primordial giant's will still wandered between heaven and earth. The lingering resentment that remained had always stared fixedly at the gods who had killed him.
Rovi had known all of this from the very beginning.
He knew that Ymir's will still lingered between heaven and earth, and that all things had been formed from the dismantled shell of his body.
Jotunheim, moreover, was the final destination of the frost giants, the last corner where chaos had been gathered and sealed away. This was where Ymir's remaining will had converged.
When Rovi set foot in Jotunheim, he had sensed that hazy, manifesting will.
Even setting that aside...
"Just from the fact that you once plotted and cooperated with the former Titan God of Greece, I knew you must still exist here!" Rovi's phantom walked forward, moving through Jotunheim as its world gradually turned chaotic and disordered.
"So... you came from there?" Ymir's resounding will carried a measure of shock. "No wonder Kronos never contacted me again!"
He was surprised.
And so, in that instant,
the ground shook. The dried-up riverbeds seemed to erupt with water, fire, and crystals.
The roots of the World Tree in the sky also began shaking violently—not only because Nidhogg had bitten through another corner of the World Tree's roots, but also because at this moment, after chaos had transformed, "fate" had returned.
In life, Ymir had been the symbol of chaos. In death, Ymir's will had become the manifestation of "fate."
The fate of Ragnarok had always been secretly pushed forward by him from the unseen. Loki had once been a giant, yet in the primordial war, he abandoned the body of a giant and defected to the side of the gods. The reason Loki gave birth to monsters with more chaos than order—Jormungandr, Fenrir, and Hel—was entirely because Ymir had pushed it all from behind the scenes.
And now, at this moment, Ragnarok had arrived. His will finally manifested within Jotunheim—
Ymir... had descended!
In the dim, dusky world, a vast figure emerged from nothing. He possessed a body as broad as the sky, and a form that flickered like a river of stars.
He slowly reached out and seized the already violently shaking roots of the World Tree above his head.
He gripped them tight.
Like grasping straw from within the water, he used the roots of the World Tree to let that enormous body, manifested from will, stand firm in reality.
But precisely because of this, the mythological "Nine Realms" supported by the World Tree also began to shake at the same time.
The voices of the serpent, the wolf, and the dragon drew ever closer to the vast land of Midgard.
...
In heaven, inside the Valaskjálf, the gods let out howls of fury and alarm. "Why has Odin still not appeared!?"
Thor, God of Thunder, had picked up his heavy hammer from the very start and charged out. Vast thunder roared across the dome of the sky visible from Midgard below.
All things cried out in shock, and wind and snow filled the world even more thickly.
And Ymir, the originator of all this, the figure manifested from that will of fate, lowered countless "eyes" and looked at Rovi all at once.
He said, "I care not who you are, one who came from a foreign land. I only know that you are an enemy of the gods!"
"Dead man from another land, you stole the God-King's Authority. You are the enemy of the gods!"
"Therefore—we are allies!"
"We both stand on the side of chaos!"
"You came here to cooperate with me, did you not?"
"The side of chaos? Are you still that?" Rovi smiled.
"That does not matter!" Ymir did not deny it, because it could not be denied. The first primordial giant had indeed been a manifestation of chaos, but Ymir as "fate" was not. Otherwise, a manifestation of chaos would never possess such a clear line of thought.
But just as he said, if one wished to oppose the gods, then the enemy of one's enemy was an ally.
They could indeed cooperate.
"That is true, but only if the premise is opposing the gods." Rovi sighed. "Are you so certain that I am the enemy of the gods?"
What else could you be? Ymir wanted to say.
But then he discovered that Rovi's figure before him had vanished. It was a projection of will to begin with, so its sudden dispersal was only natural.
He had returned to his main body.
On the Scandinavian Peninsula, within the temple in the city, Rovi opened his eyes. As he turned his gaze aside, it met Skadi's gorgeous dark-purple eyes looking back at him.
"Are you ready?"
"Of course. Don't look down on me. I am the Ski Goddess!" Skadi smiled and brushed her long hair back. Of course, if she had not been tugging the corner of Rovi's cloak while saying that, it would have been more convincing.
But that was unimportant.
"Then let's go!" Rovi stepped forward.
In an instant, the scenery around them shifted. He took the Ski Goddess Skadi and left the temple as if by teleportation, departing Scandinavia.
Wind and snow filled the wilderness. Skadi froze for a moment. In truth, she still did not know what Rovi planned to do. But since she had already made her decision, she would not regret it.
She only gripped the corner of Rovi's fluttering cloak tightly.
As long as she did not let go, nothing would happen.
That was what she instinctively believed.
At the same time, the sound of neighing and pounding hooves rang out. The heavenly horse beating its twelve wings came galloping in, eight legs staggered, leaving countless hoofprints in the wind and snow.
The roaring hyena rushed over at the same time.
Rovi turned, and the storm lance appeared in his hand. Its tip once again caught Skadi by the collar. With a swing and a leap, he mounted the heavenly horse.
Skadi landed behind him. The purple goddess's cheeks puffed slightly, quite dissatisfied with yet another instance of Rovi's roughness.
Yet she had no choice—
They shot into the sky.
Thunder, debris, the cold mask falling over his face, his cloak snapping wildly—Rovi crossed a vast distance in an instant and arrived above Midgard of the Nine Realms.
He stood there in silence, faintly detached from the concealment of the mythological curtain. From here, he could see the full view of the Nine Realms.
This is... Skadi let out a sound of surprise.
She saw the entirety of the World Tree, wrapped in wind and snow. She saw the Nine Realms, divided layer by layer from top to bottom.
