This was certainly not an ideal situation.
Truthfully, any of these opponents would require me going all out to realistically defeat. And against the likes of Fenrir…..seeing that monster in person, I felt very wary of it. I felt it was in about the same realm of strength as Indra, give or take.
So yeah, three opponents that would require my full effort to neutralize one practically, and they're all here together.
If Odin weren't with me, and if the matter wasn't pressing, I would have already ran away.
A quick glance at the Níðhöggr in its semi-birthed state, well…there was a particular corruptiveness that was creeping upwards through the roots, and the cause was fairly obvious.
I undid my tie, tossing it to the side. "So, how about we all sit down and talk things out like responsible adults?" I offered, rolling up my sleeves.
"I'm going to miss your audacity, Mortal." Kronos snorted.
"Look, I know some of us said things." I glanced at Odin.
"I regret nothing except that I didn't say more." Odin immediately replied.
"Worth a shot." I shrugged, as it seemed like they were giving us a moment to prepare, and I didn't know why.
Honestly, I think Kronos had his own sense of Honor.
Regardless, this wasn't exactly a fight we could avoid at this point.
"If I asked you what that is – " I pointed at the box half-fused with Níðhöggr. "Would you tell me?"
"Pandora's Box." Kronos answered casually.
I felt my eyes widen at the sudden admission. I did not expect him to answer at all, secondly, that was also not the answer I anticipated, and it did not make me feel any better.
"You're being very truthful, it makes me wonder if you have a hidden agenda."
"You can consider it a prize. The Trickster was so sure of himself, he set many traps along the way, and yet here you are, the one place he didn't expect anyone to come." Kronos laughed. "Truthfully, he expected the first counterattack to be in Hel."
"Hah, that's actually what I would have done!" Odin laughed, despite the situation. "Probably return to Asgard first, reorganize the front lines, and probably send Thor on down there."
Based on the looks Kronos had, that was exactly what Loki thought as well.
"Hey Odin, what's the plan?" I whispered, though I was pretty sure they could still hear me.
"Don't think I gotta say it out loud." Odin harumphed. "Leave the Wolf to me." Despite his jovial tone a moment prior, he was deadly serious right now.
"Are you sure?"
"It has to be me." He answered stoically. "We're connected by Fate, if I run away, if I don't fight, I will lose. If I fight, I have a chance to overcome my fate."
I let out a sigh, focusing on the two Titans. "Then I guess you both are my dance partners."
"It isn't the worst way to go." Kronos smiled. "Not many mortals can say that two Titans fought to kill them."
Hyperion was noticeably silent.
"True." I would acknowledge that much. "Granted, I have no intention of dying."
"People never do, but Thanatos has a way of creeping up on you unexpectedly." Kronos chuckled.
"You know, I'm curious about something." I summoned my swords, and they stabbed into the ground around me. Bar Dawnbreaker and my newest acquisition, they were here, waiting. "Why are you teaming up with Loki? Shouldn't you be getting your own band back together?"
"Do you mean to ask why I am not surrounded by my former comrades?" Kronos stroked his chin. "That is a difficult question to answer. To put it bluntly…..Hyperion here is the only friend I have left it seems." He smiled wryly. "Rhea told me to leave when I tried to talk to her…..and I did not argue. Atlas…..Atlas did not wish to fight again. He was willing to accept his 'punishment' and hopeful to go free sometime in the future. The others…they are much the same." He sounded….old in this moment.
"Thank you for answering." I honestly didn't know how to feel about this person. Half of me hated him, and the other half, well, I could sympathize.
"You've earned this much respect from me." He pulled up his Scythe, putting it over his shoulder. "Perhaps I know the answer, but I will ask regardless. If you surrender and submit, I would let you live. Yourself and those close to you, I don't care about a few more. Even for what comes much later, you would be safe from the destruction."
"I will decline."
"I expected nothing less." He grinned. "I knew after our first meeting that one of us would die to the other."
I took a deep breath.
My Aura flared up around me, Reinforcement filled my body.
The Boosted Gear appeared on my arm.
