"D*mn it…"
After realizing they seemed to be lost, the displeasure on Thor's face became even more severe. At this moment, the huge octopus wandering beside him, after some probing, extended its long and thick tentacles, as if taking Thor for food, preparing to devour him.
However, Thor, who was in a foul mood, had no patience, or rather, the irascible Thor rarely had any patience to begin with.
"Hmph!"
Glancing at that clueless, foolhardy octopus, he snorted coldly. Without even moving, Thor's body suddenly burst with astonishing, fierce lightning. In the pitch-black depths of the sea, the dazzlingly bright lightning suddenly erupting was like a small sun, illuminating the seafloor for several kilometers around. The lingering, brilliant light did not dissipate for a long time. That foolish octopus, before it could even react, was directly electrocuted into a charred lump.
However, a complaining voice immediately came from beside Thor.
"Don't be so impulsive. You could have at least let me ask it a question."
As he spoke, a hand reached out and effortlessly held the small octopus soul emerging from the charred remains of the octopus in his palm.
Glancing at Thor beside him, Loki turned his head and muttered something to the tiny octopus soul in his palm. Before him, the octopus, which looked no larger than his palm, mostly just waved its tentacles randomly, only occasionally waving them in a pattern, as if responding to Loki's words.
A long time later, Loki's palm closed, and the small octopus's soul turned into fragments of light, descending towards Helheim, the realm of the dead at the very bottom of the World Tree.
"This little guy was really too stupid. Ask one, know nothing. But the only thing that can be confirmed is that we won't find Jormungandr within a dozen or so kilometers around here."
Loki scratched his head in frustration.
"Then what do we do?"
Thor looked at Loki and asked.
Loki thought for a bit and asked tentatively:
"Why don't we ask the sea god Aegir again…"
"Absolutely not!"
However, upon hearing this, Thor exploded with rage as if a scorpion had stung his rear, shouting intensely.
And afterwards, no matter how Loki tried to persuade him, Thor firmly refused to call on the old sea god to give them directions again. The reason was simple. If others knew that he, Thor the thunder god, the mightiest deity in the heavenly realm, had actually gotten lost, wouldn't he be laughed to death?
The extremely proud Thor obviously couldn't accept this situation, so he firmly opposed it.
However, Loki couldn't care less about this. He had always been unrestrained and had done all sorts of things.
But while Loki didn't mind, Thor minded a great deal. Left with no choice, Loki could only continue roaming the seafloor with Thor, occasionally catching a few undersea creatures to inquire, trying their luck to see if they could find any clues.
According to Loki:
"We should be not far from our destination. If we search more, it shouldn't be hard to find."
And so, the two searched the seafloor for more than a dozen days but still couldn't find any clues. Along the way, apart from the occasional huge undersea canyons, they couldn't even see any small mountains. It was monotonous upon monotonous, truly dispiriting.
However, it wasn't entirely without discoveries.
…
"Rumble rumble rumble rumble rumble!!!"
In the pitch-black depths of the sea, there was a point of fire burning in front of Loki and Thor. Accompanying the fire was a deep, trembling rumble coming from there, like a subwoofer. The huge rumbling sound made even the seawater vibrate.
"What is that?"
Looking at that point of fire, Thor muttered a bit puzzled. Beside him, Loki also showed a perplexed expression.
"Let's get closer and take a look."
Loki suggested.
The two continued forward, walking for another half a day before getting close to where the fire was…
A massive, active submarine volcano.
Under their gaze, a low mountain peak sat on the seafloor. The center of the mountain peak looked as if it had been severed, spewing countless gases and scorching magma upwards. These gases violently rubbed against the seawater, and the resulting heat together with the magma formed specks of flames. Specks of scorching magma bloomed with gorgeous brilliance in the gas column.
Due to the large amount of ejected gas column, even though Loki and Thor were still quite far, they could clearly feel the heavy, oppressive sensation of the seawater being pushed aside. The trembling gases and seawater together formed this deep undersea rumbling sound.
