Long, long ago, nothing existed, yet within this inscrutable void, there was already a formless force. This force was neither good nor evil, without thought or intention. Some call it the Dao, some call it the Ultimate, some call it Fate, some call it Law.
It did not create the world in seven days, nor did it bring forth a lotus from the navel. It did not separate heaven and earth, nor did it mend the sky and fashion humans. There was no marvel of opening eyes for day and closing them for night. It merely slumbered, unknowing and unaware. Rather than calling it an existence, it was more akin to a natural law.
Eons later, the chaotic world finally stabilized. Within this primordial chaos, a great chasm formed, flanked by the realm of fire and the realm of mist. This was the earliest world.
Again, ages passed, and a fire giant was born from the turbulent realm of fire. Lost and confused, the fire giant knew not what to do, but in the depths of his being, he felt he bore a certain destiny. And so, he raised the fiery sword in his hand and struck at the glaciers in the chaotic world.
The glaciers melted into water, cascading into the great chasm. In the intermingling of cold and heat from the realms of fire and mist on either side of the abyss, searing steam arose. Within this steam, another giant of immense might was born—the frost giant Ymir.
This eldest of frost giants grew by licking the salt that seeped from the earth, but when the salt was all licked clean, it unveiled another giant hidden deep within the earth—Borr, the eldest of the gods.
The two giants coexisted in harmony, becoming close and dear friends. However, this harmonious bond was shattered when the frost giant Ymir discovered a spring.
Having imbibed from the Well of Wisdom, Ymir beheld that distant yet inevitable future…
At the end of time's river, an unimaginably powerful force lay dormant. As this world continued to flow forward, ignorant and oblivious, there would come a day when it would descend into the jaws of this slumbering might and be consumed by it.
That force, the two giants named Auðumbla…
A profound sense of terror gripped the two giants. The eldest giant and the eldest god erupted into an unprecedentedly fierce quarrel over this, and ultimately, to enact his scheme, the frost giant Ymir personally slew his dearest friend.
However, Borr's progeny vowed to avenge their sire. The long, unending war between the primeval frost giants and the primeval gods thus began.
Ages hence, Odin was born, bearing the blended blood of frost giant and god, granted immense strength yet no longer able to live eternally. Nearly simultaneously, Loki, the frost giant with boundless wisdom, was born.
Just as their forebears Ymir and Borr, the young god and the young frost giant met by chance and ultimately became friends, pledging to be brothers.
"We are brothers bound by blood, our veins and flesh entwined. If it is not mead for us to share, I shall never drink it alone…"
The high-spirited young god and frost giant, together with Hœnir, three mighty youths united, resolved to overthrow the dull world of their fathers and forge a new, endlessly marvelous world.
In the end, Ymir perished, his form becoming the World Tree that upheld the cosmos. The remaining frost giants fled Jotunheim, and the youthful, dynamic Aesir came to rule all the worlds.
But in the fierce battle, Hœnir lost his wisdom, and Loki lost his might. Thus, Odin, as king of the gods, governed the Nine Worlds. To seek the wisdom to rule the universe, he journeyed to the Well of Wisdom to beseech the wise giant Mimir for knowledge, sacrificing his eye to the well, and thus grasped that fated outcome…
Odin hung himself upon the World Tree, attaining the nigh-omnipotent runes; he gathered the valiant warriors who fell in battle to Valhalla, readying for that final fateful conflict; he broke with Loki, merely to be wary of his three troublesome offspring; he had Thor stand guard in the west year-round to ward against the stirrings of the frost giants… All he did was to strive with all his might to allow the entire cosmos to endure.
Yet… Mimir had deceived him. All he did was, in truth, merely propelling that grand sacrificial rite known as Ragnarok.
Ragnarok, all the giants and gods perished. The magnificent sacrificial ceremony successfully placated the force at the end of time. The giant Ymir, thought to be dead, awakened once more, interring all the dead deep into the earth; Mimir, orchestrating all from the shadows to avert mishaps, regarded as an arm by Ymir, together with Ymir, traced the entire universe back upstream, back to the very beginning.
There, the great chasm remained, the realms of fire and mist, the fire giant was born, the frost giant awakened, the corpses of the dead gathered anew into that ancient god Borr…
The world was born again and again, and crumbled again and again.
All was in an infinite cycle. The beginning was the end, and the end was the beginning, with no start or finish. Though always advancing, that end of time could never be reached, yet thus the fated destiny was eluded.
However, in the ceaseless repetition, even though Ymir and Mimir effaced all traces, the traces in the Well of Wisdom were the sole ones they could not erase. The phantoms that had once dwelt within, with each cycle, one more would manifest.
At last…
A trickster god, impelled by some inexplicable inkling in the unfathomable depths, inexplicably chose to tail his brother…
And ultimately, the endless cycle concluded, and the cosmos was utterly undone.
And at the end of time's river, something indescribable, vaster than the firmament, vaster than the universe, vaster than all of space-time combined, simply slumbered on, never rousing…