The Bifröst no longer led anywhere.
It was no longer the singing bridge of light praised by skalds and feared by mortals. What remained was a frozen arc, suspended in the void—a crystallized scar stretched between realms. Its colors were faded, drained, trapped in a fossilized glow.
And before it stood a gate.
Not a gate of stone.
Not a gate of metal.
A conceptual gate.
A lock raised by the gods themselves after the death of Jormungandr, when the risk of contamination between ages became too great. It did not exist to be seen, but to be believed. A boundary made of laws, oaths, and stories repeated until they hardened into truth.
No one crossed the Bifröst without permission anymore.
No one was ever meant to cross it again.
Jormund stood before it.
Around him, the world lay under a permanent twilight since the Sun had been devoured. Colors existed only as memories. Even the air seemed uncertain whether it should still vibrate. Yet there was no cold.
There was weight.
In his right hand, Jormund held his hammer.
It did not shine.
It did not thunder.
It did not demand attention.
The hammer was black.
A black so deep it swallowed the eye, devouring the contours of reality itself. Its surface was forged from fused scales—those of Jormungandr—compressed under impossible pressure. The scars of the World Serpent were still visible, frozen across the head like involuntary runes.
The handle was short, dense, engraved not with divine symbols, but with fractures. Each line marked a rupture: a broken promise, a diverted prophecy, an aborted loop of time.
This was not a weapon of the gods.
It was a weapon against them.
Jormund raised his gaze to the gate.
He could feel it.
Not as a physical obstacle, but as a negation. The gate denied his existence. It rejected his right to stand there. Without voice or movement, it declared:
You are not meant to be.
Jormund allowed himself a brief smile.
— I wasn't meant to survive either.
He planted his feet into the ground.
The earth responded.
Not by trembling—by yielding. Jormund's weight was no longer merely physical. Since the Styx, since the Lycoris, since the scales of the World Serpent, he carried a density beyond mass. An existential gravity.
He raised the hammer.
At that moment, the world held its breath.
The remnants of the Bifröst shuddered. Its dead colors vibrated faintly, as if trying one last time to remember what they had once been. The gate reacted.
Shapes surfaced upon it.
Silhouettes.
Gods.
Memories.
Thor, lifting Mjölnir.
Odin, hanging from the tree.
Prophecies whispered by dead voices.
The gate did not guard a passage alone.
It guarded a story.
— You locked me inside a narrative, Jormund murmured.
— You called me a monster so you wouldn't have to look at what you did.
The Lycoris burned within his chest.
Not as an explosion.
As an eternal ember.
Jormund brought the hammer down.
There was no shockwave.
No thunder.
No light.
The strike produced no sound at all.
The gate cracked.
Not in matter—in concept.
A line appeared. Thin. Black. Cutting through the lock like a forbidden thought. The images of the gods froze, then warped, stretched like reflections in shattered glass.
The Bifröst screamed.
This time, the sound was real.
A deep, prolonged cry—like an overstrained bow finally snapping. The dead colors exploded into fragments, falling like ash made of broken rainbows.
The gate tried to close.
Jormund struck a second time.
The hammer bit deeper.
The fracture widened.
Memories spilled out—fragments of battles, screams of giants, betrayed oaths. The gate was not merely a lock.
It was a prison for myths.
— I'm not here to pass through, Jormund said.
— I'm here so no one will ever be trapped again.
He struck a third time.
This time, the world answered.
Distant realms felt the impact. In Asgard, walls vibrated. In Midgard, dreams cracked. In Alfheim, illusions screamed. Even Tartarus trembled, recognizing the echo of a major transgression.
The gate broke.
Not into pieces.
It ceased.
Where it had stood, there was nothing. No hole. No visible passage. Only a brutal continuity restored.
The Bifröst, freed from its lock, collapsed inward.
Its colors, deprived of structure, twisted, merged, then burst into a blinding silence. The rainbow bridge was not destroyed.
It was detuned.
Jormund stepped back.
Before him, the sky was no longer a sky. Realms overlapped in fleeting flashes—fragments of Asgard reflecting within Midgard, roots of Yggdrasil appearing and vanishing.
The world had just lost one of its greatest safeties.
Jormund lowered the hammer until it touched the ground.
He felt its weight.
He felt its cost.
What he had done could not be undone.
— Let them come, he murmured.
— The gods. The hunters. The prophets.
The hammer vibrated faintly.
It was complete.
Not because it was perfect.
But because it was chosen.
Far away, something answered.
A sickened streak of light tore through the darkness.
Apollo was approaching.
And this time
There was no gate left.