The seed burned hotter and hotter. More and more vitality flowed through its invisible links, gathering inside Rovi's dead body.
The boundary between "life" and "death" gradually began to blur.
The "gods" kept wailing. The colossal World Tree shook without end. To the north, the sea surged, and Jormungandr's enormous serpentine shadow twisted as it coiled toward the World Tree.
Loki was laughing wildly, mad and chaotic. His figure twisted as well, gradually turning pale. As one of the gods of Asgard, he naturally could not escape the erosion of the power from beyond the stars.
He, too, would die in this Ragnarok.
But a mad clown—had never been afraid of anything!
"Even while scheming against them, I never once thought I'd escape the furnace myself!"
Rumble, rumble, rumble!
The essence of godhood was vanishing.
Loki's figure scattered like smoke and dust above the North Sea, but his final wild laughter still echoed on.
A madman.
But a madman worthy of respect.
Rovi stood quietly on the far side of the torn curtain of the Age of Gods. As the other force driving Ragnarok, second only to Loki, he looked almost like an outsider now, watching rise and ruin alike with neither sorrow nor joy in his eyes.
"Are you afraid?"
He turned his face slightly. Behind the mask, his gold-and-red eyes burned faintly as he looked straight at Skadi, whose violet hair streamed in the wind.
Skadi had settled back onto the winged steed. Within the spread of its twelve wings, her graceful violet figure swayed gently.
She let both legs fall to one side and sat side-saddle, her hips settling into a soft, flowing curve... And the instant she met Rovi's eyes, Skadi only smiled.
The Ice and Snow Goddess said, "I'm not afraid."
All the resentment and dissatisfaction that had lingered before vanished like smoke in that moment.
It was Rovi's schemes that had made the gods reject her and brand her a traitor. It was Rovi's existence that had left her nowhere to go except behind him. But now—Skadi had seen the true face of the gods of Asgard, had seen the miserable state they were in, and all she felt instead was gratitude... gratitude that she had been taken out of that deep pit in advance.
Gratitude, and even deeper thanks to Rovi.
"You saved me. So I'm not afraid." The goddess's red lips curved upward.
And so Rovi smiled too.
He slowly raised the storm lance in his hand and said, "In that case, will you take the field with me?"
"Of course, new God-King!" Skadi answered with a pure smile.
A smile with no dissatisfaction, no resentment—only the will to follow.
"Then let's go!" He tugged the reins, and the eight-legged winged steed paced forward through the air. The tip of Rhongomyniad in his hand glimmered with brilliant light.
The Storm Divine Race looked up at the figure slowly stepping into the Nine Realms.
The warriors who followed the storm, the Heroic Spirits, had fire burning in their eyes as well.
Endless light and shadow gathered toward that new great god.
Toward the giant tree ahead.
A giant serpent coiled around that tree, yet could not strangle it apart. At the crown, the black dragon and the demon wolf desperately trampled the canopy, but still could not shake it in the slightest.
The power from beyond the stars had taken root in this soil for ten thousand years. Its foundation was deep, steady, and difficult to move.
But Rovi had to resolve it.
Although the authority of the gods of Asgard had already been replaced by the gods of storm, the World Tree still supported Asgard as a whole.
If the entire World Tree was not dealt with completely,
then the Storm Divine Race would never be able to ascend to the true "heavens" and replace them.
Nor could he truly reverse life and death.
Nor solve the drawbacks brought by the Atlantis seed.
So in the end, Rovi still had to act. He had no choice but to act—
Below him, gods and all living beings alike were torches.
Skadi slowly wrapped both arms around Rovi from behind. At last, she could set down the final trace of distance in her heart and enjoy this warm sense of safety.
The great god "Rovi" slowly raised the lance in his hand. The spiraling storm blazed more fiercely than before. Wherever he set foot, the power from beyond the stars vanished and retreated, revealing the laws of the planet's original form.
In the next instant, a roar echoed ahead, blocking Rovi's path toward the World Tree.
Rumble, rumble, rumble!
Thunder cracked suddenly before him. Amid the spreading lightning, the figure that emerged made Rovi pause despite himself.
"Thor, God of Thunder... do you still intend to make a futile last stand?" The eyes behind Rovi's cold faceplate flickered faintly.
