The Bifrost served as both Asgard's gateway to the Nine Realms and its greatest strategic weapon.
Connected to the imnse World Tree, it continuously drew vast amounts of energy from the void, creating a self-sustaining cycle of power. In peaceti, it was guarded and maintained by Heimdall.
Such a monuntal creation had taken more than a century to complete.
The dwarves of Nidavellir and the master craftsn of Asgard had forged it together.
It was both shield and spear.
A fortress capable of defending Asgard and a weapon capable of destroying its enemies.
And it was the source of Odin's confidence.
As for Balder's death...
Faced with the overwhelming strength of the Heavenly Court, Odin had no choice but to set vengeance aside for now.
He tugged on the reins.
Beneath him, Sleipnir surged forward.
The eight-legged divine steed raced across the battlefield in a blaze of thunder and fire, like a bolt of lightning streaking through the dark sky.
In a single breath, Odin was upon Chi You.
Gungnir swept forward in a deadly arc.
Clang!
The spear split the heavens.
But it failed to strike its target.
A crimson glow burst from Chi You's hand, extending outward and taking the shape of a sword. The blood-red blade intercepted Gungnir and knocked aside the legendary spear.
The divine weapons created through Chi You's authority showed no fear of Gungnir's unmatched sharpness.
Spear and sword collided.
The resulting shockwave tore through the air and shattered the towering waves below.
Odin poured divine power into his assault.
Golden lightning danced across his armor.
Countless Rune symbols ignited upon Gungnir's surface, glowing with ancient power.
His white hair whipped wildly in the wind.
An imnse pressure radiated from him, heavy as a mountain.
For a brief mont, it felt as though all creation should kneel at his feet.
Then Odin vanished.
A flash of gold crossed the battlefield.
The gods were forced back as he reappeared among them.
His speed was lightning itself.
Under the black sky, golden thunder and silver divine light collided repeatedly, unleashing silent waves of destruction.
Below them, the raging ocean exploded apart.
Entire sections of sea vanished into clouds of steam.
Nearby mountain ranges shattered like brittle glass.
Their remains crumbled into dust and were swept into the sky.
Chi You was driven backward.
Not because he had lost in skill.
Not because his authority had failed.
He was simply being overwheld by the sheer volu of divine power Odin was unleashing.
Even so, Chi You had carved dozens of wounds into the Destroyer Armor.
Odin ignored every one of them.
The mont Chi You was forced back, Gungnir's unstoppable edge swept toward Yang Jian and the others.
The Spear of Odin!
Golden lightning wrapped around it like a miniature sun.
Thousands of Rune symbols erupted with brilliant radiance.
The weapon carried enough energy to devastate worlds.
Yet it struck nothing.
The point where it landed fractured.
Space itself cracked and collapsed, forming a dark vortex.
A mountain-sized bolt of golden lightning slamd into the black ocean below.
It was blocked.
By one of the Twelve Primordial Witches.
Dijiang.
As the God of Space and Speed, he possessed absolute confidence in his ability to outpace even Sleipnir.
Redirecting Odin's spear was effortless.
"A Space God?"
Odin's eye narrowed.
He was no stranger to such powers.
The Destroyer Armor itself carried blessings from deities associated with space.
Instantly, Dijiang beca his new target.
Murderous intent burst from Odin's lone eye.
The pressure alone scattered clouds and distorted the atmosphere.
Space humd around him.
Golden arcs of electricity slithered across the Destroyer Armor like living serpents.
Each flicker generated violent energy fluctuations.
Matter disintegrated.
Light bent.
Space cracked.
It was as though reality itself struggled to bear the presence of a warrior standing at the peak of single-universe power.
Odin blinked across the battlefield repeatedly.
Each movent brought Gungnir closer.
The spear struck like a venomous serpent lunging for its prey.
Dijiang rely sneered.
He wasn't just a god of space.
He was also a god of speed.
For Odin to think he could catch him was absurd.
Again and again, Dijiang evaded every attack with ease.
At the sa ti, he redirected the assaults of his allies, causing them to crash into Odin from impossible angles.
Had Odin not possessed the experience of countless wars, he would have been severely wounded long ago.
Each block produced an earth-shaking detonation.
The impacts resembled miniature planets colliding.
Shockwaves rippled outward.
Space trembled.
The compressed atmosphere shrieked like a living thing.
Then Odin saw an opportunity.
The instability in the surrounding space was limiting Dijiang's control.
Many viewed Odin as Asgard's greatest warrior.
Few rembered that he was also one of the greatest masters of Rune magic in existence.
Hundreds of glowing Rune symbols appeared around him.
Each one shone like a miniature sun.
Then they exploded.
Blazing lightning.
Scorching heat.
Corrosive poison.
Freezing frost.
Dozens of elental forces collided and rged, releasing terrifying magical power.
Yet every attack missed.
Not a single one reached its target.
Because standing among the Heavenly Court's forces was another mber of the Twelve Primordial Witches.
Zhulong.
The God of Ti.
"Detonating those runes takes ti," Zhulong said calmly. "And even a femtosecond is enough."
Ti shifted.
Every god of the Heavenly Court vanished from the blast zone.
Odin's carefully prepared ambush struck nothing.
Imdiately, he realized the truth.
That outco was impossible for a re Space God.
Soone else had intervened.
At that mont, Drex Valen felt a strange presence.
Sothing was watching the battlefield.
A power unlike any of the combatants below.
Then reality shifted.
An invitation reached him.
In the next instant, Drex found himself standing within a realm of shadows.
There, he saw them.
The Elder Gods seated within the darkness.
The Gods Above Gods.
Before them, even Odin was little more than an insect.
These were the beings who fed upon Ragnarok itself, harvesting the life force released through endless cycles of destruction and rebirth.
Their origins had long vanished into the mists of prehistory.
Seated upon thrones of shadow, they sustained themselves by drawing nourishnt from the Norse gods.
Again and again, they watched the cycle unfold.
The end of the world.
Death.
Rebirth.
For countless ages, Asgard had been destroyed and restored in an endless loop.
Ragnarok ca.
Ragnarok ended.
And then it began again.
Each cycle released vast quantities of energy.
The Elder Gods consud it all.
Over ti, they had grown unimaginably powerful.
They now claid near-omnipotence, though evidence suggested their influence beyond their chosen domain was far more limited than they admitted.
Even so, one thing remained undeniable.
Their ability to predict the outcos of actions within the Norse cycle was absolute.
After the most recent Ragnarok, Thor had sacrificed his life to inherit Odin's power and wisdom.
That journey eventually brought him before the shadow-seated gods.
When he learned the truth of the cycle, he condemned them.
Furious, Thor accused them of trapping his people in an endless repetition of aningless death and rebirth.
And he swore to break the cycle forever.
The beings seated in shadow mocked him.
They praised his determination while assuring him it was impossible.
Then they realized sothing alarming.
Thor actually possessed the power to do it.
He intended to seize the thread of fate itself and drag it from the end of the cycle back to its beginning.
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