"Then—let's continue!" Rovi raised the long spear in his hand, his voice rolling out from behind the steel mask, deep as pealing thunder.
The War Gods had all gone rigid.
They were afraid.
The warriors chosen by Odin feared neither battle nor death, nor any mighty foe—but they feared Odin. They stood in awe of the King of Gods who had granted them their power.
And at this moment, facing Rovi felt no different from facing Odin himself.
The pressure radiating from him was unmistakable.
His strength needed no explanation.
"Run!" one of the War Gods shouted at once, black wings beating as ripples spread through the air.
Rovi raised his spear.
And at that exact moment... a deafening roar split the sky!
Lightning blazed brilliant and dazzling, turning Jotunheim's dim yellow vault bright as day. It was as though a gigantic iron hammer had come crashing down from the heavens—no, not as though. It was exactly that.
"Thor, God of Thunder!?" Rovi knocked the incoming blow aside with his spear, but the attack that had come straight for him vanished in an instant.
The lightning faded and scattered. Only dust billowed through the world, and with it the group of War Gods and the descending thunder disappeared.
Thor had taken them away.
It seemed that not even the King of the Wild Hunt had been able to stop him.
Among the Norse gods, Thor was second only to Odin in strength—a god devoted wholly to battle, a war god who wielded thunder.
He did have that kind of power.
Yes. Entirely reasonable. Entirely expected.
Rovi had done it on purpose.
Thor's appearance had not caught him off guard at all. In fact, the whole reason he had shown himself so openly was to draw out this Norse war god.
That pack of War Gods had only been bait.
He had never cared whether they lived or died.
Rovi removed the mask from his face and looked down below.
"King! King! King!"
The winds surged as the giants roared in endless waves, one cry after another, like a storm sweeping across the earth.
They were exhilarated by their king's power and certain of victory.
But Rovi's gaze fell only on the "person" who looked pitifully small beside the giants.
Skadi, the Ski Goddess, in her purple dress.
Her exquisite face was frozen in a daze. The wand in her raised hand had gone stiff, and her full figure swayed helplessly in the wind, the goddess looking utterly lost.
Skadi had gone completely blank.
Because she had noticed the gaze directed at her from within that fleeting flash of lightning.
Thor's eyes had been full of disappointment.
Of rage.
And even... killing intent.
It was over.
Only now did Skadi finally realize that no matter what she did, she would never be able to clear herself of this "wrong."
If it had only been the misunderstanding over exposing the power of the meteor spear, she could still have explained herself.
But if it involved Odin's authority... then even as the goddess most cherished by Odin, almost like a daughter to the God-King, there would be no room left to turn things around.
Whether it was a misunderstanding or not, she would still be punished.
And punished brutally.
"A handful of insignificant War Gods isn't enough to prove your betrayal. But Thor should be enough, shouldn't he?"
Rovi slowly descended. Clad in the armored shell of a Machine God, with a fur cloak draped over it, he no longer carried that earlier air of a gentle sage touched by death. In its place was the chill of slaughter.
Just like the identity he had taken upon himself... the Wild Hunt.
The king of the dead who hunted madly across the earth.
Yet the voice that came from Rovi was full of schadenfreude. "So? Still want to go back to Asgard?"
"If you do, I can send you back right now—"
Skadi said nothing. If she had been strong enough, she would have beaten this bastard senseless already.
Go back?
Go back and get killed!?
The Norse gods hated betrayal above all else. When it came to traitors, they had never once shown mercy.
"You really want to force me onto your side that badly?" Troubled and helpless, Skadi finally could not hold back any longer. "I'm just a minor goddess..."
"But you're the goddess most doted on by the gods. One of the youngest among them," Rovi said, reaching out to tip up Skadi's chin and lift that delicate face toward him. "You know more secrets than most of the gods do."
The King of the Dead stared straight into the Ski Goddess's eyes.
No longer the same black, bottomless gaze as before, Rovi's eyes now glowed with gold and fire—the primordial hue that had once flowed through the depths below the earth.
Harsh and deathly still, cold enough to seep into the bones.
"I know. But I won't compromise." Skadi turned her face aside.
No matter what, she was still a goddess of Asgard. She would not, and could not, help these giants who brought nothing but destruction.
"As you like." Rovi withdrew his hand. He had never expected Skadi to yield that easily anyway.
There was still plenty of time ahead.
So then...
Clang.
Rovi drove the long spear in his other hand into the ground.
The Titan giants stood around him in solemn silence.
Pairs of eyes burned with scorching wind and fire.
They watched Rovi.
Watched him raise both hands, his cloak flaring behind him in Jotunheim's frigid currents.
And they heard him say, "Then from here on... I will lead you out of this place!"
Excitement. Exhilaration.
The giants threw up their arms, stirring endless storms where they stood.
Death was mixed into those storms.
And within that death lurked boundless terror.
...
The symbol of death and storm, the incarnation of disaster and dread—the king of the Wild Hunt. Some say he is one face of Odin, the shadow buried in the depths of the sky god who governs death. Others say he is Odin's adversary, a demon king set against the sanctity of the heavens.
The ancient Nibelungen poems once recorded the sight of the king of the Wild Hunt returning from the depths of the void and donning his crown.
He clashed with lightning. He stood against the sky god. He abducted the maiden most cherished by the gods, Skadi, The Goddess of Ice and Snow. He is the demon king who would defile the pure white world, the destroyer who would bring an end to the ancient order.
Odin prophesied: when he appears, all things shall be replaced.
—History of Norse Mythology
...
Boom. Boom. Boom!
In Midgard, the middle realm of the Nine Realms, layer upon layer of lightning tore across sky and earth, shattering the desolate stillness that had seemed eternal beneath the vast heavens.
Hunters in the forest stopped in their tracks, shrinking back beneath the divine majesty of the thunder. Traveling merchants hurrying between human villages dove straight into their wagons. Mighty warriors dropped to their knees in the snow and prayed to Thor, embodiment of battle and valor. And some old men merely threw back their heads and laughed, claiming they had once seen Odin himself.
Thor, meanwhile, was in no such mood. After charging up out of Jotunheim, he slammed straight toward the very top of the World Tree, striking it so hard that the colossal timber spanning the Norse mythic world shook and rustled from end to end.
"Spread the word!"
Amid that violent thunder, people could just barely make out a voice:
"The King of the Giants has returned to Jotunheim. He has donned the crown of dominion over the dead, sovereignty over death. He calls himself the Wild Hunt."
"The spotless flower of the snowy mountains has already been tainted by the dust of the dead and the giants."
"Skadi—"
"Has betrayed us, the gods of Asgard!"
As the air rang, countless divine figures shot at once toward the summit of the World Tree.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Great bells echoed.
Within the divine realm of Asgard, inside Valaskjálf where Odin resided, the gods gathered in an instant in that resplendent place of gold and holy radiance.
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T/N: poor skadi lmao