Chapter 148: I Am a Great God
Rowe opened his eyes the moment he stepped out of the Land of Shadows and returned to the present world.
He heard it immediately.
The hiss of serpents.
The furious howl of wolves.
The roar of dragons.
Yet what drew his attention most was the bellow of a giant, so vast it seemed to vibrate through the World Tree itself.
"Ymir?"
Rowe narrowed his eyes and let his consciousness climb, threading itself toward the crown of the World Tree, toward the realm of giants.
Jötunheimr.
Inside the sacrificial temple of the Snow Mountain Goddess, Skaði stayed silent. She only tightened her grip on Rowe's sleeve, inhaled quietly, and forced herself to steady.
From this moment onward, she would stand as an enemy of the gods.
And yet, as long as Rowe stood in front of her, Skaði felt no fear at all.
In Jötunheimr, within that desolate, parched world, Rowe's will descended and took shape as a faint, illusory shadow.
He looked up at what seemed to be emptiness, yet the roar still echoed there, overlapping with itself, as if the land were speaking through every grain of dust.
"The wild hunt. So it is you."
"It is me." Rowe smiled.
There was no single silhouette before him, no face to lock onto, but Rowe understood the truth at once.
All things were Him.
The sky. The earth. The dry riverbeds cracked like old scars.
Jötunheimr itself was no exception.
"I am the primordial giant, Ymir," the voice continued, riding on the howling wind. "I am the first Chaos, the origin of all things. Outsider, even if you can perceive me, you should show respect."
"I know." Rowe exhaled, expression unshaken. "You do not need to repeat it."
Of course he knew.
In the Norse worldview, the world began with Ymir, born from the void and chaos of Ginnungagap.
The first life in the world.
Born alongside the first beast, the cow Auðhumla.
Ymir grew upon Auðhumla's milk and birthed countless giants, while Auðhumla licked forth Búri, the first ancestor of the gods.
Giants were the symbol of chaos.
Auðhumla was the manifestation of order.
In the beginning, chaos and order were inseparable, tangled within the same primordial breath. Yet after the birth of the giants and Búri, the world began to stabilize, and chaos and order turned into enemies.
Thus the giants and the gods began their long war.
In the end, Ymir was slain by Búri's grandsons, Odin, Vili, and Vé, the three divine ancestors.
His enormous body became raw material for creation.
Sky.
Earth.
Oceans.
With that act, chaos was forcibly separated from the world, and an era of orderly gods was established. The descendants of Ymir, the Frost Giants, were imprisoned in Jötunheimr, made to linger at the margins.
Even so, death did not erase everything.
Though his body was carved into the world itself, the will of the progenitor giant remained between heaven and earth. Resentment endured. It watched the gods who had killed him.
Rowe had always been aware of it.
He knew Ymir's will still lingered, and that all things were formed from what remained of his dismantled body.
Jötunheimr was the final destination of the Frost Giants, the last corner where chaos gathered. Here, Ymir's lingering will was densest.
Rowe had sensed it the moment he set foot in this land.
Even setting that aside…
"Just seeing that you once conspired and cooperated with the ancient Titans of Greece told me you must still exist here." Rowe's phantom moved forward step by step, walking through a world that grew more disordered with each breath.
"So you came from there." Ymir's will resonated with a faint tremor. "No wonder Cronus never contacted me again."
Surprise, real and sharp, surfaced in that voice.
And then, as if answering that surprise, the world itself reacted.
The ground trembled.
Dry riverbeds seemed to surge with water, fire, and crystal.
Above, the roots of the World Tree shook violently, not only because Níðhöggr had torn away yet another portion, but because Fate itself had returned, taking shape from chaos.
In life, Ymir was the symbol of chaos.
In death, Ymir's will became the manifestation of Fate.
Ragnarok's inevitability had always been pushed by him in the dark, present in what could not be seen. Loki, once a giant who abandoned his giant body during the primordial war to join the gods, was a wedge driven by Ymir's will.
Loki gave birth to monsters that carried more chaos than order.
Jörmungandr.
Fenrir.
Hel.
All of it was pushed forward by that single hidden hand.
Now Ragnarok had arrived, and that will finally manifested in Jötunheimr.
Ymir had descended.
Within the dim yellow world, a colossal figure emerged from nothingness, vast as the sky itself, shimmering like a river of stars.
