Time slowly marched on, and the "Year of Darkness" that had once plunged the entire world into shadow gradually faded from people's memories. Innocent youths grew into adults, then gradually aged, their faces etched with the passage of time, before finally being laid to rest in the grave.
Nearly a century had passed since that Year of Darkness that had filled the world with dread and unease. In that span, kingdoms crumbled, new kings ascended the throne, and mighty heroes rose and fell. In the long march of time, countless heroic figures emerged, etching their legends, until finally, their mortal coils expired, and their valiant souls strode into Valhalla.
And in the heavens, after roaming the realms for a long time, the fire god Loki finally returned to Asgard, his jovial smile unchanging, as if nothing had transpired. Whether conversing with Thor, meeting Odin during councils in the golden palace, or encountering the other gods, his countenance remained as affable as ever.
The frost giants, having regrouped for a long time, invaded Asgard anew, and as always, it was the thunder god Thor who battled these frost giants that persistently resurfaced like weeds. And in the occasional respites, Thor would often embark on adventures with Loki. Heimdall, the vigilant sentry of the gods, still diligently stood watch on the rainbow bridge, and though no gods faulted him for that past failure, it spurred him to hone his martial prowess even more rigorously, resolved to never again allow a situation where the great serpent breached Asgard.
The sun, moon, stars, rosy clouds, all revolving in the sky without pause.
The undying einherjar warriors, at times led by the Valkyries and gods, also went to battle those monsters that were proliferating unchecked, lest those monsters grow too numerous and threaten the prosperity of the mortal realm, striving to uphold the order of the entire cosmos.
Everything returned to a lasting tranquility, with occasional discordant notes, but ultimately remaining undisturbed.
And under these circumstances, only that serpent, gradually fading from the world's memory, still remained pinned at the bottom of the sea by the ocean's weight, unable to break free…
…
In the sky, the sun slowly drifted over the ocean, everything seeming so mundane, as if it happened every day.
And in this tranquility, a four-wheeled carriage pulled by three steeds of Hel silently sank into the ocean, their movements so stealthy that even the old sea god Aegir noticed nothing.
"Clop clop…"
The three undead steeds, their forms wreathed in the flames of Hel, pulled the canopied carriage behind them, galloping through the dark blue depths. On the carriage of white bones, a domed canopy was veiled in gossamer, the thin fabric draping down, obscuring the figure within, rendering their visage inscrutable.
That slender silhouette could vaguely be discerned as female, and though one could not gauge her comeliness, that chillingly cold aura of death, even muted by the gossamer veil, could still be keenly felt.
And the undead steeds pulling the carriage would not tire, would not perish, and no carriage driver held the reins, just like this, as if aimlessly, they raced towards the uttermost depths of the seafloor.
Just at this moment…
"Rumble!!!"
Abruptly, the ocean floor churned, endless darkness suddenly surging up from the abyssal depths, like a yawning chasm, trying to devour this carriage into that boundless gloom.
But the carriage's occupant seemed to have anticipated this, and without even a word, the three steeds of Hel sharply veered, instantly breaking free from the abyss's grasp.
As the stirred-up silt from the seafloor gradually dispersed, through that faint haze, the bottomless maw finally revealed its true form…
An abyssal serpentine maw that could almost engulf the sun and moon, vertical pupils brimming with fathomless madness, greed, and hunger. In this stretch of the seafloor, one could dimly discern the head of this colossal being, and in that far, far distance, one could faintly see the thick chains deeply embedded in the titan's flesh and scales…
This behemoth was so immense that a single glance could not encompass its entirety, but even the vaguely glimpsed portions of its form sufficed to convey the sheer magnitude of this leviathan.
Before this colossus, the carriage seemed so infinitesimal, like an ant… no, not even an ant, just a mote, a speck. Were it not for those chains securely binding the monster, perhaps it would have long since engulfed this carriage.
And facing this staggering and despairing difference in scale, the figure sitting composed within the carriage was unperturbed, their countenance seemingly as placid as ever through the gossamer veil.
"Have you grown so ravenous that you no longer recognize me…"
The cold, crystalline female voice echoed through the seawater, emanating from within the carriage.
The voice carried an uncanny frigidity, so gelid that it made one shudder, as if the speaker was conversing with the dead, betraying a kind of hubris and conceit.
Then, a pale and cold slender hand delicately lifted the gossamer veil, and the carriage's occupant gazed down at their feet.
Though they were close kin, looking upon the great serpent tightly fettered by countless chains at the bottom of the sea, those gelid and dispassionate eyes held not a glimmer of sentiment.
Those vertical pupils suffused with mania, avarice, and other baleful emotions made one's blood run cold with just a glance, but she was undaunted.
The carriage's occupant knew that the great serpent was also regarding her at this moment.
"Huff… huff…"
The great serpent panted softly, its breath stirring huge whirlpools on the seafloor, and in its pupils that were intently fixed on the carriage above, as ever, brimming with boundless hunger.
Undoubtedly, even though it had recognized who the other party was, this great serpent that had been starving for nearly a century still thought only of feeding.
If you starve a person for three days, they will think of naught but food, unable to contemplate anything else. And if they starve for seven days, they could even become so famished that they would gnaw on their own fingers. Then…
If they were starved for over a century?
Just how intense would that hunger be…
"Food! Food!! Food!!!"
The vertical pupils reflecting the female figure were saturated with profound avarice and craving. It had been hungry for far too long, to the point that merely glimpsing that figure made its stomach roil with copious gastric juices, every fiber of its being, every cell in its body howling, urging it.
"Devour it! Devour it!! Devour it!!!"
That urge was so overwhelming that it almost made the great serpent feel like it was hallucinating.
And before it, the carriage occupant's eyes grew even more glacial. If the great serpent had truly become so famished that it had lost all reason and was adamant about consuming her, then perhaps she could only await the next opportunity to come again.
But unexpectedly…
"Heh heh… hehehehehehe… hahahahahahahaha…"
Under her gaze, though the avarice and mad negative emotions in the great serpent's pupils remained, a hint of frost surfaced in the depths of its eyes. Then, a low chuckle sounded in her ears, first a snicker, then a hearty laugh, the voice gradually swelling, until finally erupting into unhinged, unrestrained, maniacal laughter.
That frenzied cachinnation reverberated through the ocean, as if wantonly deriding something.
"My sister, sovereign of Helheim, Odin's faithful servant, you've actually deigned to come here?"
Accompanied by the great serpent's wild guffaws, in the great serpent's vision, clad in a cloak, half her countenance fair, half like a bare skull, pallid and cold, the ruler of the realm of the dead, the death goddess, the great serpent's nominal sister Hel, was impassively gazing down at it.