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*****
Faced with Fenye's enthusiastic greeting, Heimdall maintained his customary expressionless face and asked, "How did it feel over there?"
"Not bad!" Fenye replied with a smile.
Whether by pure coincidence or cosmic design, Heimdall hadn't managed to witness a single one of his actual battles against Surtur; every single time the gatekeeper had cast his gaze downward, Fenye had essentially been resting or quietly analyzing the giant's combat loops.
Hearing the boy's casual answer, Heimdall—who had borne witness to Fenye's incredibly comfortable residential setup—offered an unsurprising nod. Stepping forward, he gave Fenye a brief welcome-back embrace. "Welcome back."
"Is Thor back yet?" Fenye asked casually following the embrace. The God of Thunder had been deployed on a pacification mission just prior to his departure, and now that a month had slipped by, he wondered if the prince had returned.
"Not yet."
Hearing that Thor was still indisposed, Fenye felt a minor pang of disappointment. He had been hoping to leverage a few friendly sparring sessions with Thor to fully fund the remaining experience points required for his ninth ability draw. Looked like his only option now was to chart a course for the next realm.
Bidding farewell to Heimdall, Fenye navigated his way back to the royal palace of Asgard. His absolute first order of business was to treat himself to a thorough, luxurious bath, systematically scrubbing away the thick, suffocating smell of sulfur that clung to his skin.
Stepping out of the bath, Fenye sniffed his arms, but he still couldn't detect any highly distinct or unusual aroma.
The lingering mystery flared up in his mind once more: What exactly was that specific scent Surtur kept tracking down?
Having returned from Muspelheim, Fenye needed to carefully evaluate his next target destination. Discarding Helheim for the time being due to its highly volatile and unverified parameters, the remaining viable options narrowed down to Svartalfheim, the ancestral domain of the Dark Elves, and Alfheim, the radiant realm of the Light Elves.
Ever since the Dark Elves suffered a catastrophic military defeat and drifted into a state of suspended animation within the forgotten trenches of deep space, Svartalfheim had degenerated into a thoroughly desolate, abandoned wasteland. Furthermore, the localized atmospheric conditions were largely unsuited for other cosmic races, meaning the realm had remained entirely unchanged for centuries.
Conversely, while Alfheim possessed an exceptionally pristine environment, the native Light Elves were notoriously insular and difficult to establish amicable relations with. Weighing his options, Fenye ultimately resolved to prioritize Svartalfheim.
He wanted to personally investigate the realm to see if he could unearth any structural clues pointing to the localized seal of the Reality Stone.
Regarding the Reality Stone—specifically its fluid manifestation as the Aether—it was the singular Infinity Stone Fenye coveted above all others. However, the precise coordinates of its ancient burial vault were data parameters likely possessed exclusively by Odin and Frigga.
Rather than trying to orchestrate a complex dialogue strategy to extract that classified info from the royal couple, it was far more practical to head down to the field and run a manual search protocol himself.
Besides, there wasn't much time remaining before the arrival of the Convergence—the rare alignment of the Nine Realms that manifested only once every five thousand years. If his independent search protocols yielded zero results, Fenye resolved to simply camp out near Thor's future mortal girlfriend on Earth.
From a humanitarian standpoint, this could technically be classified as a rescue operation anyway; given the baseline physiological limitations of a standard Midgardian human, touching an uncontained Infinity Stone was a literal death sentence. Even entities with slightly scaled physical metrics didn't dare meddle with them recklessly—a reality that the Red Skull had thoroughly learned the hard way.
---
The following morning, Fenye requested an audience with Odin.
During his campaign in Muspelheim, beyond the familiar focal point of Heimdall's vision, Fenye had occasionally registered an independent, secondary trace of external observation. Upon executing a precise tracking scan, he had been thoroughly surprised to discover a lone raven monitoring his coordinates.
Fenye refrained from taking hostile action against the bird; one needed nothing more than basic intuition to deduce exactly who that raven reported to.
Fortunately, the avian drone didn't maintain a permanent, twenty-four-hour surveillance loop on his actions. Had it operated at absolute capacity, Fenye would have systematically shot it out of the sky, even if it meant formally souring his relationship with the All-Father.
Consequently, Fenye kept his dialogue with Odin minimal, simply notifying the King that his next exploration vector would target Svartalfheim.
Hearing Fenye's intended itinerary, Odin looked visibly surprised. Frowning slightly, the All-Father remarked, "The Dark Elves were systematically eradicated long ago. Svartalfheim is a dead realm entirely devoid of biological life; you will find no formidable adversaries to challenge within its borders."
Hearing Odin flagrantly state that the Dark Elves were extinct, Fenye subtly twitched his lips in internal amusement.
Whether the general populace was aware remained debatable, but Fenye was absolutely certain that Odin knew the Dark Elves hadn't been fully wiped out; they were merely biding their time in deep hibernation. The All-Father was simply utilizing this narrative to discourage him from navigating toward those specific coordinates.