He reached up and seized the already turbulent roots of the World Tree.
Then he pulled.
Like someone grabbing a straw in a flood, he used those roots to anchor his immense manifested will into reality.
But because of that single action, the Nine Realms supported by the World Tree began to shake at once.
The hissing, the howling, the roaring all drew closer to Midgard.
In the Celestial Realm, within the Platinum Palace, the gods cried out in shock and anger.
"Why is the great god Odin not appearing?"
Thor had already seized his heavy hammer and charged out from the first instant, thunder rolling across the dome of the sky visible from Midgard.
All things gasped. Snow and wind intensified, swallowing the world.
And Ymir, the will of Fate, shed countless eyes across his vast form and turned them all on Rowe at once.
"I do not care who you are, man from another land. I only know you are an enemy of the gods."
"O dead one from a foreign land, you stole the Authority of the God King. You are an enemy of the gods."
"Therefore, we are allies."
"We stand on the side of chaos."
"You came to cooperate with me, did you not?"
"The side of chaos?" Rowe smiled. "Are you still?"
"That does not matter." Ymir did not deny it, because it could not be denied. The progenitor giant was chaos.
But Fate Ymir was not chaos in its pure form. If he were, he would not speak with such clarity, such intent.
As he said, the enemy of one's enemy is an ally.
Cooperation was possible.
"That is true," Rowe replied, voice calm, "but the premise is opposing the gods."
He sighed softly, and his gaze sharpened.
"Are you so sure I am an enemy of the gods?"
Ymir wanted to answer at once.
What else could you be?
But before the thought could become sound, Rowe's phantom vanished.
It was only a projection of will, so its dissipation was natural.
Rowe returned to his main body.
In the temple on the Scandinavian peninsula, Rowe opened his eyes. His sideways glance met Skaði's dark purple gaze, beautiful and tense.
"Are you ready?"
"Of course." Skaði tossed her hair, smiling with a stubborn pride. "Do not underestimate me. I am the Snow Mountain Goddess."
If she had not been clutching the hem of Rowe's cloak as she said it, it would have sounded more convincing.
But details like that were irrelevant.
"Then let us go."
Rowe stepped forward. In an instant, the scenery warped.
He and Skaði teleported out of the temple, leaving Scandinavia behind.
Snow and wind filled the wilderness. Skaði froze for a heartbeat. She still did not truly understand what Rowe intended to do, but she had already made her choice.
She would not regret it.
She only gripped the corner of his cloak harder.
As long as she did not let go, nothing bad would happen.
She believed that instinctively.
At the same time, the neighing of a horse rang out, sharp as a battle cry.
A twelve winged pegasus burst forth, its eight hooves striking in staggered rhythm, leaving countless footprints suspended in wind and snow.
A hyena's roar answered.
Rowe turned. A storm spear formed in his hand. With that same spear, he hooked Skaði by the collar and, with an effortless swing, pulled her up as he leapt onto the pegasus.
Skaði landed behind him, cheeks puffing with indignation at the renewed roughness.
Helplessly…
They soared.
Thunder and debris tore past. A cold mask settled over Rowe's face. His cloak snapped as the pegasus surged forward, and in a breath, they crossed a tremendous distance.
They arrived above Midgard, the middle world of the Nine Realms.
Rowe stood silent in the air, subtly detached from the divine veil of myth, in a position where he could see the full panorama of the Nine Realms.
"This is…" Skaði gasped.
She saw the entirety of the World Tree, swallowed by snow and wind, and the Nine Realms layered from top to bottom.
A colossal dragon climbed and roared, its breath igniting countless branches.
Jörmungandr's massive body coiled and extended upward.
Fenrir tore through the shackles that bound him and roared at the sky.
The black dragon.
The Midgard Serpent.
The demonic wolf.
Just as Odin's prophecy foretold, they were the first to strike at the gods.
Then the south erupted.
Flames surged and burned as the Fire Giants, also descendants of Ymir, crawled up from underground.
In the southern reaches of Midgard, the Frost Giants of Jötunheimr carved out an abyss of ice.
Before, travel without relying on the World Tree was impossible for anyone except Rowe.
Now the roots had been bitten through. A corner of the divine veil had been torn. The Nine Realms had become unstable, and instability was an opening.
With Ymir's colossal manifested will, tearing such a path open was possible.
