Surtr's defiance vanished the moment Leon stepped forward.
Without hesitation, Leon pressed the Disintegration Staff against the fire giant's flaming crown—his true core.
Nothing happened.
"…Hm?"
Leon tapped the staff against his palm as if troubleshooting a glitch, then drove it down again.
Still nothing.
Surtr remained eerily calm—too calm.
Then he threw his head back and laughed.
"HAHAHAHA! Neither you nor Odin can stop Ragnarök! It is written! I am Asgard's doom!"
"And you as well, Odinson!"
His laughter echoed—
And only then did his crown begin to dissolve.
Flame, bone, and essence melted into viscous slurry.
The staff had worked.
Just… slower.
Against beings of Surtr's tier, its absolute lethality met resistance.
Leon took note.
If an entity of even higher order appeared, the staff might fail entirely.
Still—
Surtr was gone.
That was enough.
Aftermath
Thor exhaled in relief.
"That's it, then? Ragnarök stopped?"
"Maybe," Loki replied, frowning slightly. Surtr's final words unsettled him.
Even if destiny could not be erased, perhaps it could be delayed.
And delay meant opportunity.
Tony folded his arms.
"That's the legendary harbinger of Ragnarök? I've seen worse."
Valkyrie stepped forward and ground her heel into the dissolving remains.
"Pathetic."
Thor winced slightly and instinctively rubbed his own face.
Leon gestured.
"Let's head back."
The molten beasts never reappeared.
Their master had fallen.
Return to Asgard
Odin and Frigga were elsewhere upon their return.
Thor escorted Loki to resume supervised labor.
Valkyrie tagged along—after so long away, she knew few others.
Leon, meanwhile, took Tony sightseeing.
Everywhere they went—
"Lord Leon!"
The title echoed endlessly.
Tony's ears nearly developed calluses.
"Next time," Tony muttered, "I'm coming with Pepper. Without you. I can't experience anything normally."
Leon only smiled.
Then Tony paused.
"The star-forge. Show me."
Odin's Vault – The Life Tablet
Leon led Tony into Odin's Vault—past relics and weapons of myth—until they stood before a fractured stone monument.
The Life Tablet.
Tony froze.
Carved across its surface were equations—alien yet structured, elegant yet incomplete.
"What is this?" he asked softly.
"A relic from Atlantis," Leon replied. "An ancient Earth civilization. These markings are said to represent the Equation of Life."
"Supposedly, solving it grants limitless wisdom and overwhelming power."
Tony frowned.
"If it's that powerful, why did Atlantis fall?"
Leon shrugged.
"Unknown."
Tony studied the slab.
"It's incomplete."
The fragment preserved only a fraction of the full formula.
Even Tony Stark couldn't conjure mathematics from absence.
"No way to restore it with the Time Stone?" Tony asked.
"I asked the Ancient One. Too ancient. Beyond her reach."
Tony exhaled slowly.
"I can try."
He didn't say impossible.
That was enough for Leon.
He photographed every inch of the tablet.
Time was a resource Leon possessed in abundance.
Tony possessed genius.
Between them—
Possibility.
Nidavellir – Meeting Eitri
At Tony's insistence, they traveled next to Nidavellir, realm of the dwarves.
The clash of cosmic metallurgy and Stark-level engineering was immediate—and electric.
Tony and King Eitri spoke for hours.
Forging techniques. Stellar compression. Energy containment.
If not for the height difference—and Pepper waiting back home—they might have talked for days.
By the end of the feast, an agreement was made.
Tony would return with blueprints of his own design.
Leon would supply the materials.
Eitri would ignite the star-forge to craft a weapon worthy of Stark.
"Nidavellir welcomes friends!" Eitri boomed.
"Friends!" the dwarves echoed.
Tony, unexpectedly moved, promised to design a defensive system for their realm.
A gift in return for their generosity.
A Quiet Arrangement
Before departing, Leon discreetly left behind something.
A contingency.
A surprise.
One day, when triggered, it would make both the dwarves—and a certain purple warlord—react in very different ways.
And Leon was very much looking forward to that moment.
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