The wise giant silently looked at Loki before him, but did not directly answer.
Loki's meaning was crystal clear. If Mimir answered "alive", he would crush the bird in his hand to death; if Mimir answered "dead", he would open his hand and release the bird.
But the deeper implication was Loki's test of fate, probing just how much power fate truly held.
Was it true that all futures were predetermined? Or were some futures fated while others were not? Where then lay the boundary between what was and was not destined…
This cunning and crafty god was cautiously trying to discern the limits of fate.
Mimir merely looked at the god-king before him, then softly said.
"Loki, your actions are all futile. Fate cannot be probed and grasped by your tests. Everything, including your various probes and attempts, has already been written on my scroll."
"Yet, I shall also answer your question according to my foresight, just like in a play where the actors on stage can only act according to the script. Even knowing it is fiction, they are powerless. We are marionettes pulled by strings, playthings in the hands of fate."
However, to Mimir's words, Loki turned a deaf ear, only staring intently at the wise giant before him, then continued.
"Then… please reveal to me how fate has determined the future of what is in my hand…"
"Life? Or death?"
He looked at the wise giant, pushing his hand forward again, vertical pupils slowly contracting, carrying a hint of ferocity.
Even gods can age, but the aging of gods is not due to the deterioration of the body, but the deterioration of the spirit. When the spirit grows old, the god naturally ages. But Loki… from beginning to end always had the appearance of a young man.
Within him, an inextinguishable passion and desire always burned, a longing for that free and infinitely wondrous world.
Odin may have forgotten, all the gods may have forgotten, but he had never forgotten. What he longed for was an infinitely wondrous, endlessly fascinating world, not a cage called "the world" designed by fate.
He would never resign himself to being a prisoner.
And now, this was the moment for him to launch his rebellion against fate.
"Life? Death?"
The two answers were both unimportant. What mattered was what happened after Mimir's answer.
Gazing at Loki's burning, feral pupils, the wise giant shook his head.
"Not life."
"Not life?"
Loki looked at the wise giant before him, the corners of his mouth curling up, ferocity intensifying.
"But not death either."
"Not death either?"
Loki's eyes narrowed slightly, as if not understanding the wise giant's meaning, but the dangerous air about him grew even thicker.
Ignoring the restless god-king before him, his whole body exuding a menacing aura, the wise giant shook his head again.
"Loki, you know very well your little test is meaningless. You pin your hopes on the power of the runes, trying to deceive my senses, make me mistakenly think there is truly a fledgling in your hand, then test if I can really know everything. But this trick is pointless."
He raised his head, looking at Loki before him, and continued.
"If I cannot see all possible futures, then it proves what I speak is not fate and naturally has a chance to be defied. But… Loki, even the near-omnipotent runes cannot contend with the power of fate, so…"
"In your hand, there is actually nothing."
Following his words, complexity filled Loki's eyes, the menacing aura around him gradually dissipating. Lowering his hand, replacing it was a silent god-king.
Before Mimir, Loki lowered his head, as if the wise giant had seen through him, helplessly choosing to surrender before fate. Mimir merely sighed.
But at this moment…
"Heh heh…"
Loki, head lowered, first covered his forehead with his left hand, then suddenly began to chuckle. His light laughter was filled with relief and liberation, laughter also growing louder and louder.
"Heh heh heh heh… Ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!!"
Laughter gradually crescendoed, then finally Loki threw back his head laughing, body even shaking madly with it. Laughing to the end, it was replaced by nearly inhuman cackling, a deranged, mad laughter between crying and laughing, carrying a deep ferocity.
Looking at Loki before him, Mimir suddenly had a vague feeling something was amiss.
"Old fool, there are indeed some things you do not know…"
At this moment, Loki's feral voice entered his ears.
Lowering his right hand, Loki's face carried a nearly icy smile. There was no hint of defeat's gloom, instead filled with an unrestrained, unbridled air. As he spoke, he stretched out his right hand, opening it to the old giant…
Mimir looked at the thing in Loki's palm, an expression of shock and disbelief gradually appearing on his usually unperturbed face.
"How can this be…"
This old giant who understood all things almost said in a stupefied voice.
