Chapter 150: Burning Myth, Manifest the Starry Sky!
The burning of the fire seed grew fiercer by the second.
Through that invisible link, more and more vitality flowed into Rowe's undead body, like sap forced uphill by an unseen hand. The boundary between life and death blurred, thinning into something dangerously negotiable.
The wails of the gods continued.
The massive World Tree shuddered without end.
The northern ocean surged, and the colossal shadow of Jörmungandr twisted, coiling around the pale trunk as if trying to strangle an entire era with muscle and venom.
Loki laughed.
Frenzied. Chaotic.
His body warped, turning pale as the alien corrosion finally claimed him. He was still, after all, one of Asgard's gods. He could not escape the erosion.
He, too, would die in Ragnarok.
But the mad clown had never been afraid.
"While he calculated everyone else, he never intended to escape the furnace."
Collapse.
Collapse.
Collapse.
The essence of godhood dispersed. Loki's figure unraveled like smoke over the North Sea, and his final laughter still echoed, wild and bright, as if mockery could outlive the world.
A madman.
And, strangely enough, a madman worth respecting.
Rowe closed his eyes.
He stood calmly at the far side of the torn divine veil. As another instigator of Ragnarok besides Loki, he looked like an outsider watching cities rise and fall, with no sorrow and no joy in his gaze.
He turned his head.
Behind the mask, gold and crimson eyes burned faintly as he looked at Skaði, her purple hair whipping in the storm.
"Are you afraid?"
Skaði sat astride the pegasus, her graceful figure swaying beneath twelve unfurled wings. She sat sideways, legs draped to one side, posture relaxed in a way that should have been impossible this close to the end of a world.
When her eyes met Rowe's, she simply smiled.
"No," the Snow Mountain Goddess said. "I am not afraid."
The resentment and dissatisfaction she had carried for so long vanished in that moment.
Rowe's machinations had made her a pariah. His existence had forced her to follow behind him, with nowhere else to belong. Yet now she had seen the true faces of Asgard's gods, seen their miserable state, and she felt relief.
Relief that she had been pulled out of that pit early.
Relief, and even gratitude.
"You saved me," Skaði said, her red lips curving upward. "So I am not afraid."
Rowe smiled.
He raised the Storm Spear slowly.
"If that is the case, then are you willing to enter the arena with me?"
"Of course," Skaði replied, smile pure as fresh snow. "New Great God."
A smile with no resentment left in it.
Only the desire to follow.
"Then we go."
Rowe tugged the reins. The eight legged pegasus stepped forward through the air. The tip of the Storm Spear, Rhongomyniad, began to glow with a thin, brilliant light.
Below, the Storm God race looked up at the figure stepping into the Nine Realms.
The warriors and heroic spirits who followed the storm lifted their eyes as well, fire burning within them.
Light and shadow converged toward the new Great God.
Toward the giant tree ahead.
A serpent coiled around it yet could not crush it. At the crown, Nidhogg and Fenrir trampled and tore at the canopy, but the World Tree did not fall.
The power of the alien star had rooted itself in this soil for ten thousand years. Its foundation was solid.
Unshakable.
And that was precisely why Rowe had to solve it.
The gods of Asgard had been replaced in Authority, yes, but the World Tree still supported the whole of Asgard. If the World Tree was not dealt with completely, then the Storm God race would never truly ascend to heaven and take its place.
Rowe also could not truly reverse life and death.
He could not erase the drawback left by the Atlantis fire seed.
So he had to act.
He had to act with the gods and all beings beneath him as fuel, as torches feeding a single decisive blaze.
Behind him, Skaði wrapped her arms around Rowe's back. For the first time, she let the last trace of bitterness dissolve, and allowed herself to enjoy that warmth of certainty.
Rowe raised the spear.
The storm around him intensified, thicker than before. Wherever he stepped, the alien power retreated, peeling away to reveal the planet's original rules.