"Beyond seeking out martial challenges, I simply desire to personally bear witness to the unique environmental landscapes of the other realms," Fenye stated smoothly, refraining from directly exposing the structural lie in Odin's narrative. He simply framed the excursion as a standard tourism workflow.
Hearing this, Odin lacked a valid administrative reason to block his transit. Furthermore, cross-referencing his personal raven scans with Heimdall's routine intelligence briefings, he could see that Fenye's overall behavior patterns truly seemed limited to seeking out high-intensity combat encounters.
Casting a deeply piercing, analytical gaze at the boy standing before his throne, Odin ultimately refrained from voicing further objections.
However, the moment Fenye exited the grand hall, the All-Father's brow furrowed tightly once more. An instinctual wave of deep suspicion flared within his chest; he could sense that the boy's underlying motives were far more complex than they appeared on the surface, yet he was thoroughly incapable of mapping out Fenye's true objective.
Observing her husband's intense stress, Frigga gestured smoothly to dismiss the surrounding vanguard guards and handmaidens. Stepping gracefully to Odin's side, she gently rested her hand against his cheek, using a soft touch to smooth out his heavily furrowed brow as she offered a warm, comforting counsel:
"Are you still harboring concerns regarding the youth?"
"There is something profoundly anomalous about him," Odin murmured, gently clasping Frigga's hand, a trace of deep, existential fatigue bleeding into his voice. "Down within the volcanic chambers of Muspelheim, he secured multiple clear tactical opportunities to permanently execute Surtur. Yet, across every single exchange, he deliberately chose to grant the giant a stay of execution."
"Perhaps that simply serves as a testament to the fact that deep within his core, he possesses an authentic foundation of kindness and mercy—not unlike yourself," Frigga reasoned, gently advocating on Fenye's behalf. "Furthermore, did you not explicitly mandate that he refrain from instigating actual geopolitical wars across the realms?"
Odin shook his head slowly, his expression remaining entirely unpersuaded. "No... my instincts tell me he is operating under a completely separate incentive structure. He is actively extracting something tangible from Surtur—or more precisely, from the very act of securing a definitive victory over him!"
The All-Father truly lived up to his legendary reputation; based on nothing more than a handful of disjointed observation windows, he had successfully deduced the baseline anomalies surrounding Fenye's progression model, accurately profiling his method of scaling power.
A flash of genuine surprise registered across Frigga's expression, but her internal assessment of the boy's character remained steadfast. Believing that Fenye posed zero structural threat to the longevity of Asgard, she countered, "That simply proves he is an exceptionally unique individual, does it not?"
Odin lapsed into a pensive silence. The sheer scale of Fenye's uniqueness was a parameter he couldn't logically refute.
"I believe you should extend a greater degree of foundational trust toward him; he is fundamentally not a malicious actor," Frigga added, her eyes radiating a gentle warmth as she looked at her husband. "He has established highly amicable ties with Thor, Heimdall, and the Warriors Three. Should Asgard ever face a catastrophic crisis in the future, he will undoubtedly stand alongside us as a powerful ally."
Odin let out a quiet, internal sigh. Squeezing his wife's hand, he offered a slow nod of agreement on the surface. Deep down within his tactical mind, however, he resolved to deploy his ravens to closely monitor Fenye's specific operational workflow within the borders of Svartalfheim.
---
Fenye remained completely oblivious to the classified discussion unfolding between the royal couple.
With Thor, Sif, and the rest of the inner circle currently deployed away from Asgard, he lacked any real conversational partners save for Heimdall. Consequently, on the very same afternoon his audience with Odin concluded, he finalized his logistics and prepared to make immediate planetfall on Svartalfheim.
"Are you declining to utilize a standard rest cycle?" Heimdall inquired, looking mildly surprised as Fenye materialized back at the Bifrost observatory barely a day after returning from his month-long campaign.
"There's no need. Initiate the transit protocol; I suspect I might be returning from this specific deployment fairly quickly," Fenye replied, shaking his head. His primary objective for this excursion into Svartalfheim was simply to manually scan the terrain for any structural signatures of the Reality Stone's seal. If his exploratory compass and tracking workflows hit a total dead end, he likely wouldn't spend more than a few days in the wasteland before returning.
"Very well."
Though he couldn't comprehend why the young sorcerer was operating at such a breakneck pace, Heimdall—as the singular entity who saw and heard the most across the vast expanse of the Nine Realms—possessed a strict professional policy against asking superfluous questions.
Stepping up to the central pedestal, Heimdall drove the Hofund deep into the console, activating the Bifrost. A brilliant, multi-colored torrent of cosmic energy erupted through the chamber, successfully unlocking a brand-new map sector within Fenye's exploration interface.
The cosmic beam traversed the void, depositing him directly onto the surface of a thoroughly barren, bleak, and perpetually darkened realm.
He had officially arrived at Svartalfheim, the ancestral domain of the Dark Elves.
(End of Chapter)