66 Calm before the storm

"Looks like that old fool finally understood what's going on. Good thing you put up that barrier or I couldn't have dodged this."

I gave a pointed look at Loki's pierced should. Or tried to at least.

'Is this what you consider dodging? Interesting, I call that getting stabbed.'

"Spare me your sarcasm. This is Gungnir, Odin's legendary spear. It can pierce pretty much anything and paired with Odin's clairvoyance, it is considered a death sentence for anyone below king magus. Thus, I consider surviving as having dodged this attack."

'A death sentence for anyone below king magus... sounds terrifying. But you mentioned Odin's power being clairvoyance just now, wasn't it reading fate?'

"I was. Due to the fiasco with the humans, Odin chose to abandon the path set for him and chose something slightly different from his original power to comprehend as a king magus. It is not uncommon for people like us to change our path for one reason or another."

'I take it you have chosen to change as well then?'

"Quite perceptive. My original power was warmth and life but I found that I didn't just want to bring life. I don't want to just add beings to the world and let them be at the whims of fate. I want to bring change!"

'You are doing all this for the humans you created?'

"I merely intend to take responsibility for the situation I've put them in. Odin and Hoenir may deny the sin we have committed but I will not hide behind those hollow excuses."

With a majestic movement, he grabbed the spear that pinned him down and pulled. Gungnir remained where it was.

"Mind giving me a hand?"

'Such glorious ambitions and you can't even remove a spear from your body?'

It turns out that not only does Gungnir excel at piercing through things but also remaining stuck in them. The final solution was to lift part of the ground and just drive the spear through completely and receive it on the other side.

'What do you plan to do now?'

"Wait for my wounds to heal and for Odin to arrive."

'Odin is coming here?'

"Well the two of us killed both his sons and on top of that you seem to be able to hide from his visions. He will definitely come to destroy us. The only thing uncertain is how many others he will bring."

'That doesn't sound good... Give me Thor's hammer, I'll try to break through before they reach here.'

"You'll never make it. Thor needed more than a year to just scratch the surface and that was with every possible advantage!"

'Good thing I'm not Thor then.'

Loki seemed pessimistic but still went to retrieve the hammer wherever he hid it. Now, with both Thor and his hammer, I had an innate understanding of lightning just waiting to be absorbed.

It took me one month two fully assimilate the thunder origin. I had assimilated an artificial innate understanding of lightning. Unfortunately, I had used a shortcut and thus my understanding was somewhat lacking and artificial. Now I would have to fuse my understanding into a fruit.

The process was surprisingly simple. I willed it and a golden-yellow apple grew from one of my branches. The only downside, half my magic was drained to create that one apple.

A shadow rushed over and devoured the apple. Ratatoskr had, as per contract I made with him, received my first enlightenment fruit. A lightning symbol appeared on its forehead and it curled up into a ball. Digesting the enlightenment fruit would probably take some time.

In retrospect, I might have been better advised not to grow this apple and disable a peak combat force on my side. I had no idea how long Rat was going to sleep. Not that it helped much when it was awake but still...

The next morning, Epli and the other elves left in a hurry. They had been around for quite a while but mostly kept to themselves. Now they left without any explanation.

'Should I stop them and ask some questions?'

'No, Epli will just dodge the question or lie. I'll just ask Loki to follow them.'

"No need to ask me to follow them. They are returning upon the call of the queen. She probably wants to pull out her people before this place turns into a living hell."