The figure that had appeared before him was, without question, Thor, God of Thunder—the great Norse god whose standing was second only to Odin's.
He still held Mjolnir, arcs of electricity crawling across the hammer. Vast divine power from beyond the stars still surged from his body.
A futile last stand!?
Thor, God of Thunder, let out a breath. He slowly raised a hand—and removed the faceplate he had never once taken off.
It was an equally pale yet delicate face. Snow-white hair drifted across his brow, setting off a pair of eyes as red as a furnace.
This was the first time in ten thousand years that he had removed his mask.
The Thor, God of Thunder, of the past had been a bold and openhearted war god. The form he revealed now, however, was by no means his original one.
It was like Sefar's—the form of a Vanguard of the Umbral Star.
Among the gods, Thor, God of Thunder, possessed the greatest strength. But for that very reason, he was also the one most severely eroded by the power from beyond the stars.
A cold light showed in his eyes.
His entire body turned into dazzling lightning, standing between heaven and earth.
He was furious. He wanted to vent his rage. But under the influence of the power from beyond the stars, all that remained was coldness and a mechanical operating logic.
Rovi tightened his grip on the lance and lifted it slightly—
The spiral began to turn.
"Will you be all right?" Skadi asked softly, poking her head out from behind him to look ahead.
"Of course—" Rovi paused before answering. "There's no problem now!"
By this point, even in a human-shaped body, Rovi was confident he could completely suppress the God of Thunder. But to end it quickly, he still decided to use the power of the Machine God.
"I am Thor, God of Thunder!" The God of Thunder raised Mjolnir. Without the faceplate covering him, his voice was unexpectedly clear and sharp.
Rovi angled the lance, and the storm spun faster.
Thunder roared and flashed.
The heavy hammer he swung shot into the sky, then fell, crashing down with immense force onto the colossal World Tree!
Spreading thunder tore again and again through the pale World Tree. Arcs of electricity scraped across it, igniting layer after layer of explosions.
The giant serpent coiled around the tree went rigid for an instant. It had thought it would be injured, but the falling lightning not only failed to harm it; instead, it awakened the latent power in every cell of its enormous body.
It grew stronger!
The rotation of Rovi's lance slowed slightly. He stared fixedly at the figure blocking his way.
"I am Thor, God of Thunder—"
He repeated, "I am the Norse God of Thunder. I am the God of Thunder of this planet, of this world."
"I am a Norse God."
"Fuck the alien stars. Fuck the Vanguard of the Umbral Star!"
"I will not lose."
"I WILL NEVER ADMIT DEFEAT!!!"
Once he had recognized who he was, even though the corrosion of his body had reached an extremely grave state, the Norse God of Thunder named Thor still shook off the power from beyond the stars by sheer force of will.
The god's power was draining away. The shell of his divine core was peeling off.
And yet he was still a god.
The Norse God of Thunder.
He would not admit defeat, nor would he stop here.
"King of the Wild Hunt, you may be a new god, but we gods of Asgard are gods as well!"
I will not lose to you.
Asgard will not lose to the storm!
Thor became a bolt of lightning and charged toward the World Tree.
This was his final strength. It was also the last light manifested by the gods of Asgard.
The radiant god—detonated with a thunderous roar!
Rrrip! Jormungandr let out a long, hissing howl. It raised its enormous head and struck the World Tree at the same time as Thor, God of Thunder.
With a crash, the tree's shadow shook, and cracks spread across its pale trunk.
Nidhogg and the demon wolf Fenrir stomped down hard, shattering the branches and leaves of the crown as well.
The World Tree's foundation shook.
"Thor..." Skadi's expression turned complicated as she witnessed it.
Among the gods, Thor, God of Thunder, had been the most special. Before she met Rovi, he could even be said to have been the one among the gods who treated her best, with no ugly desire mixed in.
But Rovi smiled. "Asgard truly will not lose to the storm—just you alone, just this thunder, is enough to illuminate this entire myth!"
"But your era has passed in the end."
"Let the storm send off the age of the old gods!"
Rovi raised the lance in his hand.
"Come!" he said.
Amid the vast rush of wind and the piercing storm, the Storm Divine Race and the legion of storms all converged here at once.
The frost giants tried to resist the new gods, and were crushed.