The dragon climbing upward roared, its gushing dragon breath igniting countless branches of the World Tree. Jormungandr's enormous serpent body also slowly extended upward. The demon wolf Fenrir bit through the shackles that bound him and likewise raised his head to howl at the sky.
The black dragon, the Midgard Serpent, and the demon wolf—as Odin had prophesied, they were the first to launch their assault upon the gods.
Then, in the south, flames surged and burned. Another descendant giant of Ymir, the fire giant, roared as he climbed out from beneath the earth.
The frost giants of Jotunheim also gouged open an icy abyss in the southern part of Midgard.
Traveling back and forth without passing through the World Tree had been absolutely impossible for anyone except Rovi before this.
But now, the World Tree's roots had been bitten through, a corner of the Age of Gods' curtain had been torn apart, and the Nine Realms were unstable. Naturally, there were openings to exploit.
With Ymir's enormous form, such a thing was also possible.
The sky was enveloped in ice and fire. On the road to Asgard, countless demigod warriors were devoured and killed by the three terrifying doomsday monsters.
The gods were also in imminent danger.
In this moment, Skadi felt an inexplicable sense of relief. If not for Rovi, she would likely be one of those gods now teetering on the brink.
The Ski Goddess was not weak among the gods, but neither was she strong. In the face of such a disaster, there was no chance of survival.
But the gods were not entirely without the power to fight back. Jormungandr used his enormous body to bypass Nidhogg and Fenrir, becoming the first to reach Asgard. But what greeted him was a ferocious strike from a thunderous heavy hammer.
Jormungandr was smashed straight back to Midgard. His enormous body fell into the sea at the edge, and immediately after, the lightning chasing him shone even more fiercely.
Thor, God of Thunder, had arrived in pursuit.
Among the gods, some raised weapons to resist, while some fled in panic. Tyr, Thor's brother, who likewise bore the name of war god, raised his blade, yet could not block Nidhogg's dragon breath, which carried a dense aura of death. Odin's wife, Frigg, the queen of heaven and goddess of love, tried to ram open the door Odin had locked, beyond which there was still no sign of him, but it was of no use.
The gods were about to fall.
Only the God-King remained silent.
"What... are we going to do?" Skadi asked. In the past, she might have felt some reluctance, but now the gods of Asgard had abandoned her first, and Scathach's existence had given her limitless confidence.
Skadi naturally appeared extremely calm, even somewhat indifferent.
So-called affection had always been built on mutual exchange. This time, it was the gods who had cut off their final connection to her first.
This was not resentment. Skadi understood why the gods had done what they did, so there was no resentment in her heart. She had simply come to a realization.
What were they going to do?
Rovi did not answer at once. He only looked toward the abyssal passage the giants had gouged open, leading down to the lower world.
"Do you truly refuse to cooperate with me?" Ymir's voice sounded by his ear once more.
Ymir still would not give up, because he knew this person's forces—the storm giants he commanded—were no weaker than the frost and lava giants under his own control.
Rovi did not answer. He only turned his gaze and asked Skadi, "Do you want to be a god, or do you want to be a giant?"
A god, of course.
Skadi did not hesitate in the slightest. Giants were a race of chaos, disordered and without self. No normal life-form could accept existing in that manner.
"But now, even if I wanted to be a god, I'm afraid I can't." Skadi looked toward Asgard, which had fallen into collapse and chaos.
Leaving aside the fact that they now saw her as a traitor, even if they could accept her, Ragnarok had already arrived. Where was there any place left for a god?
Rovi tugged the reins of the heavenly horse. "Good. Same here."
Between chaos and order, the latter was ultimately better.
Then—
"Ymir, now I can give you my final answer!"
Storm swept outward with Rovi at its center. The heavenly horse reared up and let out a brilliant neigh. In Midgard, countless winds and snows were suddenly swept away by the storm that appeared. Within the black currents of air, figure after figure emerged.
They were storm giants.
And the vast army formed from countless "warriors of dead souls" who followed the storm giants.
Points of firelight appeared among them, burning.
Those were the seeds that had been scattered.
No words were needed, and no orders were required. The hyena crouched at his feet let out a roar.
Fafnir opened his mouth and spat out countless lights and shadows.
Those were...
"A fragment of Asgard—the concepts of the gods!?" Others could not see what they were, but how could Skadi not know?
Rovi confirmed it. "That's right. Fragments of the gods' concepts."
"Have you forgotten what the gods were doing when I stole back the 'divine core' you had entrusted to the divine realm of Asgard?"
The gods had been manifesting the "divine cores" of their essential concepts.
They had been covering Skadi's divine core with them, trying to crush the Ski Goddess's divine core.
"So Fafnir stole away your divine core, and at the same time, he tore off fragments from the concepts of those gods who were trying to crush your personality."
"Though they are only fragments, these concepts are components of the gods' essential core. If we use them as a foundation and place them into the seeds that have gathered countless souls of the dead and absorbed enough humanity, then—"
"They can transform from giants into gods!"
"Just like the opening of heaven and earth—"
"They will give birth to wisdom!"
Skadi finally understood what Rovi wanted to do.
He was an enemy of the gods.
But he was not truly an enemy of the whole of "godhood."
Just as he had done from the start by stealing the name and power of the Wild Hunt, Rovi intended to use these giants to replace the position of the gods.
He intended to turn "beings" into "gods."
To make giants become gods.
Then the identity of the being who ruled over those gods was naturally beyond doubt.
Becoming the "Wild Hunt"?
No. That alone was still not enough.
For Rovi, only becoming the King of the Gods could count as the true beginning.