Chapter 50- The Demise.
(Flashback — six hours ago.)
After studying Mjölnir and determining the runes and materials needed to repair its structural damage, Surtr and Leo turned their attention to the creature itself.
Leo sat cross-legged in the void of the inscription realm, surrounded by floating rune matrices that rotated slowly in three dimensions. Each matrix represented hours of work. Each one represented failure.
After days and nights of visualizing the runes, he finally managed to unseal the broken binding matrix that had caged the creature inside the hammer. It took forty-six attempts.
Forty-five times he had tried to break the seal—the precise configuration of runes holding the entity trapped within Mjölnir. Forty-five times the matrix collapsed, dissolving into meaningless light before he could complete the final node.
Every failure sent them back to the beginning. Surtr and Leo would study the collapsed runes, carefully untangling the prison system that had held the creature for centuries. Even a slight error caused the entire matrix to fail.
On the forty-sixth attempt, with Surtr’s guidance, the seal finally opened.
The matrix expanded and rotated slowly. Leo examined every connection, every node, every pathway. He traced the flow of energy through the lattice—how it bound, how it sealed, how it contained. The design was elegant and brutal, the kind that only came from desperation and genius. The creature had been held by this exact configuration for centuries.
"Can you replicate it?" Surtr asked.
"Probably... after some practice."
"Hmph. Yeah, right. Just watching you was frustrating enough. You made the same mistakes twenty times while unsealing it. I pointed them out from the start and you still couldn’t follow simple instructions. And now you think you can replicate the damn thing with a little practice?"
Leo said nothing.
"Sigh. Going to be another few frustrating hours."
Leo ignored the complaint and began studying the unveiled runes in detail.
Whenever he carved a rune, Surtr’s blunt commentary would follow.
"Again."
"Not perfect. Try again."
On the one hundred twenty-third attempt, Surtr’s presence flickered in his mind.
"Hmm. Acceptable."
"Acceptable?" Leo raised an eyebrow.
"Don’t let it go to your head. You’ve only mastered one component of a much larger puzzle. But for what we need to do today... this is enough."
Leo nodded and continued practicing until he was certain he could carve the rune cleanly under pressure. Only then did he leave the inscription realm.
(Two hours before the deadline.)
Freya and the others were waiting.
"I need materials," Leo said. "Twenty swords. Rare-rank minimum."
Freya didn’t hesitate. "Follow me."
She led him to the smithy, then left to gather swords that met his requirements. While she was gone, Leo forged six rare-rank swords himself and finished carving the binding runes onto them. Four were flawless, one reached transcendent quality, and one settled at master rank.
Freya returned with fourteen more. Leo immediately began carving the same runes onto each of them.
She watched from the doorway. "What are these for?"
"The creature. When we free it from Mjölnir, these swords will be used to form the cage."
"And then?"
"Then we destroy it. If we have to."
"You have a way?"
Leo met her eyes. "The Eternal Flame. The annihilation property. And everyone form asgard attacking?"
Something flickered behind Freya’s expression—worry, calculation, the weight of knowing her brother’s hammer was about to become a battlefield. "Then let’s not waste time. Thor doesn’t have forever out there. Neither do we."
...
(Back to present.)
The twenty rune-carved swords struck the floor in a perfect square. Judges and warriors drove them into the stone, forming a runic prison the creature could not cross. The barrier would not hold forever. They needed to end it quickly.
The creature barely seemed concerned.
You think this weak barrier can hold me?
It slammed into the transparent wall and was thrown back.
"Anyway, I can leave after I consume all of you. No one will be left to maintain this cage."
Corruption surged outward.
Holy priests stepped forward, raising their staffs. A column of golden light dropped from the ceiling. Divine energy poured down, slamming into the creature in an attempt to purify it.
The creature screamed.
The energy did not kill it, but it felt the pain clearly—from both the divine light and the Eternal Flame present in the chamber. Its outer layers dissolved, then reformed, each time.
Fire users moved in next. Crimson flames engulfed the mass of corruption. The creature screamed again as its partially recovered body deformed under the heat. Floor and walls scorched black.
Lightning users followed. White arcs of lightning punched through the chaos with precision, leaving burning wounds across the creature’s surface.
Freya moved among the lightning practitioners. She had already handed her inscribed sword to another Valkyrie. Her voice cut sharp and clear across the chamber.
"Lightning users—aim for the fractures! Holy priests, hold the outer barrier!"
She raised her hand and drove a lance of golden lightning into the creature’s flank.
The attacks were landing. The creature felt every one of them. Yet no matter how many times they tore it apart, it reformed.
"It’s recovering faster after each attack," Leo said. "Everyone is burning through their mana. If this keeps going, they’ll drop from exhaustion and we’ll be at its mercy."
"Then they better hurry," Surtr replied. "That thing is getting weaker with every reformation as well."
Leo called on the Eternal Flame again. It coiled around his arms and chest, burning gold with a faint dark core. The color shifted to pure white. He raised both hands toward the creature.
"Guide me," he said to Surtr. "I need to know exactly how to use the annihilation property against this thing."
Surtr’s voice was grim. "The annihilation property does not merely burn. It consumes. Erases. Unmakes. But it requires precision. Aim at the core—the heart of the creature."
Leo activated Forge-Sight.
The creature’s body peeled open in layers of data: outer shell, inner mass, central structure. At the very center pulsed a single concentrated point of energy.
The core.
"I see it."
"Then burn it."
