"Mine!"
After hurling the ice dagger at Thor's heart, Laufey did not even spare him another glance. He spun around with astonishing speed, his face lighting up with ecstasy as he flew toward the Casket of Ancient Winters.
"The Casket!"
Loki struggled to turn his head. Feeling the emptiness against his chest, he was suddenly overwhelmed by a terror unlike anything he had ever experienced.
It was over.
Everything was over!
All he had wanted was to lure Laufey to Asgard and kill him before the sleeping Odin. Yet one unexpected turn after another had inevitably driven everything toward an irreversible disaster.
"Midgardian, forget about me! Get the Casket!"
Fenris and Thor's timely arrival had barely managed to salvage the situation, and even then, their victory had only been secured because Thor had chosen to sacrifice himself. If Laufey regained his full strength, Loki would undoubtedly become the greatest criminal in Asgardian history, the man responsible for Asgard's destruction.
Loki had only wanted to prove himself, but Asgard was still his home. How could he possibly want to see it destroyed because of him?
The catastrophic consequences flooded his mind. Seeing Fenris rushing toward him, Loki forced himself to shout, "The Casket! Go get the Casket!"
Whoosh!
In the distance, Laufey had just hurled an ice dagger directly at Thor's heart while shooting toward the falling Casket of Ancient Winters.
The Casket descended rapidly through the air, reflecting a beautiful crystalline blue radiance.
It had become the absolute center of the entire battlefield. Every eye was fixed upon that small box.
Fenris's gaze swept rapidly across the battlefield. Countless pieces of information flashed through his mind, allowing him to understand the situation instantly.
"The Casket!"
Loki was already within reach. The urgency in his eyes was almost overflowing. Even after Fenris overtook him in midair and caught him, Loki's entire body continued to struggle furiously.
"Move again, and I'll kill you right now!"
Fenris grabbed Loki in one hand while swiftly glancing toward the Casket of Ancient Winters.
A strange sense of familiarity flowed from the Casket through the Titan Bestiary buried deep within his consciousness. At that moment, even its magnificent crystalline blue glow appeared extraordinarily familiar to Fenris.
"The Casket of Ancient Winters can't hurt me..."
It was within reach.
If he seized it, he could gain an entirely new and incomparably powerful Titan form.
The temptation of such overwhelming power had never felt more vivid.
But...
"Even the God of Thunder will die if his heart is pierced, right?"
"No!"
"What are you doing?!"
Under Loki's terrified gaze, Fenris turned his eyes away from the Casket without the slightest hesitation.
"Asgard will be destroyed!"
"Do you want me to become the criminal who destroyed Asgard?"
"Do you even understand what I'm saying?"
"Go get the Casket!"
At that moment, Fenris could clearly see countless complicated emotions flickering through Loki's frantic eyes.
There was anger, resentment, but most of all, there was regret and disbelief.
Laufey was still so far away. The Casket was right there for the taking. Why would Fenris not seize it?
Loki could find no meaningful answer on Fenris's face, but the conviction in his eyes was unmistakable.
Boom!
Two enormous pairs of luminous wings, one larger than the other, suddenly unfurled behind Fenris.
The dazzling wings radiated a sacred brilliance that seemed capable of banishing all darkness, instantly illuminating the entire world around them.
Equally magnificent, multicolored patterns spread across Fenris's body. At some point, his eyes had transformed into a beautiful pair of compound eyes.
At that moment, everything around him slowed.
The falling Casket of Ancient Winters.
Laufey's figure flying toward it from the distance.
The disbelief and despair almost frozen upon Thor's face.
And...
A dagger radiating a bone-chilling cold, its impossibly sharp point flying straight toward Thor's heart.
Within this motionless world, Fenris was the only streak of color.
His two pairs of wings stretched dozens of meters behind him. They appeared thin and razor-sharp, yet each beat carried extraordinary power. Fenris could clearly see the surrounding air being struck and gathering into chaotic vortices.
A tremendous force erupted from his wings and propelled him forward.
The air before Fenris abruptly seemed to take physical form, becoming a barrier that resisted his advance. In the next instant, however, Fenris effortlessly shattered that obstruction, which appeared thin but was actually incomparably resilient.
Holding Loki in one hand, Fenris transformed into a multicolored streak of light invisible to the naked eye. He carved a magnificent arc across the sky as he shot toward Thor.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Several sonic booms erupted in succession, only to be left far behind him.
Closer.
Even closer.
Thousands of meters vanished in the blink of an eye. The flying dagger crossed hundreds of meters, and Thor's unprotected chest was already within reach.
The blade had yet to arrive, but the cold radiating from it had already sliced open Thor's skin.
In the nearly motionless world, tiny droplets of blood scattered through the air.
Shhk!
The blade drew closer. Its tip effortlessly pierced the fabric covering Thor's chest, then penetrated his skin.
Thor seemed to sense that something was wrong. The despair etched across his face slowly gave way to an almost imperceptible trace of pain.
The blade continued deeper.
It had already pierced his skin and was about to touch the soft heart beating fiercely beneath it.
Then a violent gust of wind suddenly erupted.
Thor's golden hair whipped wildly through the air as a magnificent radiance filled his vision.
Clink!
A clear metallic sound rang out, as though someone had pressed pause and play upon the frozen world.
Everything instantly returned to normal.
Two slender, pale fingers had appeared before Thor's chest without anyone noticing.
Between them, the dagger radiating a bitterly cold gleam had snapped cleanly into two pieces.
"That was close. Good thing I made it."
All the radiant light disappeared, revealing Fenris once again. He pulled the half-embedded dagger from Thor's chest, then casually closed his hand around it. The intense heat within his palm melted it completely, reducing it to hissing vapor.
Only now did Thor truly feel the searing pain coming from his chest. Blood began pouring from beneath his skin.
Although Fenris had intercepted the dagger at the final possible moment, the cold attached to its blade had still seeped into Thor's heart.
Thor could clearly feel as though his heart had nearly stopped. It struggled to beat, each movement painfully labored. As his partially frozen blood began flowing again, it produced a series of crisp cracking sounds.
A sharp pain tore through him, and cold sweat instantly covered Thor's forehead.
The sensation of approaching death overwhelmed him.
Thor looked at Fenris's face, so close to his own, then glanced toward Loki, whom Fenris had casually tossed aside. His legs suddenly gave out, and he collapsed directly into Fenris's arms.
"Fenris... I'm so cold..."
(End of Chapter)
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