The flaming Demon Sword Laevatein originated as the sword wielded by Surtr, the Flame Giant King. It was also known as [End of the Planet] and [Branch of Destruction].
Back then, to prevent the arrival of Ragnarok, Samael, Loki, and Odin joined forces to scheme against Surtr, the Flame Giant King. After several twists and turns, the flaming Demon Sword ended up in Loki's hands.
But as everyone knew, Loki, as the god of trickery and mischief, had always had a habit of messing with things he should not touch.
In order to play with this flaming Demon Sword, he had actually chanted Rune spells before the gates of Niflheim, the land of frost and mist, and reforged Laevatein.
Not only did Loki infuse it with his own power, after the forging was complete, he also placed nine seals on Laevatein to reduce its power so that it could be controlled.
However, the flaming Demon Sword was even higher in rank than Odin's eternal spear, Gungnir. It was a giant's weapon, a god's weapon, and the harbinger of destruction itself, foretelling the collapse of the World Tree Yggdrasil and the twilight of the Nine Realms.
Its mission was destruction and ruin. Naturally, it would not be easily tamed. It had merely restrained its ferocity for a time.
Thus, Loki's reforging, which infused it with the calamity factor that would trigger Ragnarok, made Laevatein even stronger.
And while his nine seals weakened the flaming Demon Sword's normal power, they also made the thing far more deceptive.
On top of that, Laevatein possessed special attack effects against gods and life itself. It could decompose matter back into pure Ether, constantly providing fuel for the flaming Demon Sword to break through its seals, burn all things, and incinerate the world.
During that process, the flaming Demon Sword would feed back to its host and display extraordinary power, but it would also constantly erode its wielder.
After Samael arrived on the Peloponnesus, he had originally only taken the thing out as a convenient weapon to conceal his identity, intending to use it as a stopgap during the journey to Athens.
Unexpectedly, the more he used Laevatein, the smoother it felt in his hand. Because of their shared bloodline, Loki's nine seals were extremely weak against Samael, and the effects of the reforging made it even easier for resonance to arise between wielder and weapon.
As the Ancient Serpent relied more and more on the flaming Demon Sword's overwhelming destructive power, the frequency with which he used it continued to rise.
Finally, in recent days, the flaming Demon Sword, having constantly harvested lives, lashed back and nearly made him lose control on the spot, almost setting all of Thermopylae ablaze.
Fortunately, Scáthach and Skadi arrived in time, sensed that something was wrong, and worked together to suppress Laevatein's demonic nature, waking Samael just as he was being eroded.
Through the hard-core operation of decisively "leaving a hand behind," the Ancient Serpent finally managed to lock the unruly flaming Demon Sword back into the little black room.
Come to think of it, I'd almost forgotten I used to be a Lancer…
But every item I pull out from my collection on a whim turns out to be a bottomless pit. Does this count as a Lancer's Luck debuff?
While grumbling about Loki, the culprit who had been unable to keep his hands to himself, Samael relied on his immortality to regenerate his limb.
At that moment, on the devastated battlefield of Thermopylae, the Persian army, having suffered heavy losses, began retreating like the tide and pulling back toward their camp.
Samael turned to glance at the less than one hundred surviving Spartan remnants behind him. His gaze gradually crossed the horizon and lifted toward the sea fog spreading in the distance. Just as hesitation flickered in his eyes, a grim, heavy horn call came from the clouds.
Woo~~
At the same time, violent winds swept across the land, dark clouds gathered, and the radiance of the sun was blocked away. Heaven and earth suddenly darkened. A massive Magecraft array formed, and several meteors condensed within it before falling toward the ground in a violent blaze.
Boom!
For a moment, the earth shook and the mountains trembled. A huge pit appeared in Tanbei Gorge, and a thick, pitch-black column of smoke shot into the sky.
Dozens of seconds later, the black smoke that blotted out the sky rapidly spread toward Thermopylae.
Buzz!!!
An eerie tremor rose and fell through the air, making the heart instinctively recoil. It sounded like countless tiny, low cries whispering and clamoring beside one's ears.
Something's wrong! Freezing Blizzard!
Skadi stepped forward gracefully. The wand in her hand traced Rune symbols through the air to manipulate Ether. A chilling blizzard immediately rose, freezing the spreading black mist ahead. The water vapor condensed into ice in the blink of an eye.
Clatter, clatter, clatter, clatter!
Immediately, from the black mist that had first spread nearby, a series of clinking impacts rang out as things fell.
"Look. What is this?"
The Goddess of Winter frowned and raised her hand, grasping toward the front. Several fallen ice crystals mixed with black specks were drawn into her palm. She glanced at them, her face showing disgust, then turned and showed them to Samael and Scáthach.
Inside the clear, deep-blue ice crystals were fist-sized pitch-black demonic insects. They had the shape of locusts, their wings were covered in savage patterns, horn-like protrusions like golden crowns grew from their heads, and their faces resembled human faces frozen in deathly wails.
Even stranger, their hair was like a woman's hair, their teeth like a lion's teeth, and their chests were covered in armor that gave off an iron sheen and metallic vibration.
They had tails like scorpions, and the venomous hooks on those tails were chilling to look at.
At the same time, the tremors from within the ice crystals grew stronger and stronger.
And now, as the black mist covering Tanbei Gorge dispersed, what appeared before everyone was bare sand, stone, and shattered earth.
Dead fish and rotten shrimp floated on the turbid, bitter-salty water. The barren land no longer held even the faintest trace of green. All vegetation had been completely devoured as the black mist swept through.
Crack!
Cracks appeared across the ice crystal. The hideous demonic insect broke half its body free, letting out a piercing hiss as it tried to rush forward and bite the living beings before it.
Puff! Puff!
However, before those fist-sized things could bare their teeth and venomous hooks, Samael and Scáthach clenched their fists at the same time, crushing the struggling demonic insects in their palms along with the remaining ice crystals.
Such powerful vitality. Such terrifying aggression. These were no ordinary species, but special creations that did not belong to Earth's baseline ecosystem.
Only an Origin God with the power of creation could accomplish something like this.
Realizing the crux of the matter, Samael's brow knitted tightly. Records matching this creature's traits immediately surfaced in his mind.
"It's the Locust Demon Army Abaddon! Special creations summoned from the depths by the Trumpet of Doom, demonic insects used to create famine and punish humanity!"
Crack! Crack! Crack!
Just as the Ancient Serpent spoke the monsters' origin in a low voice, the sound of countless fine ice crystals shattering rose one after another. The freed Locust Demon Army swept outward like black smoke, devouring every trace of green along the way. Even rocks were gnawed into rotten fragments.
Samael gave the Persian camp a deep look, his gaze dark as he made a cold decision.
"Block Thermopylae. First, annihilate these Locust Demon Army. Don't let them spread!"
The three stood back-to-back before the breach, stirring the Ether tide in perfect coordination as they began sealing off and exterminating the nearby Locust Demon Army.
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