And I held my free hand up, my Divinity bubbling to the surface as my Magical Energy soared around me.
"It was here, at this place, that Susanoo led a thousand unruly Deities in Rebellion! A thousand swords standing upon the earth, used as city walls to defend against the enemies. Here! Namely, the Ama-no-Murakumo-no-Tsurugi! The Steel that breaks a thousand blades!" A bolt of lightning fell from the sky, landing within my grasp.
My Divine Authority appeared.
Kronos and Hyperion both had their eyes widened.
"You were holding back before." Kronos's tone changed.
"I'm not done." I interrupted. "Welsh Dragon, Balance Breaker!"
The Draconic Aura exploded off of me. The Red Armor enveloped my body and I felt the wellspring of strength placate my nervousness.
"Red Dragon Emperor." Kronos greeted.
"[Titan King]" Ddraig answered back through the Boosted Gear.
In any other circumstance, I may have made a joke about this not even being my final form. Odin and I knew what the priority was in this fight, even if we didn't say it out loud.
My Zanpakutō appeared in the hand opposite my Divine Sword.
My other blades, they were pulled out of the ground with a thought, and shot towards the Titan King.
He raised his Scythe while Hyperion Raised his own sunlight sword.
"Reflect – Musū Tengai" I released my Zanpakutō, my Reiatsu soaring in response.
The easily deflected swords slashed into the bodies of the two Titans, much to their utter surprise. And I shot forward with a burst of Shunpo, both my swords swinging down upon the Titan King.
I felt Odin move behind me just as well.
The World Wolf, it was a beast, a monster, but it wasn't stupid by any means. It was capable of responding and acting in accordance with its 'allies'.
But I had my own fight to focus on.
My other swords did nothing more than some minor flesh wounds, but Kronos was forced to block my weapons with his scythe.
"Boost!" I called out, pressing down on him with my sudden surge of strength, the Titan King, pushed down onto his knee suddenly.
"Die!" Hyperion shouted, his sunlight sword swinging towards me from the side. He was extremely fast, his slash was barely registered within my perception, but I was expecting him. My Zanpakutō already left my hand, and a different sword entered it. "Ascalon!" I activated my Noble Phantasm, blocking his attack from an angle he couldn't expect, forcing my whole body to shift towards him.
I used his large size to my advantage, sliding under his arms, and slashing at his mid-section with my Divine Sword, drawing the first blood of the battle.
I commanded Whisper to fly towards me, bringing to life dozens of Runes in a particular sentence to actualize in a spell that blocked the sudden edge of the Titan King's Scythe piercing through the void at me.
"Boost, Boost Boost." I filled up more as my strength swelled, dodging a blast of light from the recovered Hyperion, his sword swing had burnt the entirety of the spot I previously occupied to nothing but ash. The parts of the World Tree that were nearby got reduced to smoldering cinders.
I all but rolled to the side with the haphazard movement, but quickly landed upon my feet, calling back my Zanpakutō "Reflect – Musū Tengai." I didn't waste a moment because that damned Scythe was about to reap my neck. I used the barest effort needed to avoid it with my Zanpakutō, then swung my Divine Sword back at him, discharging Lightning from the edge, hitting the Titan King head on.
With a burst of Shunpo, I moved as fast as I could to follow up, however, at my side, the other Titan kept pace with me, he turned into streaks of light, accelerating to the point where I couldn't claim to have the speed advantage even with all my tricks.
He swung his sword, forcing me to stop my follow up attack to instead block. The force sent me tumbling away, smacking against the side of a large root.
"Bakudō # 44, Sekisho!" I quickly cast as the hairs on my neck stood up. A massive projection of that Scythe bore down on me, cleaving away a chunk of Yggdrasil's roots, my barrier only gave me a moment to bring up my Divine Sword to fully block the blow.
"Come at get it, you mutt!" Odin roared not thirty feet from me. The Massive Wolf howled at him, opening its massive jaw. Odin, had moved very quickly from the spot he was in, because everything that was within that area, within several hundred feet in all directions, was just gone.
The World Wolf chomped and spat out a culmination of everything that it had just nearly devoured.
