"Centnir, wake up! Centnir, how long are you going to sleep!?" A voice echoed through the darkness, calling out to the monster.
Finally, the half-horse, half-human creature's eyes fluttered open, roused by the persistent voice. The first thing Centnir saw was a giant gray-and-white owl hovering in front of it.
"Garhogg, how did you get here?" Centnir asked in astonishment. It glanced around, its surroundings slowly coming into focus. The familiar, sprawling ice cave was its home—the place where it had been born and raised.
Known in ancient times as "Éljúðnir," the great hall of the underworld goddess Hel, the cave was anything but. Though the name meant "hall," it was nothing more than an immense ice cave. Following the Ragnarok War and the dawn of a new era, it was renamed "Frozen Hell Castle," now one of the deepest reaches of the realm of Niflheim.
"We are all children of the Great God Hodor, king of Niflheim. Death is simply a return home," Garhogg said, a flap of its wings echoing in the stillness. A single, blood-red gem on its neck pulsed with light, casting the only glow in the cavern. Despite the utter darkness, the ice giants who were born here could navigate the shadows without difficulty.
"That's right. It's been a long time since I felt this." As Garhogg spoke, Centnir's mind drifted back to its memories of this place.
"Have you already forgotten the countless times Nifflhogg killed us?" Garhogg's voice was sharp as it spoke of another ice giant they had grown up with in the frozen hell of Niflheim. Nifflhogg was a dragon-like monster, so vicious that it would murder its own kin for sport.
"The endless deaths we suffered at Nifflhogg's hands... how long ago was that?"
"That dragon left this cave about four hundred years ago."
"Four hundred years ago?!" Centnir said in disbelief. "It hasn't even been two hundred years since I finally mustered the courage to leave this cave."
"Who left first, you or Mahahogg?" Garhogg asked, eager to learn what had happened after it left. By then, Centnir and Mahahogg were the only ones left in the Frozen Hell Castle. The serpent was a giant with blood-red eyes and one of the eight ice giants born of the god Hodor.
"Mahahogg and I actually left this cave together, a little over two hundred years ago," Centnir said. "But I was terrified of the outside world and returned before even leaving the realm of Niflheim. I was alone for a time, until I met Lokan, who had been resurrected here. He made the long years in this cave far less lonely."
"So Lokan died once, too? I would've never guessed. He always bragged that he was second in strength only to Nifflhogg." Garhogg taunted its kin with the old tale.
"He didn't die just once," Centnir replied, recounting a story that shocked Garhogg even more. "Lokan died and was resurrected here three times while I was living in this cave."
"Three times?!" Garhogg muttered, finding a strange solace in the fact. "Well, I suppose I'm not the only one to have suffered such a fate."
"Did you just get yourself killed as well, then, Garhogg?" Centnir asked.
"This is the second time I have died and been resurrected in this cave," Garhogg said with a hint of shame.
"What happened to you? Did you meet the gods of Asgard?" Centnir was quite close with Garhogg. Among the eight of them, Garhogg, Mahahogg, and itself were considered the weakest.
"Let's put my story aside for now. You tell me about Lokan's three deaths first. He loved to talk, so he must have told you everything."
"I have to start with this: the one thing Lokan hated and feared most was Nifflhogg. When he learned that the dragon would be going to Midgard, the most brilliant ice giant, Lokan, would never agree to be near that dragon. So Lokan chose to go to Jötunheim instead."
"Jötunheim? The land of the ice giants from ancient times!?" Garhogg was immediately surprised to hear that Lokan's story began in the kingdom of the ancient ice giants. While the eight of them were called ice giants, they were beings created by the god Hodor in the realm of Niflheim, not natural-born ice giants from Jötunheim.
"Lokan said that in Jötunheim, he met quite a few ice giants who were descended from ancient times. Most of them were much bigger than Lokan, but none of them could fight him on equal terms. Then one day, Lokan met a strange human. He was much taller than a normal human, but still only reached about Lokan's knee. And that was the human who killed Lokan the first time." Centnir told the story of Lokan's first death in a flat, emotionless voice.
"What kind of human can live in Jötunheim?" Garhogg loudly protested, refusing to believe what it had just heard.
"Lokan told this whole story to Mahahogg and me after his second resurrection. The first time he was resurrected, he rushed out to get revenge. A few years later, Lokan was resurrected here again, killed by the same human a second time."
"Lokan was killed by the same human twice? Unbelievable!"
"Before his second death, Lokan asked for the human's name. The human's name was 'Xu Xin,' he wore clothes the color of the ocean, his long black hair was spiky at the ends, and he wore a metal glove on his left hand. Lokan tried to make Mahahogg and me memorize every detail of that human many times. He also warned us that if we ever met that person anywhere, we should only flee and never face him, because he might be even stronger than Nifflhogg."
Garhogg shook its head in protest and said, "No way. Nothing is stronger than that evil dragon."
