Inside the Helicarrier's bridge, the air was heavy enough to crush bone. No one had expected a mortal to level such vitriol at a being worshipped as a King of Gods.
Odin's expression shifted from paternal disappointment to a cold, predatory stillness. His single eye narrowed into a sliver of icy light. "You speak to me as if you have lived through a thousand deaths, boy. Do you truly understand who stands before you?"
"I hear a lot of noise from a relic whose time has passed," Emrys countered. He didn't just stand his ground; he leaned into the Allfather's divine pressure, a mocking smirk playing on his lips. "I said: if you think your throne can protect you from the consequences of your failure, then by all means, old man—try me."
"You do not fear death?" Odin's brow furrowed. He felt a flicker of genuine unease. The confidence in Emrys's voice wasn't the bravado of a fool; it was the cold certainty of a butcher.
"You cannot kill me," Emrys stated, his voice dropping to a low, bloodthirsty growl. "But more importantly, you dare not. Do you believe in blood-debts, Odin? Because I do.
If you strike down a single soul under my command, I will spend the next millennium hunting every Asgardian in the cosmos. I will turn the Nine Realms into a graveyard of golden towers and charred bone. Tooth for tooth. Life for life."
"You dare threaten the Throne of Valhalla?" Killing intent surged from Odin, the air around him crackling with the power of the Odinforce.
"I am not threatening. I am stating a tactical reality."
Emrys knew that with the Traveler System, he could transition back to the relative safety of the Warp-scarred Warhammer universe in an instant. The only cost would be the Black Watch—a sacrifice he was willing to make if it meant the eventual eradication of Asgard.
"How much longer do you have, Allfather?" Emrys's face twisted into a mask of pure malice. "A century? A decade? Your life is a candle flickering in a hurricane. And when you are gone, who stands between me and your people? Your sons? One is a brawler, the other a snake. Neither can stop what I will bring."
He took a step forward, his eyes alight with a manic, terrifying brilliance. "I am patient. I will wait for you to rot. I will wait for Hela to break her chains and finish what you started. And then, when Asgard is at its lowest, I will hunt the survivors. I will find every refugee, every child of Aesir blood, and I will hang them from the gallows of their own hubris."
The Avengers stood paralyzed. Fury felt a primal terror rising in his gut. They had lived their lives in a world of heroes and villains, of compromise and "greater goods." But Emrys was something else entirely. He was a radical of the Imperium—a man who viewed mercy as a weakness and xenos as a plague.
Odin's hand trembled on the shaft of Gungnir. For the first time in an age, the King of Gods felt the weight of his years. He saw the future Emrys was describing—not a glorious battle, but a systematic, cold-blooded extermination.
The silence stretched, agonizing and taut. Then, as if a switch had been flipped, Odin's grim visage softened into a hollow, mirthless smile.
"Hahaha... a test of mettle. Truly, you possess the courage of the ancient kings." The God King lowered his spear, the crushing pressure vanishing instantly. "Do not take my sternness to heart. It was merely a... necessary inquiry. As an apology for the Frost Giants' transgressions, I shall grant you your request. Our 'friendship' remains intact."
Emrys's manic expression smoothed into a calm, professional mask. "Of course, Allfather. Long live the alliance between our peoples. We are, after all, on the same side of this war."
The tension broke, but the fear remained. Fury wiped the sweat from his brow, knowing that if Emrys had blinked, the Helicarrier would have been a tomb.
Odin struck Gungnir against the deck. The Bifrost flared to life, a bridge of prismatic light tearing through the dimensions to reveal the frozen, desolate world of Jotunheim.
Emrys didn't waste a second. He signaled his fleet.
They arrived above Jotunheim—a world of jagged peaks and eternal blizzards. Beneath them lay hundreds of thousands of Frost Giants: the old, the young, the non-combatants left behind while the warriors died in New York.
"I, Merlin Emrys, by the authority of the Imperial Warrant of Trade," Emrys's voice was broadcast across the fleet and, through a hacked link provided by Stark, to every screen on Earth. "In the name of the Throne and the survival of the human species, I hereby exercise the prerogative of the Emperor's chosen."
His eyes were cold enough to freeze the void. "I formally issue a Decree of Exterminatus for the world of Jotunheim."
The world watched.
The bombardment began with the thunder of macro-cannons. Lance batteries struck the planet like the fingers of a vengeful god, carving through the ice and into the tectonic plates. Dazzling white plumes of fire erupted across the surface, followed by the rising mushroom clouds of planetary-scale devastation.
Laufey, strapped to the exterior observation deck of the lead ship, was forced to watch. Stripped of his limbs and held in a stasis field, he could do nothing but scream as his homeworld turned into a ball of fire. He saw the ice melt into steam and the rock crack into seas of magma.
"No! Please! Nooooo!" His voice was a ragged howl of despair. He had trusted the Mad Titan, and in doing so, he had signed the death warrant of his entire race.
But the bombardment was only the beginning. Emrys signaled the bio-ships.
Vials of life-eater viruses and atmospheric-dissolving agents rained down into the choking smoke. The survivors of the initial blasts found no refuge. The "Black Water" merged with the air, turning it into a corrosive mist that dissolved flesh and bone into a foul, liquefied sludge.
Odin, watching the broadcast from the Helicarrier, felt a genuine chill. He had fought wars for millennia, but this was a level of systematic, unfeeling eradication that defied the Norse concept of battle. It was a factory of death.
"That is sufficient," Emrys said, watching the scans as the last bio-signatures flickered out. He turned to his officers. "Signal the construction units. Tell the Transformers to begin the deconstruction of the planetary core. We will harvest the resources of this dead rock until nothing remains but dust."
Finally, Emrys looked at the ruined, hysterical form of Laufey.
"Bring him to the surface of the Earth," Emrys commanded. "Execution by white phosphorus. Broadcast it globally. Let every xenos in the Nine Realms know: the price of human blood is everything you hold dear."