Twenty Thousand Years Ago — Jotunheim
The battle had been glorious.
Borgir remembered it with perfect clarity, every moment seared into his memory during the long millennia of his imprisonment. He had been fighting Bor Burison, Odin's father, in the frozen wastelands of Jotunheim. Punch for punch, blow for blow—it had been the kind of fight that warriors dreamed of, the kind that songs would be written about.
Borgir's fist connected with Bor's jaw. Bor's hammer crashed into Borgir's ribs. Back and forth they fought, neither giving ground, both warriors grinning with the pure joy of facing an equal opponent.
Then, in the midst of that exciting battle, Bor had suddenly shouted two words:
"Rainbow Bridge!"
Borgir had been caught completely off guard. One moment he was in Jotunheim, exchanging blows with a worthy opponent. The next, he was being bombarded with Bifrost energy, his body yanked through space and hurled into this god-forsaken fire dimension.
Before he could even recover from the disorientation, before he could gather his strength to fight back or escape, ancient runes had flared to life around him. The seal activated instantly, trapping him in a prison of magical fire that burned away his strength day after day, year after year.
He was a proud warrior, through and through. Borgir wouldn't have minded being sealed—not really—if it had come after a fair defeat. He wouldn't have even minded being killed in honorable combat. Death in battle was a warrior's glory.
But that bastard Bor had used inexcusable tricks and deception. He'd fought honorably, built trust, made Borgir believe this was a true warrior's duel—and then betrayed that trust with cowardly magic when Borgir was young and ignorant enough to believe in honor among enemies.
The shame of it burned hotter than the flames of his prison.
So after being sealed, Borgir had thought day and night about their rematch. He'd planned it obsessively—every move, every counter, every possible scenario. He would face Bor again, and this time there would be no tricks, no Rainbow Bridge, no escape.
But he did not expect that before he could have his rematch with Bor, he would instead encounter Bor's grandson and a traitor to the frost giant race.
During his imprisonment, Borgir had not been idle. The fire dimension dampened his power to the greatest extent possible, but it couldn't completely silence him. He could still hear the world outside, could still sense the currents of magic, could still see glimpses through the weakening seal.
And he had learned.
He had especially developed one particular technique—a masterwork of frost magic designed specifically to deal with the Rainbow Bridge. Never again would an Asgardian escape him through Bifrost trickery.
Looking now at his masterpiece—the thousand-meter ice pillar that had not only frozen the beam on Earth but had traveled through space itself to corrupt Asgard's very core—Borgir couldn't help but feel a deep, savage satisfaction.
The intricate ice trident, carved with runes older than Asgard itself, had performed perfectly. The ancient magic woven into its structure had done exactly what he'd designed it to do: follow the Bifrost connection like a disease, spreading his frost magic directly into the heart of Asgard's greatest weapon.
Through the weakening seal, Borgir had learned much about the current situation.
The arrogant one—Thor—had apparently gone against his father's wishes. For this offense, Odin had sealed Thor's power and thrown him to Midgard to reflect on his actions, to learn humility the hard way.
And that traitor—Loki—it seemed that Odin had adopted him. Borgir couldn't guess why the All-Father would adopt a frost giant, raise one of Jotunheim's children as his own son. It made no sense. Some political maneuver, perhaps? Some long game?
Borgir didn't care about the why.
He would kill both of them first. Then he would destroy this god-forsaken planet that had held him prisoner for nearly twenty thousand years. And finally—finally—he would go to Asgard itself and give them a bloodbath they would never forget.
He had heard Loki telling Thor that Odin was dead, but Borgir didn't believe such nonsense for a moment. The seal that imprisoned him had been maintained by a specific sequence of power—first established by Bor, then maintained by Odin after his father's death. The magic signature was unmistakable.
If Odin were truly dead, the seal would have failed immediately. Borgir would have been free the instant the All-Father drew his last breath.
Instead, the seal had remained strong until this stupid boy had accidentally weakened it. The seal wasn't perfectly broken—not yet. But it had been weakened just enough that Borgir could force his way through with effort.
And remarkably, there had been someone waiting for him outside who had inadvertently helped break the seal completely. Sometimes the Norns smiled upon even imprisoned warriors.
Runes were powerful magic, perhaps the most powerful in all the realms. But they came with strict rules and limitations. Every magical contract required balance—if you wanted something, you had to give something in return.
If Bor had simply sealed him using rune magic with no conditions, no escape clause, even that mighty spell would have weakened over time. Borgir estimated he could have broken free after perhaps a century, maybe two at most.
But Odin, clever Odin, had modified his father's seal. He had created a designated method to break it—a failsafe, an emergency release. And because of this added mechanism, the seal could only be broken in that specific, designated way.
The condition was elegant in its simplicity: a sacrifice of royal blood.
But here was the truly interesting part—the seal had activated with just Thor's blood. just his blood.
This could only indicate one thing: Odin was not dead, but his power had weakened to a significant extent.
Borgir knew this with certainty because Asgardians didn't grow weaker with age—they grew stronger. Even if Odin's physical body began to fail, his divine power should only intensify over the centuries. Even in decline, even if his body could no longer properly channel his full might, Odin shouldn't have any problem maintaining a seal like this one.
After all, the seal on Hela—Odin's firstborn, the Goddess of Death—was still standing strong. Borgir could sense it, even from here. That prison hadn't weakened at all.
So why had this one?
There was only one logical conclusion: Odin had deliberately weakened the seal. He'd made it possible for Thor to accidentally break it, perhaps as some kind of test, some lesson for his arrogant son.
The All-Father's games within games. Even in punishment, there were layers.
It would have been admirable if it weren't so irritating.
Present Day — Midgard
Thor and Loki both stood staring at the frozen remnants of the Rainbow Bridge, their faces masks of shock and disbelief.
Thor almost wanted to punch his past self in the face. What the Hel had he been thinking? How was he supposed to stop this monster with his mortal body? This creature was completely comparable to his father in raw power—perhaps even stronger, fueled by twenty thousand years of rage.
"Brother," Loki said quietly, his voice unusually hesitant. "Should we just... surrender? You know, stall until someone from Asgard comes to help?"
Thor became speechless, turning to look at his brother with genuine concern. "Brother, did you hit your head too hard when you struck that tree?" He gestured toward Borgir, who was watching them with predatory patience. "He clearly hates Father very much. How could he possibly spare us after surrendering?" Thor paused, then added with brutal honesty, "And besides, he seems to hate you even more than me."
Loki's face paled slightly.
"Now that I think about it," Thor continued, a dangerous glint appearing in his eye, "maybe if I offer you to him as a peace offering, he might reconsider killing me."
Loki suddenly became nervous, taking an instinctive step backward. "Brother, I don't think that would work," he said quickly, his mind racing for arguments. "Think about it—if he hates all Asgardians, giving him one won't satisfy him. It'll just make him angrier. Like throwing a single log to a starving fire."
He paused, then added with forced optimism, "Let's just fight together. Maybe there's a chance he's not as strong as he looks. Maybe the seal weakened him permanently. Maybe—"
"Okay," Thor interrupted, cutting off Loki's increasingly desperate speculation. "Let's try. We'll never know if we don't fight."
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