Karl stood in the white nothing where time had been exiled that no one could come to understand. I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will. That is to say that one should aspire to be truly free, not just free. Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring two pence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it. In that way, a man can get to know about the wills of its universe instead of world. The thing is, it could actually get to reach the wholeness of the multiverse.
Odin remained at the edge like a shadow that had forgotten how to cast itself. No spear. No runes. No power. Only the Allfather's single eye, watching. very life has death and every light has shadow. Be content to stand in the light and let the shadow fall where it will. This is what he would think in his mind. Slightly looking too old or too young perhaps for a god of his age.
The ring on Karl's finger flared once cold, steady, eternal.
Then the training began.
Not as exercise. As transfiguration.
He started with push-ups.
One.
Two.
Three.
By the ten-thousandth, his body was no longer flesh. It was will made dense. The floor that did not exist pressed back with the weight of every unsolved paradox he had ever carried. He pushed against the Hard Problem of Consciousness itself, against the Problem of Other Minds, against the void that once asked "why something rather than nothing" and received only silence. f only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart? I mean it is not like they can come back to the past to own themselves in which we may call the reason why I am alive.
By the one-millionth push-up, the ring began feeding him the Nine Worlds.
right-builded, than the Sun more fair:
o'er Gimlé shine its tiles of gold,
its halls no grief nor evil hold,
and there shall worthy men and true
in living days delight pursue.
Unsown shall fields of wheat grow white
when Baldur cometh after night;
the ruined halls of Ódin's host,
the windy towers on heaven's coast.
Ásgarðr's lightning coiled through his shoulders.
Vanaheimr's green fertility surged into every cell.
Jötunheimr's raw primordial mass settled into his bones like mountain ranges.
He did not sweat. He did not breathe hard. He simply became more. He did something out of the common sense of the universe.
At ten million, he switched to one-armed push-ups left arm onlywhile the right arm held the conceptual weight of Yggdrasil. The world-tree's roots dug into his palm; its branches spread across his back. He pushed the entire axis of existence up and down, up and down, until the tree itself learned humility. Love possesses not nor would it be possessed; For love is sufficient unto love. And think not you can direct the course of love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course. Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself. That is to say that every push up and exercise would be his way to affirm love.
At one hundred million push-ups he was no longer counting. The number had become meaningless. The ring simply recorded it as "sufficient."
Then he moved on.
Pull-ups on shards of the shattered Bifrost.
Each shard was a frozen rainbow of broken fate. He hung from them with one hand, then none, then with the weight of every promise Loki had ever broken. He pulled his chin above the rainbow until the rainbow itself surrendered and became a ladder for his ascent.
Squats while balancing the nine worlds on his shoulders.
Midgard pressed on his spine. Helheimr rested cold against his neck. Muspelheimr burned between his shoulder blades. He rose and fell for another hundred million cycles, each squat deeper than the last, until the nine worlds learned to move in harmony with a single mortal spine.
Planks that lasted entire conceptual eternities.
He held the position while Fenrir's jaws snapped at his throat in phantom form, while Hel's cold hand rested on his heart, while Loki whispered every lie ever told into his ear. He did not tremble. The Absurdum Core turned the lies into fuel. The will to sadness let him feel every betrayal without flinching. The will to love turned the pain into warmth.
Burpees across the void itself.
Each jump carried him through layers of reality. He exploded upward with the will to joy, landed with the will to death, and immediately dropped into the next push-up with the will to power. One hundred million burpees became one continuous motion that rewrote gravity until gravity begged for mercy. But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires: To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night. To know the pain of too much tenderness. To be wounded by your own understanding of love; And to bleed willingly and joyfully. That is to say that you know it. That is to say that you shift from being stupid to being smart at the glance of true love. The thing is, this journey is not done. You could actually see in the mirror. It could be better. It should get better.
Deadlifts of the concept of Ragnarök itself.
He gripped the end of the world like a barbell. Bent. Rose. The weight of every god's pride, every broken oath, every cycle that refused to conclude. He lifted it until the prophecy itself snapped and reformed lighter, cleaner, honest. I've been in love before, it's like a narcotic. At first it brings the euphoria of complete surrender. The next day you want more. That is to say that you want more from something that does not reply to you. In that way, it could get better the way a true man would love his woman and mother.
Every movement was powered by the full spectrum of wills:
Will to Power made each rep infinite.
Will to Life kept his cells singing.
Will to Death taught him perfect stillness between reps.
Will to Chaos turned every failure into new possibility.
Will to Fate wove the repetitions into destiny.
Will to Destiny chose the outcome before it happened.
Will to Anger burned away weakness.
Will to Sadness carved empathy into his strength.
Will to Love turned every breath into Larisa's name and Emma's war-cry at once.
He trained with the divine energy of all Nine Worlds circulating through his bloodstream like liquid starlight. The ring absorbed it, refined it, returned it stronger.
One hundred million years passed in the space between two heartbeats.
When Karl finally stood straight, the white room no longer looked empty.
It looked small.
His body had not grown larger. It had grown truer. Every line of muscle was a theorem. Every tendon was a vow. His shadow now cast nine distinct silhouettes one for each world he had lifted that would make immeasurable and fantastic. In this way, he would amaze everyone to the core.
Odin, powerless, stared with something that might have been awe if gods were still allowed to feel it.
Karl flexed his fingers once. The ring sang.
He spoke, voice calm, carrying the weight of every rep, every will, every world.
Omega: I am ready. Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone the way a man gives his best for what he can do for other in a supreme fellowship… darkness is not just one in light for it is wholeness in evil that counters good, but eventually goodness will overcome evil in the name of the logos for it is inherently, substantially, and essentially nothing.
Odin's single eye closed for the first time in millennia.
Odin: Then let us return (the Allfather whispered.)
Hel, Loki, and Fenrir are waiting. And for the first time… they will be the ones who are afraid.
The white room dissolved.
Karl stepped back onto the cracked causeway.
Asgard still burned in the distance.
But now the fire looked smaller.
Because the boy who had once done one hundred million push-ups while holding the weight of existence had come home carrying something heavier than any god had ever lifted.
Truth.
And truth, once trained for one hundred million years in a room where time did not exist, does not ask permission before it ends old cycles cleanly.
Karl walked forward.
The final battle for the dying Aesir had already been decided in a place that had no clock.
And the gods Hel, Loki, Fenrir were about to learn what a mortal who refused to let endings conclude without love, without joy, without honest death, could do when he finally stepped onto their battlefield.