"It's truly astonishing."
Having never seen this scene before, Thor looked at the spectacle before him and exclaimed in amazement.
However, looking at this undersea volcano, Loki's face showed a few hints of doubt. He looked around, glancing in another direction, his eyes gradually becoming keen.
In that direction, although faint, one could vaguely see a point of fire existing as well.
"Is there… another submarine volcano there?"
He muttered, his eyes filled with even more doubts.
"Let's go take a look."
At Loki's suggestion, the two walked together towards the other fire.
Another half a day passed. When the two reached where that fire was, they saw an almost identical submarine volcano, the degree of similarity as if it had been duplicated.
"Do the undersea volcanoes all look like this?"
Thor the thunder god looked at Loki and asked strangely.
Loki shook his head.
"I don't know either. I've never seen them before."
But the confusion in Loki's heart was getting more and more severe, yet he couldn't say what it was, only feeling that something was off.
"Two identical submarine volcanoes…"
Loki pondered. And just then, in front of Loki and Thor, the volcano gradually stopped erupting. The ejected gas column was slowly weakening.
The fire gradually dissipated. The pitch-black seafloor, briefly illuminated by the burning magma spewed out by the undersea volcano, gradually sank into darkness again.
At the same time, under Loki's gaze, the point of fire in the distance was also slowly dimming and extinguishing.
Loki vaguely sensed that something was amiss, as if he had thought of something, yet it wasn't clear.
Then, a large amount of seawater began to be s*ck*d in by that "volcano". The huge suction force caused the nearby seawater to form a frenzied whirlpool, making it a bit hard for the two gods to stand steady.
This kind of immense suction force was as if a huge hole had suddenly appeared on the seafloor.
"Wait, could it be…"
Loki suddenly seemed to have thought of something, his face full of surprise. Then, he suddenly flew upwards.
"You…"
Thor hurriedly spoke, but Loki paid no heed to his reaction, directly flying far away in his line of sight, unable to hear what he said. Thor could only follow closely behind.
It was only after flying for a long time that Loki finally stopped.
"Loki, what's wrong with you…"
Thor caught up to Loki and looked at him, about to speak, but saw that Loki's gaze was fixed on the seafloor below, his face full of surprise turning into astonishment. He couldn't help but look along his gaze…
A scene that left one dumbfounded appeared.
Under Thor's gaze, the silhouette of a colossal creature's head vaguely appeared on the seafloor…
No, it should be said that it had always been there, just that Thor and Loki had been walking on top of its head the entire time without realizing it at all.
Those "undersea canyons" they often encountered along the way, where were they canyons… Those were clearly the gaps appearing when the colossal creature's scales overlapped.
And those two "undersea volcanoes" that the two had mistaken for submarine volcanoes, they weren't undersea volcanoes at all… but the nostrils of the colossal creature when it slumbered. With each breath it took during its slumber, it s*ck*d in a large amount of seawater, then spewed out gas columns as thick as tornadoes.
In front of this colossal creature, the two gods appeared so tiny, not even amounting to specks of dust.
"It… has grown even more immense."
The flabbergasted thunder god muttered to himself.
He had seen this colossal creature before. Although in his memory, this colossal creature was already unimaginably huge, but now it seemed… it had become even more immense. As far as the eye could see, even with Thor's godly vision, it was hard to clearly see the full appearance of the colossal creature. At most, one could only make out a vague outline of a serpent's head.
"No wonder the sea god Aegir only told us which sea area to go to, but didn't say the specific location… Because the entire seafloor is fundamentally its head."
"We spent more than a dozen days, but actually still haven't been able to walk out from the top of its head… We merely… crossed more than a dozen scales on top of its head…"
Staring into the distance within his line of sight, at that blurry, hard to discern, immense serpent eye closed as if a mountain range sitting on the seafloor, hidden in the pitch-black deep sea, Loki muttered in astonishment.