The Bifröst was screaming.
It had not been built to endure gods fighting at full intent—especially not on a foundation already cracked by the death of the Sun. The rainbow structure convulsed, its prismatic arcs flickering between colors that no longer existed in any sane spectrum.
Jormund stood at its center.
One arm gone.
His body fractured.
His abyssal hammer resting against the bridge like the final argument of a dying world.
Apollo hovered before him, radiance boiling, fury bleeding from every pore of his being. The god no longer bothered with elegance. His light was unstable, flaring in violent pulses, burning holes into reality itself.
— Kneel, Apollo commanded.
— I will not ask again.
Jormund laughed.
It was not loud.
It was deep.
A sound that came from stone grinding against eternity.
— This bridge, Jormund said slowly,
— was made for gods who believed they were eternal.
He lifted the hammer.
The Lycoris detonated inside his chest.
Not outward.
Downward.
Time warped.
Not slowed—compressed. Every second folded into the next, stacked, crushed, forced into a singular instant of unbearable density. Chronos screamed inside his blood, not as a voice, but as pressure.
Apollo sensed it.
His expression shifted—not to fear, but to urgency.
— Stop—!
Too late.
Jormund brought the hammer down.
Not toward Apollo.
Toward the Bifröst itself.
The impact did not sound like thunder.
It sounded like something enormous giving up.
The bridge shattered.
Not cracked.
Not fractured.
Collapsed.
Entire segments of the Bifröst imploded, colors screaming as they were crushed into nothingness. Light bent inward, devouring itself. The cosmic pathway between realms folded like broken glass dragged into a black hole.
Apollo was caught in it.
The god screamed—not in pain, but in outrage—as gravity redefined itself around him. The destruction of the bridge tore at his footing, his balance, his control.
Jormund did not give him time.
He stepped forward.
Each step crushed what remained of the bridge beneath his weight. Reality buckled around his obsidian form, the Lycoris blazing like a wounded star beneath his fractured shell.
— You wanted me erased, Jormund said.
— I learned that language.
Apollo hurled light.
Blades. Spears. Waves of solar annihilation tore through space, incinerating everything in their path. Entire fragments of the Bifröst evaporated into raw energy.
Jormund walked through it.
His body burned.
Cracked.
Chunks of obsidian shattered from his form, drifting away like broken moons.
But he did not stop.
— Impossible—! Apollo snarled.
— You are a residue! A mistake!
Jormund raised the hammer with one arm.
— So was Ragnarok.
He swung.
The hammer did not cut.
It fell.
The blow carried the weight of:
Jormungandr's corpse
Chronos' devoured time
Tartarus' silence
And a future that refused correction
The impact struck Apollo directly.
The god did not explode.
He folded.
Light collapsed inward as Apollo was driven downward, his radiance compacted violently under the hammer's mass. The Bifröst beneath them caved entirely, dragging both into a spiraling descent of broken colors and collapsing space.
Apollo screamed again.
This time, in pain.
Jormund followed.
They fell through layers of reality tearing themselves apart. Shards of divine pathways pierced Apollo's form, slicing through light like glass through fire.
Jormund twisted mid-fall and brought the hammer down again.
And again.
Each strike was deliberate.
Measured.
Not rage.
Judgment.
— You thought the Sun made you untouchable, Jormund said between impacts.
— But you forgot something, Apollo.
The god struggled, light flickering weakly now.
— When the Sun dies…
— shadows learn how to kill gods.
The final blow landed.
The abyssal hammer crushed Apollo into the collapsing remnants of the bridge, driving him through layers of shattered reality until they slammed into a dead expanse beneath the Bifröst.
Silence followed.
Not peace.
Shock.
Apollo lay embedded in a crater of crystallized light and broken space. His form flickered erratically, divinity leaking from him like molten gold.
He was not dead.
But he was broken.
Jormund landed moments later.
The impact sent a shockwave across the void, pulverizing what little remained of the bridge. The Bifröst was gone.
Completely.
No path remained between realms.
Only ruin.
Jormund stood over Apollo.
One arm.
Cracked body.
Hammer resting against the ground like a gravestone.
Apollo looked up at him.
For the first time, the god of the Sun felt small.
— You think this changes anything? Apollo rasped.
— Olympus will come. Odin will come. Thor will—
Jormund raised the hammer.
— Let them.
The Lycoris pulsed.
The hammer's surface shifted, absorbing fragments of shattered divinity scattered around them. The weapon learned.
— This bridge was your shortcut to control, Jormund said quietly.
— I've closed it.
He turned away.
Apollo screamed behind him—not in defiance.
In realization.
Above them, the void where the Bifröst once existed remained open.
Bleeding.
And across the realms, gods felt it.
The bridge between worlds was dead.
And something far worse had taken its place.