Chapter 72 : The Primordial Cold – Storm Unbound
New York, Manhattan, 6:42 AM – Thor's POV
The cold hit me first.
Not a mortal cold. Not winter. Not wind.
Something older. Sharper. A presence.
It pressed through the streets of Manhattan like a verdict pronounced on all of Midgard. My breath fogged instantly in the air, the frost curling along the pavement as if it were alive, whispering secrets from an age predating gods. Even in my mortal guise, I felt it. Perhaps more because of my mortal guise.
The cane in my hand—once Mjolnir—vibrated subtly. A faint tremor. A warning. Its weight grounded me, though it lacked the bulk of the hammer it concealed. My fingers tightened around its wooden curve, every muscle coiling, every thought sharpening.
I stepped onto the street.
Long fissures of pale light ran across the sky above me, unstable, jagged, shivering like something wounded. What had begun as Loki's reckless ritual had now torn itself open into something far worse. The Rift. A tear in the fabric of Midgard's sky, pulsing with foreign energy.
I inhaled, tasting electricity. Tasting frost. Tasting danger.
The Fragment—no, the presence pushing through the Rift—hung in the air like a wound made manifest. A mass of energy. Semi-organic. Shifting. Alive. Wrong. Even without a god's full senses, I felt the world reject it. The wind recoiled. Shadows bent around it. The city itself shuddered beneath its weight.
And beneath all of that, unmistakable and infuriatingly clear, was Loki's magic.
My jaw tightened. The recognition was immediate. The texture of his sorcery wound through the air like threads of ice—precise, clever, dangerously arrogant. He held the Rift open even now. I didn't need eyes to see him. His determination burned against the edges of my awareness, strained but focused. Loki was channeling something far beyond reason.
I knew his goal.
His twisted logic.
His intent.
He sought my death—not struck directly by his hand, but brought about by Hrimthul's emergence. Then, killing the monster himself, he would claim legitimacy. A throne forged in tragedy and "heroism."
Foolish.
Brilliant.
Deadly.
My steps crunched across ice forming unnaturally beneath my boots. Each step felt heavier, as if the air itself pressed downward, resisting my approach. The Rift pulsed again, sending a shockwave of frigid air through the street. The cold gnawed through clothing, through skin, through bone.
It wasn't merely cold. It was primordial.
A cold that sought identity.
A cold that recognized gods and challenged them.
Short breath.
Long exhale.
Focus.
I advanced, the cane tapping the ground lightly—too lightly for the power I knew lay dormant within it. The frost recoiled around the impact points, spiderwebs of ice cracking outward. My mortal heart thudded in my chest, but my divine instincts roared to life, analyzing, calculating, preparing.
Then I saw it fully.
A portion of Hrimthul—vast, shapeless, yet undeniably alive—had already broken through the Rift. It was not a giant. Not even a beast. It was a force. A mass of consciousness wrapped in ice and energy, a semi-formed entity that pulsed like a living storm. Light bent across its surface. The air rippled. Temperature plummeted in response to its mere existence.
Its awareness swept across me like a hand made of winter.
I didn't yield. Couldn't.
My stance widened instinctively.
Back straight.
Shoulders locked.
Every mortal fiber under tension.
The cane pulsed again—Mjolnir calling to me, urging its true form, demanding release. But I held it steady. Timing mattered more than raw power. One wrong move, one reckless moment, and all of Midgard would pay the price.
A short breath.
A long shiver rolling across my spine.
The Rift writhed and twisted behind the mass of Hrimthul, its edges crackling with Loki's magic. I felt the strain in the threads he held. He was pouring himself into the spell beyond his limits. Beyond reason. Perhaps beyond survival.
I had to stop him.
Not out of anger.
But because the world could not endure what he was calling forth.
The cold pressed harder. The presence pressed back.
I felt something ancient rise in me.
A line crossed.
A boundary shattered.
I stepped forward, voice cutting through the shrieking wind:
"Enough."
The word did not echo—it detonated.
The cane in my hand flashed with blinding light.
The false weight vanished.
The wooden shell split apart like fragile bark.
Lightning arced down my arms, across my shoulders, through my spine.