Then a roar surged ahead, blocking his path to the World Tree.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Thunder erupted, and lightning spread like a net of knives.
The figure that emerged made Rowe pause.
"Thor," Rowe murmured. "Are you still resisting?"
Before him stood the Great God Thor, second only to Odin.
Mjolnir crackled in his hand. Electric arcs crawled over his body, and the immense divine power of the alien star still surged within him.
Thor exhaled softly.
Slowly, he reached up and removed the mask he had never taken off.
A pale face, delicate in an inhuman way.
Silvery white hair scattered over his forehead, framing eyes as red as a furnace.
It was the first time he had removed that mask in ten thousand years.
The Thor of the past had been a heroic god of war.
This was not that form.
This looked like a Star Hunter, like Sefar.
Among the gods, Thor's power was the strongest, and he was also the one most severely eroded by the alien star.
Cold light glinted in his eyes.
His whole body became lightning, standing between heaven and earth like a weapon given a name.
He was furious. He wanted to vent it.
Yet under the alien corrosion, only coldness and mechanical operation remained, trying to grind his will into a simple command.
Rowe tightened his grip on the spear and raised it slightly.
The storm began to spiral.
From behind him, Skaði leaned out, peeking past his shoulder.
"Are you alright?" she asked softly.
"Of course," Rowe replied. "I am fine."
Even now, he was confident he could suppress Thor with a human body. But to end this quickly, he decided to call upon the Machine God's power.
Thor lifted Mjolnir.
Without the mask, his voice sounded clear, sharp, almost painfully alive.
"I am Thor."
Rowe turned the spear, and the storm spun faster.
Thunder roared.
The hammer shot skyward, then fell like judgment, striking the gigantic World Tree with overwhelming force.
Lightning spread across the pale trunk, tearing at it. Explosions bloomed in layers, one after another.
Jörmungandr stiffened for a heartbeat. He had braced for harm, but the falling electric light did not injure him.
It awakened him.
It activated the latent power in every cell of that enormous body.
He became stronger.
Rowe's spear rotation slowed slightly as he stared at the figure barring his way.
Thor's voice rose again.
"I am Thor."
He repeated it like a vow hammered into his own bones.
"I am the Thunder God of the Norse."
"I am the Thunder God of this planet, this world."
"I am the god of war."
"To hell with your alien star, your Star Hunter."
"I will not lose."
"I will never surrender."
Realization ignited inside him.
Even though the corrosion was severe, Thor's will shook the alien power.
His divinity drained. The shell of his Divine Core peeled away.
Yet he was still the god of war.
Still the Thunder God of the North.
He would not surrender. He would not stop here.
"King of the Wild Hunt," Thor said, voice like grinding thunder, "you may be a new god. But we of Asgard are gods as well."
I will not lose to you.
Asgard will not lose to the storm.
Thor became a bolt of lightning and charged toward the World Tree.
His last power.
The last light the old gods could show.
The radiant god exploded with a bang.
Jörmungandr shrieked, a long hissing cry that shook the sea. He raised his massive head and collided with the World Tree at the same time.
With a roar, the tree's shadow swayed. Fractures spread across the pale trunk.
Above, Nidhogg and Fenrir stomped down with desperate weight, and the crown and leaves shattered.
The World Tree's foundation shook.
"Thor…" Skaði's expression turned complicated.
Among the gods, Thor had been the most unique. Before she met Rowe, he was arguably the kindest among them, the least burdened by shadow.
Rowe smiled.
"Asgard truly will not lose to the storm," he said. "Just you alone, just this lightning, is enough to illuminate the whole myth."
"But your era has passed."
He raised the spear.
"Let the storm bid farewell to the old gods."
"Come."
Wind and storm surged.
The Storm God clan and the Storm Legion converged at once.
Frost Giants tried to resist and were crushed.