Leo raised his hands higher. The white fire brightened and intensified as the annihilation property fully engaged.
He released it.
White fire struck the creature’s center. The corruption did not burn—it vanished. Erased. Where the fire touched, nothing remained. No ash. No residue. Just absence.
The creature shrieked. "NO! You cannot—I am ETERNAL—"
The white fire drove deeper, into the core, into the heart of the hunger that had sustained it for centuries.
The creature fought back. Corruption surged against the white fire and every other attack in the chamber. For a moment the entire space plunged into darkness. The mass pushed against Leo, forcing the annihilation property backward inch by inch.
His vision blurred. A ringing filled his ears.
Spiritual Integrity dropped—78 percent, 76 percent, 74 percent—each point a physical weight on his shoulders.
Surtr warned. "You’re at seventy-four percent integrity! If you hit zero, you don’t come back!"
"So push quickly!" Surtr commanded.
Leo pushed. The white fire flared brighter, hotter—yet the corruption pushed back harder, resisting with raw, stubborn force.
Then.....
...
The air itself changed.....
A crushing weight settled over the chamber. The temperature dropped.
Every breath felt heavier, thicker, as if the space had suddenly been filled with invisible pressure. Conversations died. Attacks faltered. Even the creature paused for a fraction of a second.
Leo turned.
He saw Odin was walking forward.
The king who had watched everything in silence until now had finally moved.
Terrifying pressure rolled off him in waves, thick with killing intent so dense that several warriors staggered and dropped to one knee. The very air felt suffocating.
Odin slowly raised both hands.
The chamber ceiling vanished.
Above them stretched an open sky—or something deeper than sky, the space itself manifested.
Within that vast darkness of space, a single point of ancient divine light began to form. It pulsed with absolute authority, carrying the weight of gods and the judgment of ages.
Lines of exhaustion cut deep across Odin’s face, yet his eyes remained cold and sharp—unyielding.
Lightning of every color erupted above him. Crimson, azure, gold, and pure white arcs twisted together, coiling violently until a massive spear took form in the sky. It radiated raw divine power, so dense the air around it shimmered and cracked.
Everyone scrambled back.
Leo’s white flame locked the creature in place, holding it still under the sudden weight of the king’s presence.
"Gungnir’s Descent," Odin commanded, voice low and absolute.
He brought his hands down.
The spear hung motionless for a heartbeat—then plummeted. It fell slowly at first, almost graceful, before reality itself seemed to scream.
A deafening sonic boom tore through the chamber as the spear accelerated beyond comprehension.
Leo threw himself clear to avoid being caught up in the attack.
The creature, sensing the danger too late, lunged after him in desperation—
—but the spear was already there.
It appeared beside the mass in an instant, as if space itself had been cut open, and struck with full, merciless force.
The impact was catastrophic.
The creature’s body ruptured. Corruption exploded outward in every direction, slamming against the rune cage with enough force to make the entire chamber shudder. Fragments of darkness scattered like shattered glass, only to detonate against the barrier in violent bursts of black energy.
The cage held—barely.
The twenty swords trembled violently in their stone sockets, runes flaring under the shockwave as if screaming under the strain.
Leo’s Forgeheart Bracers, silent since the day he forged them, pulsed with light.
[Ding~]
[Skill strong enough to be copied was detected from a Pantheon.]
[Do you want to copy and register the skill?]
[Yes/No]
[After you copy it, you will not be able to copy another skill from the same pantheon unless you remove this one.]
Leo stared at the notification in the middle of the chaos, then selected yes on instinct.
[Skill Registered: Gungnir’s Descent]
[Type: Active — Divine Lightning Strike]
[Cooldown: 48 hours]
[Mana Cost: 1800 MP]
[Mana Recharge: 3 MP/sec]
[The more you charge, the stronger it will be.]
He read the description once and immediately began charging the skill. His mana reserves burned fast, but the evolved Eternal Flame burned away corruption while regenerating MP at the same time.
The dust cleared. The creature was still alive.
The scattered fragments pulled themselves back together—slower now, much slower. Each piece crawled toward the others with stubborn persistence.
"It’s weaker," Surtr said. "Much weaker. But it’s not dead."
Leo looked at the reforming mass, then at Odin, then at the gold-edged Eternal Flame still burning around his arms.
He remembered the creature’s voice from earlier—I’m just hungry—and the way it had looked at him through the cracks in Mjölnir.
Not with pure malice. With need.
But it would consume everything. Every world. Every life.
"We should finish it," Leo said.
The Eternal Flame surged toward the injured mass. Everyone else poured their remaining attacks into it.
Leo activated the new skill.
[Gungnir’s Descent]
It was the same technique Odin had used, limited by Leo’s mana and charge time. It carried less than half the original power.
It was still enough.
The lightning spear struck the reforming body hard. Leo followed immediately with white Eternal Flame, burning away whatever tried to pull itself back together.
The creature had nothing left. No strength to resist. No strength to reform.
Layers of darkness peeled away and vanished—no ash, no residue, no trace.
Its voice cracked through the chamber one final time.
"I... cannot..."
That was the last word.
The creature dissolved completely. Gone.
Leo lowered his hands. The white fire dimmed. The chamber fell quiet. He stood for a long moment, staring at the empty space where something vast and hungry had been.
Then the notifications arrived.
[Ding~]
[Entity: INVERSE FRAGMENT — DESTROYED]
[The Inverse is aware of your existence...]