The towering hurricane connecting heaven and earth gradually came to a stop beneath the force of an overwhelmingly powerful external influence.
Its absurd speed of a thousand meters per second fell to a hundred meters, then ten...
When the hurricane finally dissipated, a gentle, frigid breeze swept across the devastated battlefield and its frost-covered ruins.
At that moment, both the Asgardian soldiers and the Frost Giants breathed sighs of relief.
Natural disasters showed no mercy.
A single act of madness from Laufey had inflicted catastrophic casualties upon both races.
No one could have imagined that events would develop into this.
"Is the fighting over?"
An exhausted voice suddenly rose from among the ruins.
Only the whispering wind answered. Everyone's gaze turned almost simultaneously in the same direction.
Whether the battle continued was not for any of them to decide.
At some point, the dazzling white light had completely faded. Terrifying energy fluctuations still permeated the world, but the suffocating pressure that had accompanied them was finally gone.
A colossal spiral of ice now towered over the battlefield, enclosing everyone within it. It connected the vast earth to the clouds above, which had been frozen completely solid.
At the hurricane's core, where Laufey had stood moments earlier, an equally towering pillar of ice rose between heaven and earth.
The terrifying cold had frozen almost all the moisture in the air. As everyone looked around, crisp cracking sounds echoed from every direction, and each one made countless hearts skip a beat.
Ice fragments mixed with frozen mist fell from the sky like rain. Dense white fog spread across the battlefield, while the enormous ice formations groaned beneath their own terrifying weight, seemingly ready to collapse at any moment.
"ROAR!"
The dreadful silence lasted only a few seconds before a tremendous roar, filled with exhilaration and fury, violently tore it apart.
A colossal creature nearly a hundred meters long suddenly leaped from the mist. Smooth scales and crystalline spines adorned his refined form, but they could not conceal the primal aura radiating from his body.
His shadow fell over the battlefield, and his intimidating presence weighed upon every heart, causing everyone to hold their breath.
"Why is it him...? Where is the king?"
"Where is our king?"
Fenris did not even glance at the Frost Giants below.
After releasing the excess cold accumulated within his body, he felt refreshed and relieved of an immense burden. He let out a satisfied growl, then turned his gaze directly toward the pillar of ice at the hurricane's center.
The others could not see what was trapped a hundred meters above the ground, but Fenris saw it clearly.
An exceptionally tall Frost Giant holding an exquisite rectangular casket had been frozen inside.
It was Laufey.
Freezing his enemies solid had always been one of Laufey's favorite methods.
The Casket of Ancient Winters could completely deprive anyone imprisoned within its ice of the power to resist, leaving their life and death entirely in his hands.
For hundreds of thousands of years, there had never been an exception.
At least, not until he encountered a monster like Fenris.
Laufey had never imagined that he would one day receive the same treatment.
The freezing breath had been unstoppable. Once it crushed his final resistance, Laufey barely had time to comprehend what had happened before he found himself frozen and unable to move, just like all the enemies he had once defeated.
He desperately tried to activate the treasure in his hand, but the Casket of Ancient Winters seemed to have withered. No matter how much of his remaining strength he poured into it, its familiar blue light refused to appear.
"So you like freezing people, huh?"
Laufey felt a mocking gaze burning into his face. He lowered his eyes and found himself staring into the Frost Titan's luminous white eyes.
The hundreds of meters between them and the thick layers of ice might as well not have existed.
Fenris stared directly at Laufey.
"You lost."
"I... lost?"
A flood of unwillingness surged through Laufey's heart. Refusing to accept the outcome, he continued trying to activate the Casket of Ancient Winters, but it gave him no response whatsoever.
It seemed he really had lost...
This had been a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. He had been on the verge of succeeding, only for this monstrous creature to appear...
Laufey looked away from Fenris.
He saw the devastation covering Asgard, which had been reduced to a pale shadow of its former glory.
The Bifrost had been destroyed. Even Asgard's iconic golden temples had become shattered ruins.
He saw the surviving soldiers of Jotunheim and Asgard, fewer than one in a hundred of their original numbers.
He saw countless Asgardians frozen in ice. After that catastrophe, the number of survivors could almost be counted on one hand.
Both sides had been devastated.
"Hahahaha..."
Laufey suddenly wanted to laugh.
If he had been capable of moving, he probably would have burst into laughter right then.
Loud, unrestrained laughter.
Had he won?
It did not seem so.
But had he lost?
That did not seem entirely true either.
There was no victor in this war that had engulfed nearly all of Asgard.
The only one still standing on the battlefield was an outsider from Midgard.
How ironic.
"Odin, I did not lose to you!"
But defeat was defeat.
The victor became king, and the defeated were left with nothing. That was how it had always been. There was nothing more to say.
Laufey closed his eyes and turned his head away. As the last of his fighting spirit faded, exhaustion instantly overwhelmed his body after the continuous battles, and his aura weakened dramatically.
Boom!
Just as Laufey completely abandoned his struggle, an explosion erupted beside him.
His eyes snapped open.
A foreleg covered in heavy scales was swinging directly toward him.
Spiderweb cracks instantly spread throughout the ice encasing him. Before he could react, the entire frozen prison exploded with a deafening crash.
"It's the king!"
"Our king!"
As the center of everyone's attention, Fenris's actions immediately drew countless eyes.
The instant Fenris shattered the pillar imprisoning Laufey, the surviving Frost Giants spotted their king.
Unfortunately, their king no longer had the strength to lead them into battle.
A tremendous force struck Laufey. Caught completely unprepared, he heard his bones crack beneath the overwhelming impact as his entire body twisted unnaturally.
He lost his grip on the Casket of Ancient Winters, and it flew away alongside him.
Bang!
Laufey and the Casket smashed through the spiraling layers of solid ice that had formed from the hurricane and supported the frozen clouds, sending both of them hurtling into the distance.
Despite his enormous size, Fenris showed no hint of clumsiness. His heavy steps shook the ground as he immediately chased after the Casket of Ancient Winters.
Thud!
Laufey crashed heavily to the ground. There was no telling how many bones the impact had shattered. The pain was so severe that he could only release a meaningless groan.
In the next instant, a gigantic claw covered in pristine white scales descended and pinned him firmly beneath it.
Sharp talons raked across his body, sending blood spraying into the air.
As the blood fell, three sets of footsteps approached from the distance. Then a somewhat weak but inexplicably excited shout rang out nearby.
"Yes! That's exactly how it feels!"
"Laufey, now you know what it's like!"
(End of Chapter)
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