Lava Giants tried to flee back to Muspelheim, the fire kingdom beneath the southern tree, only to find heaven and earth had merged. The divine curtain separating the Nine Realms had become mottled fragments after Thor and Jörmungandr's impact.
From deep below, the voice of Fate Ymir screamed.
"Wild Hunt, Rowe. Do you really want to fight me to the death?"
The annihilation of the giants was fatal to him, the residual will of the progenitor giant. Without giants, he could not appear, and he could not interfere with the world.
"To the death?" Rowe glanced downward.
"You are not worthy."
Rhongomyniad swung.
Ymir's will, lurking beneath the earth, shattered instantly.
If the progenitor giant's true body had arrived, if the primordial god of chaos stood here in full, Rowe might have needed to retreat.
But Ymir's lingering will alone was not qualified to contend with him.
The storm gods arrived from all directions, spiraling inward, and gathered at last.
On the ground, wind and snow faded. The chill vanished. The extremes brought by frost and lava both disappeared.
Ordinary people stepped cautiously out of their homes.
The sky was still covered by storm, but the storm existed only in the high heavens, like a thick cloak draped over the land.
Within it, specks of firelight flickered.
From that light, people felt warmth.
From that light, people felt a restraint loosen, as if a collar had been unfastened around the soul.
The white crystals mixed within blood and flesh, the alien power inside all living beings, evaporated.
Strictly speaking, the fire seed that originated from Atlantis was also power from beyond this world. But Rowe had scattered it, placed it within the hearts of gods and humans, and it had long since been assimilated by the local star.
Just as the Atlantis gods from outer space could quickly root themselves here and become the Greek gods of the land.
The fire seed existed for inheritance.
For continuation.
Not for invasion.
The World Tree trembled.
It was not a living being, yet it possessed a consciousness, the lingering will of the former Star Hunter. It tried to struggle, but it was already submerged at the center of the storm and flame, drowned by the torrent in an instant.
Rowe rode forward.
The tree shuddered, and a will spread out, whispering like temptation.
You cannot destroy me.
Without me, the existence of gods cannot continue.
Without me, you cannot maintain your rule.
Without me…
"Is this how you tempted the former Norse God King, Odin?" Rowe cut it off, severing the will mid thought.
"The old God King had the compendium of wisdom, but lacked the judgment to use it."
"He believed you because what you said was true."
"And he never weighed the consequences. That is why we stand here now."
Rowe did not stop moving.
"However, now it is different."
"Without you, we will still live very well."
He cut off the spreading will again, clean and final.
"Because we are, by nature, gods of the planet."
Gods of the planet did not depend on any era.
They depended on the planet itself.
This was the mark of the primordial.
It was what Rowe had given these newborn gods by extracting wind from the planet itself.
All storm gods stood within the fierce wind.
Countless heroes. Endless brilliance.
Countless flames watched.
The fire seed had been scattered.
The fire seed had ignited.
Rowe lifted the spear high. His cloak billowed like a banner at the end of an age.
A howl rose.
The hyena, transformed from the evil dragon Fafnir, released a dragon's roar. Storm fire seed manifested over his body amid the embers.
Jörmungandr writhed and manifested light as well.
Nidhogg.
Fenrir.
The apocalypse monsters accepted the storm fire seed of their own will.
Life force converged.
The final step approached.
Thousands of fire seeds gathered upon one person.
Rowe.
He raised the storm spear. Layers of storm overlapped, and within that spiral, a brilliant stream of light appeared.
"Spear of Final Radiance."
"Manifest here, the planet's original appearance."
The primordial fire seed.
Burn the curtain of mythology.
Reveal the true starry sky.
The spear descended.
A point of light bloomed.
Infinite wind and fire intertwined and swept outward.
Rowe led thousands of storms, thousands of star fires, and with a roar, trees collapsed and the sky fell.
People looked up.
And they saw the true world they had never seen before.
The galaxy revolved, spilling endless brilliance.
High.
Vast.
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