Chapter 144: Infinite Chaos

"Are you truly not going to give it a try?" Thor asked again.

Nero furrowed his brows and uttered, "How about you try to take it out?"

Thor shook his head and asserted, "As I previously said, Mjolnir is the only weapon I would ever use. It is bound to my soul, and wielding a different weapon would be like betraying Mjolnir."

"Simply put, it's like having a wife and doing things with some other girl. What was the word…" Thor pondered for a while and exclaimed, "Cheating! Yes, it would just be like cheating on Mjolnir."

"...." Nero stared at Thor in disbelief.

"What's with that stare? Stop looking at me like that," Thor turned his face to the other side.

"Are you seriously making a drama just for wielding a different weapon over this hammer?"

"It's not just a hammer; It's Mjolnir," Thor remarked.

"Yeah, and I shattered it in one hit," Nero scoffed.

"Yet, you could wield it," Thor scoffed back.

Nero raised his brows and placed his hand around Thor's shoulder: "Go try to take out that dagger."

"I already said I can't—"

Nero furrowed his brows and said with an evil smirk on his face: "It was an order."

Thor's body automatically started moving against his will.

"You sadistic demon!" Thor yelled as he jumped down on the bridge.

"Yeah, and you are a mortal-fucker!"

Ignoring the awful smell and the mist, Thor forcefully walked forward to the dagger.

'Thor.' the voice said.

Thor stopped, or at least he tried to, but his body was obeying Nero's orders.

'Son of Odin. Prince of Asgard. Come closer.'

Thor touched the dagger, and the next moment, he found himself standing next to Nero.

Nero placed his hand round Thor's shoulder and said, "Go try to take out that dagger."

"I already did!" Thor panicked.

Nero squinted his eyes and asked, "You did?"

"Yes! And…" Thor started sweating as he remembered his vision.

"What did you see; Or rather, what did it show you?" Nero asked with a curious look on his face.

Thor gulped down, and after a brief silence, he said, "I saw many things, and it all happened so fast that I can't remember everything, but… I saw Jane. Dead in my arms, and the place I don't remember was on fire."

'For me, nothing changed, and I didn't even realize. It's not exactly altering the time or messing with the flow of time; it's only messing with the time flow of the particular person who tries to take off the dagger.' Nero glanced at the dagger and wondered, 'So it shows the nightmares to trap them in the loops? It shows them a vision and sends them back to where they decide to touch it.'

"What was that? And why did it happen? Why did I have that vision?" Thor asked impatiently.

"It wasn't a vision."

"So everything was real?!" Thor exclaimed.

"You don't know anything about the loops, do you?"

"Nope!" Thor shook his head.

"Now you know why no one ever tried to take off the dagger. Because they took it off and saw their deepest and darkest nightmare," Nero asserted.

"So that explains why the soldiers and the maids were so afraid to come in this area," Thor nodded.

There were many soldiers and maids who thought they would gain power if they wield the dagger, and they gave in to their temptation and ended up getting trapped into the loop.

Thor was still acting anxious and couldn't shake that vision out of his mind.

"Heh!" Nero sneered and commented, "God, my arse."

"I heard a voice down there, and it was calling me by name," Thor muttered.

"So?"

"It called me 'Son of Odin' for some reason."

"So the God who created you is Odin," Nero shrugged.

"No." Thor sighed and continued, "I was created by random gods, and there is no god named 'Odin' in the entire heavens."

Nero raised his brows and asked, "Are you sure you didn't mishear the name?"

"No. And it also called me 'Prince of Asgard'." Thor added.

"What in the hell is Asgard?" Nero asked with a confused look on his face. "A place in heaven?"

"No. But…"

"But?"

"I indeed feel like I have heard the names 'Odin' and 'Asgard' before, but I can't remember where."

"The Gods sealed your memories, so that must be it," Nero shrugged his shoulder and pointed his finger at the dagger: "Keep the dagger where it is, and don't let anyone come near it."

"Are you sure it's not dangerous?" Thor asked with an anxious look on his face and avoided looking at the dagger.

"It's powerless as long as it's plunged into that skull." Nero turned around and walked to the balcony: "And cast an anti-magic barrier around it to make it more powerless." 

"Hey… Zeus!" Thor called out to Nero.

"What is it?" Nero asked without looking back at Thor.

"Is your offer of us being friends still available?"

Nero scoffed and waved his hand before saying, "Don't try to get a promotion."

Nero flew off the balcony and disappeared from Thor's sight.

Thor made an anti-magic barrier around the shadow domain and rushed to his wife, the red-haired woman— jane.

"...." The dagger reverberated as the female serpent voice echoed in the shadow domain.

'Kikikiki. Just you wait, father. Soon, you will be awakened, and we will all be reunited again. All your daughters, and you… Once again, to cause infinite chaos. Chaos causes chaos. Kikikiki.'

Thor rushed to the hallways and stood before a locked room.

"My love." He knocked on the door and said, "It's me."

The red-haired girl opened the door and hugged him before pulling him into the darkness of the room.

—— 

Nero hovered in the sky and stopped to have a look at the island.

'Heh!' He chuckled and said, "A fallen god ruling an island as a king. It's unlaughable.'

He stretched his hands in the sky and soared to the sea in one go.

"Where is the ship?" he muttered as she flew higher to get a better look at the sea.

"There it is!"

He landed on the ship with a baffled look on his face when he couldn't find anyone.

The inhabited island near the ship was destroyed, and the parts of the ship were floating in the sea.

"Where did they go?"

Three pearls dropped from his bracelet as he remembered what Thor had told him about the sea monster who was a guardian of the underwater temple.