In Loki's palm, shockingly, was a quietly beating, crimson human heart.
Crimson flesh, glistening as if just removed, even still beating under some power's support, not losing vitality, as if this heart was still alive.
"Old man, you can see through all futures and variables, perceive all runes. No magic or thing can deceive your eyes. All futures lay bare before you. You think you hold sway over all things between heaven and earth, hiding behind the scenes, effortlessly dominating everything. Yet, in this universe there are still some things you cannot clearly see."
At the same time, Loki's cold and feral voice entered the old giant's ears.
The old giant snapped out of that brief shock. Hearing Loki's words, the first thing that surfaced in his heart was a deep sense of absurdity. Drinking a cup of water from the Well of Wisdom daily, he could already see through all things and knowledge. Whether things and knowledge in this universe or other universes, nothing could elude his eyes. How could there still be things even he did not know…
Wait, could it be…
"Exactly! The Well of Wisdom beside you!"
As if seeing through the old giant's thoughts, the corners of Loki's mouth curled up, revealing a feral and crazed smile, his fingers twisting and trembling.
"Fate? Unalterable destiny? Ragnarok???"
"Actually nothing more than a grand scale sacrificial ceremony! Using the entire universe, countless gods and giants, all life and souls, using this epic, tragic decisive battle, in the name of fate, offering a huge sacrificial ceremony to some vast existence you don't even dare think of or mention!!!"
Mimir stood up, face pale, unable to stop himself from taking a few steps back, aged body nearly collapsing. But compared to nearly collapsing, what he cared more about was what Loki said.
"How do you know… How much do you know?"
"How do I know? You only know I drank the water of the Well of Wisdom, but don't know I even directly entered the deepest part of the Well of Wisdom… saw those eyes…"
Loki's pupils slowly dilated, an inexplicable sense of horror and ferocity.
"Those countless, tens of thousands of one-eyed phantoms of my brother Odin!"
"Even if you can join hands with Ymir to erase all traces in the entire universe, rebury all corpses and spirits back into the earth, then together reverse time, jump back to that most ancient past, repeating this cycle again and again, but this Well of Wisdom independent of time and space still records all things that exist within it, including that one eye my brother sacrificed again and again…"
"Mimir, my brother Odin drank the water of the Well of Wisdom, sacrificed his eye to the Well of Wisdom, gaining the ability to know the fate of past, present, and future; you can see all possible things; and I, Loki, saw in the deepest part of that Well of Wisdom that forbidden knowledge no god or human can understand, only I, the cleverest of gods, can comprehend a little."
His fingers trembled and twisted. He raised his hand, then before Mimir's shocked gaze directly plunged his fingers into his own head, deeply penetrating into that organ humans call the brain, consider the source of all wisdom. In the excruciating pain of fingers stirring his brain and blurred consciousness, Loki laughed maniacally.
"Humans divide numbers from 1 to 9, thinking they encompass all numbers. But there is an extremely bizarre thing. The numbers that should exist equally in the world have never existed equally!"
"Among all numbers in the world, the probability of 1 appearing is 30.1%, 2 appearing is 17.6%, 3 appearing is 12.5%… until the last 9, appearing only 4.6%. How shocking! House numbers, names, physical constants, chemical constants, population numbers, statistics, stocks, river lengths, newspaper sales… summarizing all numbers in the entire world, in these numbers considered randomly distributed, the probability of 1 appearing actually occupies nearly a third!"
"Why??? Because numbers are far, far more than these few! There are a total of 45 numbers! Among them, 13 numbers are all hidden within 1, concealed by some power!!!"
"The entire world! Is all fake!!!"
In Loki's feral and crazed angry voice, his vision already blurred from the brain-stirring agony, all images before him seemed to morph into another mad and grotesque world…
Underfoot, covered in countless dark red flesh and wriggling purple blood vessels. All sounds in his ears became distorted and strange nauseating noises. And what seemed to be the Well of Wisdom was replaced by a foul-smelling tubular thing. In that bottomless fleshy tube was filled with a disgusting viscous liquid like secretions of mollusks. That fleshy thing even seemed to have life, wriggling from time to time.