The lava giants wanted to flee back to Muspelheim, the fire realm beneath the tree in the south, only to discover that heaven and earth had fused into one. The curtain of the Age of Gods that divided the Nine Realms had already turned into mottled fragments with the collision between Thor and Jormungandr.
"King of the Wild Hunt, Rovi! Do you truly intend to fight me to the death!?" Ymir of Fate let out a startled cry. The annihilation of the frost and lava giants was fatal to him, a manifestation of the progenitor giant's lingering will.
Without giants, he could not appear.
Much less interfere in the world again.
"Fight to the death...? You are not worthy!" Looking down from above, Rovi merely flicked Rhongomyniad once, and Ymir's will beneath the earth was instantly shattered.
If the progenitor giant's true body had come, then facing that primordial god of chaos, Rovi might have had to retreat.
But Ymir, with only a lingering will left... was not qualified to clash with him!
Spiraling together, the gods of storm gathering from every direction finally arrived before him.
On the ground.
The snowstorm dispersed, and the cold faded. The chill and heat brought by the frost and lava giants vanished at the same time. The ordinary people living on this land cautiously stepped outside, only to find that a storm still shrouded the sky overhead. But that storm existed only high in the heavens, only above them, like a thick padded coat draped over the stretching land.
And within it, scattered points of firelight swayed.
From that light, people felt warmth.
From that light, they felt as though some shackle had fallen away.
The white crystals that existed in the bodies and blood of all living creatures—the power from beyond the stars—were evaporating.
Strictly speaking, the seed that originated from Atlantis civilization was also a power from beyond the stars. But Rovi had scattered them, let them fall into the hearts of gods and humans, and they had long since been assimilated by this planet.
Just as the gods of Atlantis, who had come from beyond the heavens, had quickly blended into the surface and become the Greek Gods of Earth.
The purpose of the seed was inheritance. It was continuation.
Not invasion.
And so, in that instant, the World Tree shook and began to struggle. It was not a living creature, but it had consciousness. That was the lingering will of the old Vanguard of the Umbral Star. Yet it only shook slightly before it was swallowed, in that very instant, by storm and flame at the center of the torrent.
The new King of the Gods urged his steed forward at a measured pace.
The tree shook. A will spread outward, as if saying, "You cannot destroy me."
"Without me, the gods' existence cannot continue."
"Without me, you will be unable to maintain your rule."
"Without me..."
"Was that how you tempted Odin, the former Norse God-King?"
Rovi cut off its will and continued forward. "The old God-King Odin possessed a tome of wisdom, but not the decisiveness to use that wisdom."
"He believed your words because what you said was true. But he did not think through the consequences, and that led to today."
"But—"
"Now is different from before."
"Without you, we will still do just fine." Rovi cut off the spreading will. "Because we have always been gods of the planet."
Gods of the planet did not depend on any age.
They depended on the planet itself.
This was the nature of the "primordial," and also the trait that the "wind" Rovi had extracted from the planet itself had bestowed upon these newborn gods.
The gods of storm all stood in the raging wind.
Countless heroes. Endless brilliance.
Countless flames were watching this place.
The seed had scattered.
The seed had burned.
Rovi raised the lance in his hand, his cloak snapping in the wind.
"Awooo!"
The hyena that the evil dragon Fafnir had become let out a dragon's roar. Amid drifting embers, the seed of storm appeared on the evil dragon's body.
The coiled Jormungandr wriggled its enormous body, and light appeared on it as well.
Nidhogg, Fenrir.
The monsters of the apocalypse willingly accepted the seed of storm.
Vitality gathered. It had reached the final step.
Countless seeds fell upon one body. Rovi raised the storm lance in his hand. Layer upon layer of storm overlapped, revealing a single brilliant stream of light.
"THE LANCE THAT SHINES TO THE END OF THE WORLD."
"HERE AND NOW, REVEAL THE PLANET'S ORIGINAL FORM!"
"PRIMORDIAL SEED!"
"BURN AWAY THE CURTAIN OF MYTH."
"REVEAL THE TRU STARRY SKY!"
A long lance descended. A point of light and shadow blossomed. Infinite wind and fire wove together and swept outward!
In that moment, Rovi led countless storms and countless star-fires. As they roared, the tree collapsed and the heavens fell.
People looked up at the sky and saw the true world they had never seen before.
The river of stars flowed, revealing endless brilliance.
High, distant, and vast!
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