"Impossible!"
Laufey's heart skipped a beat.
The power of the Casket of Ancient Winters no longer affected him?
"The difference in our strength is enormous! How could you possibly remain unfrozen?"
Forget remaining composed beneath Laufey's full-powered attack. Why did Fenris not even appear injured or exhausted?
The inevitable weakness from unleashing all his power spread through Laufey's body. He stared at his palm in disbelief.
Had his power declined once again?
Fenris had no intention of giving him another opportunity to lose focus.
The Ancient Frost Titan's colossal body leaped into the air. While he was still rising, brilliant white light gathered within his mouth, ready to erupt.
Fenris locked his gaze on Laufey at the heart of the hurricane. In the next instant, the energy accumulated within his throat reached its peak, and a freezing breath radiating extreme cold erupted toward Laufey.
Boom!
The dazzling white beam rapidly expanded in midair. Its terrifying cold carved a conspicuous trail of ice across the sky as it tore through the hurricane engulfing Asgard.
The massive torrent of energy nearly swallowed Laufey whole. Fenris's freezing breath carried an overwhelming tide of cold directly toward him.
This power came from nearly the same source as the Casket of Ancient Winters, yet it was fundamentally different.
It did not possess the deathly stillness of a frozen hell. There was only absolute, unadulterated cold.
Laufey was intimately familiar with this kind of power. That was precisely why he understood the horror of the attack better than anyone.
"I can't take that head-on!"
The disparity in their strength still existed, but Fenris's absurd breath attack presented a genuine threat to Laufey's life. Even his body involuntarily stiffened for an instant.
Caught off guard, Laufey did not hesitate. He immediately raised the Casket of Ancient Winters, the treasure he valued above all else, and used it as a shield.
He desperately drew upon what little strength remained in his body. An identical white beam erupted from the Casket and collided violently with Fenris's freezing breath.
Boom!
Their powers collided once again.
Two nearly identical forces, one thick and the other narrow, met upon the same battlefield in a familiar scene.
This time, however, the result was entirely different.
White frost mist enveloped Fenris as his body crashed back to the ground. Yet his head remained raised, and the freezing breath continued pouring from his mouth into the sky.
The power Laufey had previously forced into Fenris was now being returned in full, becoming the final weight that crushed Laufey's resistance.
The freezing breath surged into the heavens, gradually overwhelming the storm released by the Casket of Ancient Winters and drawing ever closer to Laufey.
Closer!
The luminous white light drained all color from Laufey's face. He watched helplessly as a beam thicker than his entire body rose from the ground and began swallowing him.
His eyes widened, but his pupils rapidly contracted into needle-thin points.
"No!"
Boom!
Explosions thundered across the skies of Asgard. Towering waves of sound crashed down upon the land, causing every living creature to instinctively stop what they were doing and look toward the sky.
"What happened?"
Thor's eyes snapped open on the Bifrost. After a brief rest, he had barely recovered some of his strength.
He summoned Mjolnir back into his hand and practically sprang to his feet, staring anxiously at the distant sky.
The sound resembled divine thunder rolling across the heavens, yet careful listening revealed that it was something entirely different. The shock waves from the collision carried overwhelming divine might, reverberating through the clouds with terrifying pressure.
Thor struggled to remain standing. He did not know exactly what was happening, but he understood one thing with absolute certainty.
This was the final clash between Fenris and Laufey.
Victory or defeat would be decided in an instant, along with the fate of all Asgard.
If Fenris won, everything would be saved.
But if Fenris lost...
Thor clenched his fist.
Could Fenris truly defeat such a powerful enemy?
"Believe in him. Mother already told us that the cold can no longer affect him."
At some point, Loki had moved beside Thor. He placed a hand on Thor's shoulder, gradually calming his trembling body.
"Right."
Even escaping had become an impossible luxury. There was nothing they could do except wait anxiously.
Above the distant temples, a pure white light suddenly rose within the ink-black darkness shrouding the sky and land.
In an instant, the gloomy world became bright enough to see clearly.
For the first time, Thor saw the frost hurricane's complete form.
The scale of its destruction was horrifying. Even Asgard's formerly magnificent temples appeared insignificant before it. Looking closely, Thor could see countless slender ice spears whirling within the raging winds, each one nearly ten meters long.
Repeated sonic booms rang out, displaying their terrifying power.
"Fenris is fighting against a disaster like that?"
Thor's grip tightened around Mjolnir.
He imagined himself in Fenris's place, but no matter how many possibilities he considered, he could not find even the slightest chance of survival. Fighting an undefeatable enemy under such extreme conditions was even more unthinkable.
"It's over..."
When an attack of this intensity was concentrated upon one person, Fenris's colossal body became nothing more than a living target.
What difference did it make if the Casket of Ancient Winters could not freeze him?
Thor did not even need to see the outcome. It felt as though a bucket of ice water had been poured over him, extinguishing the last spark of hope in his heart.
"No! It isn't that simple!"
Loki frowned. He appeared to notice something and suddenly spoke.
Crack!
As the thunderous explosions above the clouds gradually faded, a crisp sound emerged from within the raging hurricane. It was completely out of place amid the roaring winds, yet it reached everyone's ears with perfect clarity.
It was the sound of moisture freezing.
Loki abruptly raised his head.
At the heart of the hurricane, the luminous white light of Fenris's freezing breath broke through Laufey's final resistance without the slightest pause and pierced straight through his body.
Even that did not seem to satisfy Fenris.
He continued releasing the tremendous excess power surging within him. His freezing breath showed no sign of stopping and plunged directly into the clouds that had created the hurricane.
A white beam pierced through the entire storm and extended into the heavens. Bone-chilling cold instantly spread throughout the dense clouds spinning at tremendous speed.
An endless series of cracking sounds filled the air. Visible icicles emerged within the clouds. Only a few seconds later, the winds moving at several thousand meters per second abruptly faltered before slowing at a rate visible to the naked eye.
The ordinary soldiers trapped inside the storm noticed the change almost immediately. Having barely survived until now, they raised their heads and looked toward the center of the battlefield, where the two kings had fought.
"The wind... stopped?"
(End of Chapter)
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