I tore my eyes way to flick my sword up to deflect that Sunlight sword from Hyperion, I countered with swinging My Zanpakutō and it pushed into his body, but my instincts told me that this was not a sound hit.
Rather, his body turned to streaks of light again, disappearing off the edge of my blade, and infront of me came Kronos's Scythe swinging down from high above.
"Zun Haal Viik!" I shouted, "Transfer"
My Boosts enhanced the shout, amplifying its power. The Scythe that was coming towards me was instead flung from the Titan's grip, flying off to the side.
"Wuld Nah Kest." I turned into a whirlwind and rammed right into him while he was weaponless.
The Titan, he resisted me with his physical body. He held firm against my attack with nothing but his own strength while Hyperion appeared again, slashing at me. I raised my arm up to block, and even through my Scale Mail armor and Aura, his blade sunk into my flesh. I quickly activated my Semblance to negate the worst of it, and he almost stumbled forward as the resistance he expected suddenly disappeared.
"Fus Ro Dah!" I used the Unrelenting Force shout to blow myself back from the engagement, rolling to my feel and springing up quickly.
Hyperion and Kronos stood side by side. The Titan king merely had to hold back out his hand to retrieve his trusty weapon.
I took a deep breath and all my weapons also returned to my side.
My arm hurt a little, but my Aura was quickly healing the wound. Otherwise, only a little beaten up form a few tumbles.
About the same for both of them, they had some minor wounds at best.
It was difficult to gain the advantage with both of them hounding me.
"Strun Bah Qo!" I shouted, forcing Storm Clouds to manifest in this area, the rolling clouds thundering and crackling with lighting rather quickly when intertwined with my Divinity.
Odin was faring about was I expected in this situation.
I lifted up my Zanpakutō, waiting for them to make a move.
The Two titans walked towards me, a few steps taken before they disappeared from their spots. One turned into streaks of light, the other merged into a different time stream.
"Reflect -- Musū Tengai!" I swung my sword, blocking an attack that hit me from my blind spot. Kronos's scythe winding around different string of times, the same trick he used in our little game from before, except they were a bit harder to manage in this situation.
I was forced to dash to the side, and Shunpo again a few times, before Hyperion was in the sky, his sword pointed down and a ran of Fire heeded his command, falling down upon me.
I could barely dodge the flurry of attacks, much less counterattack in this situation.
My Divine Sword and my Zanpakutō were raised up simultaneously to block both the Sunlight sword from Hyperion and the Scythe from Kronos. They were able to cover the length of the battle field far too quickly.
"Impressive, mortal." Hyperion commented. "I did not believe my King when he spoke of you in such a way, but you have my respect being able to withstand us like this."
"Boost." Was my response. "Boost Boost Boost Boost!"I pushed their weapons away, but they were immediately on me again.
"Coming through!" Odin shouted, running right at me with a very angry Wolf on his ass.
He turned around, and threw his Divine Spear at the World Wolf's snout impaling it, but that merely angered it even more.
The Wolf opened its massive maw and was ready to devour everything infront of us, which was us.
"Reflect -- Musū Tengai" I was more than happy to make sure of this situation as the two Titans noticed the danger and went to move, only for them to collide together, almost dazed for a moment as the World's maw came down.
I, myself, barely had time to Shunpo out of the way.
I felt blood seep from my eyes and a headache start up from forcing that conclusion.
I slid to a stop after a few more bursts of Shunpo, and Odin was breathing a little heavily at my side.
He recalled his spear without me even noticing, or did it never leave his hand? Some Divine Weapon bullshit that I didn't have time to contemplate.
"Damn Wolf, it's suppressing me." Odin grumbled. "I can't bring out my full power against it head on."
The Titans were nowhere close to death from that little mishap with the World Wolf.
The two of them were quick to defend themselves, and the World Wolf realized the folly of its own actions as well. They escaped relatively unscathed, some additional wounds but nothing serious other than a subtle anger now directed at the Wolf.
Fenrir itself, it didn't appear to overly care. Its eyes focused entirely on Odin.
