"Get out of the way!"
His trembling arms struggled to support his critically wounded body. Loki shook from head to toe as he forced his head up and screamed in Fenris's direction.
"Cough! Cough..."
"Dodge it! Get out of the way!"
Loki had no idea how Fenris had escaped the Casket's power, but one thing was painfully clear. Even if Fenris had returned to life, completely shaken off the cold, and recovered his full strength, the gulf between him and Laufey remained utterly insurmountable.
Unless Fenris's power had somehow increased a hundredfold in mere moments, granting him enough strength to contend with Laufey, or the very nature of his abilities had miraculously reversed so that the Casket of Ancient Winters no longer countered him so thoroughly, confronting Laufey head-on would end no differently than before.
At most, Laufey would have to expend a little more effort to beat him back into submission and seal him in ice again. The result would not change in the slightest.
Their best option now was for Fenris to use his incredible speed to keep Laufey occupied, then seize the opportunity to evacuate Asgard's remaining forces. They could wait for Odin to awaken before returning to reclaim Asgard.
A direct confrontation was unquestionably the worst possible choice.
Loki realized this immediately, and Laufey understood it just as well.
Unfortunately, Loki had exhausted all his strength. No matter how desperately he tried to warn Fenris, his hoarse voice was swallowed by the howling winds around him. Before it could travel far, it was torn apart and scattered, never reaching Fenris's ears.
Hearing Loki's frantic warnings, Laufey hovered in the air and cast him a contemptuous glance. His grip on the Casket of Ancient Winters tightened further.
"I'll tear this problem out by the roots. Not one of you is leaving here alive today!"
Laufey's crimson eyes burned with hatred.
This human was far too unnatural. If Laufey allowed an enemy like this to remain free, he genuinely feared that he might wake up one day to find a deadly ax already pressed against his neck.
Whoosh!
The razor-thin white beam, filled with bitter cold, became even denser as it shot straight toward Fenris.
Closer.
Closer still.
The instant Laufey shattered his atomic breath, Fenris raised his eyes and saw the attack containing nearly all of Laufey's strength.
In the next moment, the world began to slow around him.
In the distance, a deathly pale and battered Loki desperately reached toward him. His mouth opened and closed, though Fenris could not hear what he was shouting.
Beside Loki lay a beautiful woman in shattered light armor, groaning in pain on the ground.
Laufey watched him mockingly from the sky, apparently certain that his attack could not fail.
Across the surrounding battlefield, the Frost Giant soldiers who had been sweeping through Asgard reacted as though facing their greatest enemy when they saw Fenris return to life. They raised their weapons toward him, yet their orderly formations began to crumble as they involuntarily retreated step by step.
Within the nearby ruins, Thor's faint presence seemed to stir after sensing Fenris's return.
Since breaking free from the ice, Fenris could clearly feel that his senses had become stronger than ever before. Everything around him was astonishingly clear.
The entire world seemed frozen in his eyes. Only the brilliant white beam continued racing toward him at incredible speed.
Even from thousands of meters away, the tremendous energy contained within it sent an instinctive chill through Fenris's heart.
The immense threat relentlessly assaulted his nerves, yet the power of the Casket of Ancient Winters somehow felt incredibly intimate and familiar.
A voice deep within him kept repeating the same message.
"Do not dodge. Do not be afraid!"
"Accept it. Absorb it!"
"Let it become the final piece of your transformation!"
Without the slightest hesitation, Fenris instinctively obeyed the call from deep within his heart.
As Laufey's attack drew closer, Fenris took a deep breath and forcibly suppressed his urge to evade. Then he gently closed his eyes.
Swish!
Darkness descended, shutting out everything in Asgard. A moment later, the emptiness behind his closed eyelids began to churn, and the sound of rustling pages suddenly reached his ears.
There was something strangely reassuring about the sound. Fenris's slightly hurried breathing gradually steadied.
In the next instant, a gentle white radiance filled his vision. The enormous bestiary that had accompanied him until now, one so familiar that he knew every detail of it, slowly emerged from the mist and soon occupied his entire field of vision.
Countless Titan beasts could be vaguely seen within the mist covering its front. Three of them, however, were exceptionally clear. As the white light grew brighter, a fourth silhouette slowly appeared.
The ancient cover opened softly, and the pages turned on their own despite the absence of any wind. The fourth page, now almost completely filled with luminous white light, appeared before him.
"Just a little more."
Fenris immediately understood what he was seeing.
And the final piece he needed was already on its way.
Meanwhile, in the outside world, Fenris's enormous body looked no different from a stationary target in Laufey's eyes.
The white beam formed from Laufey's full-power attack crossed thousands of meters in an instant and was about to strike Fenris.
Everywhere the beam passed, it pierced straight through the low, oppressive clouds overhead. They instantly froze solid before crashing down from the sky.
The unnatural phenomenon continued spreading along the beam's path, nearly crossing the entire battlefield.
"No..."
"Why isn't he moving?"
Loki watched Fenris stand there like a fool, completely motionless. Fenris even closed his eyes and spread his claws, apparently intending to take the attack directly with his chest.
All the hope in Loki's eyes instantly faded.
"It's over..."
"Die!"
Laufey had poured everything into this attack, and he was certain of victory. He was confident that even if Odin appeared, he would have no choice but to avoid its edge.
Laufey knew firsthand how formidable Fenris's defenses were, but how could he possibly abandon all resistance? Did he truly believe his body alone could withstand this attack?
"Know your limits."
Laufey sneered, directing a mocking gaze toward Fenris as though he could already see the beam piercing straight through him.
Boom!
Countless thoughts flashed through their minds in an instant, but every trace of contempt and despair froze the moment the white beam struck.
As soon as it touched Fenris's scorching body, the beam, condensed to its absolute limit, instantly produced a vast cloud of steam.
Fenris was not pierced through as Laufey had expected.
Instead, Fenris felt a bone-chilling cold erupt from the point of contact and violently spread throughout his entire body.
The cold contained within the beam was even more extreme than before. The blazing atomic reactor inside him almost immediately ceased functioning.
With the reactor that served as the source of his power shut down, the radiation surrounding Fenris's body plummeted. His body temperature also fell sharply.
The cold spread through him, and the moisture inside every cell of his body began freezing at the same time, along with the surface of his skin.
Fenris's teeth chattered uncontrollably.
"Looks like... I may have taken this a little too far..."
(End of Chapter)
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