Chapter 135: Spread the Word, Skadi Has Betrayed Asgard
"Then, let's continue."
Rowe raised the long spear in his hand and let out a low, thunder heavy roar from behind his iron mask.
The Valkyries had already fallen silent.
They were afraid.
The warriors chosen by Odin did not fear battle. They did not fear death, nor any powerful foe. But they feared Odin himself. They revered the King of the Gods who granted them power, and who could take it away just as easily.
Right now, facing Rowe felt like facing Odin directly.
The pressure was crushing.
The power felt even worse.
"Run!" a Valkyrie shouted at once. Her black wings fanned out, beating the air until ripples trembled across the dome.
Rowe lifted his spear.
And at that very instant, a sudden roar answered him.
Thunder blazed, flooding the dim ceiling of Jotunheimr with violent light. It crashed down like a giant hammer falling from the sky.
No, it was a hammer.
Rowe snapped his spear up and deflected the heavy blow, but the strike was only a momentary brush.
The thunder scattered. The light vanished. Dust surged through the air.
And the Valkyries were gone.
So was the falling thunder.
They had been pulled away by Thor, God of Thunder.
It seemed that even the so called King of the Wild Hunt could not stop him.
Thor was second only to Odin among the Norse gods. A pure martial deity. A war god who wielded thunder as casually as breath.
Of course he could do this.
Of course it was reasonable.
Rowe had intended it.
Thor's appearance did not surprise him. If anything, Rowe had revealed himself so brazenly for this exact reason, to draw out the Norse God of War.
Those Valkyries had been nothing more than bait.
Their lives meant nothing to him.
Rowe removed the mask from his face and looked down.
"King! King! King!"
The wind screamed. Giants roared. Their voices rolled on without end, like a storm sweeping across the land.
They were intoxicated by their King's strength, and by the certainty of victory.
Yet Rowe's gaze did not linger on them.
He looked instead at the one who appeared pitifully small beneath the giants.
Skadi, Goddess of the Snow Mountain, clad in purple.
Her delicate face was blank with confusion. The magic staff in her raised hand had frozen in place, as though even her will had been locked. Her full figure swayed under the violent winds of Jotunheimr.
The goddess looked lost.
Skadi was stunned because she had felt it.
In the split second Thor appeared in the thunder, his eyes had turned toward her.
Disappointment.
Anger.
And beneath it, killing intent.
It was over.
Skadi finally understood that she would never be able to wash away her so called wrongdoing.
If it had only been the misunderstanding of exposing the Meteor Spear's power, she still might have explained herself.
But once it touched Odin's authority, there was no road back.
Misunderstanding or not, she would be punished.
And it would be cruel. It would be merciless.
"A handful of Valkyries can't prove your betrayal," Rowe said, descending slowly.
Encased in mecha shell armor and wrapped in a fur cloak, he no longer carried the gentle, wise presence he had worn before. The deathly aura remained, but now it was sharpened into something colder, with a clear edge of killing intent.
He looked like the identity he had replaced.
The Wild Hunt.
The King of the Dead, hunting across the world with madness and certainty.
Yet Rowe's voice carried a kind of amused malice.
"But Thor should be enough, right?"
He landed before her.
"How about it? Still want to return to Asgard?"
"If you do, I can send you back immediately."
Skadi did not answer.
If she could beat him, she would have already beaten him senseless.
Go back?
Go back to be executed?
The Norse gods despised betrayal above all things. They did not show mercy to traitors.
"Do you really want to force me into your faction?" Skadi finally spoke, annoyed and helpless after a long silence. "I'm just a minor god."
"But you are the most favored goddess," Rowe replied, "the youngest among them."
He reached out and lifted Skadi's chin, raising her face.
"You know more secrets than most."
The King of the Dead stared directly into the Snow Mountain Goddess's eyes.
No longer dark and profound like before, Rowe's gaze now glowed with gold and fire, like something primordial that once flowed beneath the earth.
Harsh. Silent. Cold to the marrow.
"I know," Skadi said, turning her head away. "But I won't compromise."
No matter what happened, she was a goddess of Asgard. She would not, and could not, help these giants who brought only destruction.
"As you wish."
Rowe withdrew his hand. He had not expected Skadi to be subdued so easily anyway.
There was still time.
Then, with a sudden metallic cry, he drove the long spear into the ground.
Clang.
The Titan giants surrounding them stood solemn and still, their eyes burning like wind and fire.
They watched Rowe.
They watched him raise his hands, cloak snapping backward in the cold currents of Jotunheimr.
And they heard him say it.
"Then next, it will be me who leads you out of here."
Excitement surged like a fever.
The giants waved their arms, stirring storms into existence with sheer force. Death was mixed into that gale.
And inside death, there was endless terror.
The symbol of death and storm, the embodiment of disaster and dread, the King of the Wild Hunt. Some claimed he was a facet of Odin, the shadow buried in the heart of the Heavenly God who ruled death. Others claimed he was Odin's adversary, a demon king mirroring the sky's holiness.
Ancient Nibelungen poems once recorded the scene of the King of the Wild Hunt returning from the depths of the void and placing a crown upon his own head.
He fought with lightning. He opposed the Heavenly Gods.
He abducted the most favored virgin of the gods, Skadi, the Snow Mountain Goddess.
He was the demon king meant to defile the pure white world, the terminator who brought destruction to the ancient order.
Odin prophesied it.
When he appeared, all things would change.
History of Norse Mythology
…
Rumble. Rumble. Rumble.
In Midgard, the middle realm of the 9 realms, lightning tore across sky and earth in layered sheets. It spread outward like veins of wrath, cracking the vast world's seeming eternity, shattering the loneliness and desolation that had lasted too long.
Hunters deep in the forests stopped where they stood, lowering their heads under the divine pressure of the storm.
Merchants traveling between human settlements hid inside their carriage compartments, gripping charms and prayers as though either could keep them safe.
Warriors trudging through snow dropped to their knees and prostrated themselves, worshiping Thor, the god who embodied battle and bravery.
Old men laughed hoarsely, claiming they had once seen Odin with their own eyes.
But Thor himself looked frantic.
After bursting out from Jotunheimr, he crashed into the very top of the World Tree, shaking the immense trunk that spanned the mythic world. Leaves and branches rustled like a thousand blades scraping together.
Spread the word.
Within the violent roar, the people heard a voice, faint but unmistakable.
The King of the Giants has returned to Jotunheimr.
He has donned the crown that dominates the dead and commands death.
He calls himself the Wild Hunt.
The pure and unblemished flower of the snow mountain has been stained by the dust of the dead and the giants.
Skadi has betrayed us.
The gods of Asgard.
At once, countless lights and shadows surged toward the top of the World Tree, divine radiance streaking through the sky like shooting stars with purpose.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
Bells rang out, resounding and urgent.
In Asgard, within the realm of the gods, within the Platinum Palace where Odin resided, every god gathered at once in that brilliant, sacred, radiant place.
<><><><><>
[Check Out My Patreon For +40 Advance Chapters On All My Fanfics!]
[[email protected]/FanficLord03]
[Join Our Discord Community For Updates & Events]
[https://discord.gg/MntqcdpRZ9]