The broken halls of Asgard trembled as Karl stepped through the shattered gates that you could see in the miracle of life, which I could see in my dreams like eternal flames consuming me as if I were some kind of pathological nightmare. In that way, Asgard would… burn brighter than any eternal flame that you can imagine.
No dramatic entrance. No shame. No lies in the way of walking. No lightning. No war cry.
Just one boy in a faded hoodie and jeans that you can recognize with Persian symbols, ring glowing softly on his left hand that we can shake from the endless vow of love and passion, walking forward like he was late for a quiet conversation that had already waited too long to make drink the wine of Dionysius.
The air itself recoiled.
Hel, Loki, and Fenrir were waiting in the ruined throne room where Odin's seat lay cracked in two that I could see in the eyes of the goddess of wisdom.
Hel stood at the center like the way hell would tell me to shut up in the face of ignorace half living beauty, half rotting corpse, her face calm and terrible that could shake the confidence of the world with incredible looks and beautiful curves to her W breasts cups despite her being 20 feet in her giantess tranformation. Loki lounged against a fallen pillar, smile sharp as ever, but his eyes flickered with something new that we could see in the gaze of true hells: uncertainty. Fenrir, the great wolf, loomed behind them like living night, chains long since shattered in the eyes of indifference, jaws dripping starlight and venom.
They had expected a god.
They got Karl Ω Yang.
The battler has started
Phase One – The Weighing of Wills
Hel spoke first, voice like winter wind over graves that could actually shake the silence of a fake god.
Hel: So the mortal child arrives. Do you think your little training in the white nothing changes anything? Ragnarök is written. We are its teeth. Sometimes you lose a battle. But mischief always wins the war. HAHA, you think you can defeat us. This is pathetic.
Karl stopped ten paces away. No weapon in his hands. Only the quiet hum of nine worlds moving through his blood. Friendship dies and true love lies
Night will fall and the dark will rise
When a good man goes to war
Demons run, but count the cost
The battle's won, but the child is lost
He looked at each of them once slow, honest, the way he once looked at paradoxes he refused to fear anything. That is to say that he was more than prepared
Omega: I'm not here to stop Ragnarök, ( he said. ) Voice calm. Steady. Carrying the weight of one hundred million years of push-ups against the void.
I'm here to finish it properly. No more loops. No more pride dragging the next world down. You three are the last knots. Let's untie you cleanly. The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning. That is to say that I gotta finish now.
Loki laughed sharp, theatrical but it cracked at the edges. I mean, it was like he was remembering the days when he used to be a good for nothing.
Loki: Big words for a boy who still smells like Pennsylvania rain and unrequited love. Battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won. You are just pathetic. You deserve NOTHING.
Karl's eyes didn't waver.
Omega: Love is one of the wills I trained. Want to see what it can do when it's had a hundred million years to grow up? You have come a long way and have won many battles. Whenever you're faced with a difficult or challenging situation, you'll overcome it. Yes, you can… that is what I tell myself every day. Thus the expert in battle moves the enemy, and is not moved by him. That is to say that no one can ever move me. In that way, I AM SINGULAR.
First clash for Fenrir
The great wolf lunged without warning to take him aback beautifully.
Jaws wide enough to swallow the sun, teeth like shattered fate that we could see in both gods.
Karl did not dodge like a pussy that would shake before fear.
He stepped forward and met the charge with a single, perfect push-up stance one hand planted on the broken marble floor of Asgard's hall that no one could ever imagine in the cold and the dark of every realm.
Will to Power + Jötunheimr's Primordial Mass
Fenrir's jaws slammed down.
The impact should have erased him.
Instead, the wolf's teeth met the full weight of every mountain Karl had ever lifted in that timeless room. The collision rang like the birth of a new world that we can see before the eyes of glory
Fenrir recoiled, stunned, blood black and star-flecked dripping from his gums.
Karl rose from the one-armed push-up without hurry.
Omega: One: it is me. few men are willing to brave the disapproval of their peers, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change. he said quietly. That is to say that no one can change me.
Second clash for Loki
Loki blurred into motion, illusions multiplying a thousand tricksters, each whispering different lies, each promising different betrayals that could blind you in minutes.
Karl closed his eyes for half a second.
Will to Sadness + Niflheimr's Absolute Cold Clarity
Every illusion froze mid-sentence that could make you feel it little by little or perhaps this is the ideal of what you can experience in your life.
The cold of primordial ice ran through Karl's nerves and outward, turning Loki's deceptions into brittle glass.
Karl opened his eyes.
Will to Love + Álfheimr's Luminous Grace
He spoke one sentence soft, almost gentle to touch his divine soul:
Omega: I see you, Loki. All of you. The pain. The cleverness. The loneliness behind every trick. You don't have to keep lying anymore. To compose our character is our duty, not to compose books, and to win, not battles and provinces, but order and tranquility in our conduct. Our great and glorious masterpiece is to live appropriately. All other things, ruling, hoarding, building, are only little appendages and props, at most. At least, this should what we gotta do. You… shall know it better than me.
Loki staggered. For the first time in his immortal life, the silver tongue faltered.
One of the illusions shattered completely as if they never existed
Karl took one step forward.
Omega: Two.
Third clash — Hel
Hel raised her hands. Half the hall withered into rot and grave-mist. The other half bloomed with false life beautiful, tempting, deadly, spectacular and perilous.
Will to Death + Helheimr's Quiet Acceptance
Karl walked straight through it.
The rot touched him and simply… finished. No struggle. No drama. It met perfect acceptance and dissolved into clean silence that no one could ever get to see what happens with this.
The false life tried to seduce him visions of Larisa, of Emma, of every love he had ever wanted.
Karl smiled small, real, heartbreaking.
Will to Joy + Muspelheimr's Eternal Flame
He burned through the illusions with joy so pure it hurt to look at.
Not denial. Not rejection.
Just joy that had trained for a hundred million years and no longer feared losing what it loved.
Hel's eyes widened.
Karl stopped three paces from her that could shake Jǫrmungandr.
Omega: Three.
He looked at all three of them wolf, trickster, queen of the dead and spoke the quiet truth he had carried out of the white room that no one could see the way we can do. The thing is, it cannot get worse for us this way.
Omega: You are not my enemies. You are the last old knots. I'm not here to kill you for sport. I'm here to let you die well… or to let you choose something new. The cycle ends tonight. Cleanly. Honestly. With love instead of pride. Hope and Memory have one daughter and her name is Art, and she has built her dwelling far from the desperate field where men hang out their garments upon forked boughs to be banners of battle. O beloved daughter of Hope and Memory, be with me for a while. That is to say that no one could ever get to see it the way I know Spes.
Fenrir growled like a little dog.
Loki's smile trembled like a sword.
Hel's half-living face showed something that might have been fear, might have been relief.
Karl flexed his fingers once.
The ring sang soft, steady, the sound of nine worlds breathing as one.
Phase One was over.
The weighing of wills had begun.
And for the first time since the first tree grew, the forces of Ragnarök felt the ground shift beneath them that no one could ever get to see it.
Not because a god had come.
But because a boy who had trained for one hundred million years in a room without time had finally stepped onto their battlefield carrying every will they had never learned to master.
Karl stood ready.
The real battle the honest one was about to begin.