Tartarus always reacts before it understands.
When the name Jormund anchored itself into the fabric of reality, something—far beneath layers of fire and stone—gave way. Not a clean break, but a silent fracture, like an ancient bone finally accepting to split. Since then, the prison breathed differently. The heat was no longer a fixed state; it wavered—watchful, tense.
Siegfried's chains vibrated more frequently now. Their deep song, forged of divine metal and condensed pain, echoed through the pillars of the abyss. Each pulse seemed to search for an answer.
I stood before him, unmoving.
My obsidian body cast red reflections across the incandescent rock. The lycoris beat within my chest with a new regularity—stable, disciplined. It was no longer chaotic revolt. It was will.
Siegfried felt it.
"You have changed," he said.
His voice did not travel through the air. It settled directly into my mind, heavy and bare.
"The name fixed you."
I did not answer at once. I watched the chains. They were not merely fastened to his body—they pierced through him, rooting themselves into the very structure of Tartarus, as if the prison had decided to use him as a pillar.
"They make you suffer," I said at last.
It was not a question.
"Yes," he answered without hesitation.
Then, after a pause:
"But suffering is not always injustice. Sometimes, it is consequence."
I slowly raised my head toward him.
"Not this one."
A faint smile crossed his face. Tired. Ancient.
"You believe that because you have not yet learned to distinguish fault from responsibility."
I took a step forward. The burning rock cracked beneath my weight.
"Explain."
The chains vibrated, displeased.
"I destroyed what I was ordered to destroy," Siegfried said. "I was the weapon the gods demanded. Entire worlds burned by my hand. Bloodlines ended because I did not hesitate."
He clenched his jaw.
"And when their fear turned against me… they did what gods always do. They called it betrayal."
Tartarus rumbled faintly, as if confirming every word.
"I deserve to be here," he concluded.
The lycoris pulsed. A violent heat surged through my body.
"No."
The word fell with unnatural density. It was not an opinion. It was a decision.
Siegfried slowly lifted his head.
"You were not there, Jormund."
"I am here now."
The silence tightened around us. Tartarus drew inward, as though the abyss itself were holding its breath.
"The gods created you to act," I continued. "They gave you a function, then punished you for fulfilling it. That is not justice. It is structured cowardice."
"You speak as if you are in a position to judge."
I raised my hands of black glass, veined with red light.
"I am."
The chains began to vibrate violently, unleashing a metallic scream that echoed through the foundations of the world. Cracks split the surrounding rock.
"You do not understand what you are doing," Siegfried growled. "These bonds are not mere restraints. They are a contract. To break them is to summon their gaze."
"Let them look," I replied.
I stepped closer.
The heat became nearly unbearable. Even my body, forged in the Styx, began to tremble beneath the pressure. The lycoris burned brighter, casting red lightning across the chains of ether-silver.
"No one deserves to be reduced to a function," I said. "Not even a weapon."
Siegfried closed his eye.
"You are wrong," he murmured. "Some things must be contained."
"Yes," I answered. "But not buried alive."
I placed my hand on the first chain.
The pain was immediate.
It was not a physical burn, but a conceptual assault. The chain attempted to deny my existence, to reclassify me as an anomaly to be erased. Fragments of memory, will, and form began to unravel.
The lycoris answered.
A wave of red heat exploded from my chest, surged down my arm, and infiltrated the chain. The divine metal screamed—not in pain, but in resistance.
I clenched my teeth.
"Jormund… stop," Siegfried said. "This price is not yours to pay."
"If I can pay it," I replied, "then it is mine."
I pulled.
The chain did not break.
It tightened instead, sinking deeper into Siegfried's flesh. He groaned—but did not scream.
"You owe me nothing," he said.
"I am not freeing you for your sake."
I planted my feet into the molten rock. My body became a fixed point—an irrefutable mass.
"I free you because this world is built upon an error. And someone must begin to correct it."
I pulled again.
This time, the chain fractured.
A glowing fissure raced along the ether-silver, radiating unstable light. Tartarus roared in fury. Entire sections of rock collapsed into the depths.
"Jormund!" Siegfried shouted.
The chain did not explode. It disintegrated—as if it had finally accepted not to exist.
The second chain reacted instantly, tightening in compensation. Siegfried's pain intensified.
"Continue," he said nonetheless.
I placed both hands upon the second shackle.
The impact was far more violent. A divine pressure tried to crush me, to force me to my knees. The gods were not present—but their law was.
I felt my body crack. Shards of obsidian fell into the lava.
The lycoris pulsed harder.
"You gave me a name," I whispered. "Now watch what I do with it."
I pulled.
The second chain resisted longer. It attempted to absorb me, to freeze me, to integrate me into the prison.
I refused.
Red turned to white.
The chain broke.
Tartarus howled.
The third chain yielded almost immediately, as though the act had already been decided elsewhere. The final one—the deepest—vibrated for a long moment before shattering in a metallic scream that echoed up through the upper layers of the world.
Siegfried fell to his knees.
Free.
The silence that followed was not empty. It was stunned.
Tartarus contracted around us—unstable, disoriented. A prison had just lost its pillar.
I approached Siegfried. He breathed heavily, as if rediscovering the weight of his own body.
"Why?" he finally asked.
I looked at him.
"Because you are not a nail in the foundation of the world."
A rough laugh escaped him.
"You have just declared war on the gods."
"No," I replied.
I straightened, my body still smoking, fractured—but standing.
"I have reminded them that they are not the only ones who decide."
Siegfried remained silent for a long moment. Then he rose slowly.
"I will not follow you out of debt," he said.
"I asked for none."
"I will stay," he continued. "Because someone must take responsibility for what has been unleashed."
I nodded.
"Then teach me."
He fixed his single eye upon me.
"You have crossed a threshold, Jormund. From now on, every step you take will weigh upon the world."
"I am ready."
Above us, in the upper layers of Tartarus, something began to stir.
The foundations groaned.
And for the first time in eternity, Tartarus was no longer an end.
It was a beginning.