"Yeah, and trying to use the proximity of the two Titans together isn't going to work much longer." I breathed out. It worked fairly well when I fought a bunch of Servants together so long ago. But in this situation, they were used to fight side by side, I could only narrowly avoid overly dangerous attacks by positioning myself between them and so close together.
"The damn Wolf, it can devour things in a large area, and its saliva eats through Magic and Divinity." Odin huffed, pushing himself back up straight.
"Joy." I said dryly, sneakily letting Whisper shoot up into the clouds to begin casting.
But I didn't forget the goal here.
The roars of Níðhöggr made sure of that.
Odin threw his spear abruptly, giving absolutely no indication of his desire to reengage. It collided with the side of the World Wolf, sending the beast rolling onto the ground. Odin himself was already upon it, pushing the spear deeper into the side of the Beast.
I held my Divine Sword up, and gathered the accumulated Lightning that was brewing above, condensing it.
Hyperion seemed to realize what was coming, and it was as if his entire body turned into a miniature sun as I swung down my sword. The entirety of my Storm and Lightning discharged at the edge, firing off at both the Titans.
It collided with the miniature Sun that was Hyperion, a burst of sunlight and lightning enveloped everything in the surroundings.
I touched upon my Hogyoku, and shifted into Aura.
My Aura exploded outward as Kronos merged with the starry sky, slashing down at me with his Gigantic Scythe.
With all my Aura, I focused it onto a single point, the tip of his scythe and roared as I pushed against it, successfully warding off the attack, despite a massive gouge now opening up upon the trunk of Yggdrasil.
"Dragon Shot!" I fired back, the Boosted Gear's attack slamming into Kronos, the Titan king snarled with his feet skidding across the ground and blood spat out from his mouth.
"Odin!" I shouted, as this was probably the best opening we would get. I held my hand up to the sky, Runic Circles appearing above my head.
The World Wolf's claw swiped against him, and he merely took it to get away from the grasp of the beast, completely ignoring the clawed mark on his chest.
"I see what you're doing!" The All-Father laughed, Runes appearing with his own rhythmic movements.
Whisper casting Thor's hammer above the clouds, a favored action of mine.
"This is your plan?" Kronos looked up, climbing to his feet. "I expected something more."
There was one more part to the spell that was actualized. "Magic's Blessing, Vanaheim." I cast one of my Nine Realms spells, it was mostly complete, but it was still missing something.
And Odin, well, he said it earlier.
He inserted his own Runes into my spell, completing it.
The sky above us rumbled, expectantly. However, it intensified many folds. One Lightning Thor Appeared. Then another, then another, and another. A hundred or so copies of my spell manifested above.
I would be the first to admit that the spell itself wouldn't do much to a God these days. But what about a dozen, two dozen, a hundred.
Vanaheim spell works by modifying a singular spell, similar to my Five Element Mutual generation, except it alters other facets of it than just pure power. A single target spell can be made into a wide range one. A single attack, can be made into multiple attacks.
A Single Thor's Hammer, can be made into a Hundred Thor's Hammers.
Atleast with Odin's help, the spell was amplified to this extent.
A Hundred Lightning Hammers came down upon us.
Both Odin and I cast our strongest shielding spells together, and the world turned white.
It was hard to say what happened under the attack, and I didn't care to look. Instead, I shot towards Níðhöggr once I could finally move again, ignoring the pain I was feeling all throughout my body. Sure, we shielded ourselves, but we were by no means unscathed.
However, my instinct flared up as a massive maw broke through the dust, a wounded and bleeding Fenrir ignored everything else and still sought out Odin.
Odin quickly jumped forward, blocking its mouth with Gungnir. "Go brat, I'll hold it off!"
Without a second thought, I used Shunpo to shoot towards Níðhöggr, and I summoned Ascalon to my hand as it would be the safest best in what I was about to do.
"Do you think it would be that easy?" Kronos growled, part of his body was charred, and he wasn't looking too good. "Wither." He commanded, slamming his Scythe onto the ground.
That same Monochromatic aura spread out from him as the epicenter, turning everything around him to dust from accelerated aging.
