The corpse of Jormungandr did not decay.
It could not.
It lay stretched along the edge of existence, where oceans once curved around meaning itself. An infinite ring broken at last, a body so vast that distance lost relevance in its presence. The World Serpent was dead—but death had not dared to claim dominion over him.
Jormund stood before it.
For the first time, there was no pressure.
No invisible command urging the circle to close.
No cosmic instinct demanding continuity.
The loop was broken.
The serpent's body disappeared into the horizon, scale after scale overlapping like continents of dark obsidian, each one scarred by ages of restraint. Storms had once nested between them. Seas had bent to their gravity. Gods had feared the sound they made when the serpent shifted in its endless vigil.
Now, there was only silence.
Jormund placed his hand against one of the scales.
The contact sent a tremor through reality—not violent, but reflexive. The world recoiled the way flesh does when touched too close to an old wound.
The scale was cold.
Heavier than any mountain.
And yet… it recognized him.
Not as an intruder.
As a continuation.
— You're really gone, Jormund murmured.
No answer followed.
Not even an echo.
That absence hurt more than any roar ever could.
Jormungandr had not died in defiance.
He had not fallen screaming against the gods.
He had endured.
Until endurance itself became the execution.
Images surfaced unbidden.
A colossal serpent biting its own tail.
Time folding endlessly into itself.
Gods weaving prophecy into chains and calling it balance.
Calling it necessity.
He felt the teeth sinking into immortal flesh, again and again, until pain lost definition. Until identity eroded into function. Until the serpent was no longer a being—but a role.
A prison disguised as purpose.
Jormund staggered back, breath uneven.
— That's why you never escaped… he whispered.
— You weren't allowed to want it.
Something burned within him.
The Lycoris.
Alive. Violent. Refusing stillness.
Jormungandr had never known that fire.
He had been born to sustain the world.
Jormund was born from its refusal.
— I'm not you, Jormund said quietly.
The corpse did not argue.
He walked along the immense body, his steps crunching against fragments of crystallized divinity. As he moved closer to the serpent's heart-ring—the place where its will had once been strongest—the scales grew thicker, denser, layered like fortifications.
This was where it had held.
This was where it had finally broken.
Jormund stopped.
One scale was cracked.
Not shattered—opened.
From within leaked a faint, dying glow, like the last breath of a star trapped beneath stone. The scar of an ancient blow. Thor's. Or perhaps something older.
Jormund knelt.
— You kept everything locked inside… even after death.
The remaining scales were not inert.
They were saturated.
Compressed authority.
Residual divinity.
The weight of a god who had once circled the world itself.
Not weapons.
Materials.
Understanding settled over him.
He would not inherit Jormungandr's role.
He would use what remained.
— I won't wear your chains, he said softly.
— But I won't let them go to waste either.
He pressed both hands against the cracked scale.
Heat surged from his core as the Lycoris responded. Red light bled into the ancient obsidian, burning through layers of divine stagnation. The scale resisted—not out of will, but inertia.
Then it yielded.
Not violently.
Cleanly.
With a sound like a mountain exhaling after holding its breath for eternity, the scale separated from the corpse.
Jormund grunted as its weight shifted.
The scale shrank.
Not in mass—but in intent.
What had once been the size of a city compressed into a shard he could carry, dense enough to warp the air around it, heavy with meaning rather than size.
It did not try to claim him.
It waited.
One scale became two.
Then three.
Each removal sent a ripple through the serpent's corpse, but no resistance followed. Jormungandr did not cling to itself. It had already given everything.
As Jormund worked, fragments of memory surfaced—not visions, but truths.
The gods' fear of change.
Their relief at having something eternal to lean on.
Their need for a constant to excuse their stagnation.
Jormungandr had never been their enemy.
He had been their alibi.
Jormund stood amid the gathered scales.
— They'll come for me now, he said aloud.
— Apollo. Odin. All of them.
The corpse remained silent.
But the air shifted, as if the world itself were listening.
Jormund lifted one of the scales and pressed it against his obsidian chest. It did not fuse—not yet—but it resonated, vibrating in harmony with the Lycoris' pulse.
A design formed in his mind.
Not armor.
A body.
— I won't rebuild you, he said firmly.
— I'll build myself.
Above him, the sky remained without sun.
Somewhere far away, a god was already on the move, fueled by rage and fading light.
Behind Jormund lay the corpse of a world-serpent.
Ahead of him stretched a future without prophecy.
And for the first time since existence had learned to repeat itself.
The circle did not close.