"These are all Lokan's words. I didn't add anything," Centnir said, annoyed that the owl in front of it was arguing with a story it was telling truthfully.
"You don't lie, but Lokan is different from you. Fine, fine. Then how did the third death of that liar happen?"
"The third time was when I returned to this Frozen Hell Castle again. Mahahogg had already left this cave. Lokan said that this time, it happened in the vast sea of Midgard. Lokan found a large Elven ship and discovered that the elves on it carried all sorts of magical weapons from ancient times. One of them was an elf who used the magical sword of the god Tyr, named 'Tyrfing.' Lokan was then killed by those magical weapons before being resurrected in this cave for the third and final time that I saw him." Centnir concluded Lokan's story here.
"Sigh... That group of elves was truly formidable. One of them used the magical stone spear of the goddess Freya, named 'Varend,' and that spear was what killed me the first time." Garhogg's first death, it turned out, was also related to the group of elves who possessed many magical weapons.
"Oh... You also lost to that group of elves!?" Centnir was shocked. The reason it was afraid of the outside world before was because of these stories it heard from Lokan, who had been defeated by both humans and elves.
"After I was resurrected, I was probably like Lokan after his first death. I rushed back to get revenge on those elves." Finishing this sentence, Garhogg moved its right wing to the necklace with the blood-red gem. It continued, "Look at this. This gem was actually the stone spear Varend. I took it to Harpnir to have her turn it into my personal weapon."
Harpnir was the name of another of the eight ice giants born from the god Hodor. This ice giant was a female and had a pair of large, swan-like wings on her back.
"What? You met Harpnir after leaving the Frozen Hell Castle? And if I want to see her, where can I find her?" Centnir had a special fondness for Harpnir's beauty and asked for more details, hoping for a way to meet her again.
"Harpnir lives in a very distant land to the east. It would take me sixteen days to fly there from Jötunheim. You have no wings and can't fly across the sea, so I'm afraid you'll never meet her again for the rest of your life," Garhogg said, bluntly dashing Centnir's hopes.
"Watch what you say. I will cross that sea. One day, Harpnir and I will meet again," Centnir said, refusing to give up and vowing to find Harpnir no matter what.
Garhogg, who always thought it was smarter than everyone else, offered a suggestion, "Since you can't cross the sea, why don't you wait here? One day Harpnir might slip up and have to be resurrected here."
"Your words are so condescending. How big can the sea in Midgard be? I, Centnir, do not believe I have to surrender to it."
"Sigh... I'm only warning you out of good will. Anyway, besides Lokan, have you seen anyone else from our group resurrected here?"
"Yes, I saw Joson resurrected here once," Centnir answered quickly.
Joson was the name of another of the eight ice giants. This one was the tallest of them all, about twice as tall as Centnir.
"Oh! That giant!? That's surprising," Garhogg, who claimed to be the smartest of the eight, was now listening to stories from Centnir that were almost all unexpected to it.
"That's all there is to Joson's story. He was resurrected and just slowly walked out without saying a word, as always." Centnir's words suggested that Joson was a giant of very few words.
"Right! Centnir! You were just resurrected too. What exactly did you lose to?" Garhogg asked Centnir in return.
"I lost to a Valkyrie. That woman had a strange sword with a dark purple smoke constantly seeping from it." As Centnir said this, it unconsciously touched the back of its neck with its left hand. It found a long scar there. Even though its body had been resurrected, the wound that caused its death was still present.
"What!? You met Lylith!?" Garhogg's voice rose sharply in surprise.
"Right. The Valkyrie seemed to mention your name once." Centnir didn't understand the language of the Valkyrie who killed it, but in their brief exchange, it thought it heard her mention Garhogg's name.
"I've almost died to that Valkyrie's sword twice, but each time I was able to fly away and narrowly escape with my life," Garhogg said in a serious tone.
"You didn't die by that enchanted blade, and yet you're resurrected now?" Centnir couldn't accept that it had died by that Valkyrie's blade while Garhogg had survived her twice.
"This death was the most foolish thing I've ever done. A few days ago, I went to find that dragon, Nifflhogg, to tell him a very important piece of news. In the end, not only did that dragon laugh in my face, but he also brutally killed me..." Garhogg's voice trailed off, barely able to speak.
"That dragon..." Centnir also felt a surge of helplessness at the thought of Nifflhogg. In its memory, there was nothing more brutal and vicious than Nifflhogg.
"Yes. And that very important news is something I have to tell you as well."
"What is it?" Centnir quickly asked, full of curiosity.
Garhogg leaned in, its beak whispering crucial news into Centnir's ear. "The Great God Baldur is gravely ill. Soon, the throne of light will have a new wielder."
"And who will possess that throne?" Centnir blurted out, stunned.
"What a foolish horse you are. Who else in this universe is more worthy of being the king of Asgard than our father, the Great God Hodor?" With its words, Garhogg spread one wing, clasped the other to its chest, and knelt on one leg—a gesture of absolute reverence.