The mortal shell of Donald Blake peeled away from me in a burst of light—dissolving like dust blown from stone—leaving only truth, only essence, only the god that Midgard had forgotten but never erased.
Mjolnir solidified in my grip with a thunderous crack.
My armor reformed across my body in a cascade of metal and stormlight. The red cape unfurled behind me, snapping violently in the unnatural wind. My eyes burned with lightning. The ground trembled beneath my boots.
Thor, God of Thunder, stood where Donald Blake had been.
The mass of Hrimthul recoiled—not from fear, but from recognition.
The storm answered me instantly, the sky snapping open in response to my return.
I leveled Mjolnir.
The fight began.
But the world did not wait for my first strike.
The cold surged instead—alive, violent, aware. Hrimthul's presence slammed outward like a tidal wave of frozen pressure, forcing the air itself to contract around my body. Frost crawled up the cracked asphalt in jagged branches, racing toward my boots. I planted my stance, Mjolnir raised, lightning coiling around the head of the hammer like restless serpents.
The mass in front of me pulsed.
Not a shape. Not yet.
A suggestion of one.
A colossal mound of shifting ice-flesh that twisted against the boundary of the Rift, half inside, half outside, the two halves pulling against each other like a creature caught between breaths.
The energy distorted the air so violently that buildings flickered—glass bending, metal groaning, shadows elongating as if unsure where to fall.
And behind the chaos… Loki.
My brother stood at the center of a storm he had willingly conjured, hands spread, magic carving lines through the frozen air. His face was strained, jaw locked tight, sweat freezing on his temples the moment it surfaced. He didn't even look at me.
He couldn't.
The ritual demanded everything.
"Loki!" I shouted.
He didn't answer—only pressed deeper into the spell, his form trembling under the weight of the pull between realms. The Rift shuddered around him, its edges flickering violently like the maw of some cosmic beast trying to swallow him whole.
I narrowed my eyes.
Loki's magic.
Jotun cold.
No time for questions.
Lightning roared through my veins, urging me forward.
I charged.
Each step thundered, shaking the frost-slick concrete. Winds whipped around me—unnaturally early, unnaturally focused—as if the storm itself had sensed my intent before I could voice it. The sky was already churning. Clouds spiraled downward in dense, accelerating coils, gathering with a speed that defied any natural pattern I knew.
This was not the usual answer to my call.
It was anticipation.
I hadn't summoned anything yet. I hadn't reached for the storm, hadn't opened myself to it. And still… it was there, forming overhead, raw and electric, as though the heavens themselves had breathed a wordless yes the instant I stepped onto the battlefield.
A ripple moved through the air—subtle but unmistakable.
Not a rejection.
Not a clash.
But a readiness, a strange, instinctive alignment, as if the atmosphere had been waiting for me, coiling around a need I had not yet expressed but was destined to.
Even I felt the wrongness—or the rightness—of it.
A response delivered before the request.
The storm answered fully the moment I stepped into the open, already Thor, God of Thunder, my mortal shell left behind.
Lightning crawled through the clouds in branching veins, converging toward me with a hunger I had not felt in years. I drew a breath—cold, sharp, biting—and raised Mjolnir. The hammer pulsed in my grip, alive, resonating with the storm already awakening around me. Power pressed against limitation. Identity pressed against chaos.
I centered myself. Not Donald Blake. Not a mere man walking Midgard. Thor of Midgard, son of Odin, God of Thunder. Every muscle taut, every sinew coiled, every sense sharpened to the pulse of the rift before me.
Loki turned, sensing the shift in the air, the inevitability he could no longer outrun. Frost clung to his lashes, his breath a cloud of cold defiance. The jagged tear in space pulsed with a sickening rhythm, half heartbeat, half scream. Through it, a massive, formless portion of Hrimthul pushed, a living shadow of ice and darkness, dragging the void's chill in its wake.
"Brother—" he hissed, but the word carried no warmth, no plea. Only accusation sharpened to a blade.
I didn't answer. Words would not reach him now. Only action could.
The storm above snarled. Not mine alone. But it did not matter. I called nothing. I simply moved, and it surged, coiling and striking, responding to the need in my blood, to the presence of the void already seeping into Midgard.
