The Crag of Thrudheim was not a place for meditation; it was a vertical slaughterhouse of wind and lightning. Silas had been on the peak for three days, and in that time, Thor had "killed" him exactly forty-two times.
Each time Silas's heart stopped from a blunt-force strike of Mjolnir, the Valhalla-Core would snap his soul back into his body, leaving the phantom pain of the impact etched into his nerves.
"Again!" Thor roared, his red beard matted with sleet.
"I can't... see the strikes!" Silas wheezed, his one good blue eye blurred with blood. "The right side... it's a blind spot!"
"The right side is where the Void lives, boy!" Thor lunged, a horizontal swing of his hammer creating a sonic boom that shattered the nearby stone. "Stop trying to see with your eyes! The Vatican uses the Word—they use logic, syntax, and sight. Asgardians see with our Wyrd! We feel the thread of the strike before the hand even moves!"
Silas stood up, his charcoal-black eye pulsing. He stopped trying to track Thor's movement. He let the Void-Taint leak out of his socket, creating a "Sensory Cloud" of darkness around his right side. Suddenly, the world didn't look like images; it felt like vibrations. He felt the displacement of the air as Mjolnir swung.
He didn't dodge. He leaned into the strike, his left arm—now reinforced with the Jade Heart's tectonic density—catching the handle of the hammer.
Thor paused, a massive grin spreading across his face. "There. You stopped being a 'Perfect God' and started being a 'Bastard Warrior.' I like it."
While Silas was being broken on the mountain, Elara was being unraveled in the Roots of Helheim.
Loki didn't use hammers. He used Truths. He sat across from Elara in a garden of black roses that wept liquid mercury. Beside him stood Hel, her face half-beautiful woman and half-rotting corpse.
"Your fire is too honest, Princess," Loki purred, tossing a golden apple in the air. "You want to burn your enemies. It's a very 'Asmodeus' trait. It's loud. It's predictable. The Vatican can recite a verse of 'Extinguishing' and your fire dies."
"Then what do I do?" Elara snapped, her violet aura flickering with frustration.
"You don't burn them," Hel whispered, her voice like dry leaves. "You make them believe they are burning. You weave the Void into their minds. If a man believes his lungs are filled with ash, he will suffocate, even in a room full of oxygen."
Loki leaned forward. "The Vatican claims the 'Word' is the only truth. I want you to show them the 'Lie' is more powerful. I want you to turn their own scripture against them. If they recite a verse of protection, make them see their shields as serpents."
Elara closed her eyes. She reached into the "Demon-Void" within her, not as a weapon, but as a Silk. She imagined the room was filled with mirrors. Slowly, the black roses began to turn into violet butterflies, then into screaming faces, then back into roses.
"Good," Loki whispered. "You're learning the Glamour of the Abyss. When we return to Earth, the Paladins won't know if they're fighting a girl or their own worst nightmares."
Act III: The Politics of the All-Father
In the high hall, Odin sat with the ravens Huginn and Muninn. They were whispering of the mortal realm.
"The Vatican has moved the Second Shard," Huginn croaked. "The Cobalt Breath. They have taken it from the Leviathan Earl and moved it to a 'Sanctified Vault' in the North Sea."
"They are baiting the boy," Odin mused, his one eye glowing with ancient blue fire. "They know he needs the Mother's soul to stop the Void from eating him alive. They want him to attack a Holy Site so they can declare a 'Universal Crusade.'"
"Will you help him, Father?" Thor asked, entering the hall with a bruised and battered Silas in tow.
Odin looked at Silas. The boy's right eye was no longer just a black pit; it was a Vortex.
"I will not send my Einherjar to die for a Greek's quest," Odin stated. "But... I will give him a gift. Silas, you have the Jade Heart. You have the Norse Weight. But you lack a Vessel."
Odin gestured to the forge of Brokkr and Eitri. "The God-Slayer Nail you absorbed... it is still inside you, isn't it? It's fighting your Mythic blood."
"It's an anchor," Silas admitted.
"Then let it be a blade," Odin commanded.
Silas was taken to the subterranean forges of the Dwarves. The heat was enough to melt common iron, but the Dwarves worked with Star-Core fire.
"Reach inside yourself, lad," the dwarf Brokkr grunted. "Pull out the bone. The Nail. Give it to the flame."
Silas roared, his hand plunging into his own chest—not into flesh, but into his Aura. He gripped the jagged, grey bone of the Titan of Strength (the God-Slayer Nail) and ripped it out of his soul.
He threw it onto the anvil.
Thor added a spark of the Original Storm.
Loki added a drop of The Great Lie.
Silas poured his Void-Taint and the green energy of the Jade Heart into the mix.
The Dwarves hammered for three days and three nights. They didn't use hammers; they used the Pulse of the World.
When the light faded, a weapon lay on the anvil. It wasn't a sword, and it wasn't an axe. It was a Heavy Glaive made of shifting, charcoal-grey Uru-metal. The blade didn't reflect light; it seemed to eat the air around it. The handle was wrapped in the leather of a World-Serpent.
The Void-Eater.
As Silas gripped the weapon, the world vanished. He stood before the Well of Urd, where the three Norns sat weaving the threads of fate.
"The Aether-Lord has a weapon," the first Norn whispered.
"But the eye is still dark," the second said.
"He seeks the Cobalt Breath," the third finished. "But he will find only the Mirror of Truth."
Silas saw a vision of the North Sea. He saw a massive, underwater cathedral. And inside, he saw Gabriel—not the kind messenger he met in Zion, but a Gabriel wearing armor of blood-gold, holding a trumpet that could shatter the Earth.
"If you take the second shard, Silas," the Norns spoke in unison, "the Vatican will trigger the Eschaton. They will end the mortal world to save their own heaven."
Silas woke up back in the forge, the Glaive pulsing in his hand. Elara was there, her violet eyes now holding a terrifying depth of shadow.
"We're ready," she said.
Thor stood at the entrance to the Bifrost. "The Vatican has built a 'Mana-Nullification Field' around the North Sea vault. Your lightning won't work there. Your fire won't work. You'll have to rely on the Iron and the Lie."
"Then it's a fair fight," Silas said, slamming the base of his Glaive into the rainbow bridge.