I barely had time to register what happened as a golden streak passed by me, Odin's spear slammed into Kronos's chest, lifting the Titan up off his massive feet and sending him flying into the Roots of Yggdrasil. Suffice to say, his Authority was canceled.
It was accompanied by a roar and a pained shout. I moved forward, but my heart dropped when I looked back.
The World Wolf had Odin between its teeth.
"Great Welsh!" A familiar roar forced me back to acknowledge our objective. Níðhöggr was apparently much more aware than I thought. "Free me from this torment!"
Odin, despite his situation, held a defiant look in his eyes and I shot towards the Poisonous dragon, Ascalon in hand, I swung it down, cleaving away the portion that Pandora's Box was attached to, and I scooped it up into my Ring.
I let go of everything also, and slid to a stop, spinning my body around and holding a familiar Bow in my hands.
The Bow of Auriel.
I pulled back the string completely, the power was much more than when I accidentally used it before. And I aimed it squarely at the World Wolf.
I was about to let loose my arrow, from out of the corner of my eye, I saw that same sunlight blade cleaving down at my neck.
If I moved, Odin would probably die. If I didn't move, I would probably die.
With a roar, a black claw shot out from behind me, slamming into Hyperion. "My debt is repaid." The voice of Níðhöggr hissed from behind me, and my arrow was fired.
Everything went dark in comparison.
The arrow itself seemed to suck away all sources of light, turning into a single streak. The surroundings mists were dispersed at the mere presence of the arrow. The World Wolf saw it just as well, and it had a decision to make with Odin fighting within its grasp.
It released the All-Father, and did what it could to protect itself, but it was still hit head on by the Arrow that when only partially pulled back before had seared away mountain tops and had enough power to clear the horizon.
It was swept away with the damning light.
I wasted no more time, with a thought, I collected everything around me and moved at my fastest speed towards Odin.
Odin's hair was disheveled, and there were holes throughout his body from where the Wolf bit down on him.
He was in bad shape.
And the two Titans, they were still in fighting condition.
I called upon my Staff of Magus and slammed it into the ground. "Shield of Asgard!" I cast, just in time for both Titans to slam into my barrier, furious looks on their faces.
A familiar screech resounded, and I recognized the source.
"Ratatoskr?" I blurted out in surprise as the Squirrel poked its head out from the Roots of the World Tree.
"Come with me if you want to live!" It cried out.
"I refuse!" Kronos rejected his attempt to rescue us, his scythe pierced through my barrier, carrying with it the weathering of time. It hit my Aura, and it burned through it at such an astonishing rate that I felt a shock to my soul. My Scale Mail was likewise pushed through with enough effort, and his Scythe found my flesh, piercing into my side.
I felt blood building up in my throat.
It hurt.
But I didn't scream out in pain.
I grabbed his blade instead with my hand to keep it away as best as I could, forcing myself to drop Odin in the process. I began to draw the Runes required, as quickly as possible. And despite the situation, Odin caught on rather quickly. He saw the spell I used before, and he was not a God of Magic for nothing.
Kronos recognized the spell as well, and a flicker of panic flashed across his face.
"Destroy it!" Kronos ordered as the Great God Carved Seal actualized in place.
He pulled out his scythe completely and threw it at one of the Spell Circles, and attacked another like he did in our little game.
Hyperion as well, he shot forward and destroyed several of the Spell Circles quickly.
It was enough to collapse the spellcasting completely.
But that's fine, I never expected it to get off properly.
I flicked my hand, producing a handful of Talismans.
I had prepared this beforehand, but I didn't think I would actually be using it here like this. I threw them to the five corners, invoking the elements.
Combined, they completed a spell circle themselves, and I held up my hand to complete a few hand signs that actualize the spell altogether.
"Mountain Sealing Incantation!"
From above, an ethereal mountain appeared, facing upside down. Several momentous peaks, connected by chains, pressed downwards towards the two Titans. The strongest Sealing spell I had available, and my first time casting it.
As much as I wanted to see the spell fully, I grabbed Odin into my arms, and used Shunpo to move to where Ratatoskr was and dashed inside, letting it close behind us.
[***]
A/N
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