He knew the beast was still in there. He had glimpsed traces of it throughout their exchange, the feral glint in the god's four eyes, the brief hesitation as Björn contemplated letting him finish mutating just to see a better slaughter. But every single time the madness reared its head, this new, disciplined Björn forcefully suppressed it, burying the instinct in favor of pragmatic execution.
As their two domains collided and began to violently merge, rusted, blood-soaked weapon-spires grinding against the freezing glaciers, a look of desperate determination settled onto Ragnar's face.
He was going to force his birth right now.
It would be premature. The new form would be incomplete, fragile, and far weaker than it should have been. But it was the only state that gave him even a ghost of a chance against this thoughtful, calculated God of War.
