Asgard's sky lit up.
A clear, commanding shout rolled across the darkened land.
The hopeful voice was like an arrow fired toward the dawn, trailing the darkness of night behind it as it pierced the gloom hanging over everyone's hearts.
At that moment, both the gods fleeing desperately for their lives and the Frost Giants who had been reduced to prisoners unconsciously slowed their steps.
They turned toward the heart of the city and looked above what had once been Odin's palace.
A crystalline white light slowly rose into the air.
A wave of air spread outward, carrying a refreshing breeze across the distance and brushing over everyone's faces.
When a deep hum began reverberating across the frozen dome, the white light suddenly blazed brighter.
Like the first rays of the rising sun, the light instantly dispelled the surrounding darkness and illuminated countless shining eyes.
"Rise!"
It sounded like the whisper of a god.
The next instant, the moisture in the air responded to Fenris's command.
Within seconds, the invisible water vapor condensed into a vast expanse of mist.
The mist slowly gathered into hundreds of spinning waterspouts. They rose from the ground, stretched into the clouds, and eventually connected with the crumbling dome overhead.
Crack...
The faint sound of freezing ice rang out.
It was like a fuse reaching its end. The instant the sound appeared, the Casket of Ancient Winters in Fenris's hands fully erupted.
A surge of blue energy carrying unimaginable cold burst outward and swept across the sky at incredible speed.
Loki was the first person in the distance to sense its power.
He raised his head and saw thick layers of ice forming throughout the surrounding water vapor wherever the blue light passed.
Enormous pillars of ice, each more than ten meters thick, began growing at a speed visible to the naked eye.
"What...?"
"You..."
"Are you even human?!"
Gungnir slipped from his hand at some point and struck the ground with a loud clang, but Loki did not even notice.
Smack!
He slapped himself across the face.
Feeling the sharp sting against his cheek, Loki stared ahead with wide eyes.
Seen from up close, the massive ice pillar resembled an entire frozen wall. It rose with a deafening roar not far from him, rapidly extending upward. The rumbling of its growth seemed to make even his heart tremble.
"How does this guy look more like a Frost Giant than I do...?"
Loki's mouth fell open as he stared upward, watching the pillars that held up the sky take shape in mere moments.
He could not help muttering to himself.
Looking across Asgard, hundreds of these towering ice pillars now pierced the clouds and supported the frozen dome.
The spinning waterspouts had been instantly frozen and transformed into pillars positioned throughout Asgard in an extraordinarily precise formation. Together, they held up the dome that had begun tilting after its structure was damaged.
Creak!
The earth shook violently.
As the thunderous noise gradually subsided, the hundreds of ice pillars stopped growing almost simultaneously.
After releasing a sharp, grating creak, the tilting dome finally came to a slow halt. It was forcibly suspended in an incredibly precarious position.
"To raise pillars that hold up the heavens all by himself..."
Someone in the fleeing crowd could not stop looking back.
"He is the true god..."
Through the countless massive ice pillars, they could faintly see a tall, upright figure hovering in the distant sky.
The blue light shining from his hands illuminated all of Asgard's capital and lit their path to safety.
Under the crushing weight of the frozen dome, hundreds of ice pillars simultaneously released dangerous cracking sounds as they approached their breaking points.
However, an endless stream of cold energy soon poured from Fenris. Blue light flashed continuously as he reinforced the pillars without pause.
While desperately maintaining order among the evacuees, Frigga raised her head. The concern in her eyes was impossible to conceal as she looked toward Fenris.
He was single-handedly holding back the collapsing sky and forcibly creating an escape window of several dozen minutes for everyone.
An expenditure of energy on this scale was something the current Fenris could never maintain for long.
Even Laufey at the height of his power would have needed to exert considerable effort to stabilize the dome.
Time passed little by little.
As the cracking sounds grew increasingly frequent and waves of extreme cold repeatedly erupted through the air, Frigga did not dare hesitate. Her shouts became increasingly urgent.
"Faster, everyone!"
"Run faster! Do not look back!"
"Run!"
The footsteps of the fleeing crowd became even more frantic.
The exhausted group had already reached the limits of their endurance, yet their speed suddenly increased once again.
"We're not going to have enough time..."
Fenris frowned as he looked down at the crowd below.
At their current pace, there was no need to calculate anything. A complete evacuation would be impossible.
However, the immense energy pressure bearing down on him had left Fenris almost completely unable to move. All he could do was helplessly watch what was happening ahead.
Using the experience package Laufey had left behind, Fenris forcibly drew an enormous amount of cold energy from the Casket of Ancient Winters to maintain the hundreds of ice pillars.
However, his control over the artifact was still far from effortless.
Once the energy output exceeded the limits of what he could currently control, the unavoidable excess had to be forcibly suppressed with his powerful body.
He could manage it for a short time, but maintaining it continuously would inevitably drain what little strength he had left.
The moment Fenris could no longer endure, the pillars would collapse.
Asgard's capital and all the civilians who had failed to escape in time would be completely buried.
"Faster... You have to move faster..."
Veins bulged across Fenris's forehead.
His handsome face turned crimson from the strain, while his expression gradually became more ferocious.
One figure after another rushed into the tunnel he had forcibly opened.
Once they passed through its suffocating darkness, true daylight awaited them outside.
"One more... Another one..."
At that moment, only a single thought remained in Fenris's mind.
"If even one more person can survive, then let me save one more..."
However, his silent pleas received no response.
With such a long line of people, the desperate acceleration of individuals was easily swallowed by all kinds of obstacles and delays.
"This one is still alive. That one too..."
Meanwhile, beneath Fenris, a figure wrapped in lightning raced across the ground at low altitude.
Thor held Mjolnir high as his eyes constantly swept across the ruins. He pulled one frozen Asgardian after another from the wreckage, then immediately flew toward the next location.
However, while suffering from severe injuries, Thor alone was far too inefficient.
"Those damned beasts!"
Thor shattered a large slab of ground and pulled a frozen mother and child from beneath it.
The mother's expression had been frozen in despair.
Yet the infant she had shielded beneath her body still wore the wide, joyful smile it had possessed at the final moment.
Thor felt his eyes sting.
He carefully placed the two of them to one side, but did not dare slow down for even a moment. He immediately rushed onward.
"No!"
A sudden flash of blue light at the edge of his vision caused Thor to slow abruptly.
His cloak, torn into strips, fluttered behind him as he whipped his head around and looked toward the place where Laufey had fallen.
"The energy tide is coming!"
(End of Chapter)
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