I stepped forward. Each movement carried the weight of Mjolnir. The hammer felt right in my hand, as though it had been waiting for this confrontation. My boots pressed against frost-slick concrete, each step resonating through the street, echoing in abandoned alleys. The cold of the primordial breach slashed against my lungs, bit through the armor of air surrounding the city, yet I welcomed it. It sharpened my focus, reminded me that this was no ordinary fight.
Loki's grip on the rift was absolute. Strained beyond measure. The Jötun artifact in his hand pulsed with blue-white energy, ancient and raw, yet insufficient. He forced the tear open, feeding it with everything he could muster. Still, the rift resisted him.
The mass of Hrimthul already spilling through seemed almost conscious. Testing the boundaries of the world. Testing me.
"I said, enough !" I growled. My voice cut through the howl of the wind like a blade. I swung Mjolnir forward. Solid. Divine. Anchoring me in the storm that had already answered my presence.
Loki faltered. His fingers clenched the artifact tighter. A surge of magic forced through the rift, but I was faster. I advanced. Each step shattered the frozen air beneath my boots. Shards of frost spun outward. The primordial cold bit at my cheeks, gnawed at my lungs. I welcomed it. It sharpened me. Pushed my senses to the edge.
I struck Mjolnir against the ground. Once. Twice. A pattern of blows—not to destroy, but to shatter rhythm. To break his fragile focus. The rift wavered, trembled.
I inhaled.
The storm above roared. It twisted, condensed, coiled. Faster than nature should allow. Branching clouds collided and folded in on themselves. Electricity snapped between them. The tempest had been waiting. Not for my call, but for my need.
Lightning arced across the sky. Veins of white and blue. It raced along Mjolnir, dancing across the hammer's surface. Alive. Impatient.
The moment had come.
Mjolnir thrummed in my hand. Sparks leapt, coiling like serpents along the hammer's surface. Frost lifted from the streets. Snow spiraled violently. Shadows stretched and twisted unnaturally, reaching toward the Rift as though sensing the strike to come.
I inhaled. Cold bit my lungs. Sharp. Primordial. Alive. Every fiber of me coiled. Every sinew tensed. The storm surged, coalescing around me. Not because I called it. Not because I asked. Because it knew. It had already readied itself. Responded. Prepared for what I would do.
Hrimthul writhed at the Rift's edge. Semi-formed, unstable. Testing the limits of Midgard. Testing me. I tightened my grip. Mjolnir hummed. A pulse of pure intent. My eyes locked. My stance rooted. The world held its breath.
Lightning arced across the sky. Veins of white and blue. It raced along the hammer. Alive. Humming. Hungry. Impatient.
I raised Mjolnir high.
The air thickened. Every particle vibrated. Frost and shards of ice spun upward, carried in violent spirals. The storm condensed into a singular mass, coiling around my will. Around my strike. Around the fragment looming before me.
Power gathered. Pulled at the city, the Rift, the fragment. Pulled at Midgard itself. My heartbeat matched the rhythm. Slow. Steady. Calculated. Controlled.
Hrimthul's mass twisted. Semi-organic. Shifting. Half outside. Half still within the Rift. The cold pressed outward. The void pressed back. Reality trembled.
Then. I let go.
Mjolnir shot forward. A spear of lightning. Pure. Jagged. Blinding.
It split the clouds. Pierced the sky. The air shrieked around it. Frost burned against stone and bone. The bolt was alive. Thrumming. Surging with centuries of storms. A god's will condensed into a single, impossible strike.
The fragment writhed. Massive. Unformed. Already intruding into the city. I held my stance. Every sinew coiled. Every sense alert. The strike would intersect the mass. Perfectly.
The hammer glowed brighter than the rising sun. Thunder rolled in waves that rattled windows, cracked masonry, and made the bones ache. Electricity snapped violently through the air, connecting the heavens to Midgard.
Then it struck.
Blinding. Jagged. Relentless.
The spear of lightning tore through Hrimthul's mass. Every shadow of the city lit in stark relief. Wind howled. Frost twisted. The storm screamed with the force of divinity itself.
Time froze.
The bolt slammed into the fragment. The air vibrated, alive with energy. A moment of perfect, terrible suspension.
And the world held its breath.