Chapter 127: The Undying Beast
Silence fell like a shroud.
Gods—beings who had witnessed the birth and death of stars, who had battled monstrosities beyond mortal comprehension—stood frozen. Yet even they had never seen a creature like this.
The serpent loomed, vast and coiled, its scales glinting like obsidian armor. Loki had claimed its appetite was only slightly greater than Fenrir's. Slightly? Fenrir could devour a god in a single bite. This beast could swallow a thousand.
It was not merely a serpent. Its body was plated in draconic scales, and its head bore the angular majesty of a dragon. This was no ordinary monster—it was an extinction-class entity, a beast worthy of imprisonment on the Demon Star. How had Loki found it? Had it escaped from that cursed place?
"No," murmured one of the gods who knew the sealed horrors of the Demon Star. "There's no record of such a creature."
Then—
A beam of blue light shot skyward from the arena, striking the serpent's throat. A gaping wound tore open beneath its jaw, nearly severing its neck.
The attack came from the human champion—the Dragon Slayer. It was the same technique that had once sent Fenrir flying. But this time, the damage was far more severe.
Was the serpent weaker than Fenrir?
No. Its size made it slower, less agile. It couldn't dodge the attack. That made it vulnerable—but also deceptively dangerous.
Some gods clenched their fists, ready to strike.
Then—
"No… it can't be!"
"The wound—it's healing!"
The massive gash sealed shut in the blink of an eye. Not metaphorically. Literally.
The gods recoiled. The worst kind of monster was one that couldn't die. One that regenerated endlessly. One that turned every victory into a delay.
Then the serpent reared back, preparing to spew venom.
And its head vanished.
As if made of mist, it dispersed with a single punch.
The clouds parted. Sunlight flooded the arena.
"That… that's—!"
A figure hovered in the sky. Muscles bulged like thunderclouds. A god of impossible strength.
"Lord Zeus!"
"He struck it down!"
"The Chairman of the Council of Gods!"
The frail, wind-blown Zeus of legend was gone. In his place stood the apex deity, the god of gods.
No one had seen him leap. No one had seen him strike. They only saw the aftermath—obliteration.
Cheers erupted.
Then—
Darkness flickered across their vision.
Like a shadow passing over a tunnel's exit, something had blocked the light for a fraction of a second.
Zeus was gone.
A sound rang out—like a whip cracking through the sky.
The gods turned toward a distant floating island.
It exploded.
"What…?"
Then they understood.
Zeus had been struck by the serpent's tail. Flung like a meteor into the island. The impact had shattered it.
"But its head was destroyed—"
"No… no way…"
"It's immortal?!"
Terror spread like wildfire.
The serpent's head regenerated in a single breath.
"Useless," Loki's voice echoed, mocking. "Jörmungandr cannot be killed."
Jörmungandr.
The name fell like a curse.
"Loki, enough!" one god shouted. "We never saw you as an enemy! You were one of us!"
"You think sentiment matters now?" Loki laughed, cruel and cold. "You gods have grown soft. Jörmungandr… dinner is served."
The serpent's eyes glowed crimson. Its jaws opened wide—wide enough to swallow the sky.
"ROOOAAARRR!"
This was no hiss. No whisper. It was a dragon's roar, shaking the heavens.
It wasn't attacking yet.
It was celebrating.
Then—
CRACK. CRACK. CRACK.
The arena groaned.
Jörmungandr was tightening its coils, preparing to crush the entire structure.
The arena wasn't just a battleground—it was a divine artifact. Destroying it would clear the way for the feast.
Chapter 128: The Blood That Can Kill Jörmungandr
Jörmungandr.
The second trump card Loki had forged during the final days of the Giant War.
He never got to unleash it. The war ended before he could.
So what did he do with it?
He threw it into the Bottomless Sea.
The crushing pressure of the abyss was meant to suppress its growth. A form of sealing.
Its appetite was too monstrous—even worse than Fenrir's. Feeding it was impossible.
But killing it would waste its potential.
So Loki kept it alive.
Only he and Odin knew of its existence. Odin himself had ordered its exile.
Back then, it wasn't this massive. Perhaps a few times larger than Fenrir.
So how had it grown?
It couldn't have expanded without nourishment.
Someone had fed it.
Loki.
But what could sustain such growth?
Odin had a theory.
Two thousand years ago, after Brunnhilde's failed trial and return to the heavens, Loki began targeting a disposal site—where the corpses of giants and other enemies were dumped.
For two millennia, Loki had been feeding those remains to Jörmungandr.
That's how it became this colossal.
But now—how could it be defeated?
Surely it had a weakness.
There was no such thing as true immortality.
Even beings with terrifying regeneration had been slain before.
There had to be a flaw.
And there was.
Jörmungandr's core—its brain nucleus.
Destroy that, and the beast would die.
"Then why didn't Zeus's punch kill it?" asked Shiva.
"Because its core isn't in the head," Odin rasped.
"It moves constantly—urk!"
Odin coughed up black blood, flecked with fragments of his own organs. Then collapsed.
Panic spread.
Odin's wound—pierced by Fenrir—was nearly impossible to heal. If the healing gods stopped, he would die.
"A moving core?" Shiva muttered, scratching his head. "So it could be anywhere in the body?"
If they couldn't target the core, the serpent would regenerate endlessly.
The only solution—
Destroy the entire body in one blow.
"Completely obliterate Jörmungandr?" Hermes frowned. "That's… not easy."
He paused.
There was something else.
A suspicion.
A possibility.