Myth: The Ruler of Spirituality

“And then there’s Asgard.”

Laine turned his head to look towards the eastern region of the continent, where Mount Olympus loomed high. Perhaps drawn by some allure, Asgard’s final resting place turned out to be there.

“Speaking of which, I have no idea what became of Odin.”

Laine fell into a brief contemplation. Although all signs suggested that this deity from another realm should be dead, having even fought against the Flesh-Mother Tree and pierced its trunk with his spear, the cost was also heavy; this unbeatable Divine Artifact was destroyed, and only the spear shaft fell into Laine’s hands.

However, Laine felt that as a Divine King who had existed for so long, he shouldn’t have faded away so quietly.

“Do you think Odin is dead?”

After releasing Mimir’s skull, and before it could rejoice in this new world brimming with Life, Laine asked.

“If you want an answer from me, I think he is dead.”

However, contrary to Laine’s expectations, Mimir gave such a response.

“Perhaps he left something imbued with his will, but he himself will not survive, at least that’s what I believe.”

“Why?”

Laine was somewhat puzzled. He was originally trying to find out where Odin might be hiding, but Mimir believed the other was already dead, which was unexpected.

“Because I understand him, he was a warrior before he was a Divine King.”

Mimir answered without hesitation.

“He did not shy away from deceit and schemes, nor was he entirely noble, but the reason he ascended to the throne, convincing deities to believe in him and mortals to worship him, was because when real disaster struck, he never fled.”

“At least the Odin I know is such.”

After a moment of silence, Laine somehow felt there was reason in these words. The Scandinavians seemed to have this character, and even in the original Twilight of the Gods, Odin had never feared death.

They viewed dying in battle as an honor; they might long for Life, but they did not reject Death.

“A warrior… Heh, indeed, when comparing the four Divine Kings of both realms, it’s the one with the lowest limit who lived the longest and achieved the most.”

“It seems the lower the limit for this profession of a Divine King, the longer and more stable the reign.”

With a laugh that was either praise or mockery, Laine stopped dwelling on it, as he planned to return to the Spirit Realm to ‘open the box.’ However, before doing so, he noticed four figures flying toward the massive vortex above the East Sea.

The one leading them was none other than the God of Sun, Helios.

“Let’s go, take a look.”

The bound Prometheus—by the calculation of time, it was indeed about right.

Regardless of what Mimir thought, using the omnipresent Spirit Realm, Laine directly traveled toward the eye of the sea.

He wanted to witness this iconic event.

······

“Huff—”

“Damn it.”

With legs somewhat shaky, standing atop the giant vortex and looking down at the spiraling abyss that swallowed everything, Helios felt no pleasure in accomplishing his goal.

On the contrary, his complexion was somewhat pale, and waves of phantom pain were transmitting through him, reaching deep into his soul.

In a certain sense, perhaps this was not at all illusory. Because the one responsible for all of this had used time and space as mediums to exhibit power, and he himself had governed History.

This resulted in certain temporal connections being triggered when one of the participants arrived on the scene, blurring the ‘distance’ between past injuries and the present.

“…Let’s go down quickly; I don’t want to stay here at all.”

The enormous whirlpool with a diameter spanning thousands of miles, in the eyes of mortals, was almost as large as a small continent. No one knew exactly how deep such a vortex was, even deities felt a bit of ‘fear of the colossal’ at this moment.

Although Helios had no desire to enter, he certainly didn’t want to give Zeus the chance to punish him in plain sight. He gestured to Kratos and Bia, who were escorting Prometheus.

The two offspring nurtured solely by the River of Vows, Styx, immediately understood and began descending towards the center of the vortex that devoured all.

It might have been an instant or a day; Light simply didn’t exist here. Even as Helios exerted himself to release the power of the Sun God, it only illuminated a small area around them.

After seemingly dropping a boulder for the duration of nine days and eight nights, they finally reached what appeared to be the bottom.

They suspected this because they didn’t want to take even one more step forward.

“Let’s do it here, don’t you think?”

Turning to Prometheus, the God of Sun asked softly.

The surrounding darkness and silence made him subconsciously lower his voice, as if speaking louder might attract some terrible devastation.

“Then let’s, I don’t think you want to go further down anyway. Besides, I suppose the Divine King wouldn’t care whether I’m at the very bottom of the sea eye or not.”

Surveying what would be his home for the foreseeable future, Prometheus spread his arms.

“Come on.”

To be honest, Prometheus was somewhat afraid before making his decision, but now he had come to terms with it.

Some physical sufferings, even those less than the betrayal of his student, no longer saddened him.

“This is the Divine King’s command; we merely execute it.”

Kratos and Bia exchanged glances, and as they apologized to Prometheus, they took out the heavy chains forged by the Cyclops.