The new diary entry immediately alerted all the factions monitoring it.
The first to react was Asgard.
Thor happened to be with his father, asking Odin for advice on how to cultivate his divine power.
He hadn't asked for guidance in years. Since reaching adulthood, Thor believed his strength was nearly equal to his father's.
Odin hadn't seriously fought in a long time. Thor was the one leading Asgard's armies, winning battles, and racking up glory. Gradually, he got arrogant. He genuinely thought he had caught up.
Especially since the Odinforce in their bloodline grew stronger with age—the "older gets more demonic" principle. Thor felt that in a few years, surpassing his father was inevitable.
Under those circumstances, asking for help felt like losing face.
But through Lucas's diary, Thor learned about power levels. Specifically, the Skyfather tier.
According to Lucas, Thor's current level wasn't even worth mentioning compared to a Skyfather.
Seeing Lucas dismantle the Destroyer with his bare hands was a wake-up call. If they fought for real, Thor knew he wouldn't win.
So he swallowed his pride and asked his father how to dig deeper into his own potential.
Odin was gratified. It was a bit late—he only had a few years left—but better late than never.
For the past few days, Odin had been cramming centuries of cultivation experience into Thor's head.
In the past, Thor would have been impatient with the lectures. Now? He treated every word like gold.
But when the father and son saw the diary update, their expressions changed instantly.
[Asgard will be destroyed!]
They ignored the part about Lucas learning magic. That was irrelevant.
The last sentence was the bomb. It was exactly what Thor had brought Lucas to Asgard to find out.
"The future Asgard... will be destroyed," Thor muttered, staring at the holographic text.
Instinctively, he didn't want to believe it. Asgard's reputation terrified the cosmos. Who had the power to destroy it?
But Lucas's diary had a prophetic nature. And Thor remembered the earlier entry: Odin only has a few years left.
If Odin died... what then?
Where did Asgard rank in the universe without him?
Was it really that fragile?
Odin sighed. He accepted this result calmly. To be precise, he was used to it. The prophecy of Ragnarok had hung over his head for millennia.
He knew exactly who would destroy Asgard. He had tried to change that future many times, but he always found that fate was stubborn.
It felt like an invisible hand was arranging their destiny.
If he did nothing, it happened. If he tried to stop it, his actions often caused the prophecy to self-fulfill.
He used to wonder why. Now he understood.
There were writers.
A few lines of script, a stroke of a pen, and Asgard's fate was sealed.
What was a God-King compared to an author? He wasn't even worth the ink.
Originally, Odin had accepted his death. Whether he liked it or not, the story was written.
But now? Lucas's arrival brought a variable from outside the Fourth Wall. It brought a sliver of hope. Not for Odin himself, but for Asgard.
"Sigh," Odin exhaled. Knowing the truth didn't make it less bitter.
Thor couldn't accept it.
"Father, is Asgard really that weak? Are we truly nothing without you?"
This contradicted everything Thor believed. But the reality was staring him in the face.
"Yes. It has come to this," Odin nodded gravely.
The current Asgard was a hollow shell. It was propped up entirely by one Skyfather-level being: Odin.
Technological civilizations could mass-produce warships and weapons. Magical civilizations relied on individual gods.
One person's strength was the civilization's strength.
It was the fundamental difference between Magic and Tech.
Once Odin died, Asgard would instantly fall to a third-rate civilization.
"Why? We were famous across the universe long ago!" Thor asked, confused.
"Because of a civil war that happened a long time ago," Odin mentioned briefly. "Since then, Asgard has been in decline. Our elite legions were wiped out. Even ignoring my own weakening state, Asgard today is a shadow of its peak."
Only Odin knew how brutal the war with Hela had been. It burned through millions of years of accumulated military power.
Hela held the Authority of Death. Every Asgardian soldier who died rose again to fight for her. Her army grew while Odin's shrank. It was a nightmare.
Odin managed to seal Hela and save Asgard from extinction, but the realm was crippled. It never recovered.
That was why Odin, the ruthless Warlord, became a peace-loving King in his old age. That was why he exploded in rage when Thor started a war with Jotunheim.
He knew Asgard couldn't afford another war.
If the young Odin saw his older self now, he wouldn't believe it.