Ice and fire covered the sky. On the way to Asgard, countless demigod warriors were swallowed and crushed by the three beasts of doom.
The gods themselves were in peril.
Skaði felt something strange loosen in her chest.
If not for Rowe, she would probably be one of those imperiled gods now.
Among the gods, Skaði had never been the strongest, nor the weakest. In a disaster like this, she would have had no chance of surviving.
But the gods were not entirely without resistance.
Jörmungandr bypassed Níðhöggr and Fenrir and reached Asgard first, only to be met by a devastating blow from a thunderous hammer.
The serpent was smashed back down into Midgard, its massive body crashing into the ocean at the edge of the world.
Then lightning flared again.
Thor pursued.
Some gods seized weapons and fought. Others fled in panic. Týr, Thor's brother, known as the God of War, raised his sword, yet could not block Níðhöggr's dragon breath, thick with the stench of death.
Frigg, Odin's wife, Queen of Heaven and Goddess of Love, tried to force open Odin's sealed door.
It was futile.
The gods would fall.
Only the God King remained silent.
"What… should we do?" Skaði asked.
In the past, she might have hesitated.
Now the gods of Asgard had already abandoned her, and Scathach's presence behind her felt like an unbreakable backbone.
Skaði's calm was almost indifferent.
Relationships were built on reciprocity. This time, the gods severed the last thread first.
It was not resentment. She understood their reasons.
It was simply reality.
Rowe did not answer immediately. He only looked toward the abyss passage carved open by the giants, leading downward.
"Are you truly not going to cooperate with me?" Ymir's voice echoed again in his ear.
Ymir still refused to give up. He knew Rowe's power. The storm giants Rowe commanded were no less terrifying than the frost and lava giants Ymir wielded.
Rowe ignored the urging and asked Skaði instead.
"Do you want to be a god, or do you want to be a giant?"
"A god." Skaði answered instantly.
Giants were a race of chaos, disordered and lacking self. No normal existence would accept living as that.
"But now, I am afraid I cannot be a god even if I want to be." She looked toward Asgard, already collapsing into chaos. "Not to mention they already see me as a traitor. Even if they accepted me, Ragnarok has arrived. Where is there a place left for gods?"
Rowe tugged the reins.
"Perfect. So am I."
Between chaos and order, order was ultimately better.
Then Rowe's voice rose, clear enough to cut through the storm.
"Ymir. Now I can tell you my final answer."
A storm burst outward from Rowe.
The pegasus reared and screamed.
Across Midgard, snow was swept away by the sudden gale, peeled back like a curtain.
Within the dark currents, figures emerged one after another.
Storm Giants.
And behind them, a vast army of undead warriors following in their wake.
Lights flickered among them, burning.
Sparks.
No words were needed. No commands either.
The hyena at Rowe's feet roared.
Fafnir opened his mouth and spat out countless motes of light and shadow.
Skaði's pupils contracted.
"That is… a corner of Asgard's divine concept?"
Others could not perceive it. Skaði could.
Rowe's voice was steady.
"Exactly. A fragment of a divine concept."
"Did you forget what the gods were doing when I retrieved your Divine Core, the one entrusted to Asgard's divine realm?"
The gods had been manifesting their conceptual essence.
Their Divine Core.
They had used it to overlay Skaði's own Divine Core, attempting to crush her personality.
"So Fafnir seized your Divine Core," Rowe continued, "and tore off fragments of the divine concepts that tried to grind you down."
"Even if it is only a fragment, these concepts are part of the divine essence. If we use them as a foundation, and infuse them into the sparks that have gathered countless undead and absorbed enough humanity…"
Rowe's eyes narrowed behind the cold mask.
"Then it will let them transform from giants into gods."
"Just like the creation of heaven and earth."
"To give birth to wisdom."
Skaði finally understood.
Rowe was an enemy of the gods.
But he was not declaring war on the idea of gods itself.
Just as he had done from the beginning, stealing the name and power of the wild hunt, he intended to replace the gods.
To turn humans into gods.
To make giants into gods.
Then the identity of the one who ruled over gods would become unquestionable.
To become the wild hunt?
No. That alone was not enough.
For Rowe, only by becoming the King of the Gods could it truly be called the beginning.
Because if he was to die, then he would choose the stage.
And if the world insisted on calling him a calamity, then he would respond with the dignity of a crown.
A great god.
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