I will be the Strongest

Chapter 6

In the great hall, a realm beyond Midgard, Vanaheim, Jotunheim, and even Asgard. The place where life originated. A location where great warriors unite after death, welcomed by the gods themselves, silent steps are taken.

Calm and unhurried, each step was taken slowly towards the center of the great hall, where runes surrounded the place, runes engraved on the walls and columns made of the purest and brightest gold.

Great jewels embedded in the enormous columns that ascend towards the ceiling as if there were no end.

At the end of the hall, a throne.

The brightest, most beautiful, and majestic in the entire place.

The place where the Allfather, on days of celebration, when brave warriors arrive, is present.

In the center, surrounded by enormous benches and silver tables, tables adorned with various golden horns, dragon horns, as they say, and trays made of the same material as the furniture and, like the benches and tables, the trays have their own runes, there is a great altar where the strongest and most beautiful purple flame in the entire realm burns, the flame of life, Ymir's heart.

The individual extended his hand towards the flame.

"Do not do that, brother."

A firm voice that conveyed power, an electrifying power that seemed to course through his body in an instant, stopped him from continuing.

"Brother...?"

His long black hair moved as he turned his head. He turned towards his brother, his green eyes meeting the blue eyes ahead.

"Father is wise and merciful, you know. If you stop this now, he will surely forgive what you are doing now and even what you caused in Asgard."

"Forgive? He will forgive me?"

Covering his mouth, he tried to contain himself but couldn't. His laughter echoed throughout the great hall. His eyes gleamed.

"That trash is in no position to do something like that. He never was."

"How can you say that about our father? What has he done for you, no, for us, other than giving the best upbringing a god could receive?"

"Then you don't know... No, how could you know? You, who care about nothing but fighting. The god of thunder, so proud of his divinity, but as pathetic as any other mortal, nothing more than a dog of our father."

"What..? Loki, you..."

"Forgive me, brother. The conversation is good, but I still have something to do. However..."

"Loki..."

Blue lightning illuminated the entire hall. Lightning dominated the place.

"Remove your hand from the flame; this is my final warning."

The runic hammer in his hands covered by even more powerful lightning. His body covered in electricity. His eyes shining. There was a blue glow that for many meant certain death.

"Tell the old man that the end is near and he can do nothing. My revenge, tell him, will be to take from him what he loves most."

"If you even think of doing anything more to Asgard, Loki, I swear..."

"Asgard...?"

Loki laughed again. But the gleam in his eyes did not return. They seemed dead, morbid eyes.

"You really don't know him, or pretend not to? Tell him that the one who will now hold the world's distinction will be me, and no one else."

"What are you..."

Thor tried, but it was too late. The flame had disappeared, and Loki was no longer there; at least he could no longer find him.

"Until next time, brother. But what a pity, the next time will also be the last..."

"Loki!!"

Lightning tore through the skies. Even outside the great hall, the glow was visible. The result of a god's fury being released all at once.

***************

With the purple flame in one hand and a small sphere with a faint blue glow emanating from its octagonal prismatic faces in the other, Loki appeared in an immense sea of ice.

"Even a portal wasn't fast enough to escape that lightning... A god of thunder, indeed."

Smoke emanating from the left side of his face.

His burnt flesh and destroyed eye slowly regenerating as he raised one hand.

The sphere rising towards the sky, its glow intensifying more and more.

The blue light covered the entire sky. A magnificent, yet frightening sight.

'He spoke with such certainty that this little toy would indeed work... to think something created with a mere hand movement could contain an entire pantheon... If one of them is so monstrous, imagine its creator. I understand why they all accepted that idiotic game without contesting. Despite the fact that they are also participating...'

After a massive bang, light followed by lightning coursed through the entire force field created by the sphere.

"They arrived much sooner than I expected."

After the first blow, sequences were made without rest. More lightning, birds turning into black smoke upon hitting the force field, and dozens of other attacks caused a simply spectacular vision for those inside the dome.

"Are you really going to do this?"

A woman appeared beside him.

One side of her face as beautiful as any other goddess, but the other with a corrosive aspect, as if in constant decomposition. She wore a long black dress that extended past her feet.

At no moment did she touch the ground.

"There is no turning back." Loki looked to the side, meeting her eyes for a brief moment. His long black hair blowing in the wind. "You know this. All of you know."

A bit further away, observing everything from behind, two colossal beings remained crouched.

A serpent with green and shining scales and eyes so large that its body extended to the edge of the energy dome, wrapping around itself at the end.

The other, equally colossal, a black-furred wolf with red eyes and flames dancing constantly in its gaze, its paws curved, in size, resembling the surrounding ice mountains, even lying on the snow, its ears easily touched the dome that reached the skies.

"From now on," Loki said, his eyes scanning the surroundings, "Ragnarok is officially declared."

As the attacks on the barrier continued, hundreds, thousands, no, millions of beings emerged from the ice desert that was that place.

Some as large as mountains, others with stature and physiognomy similar to humans.

Some, though not even close to the originals, resembled dragons—smaller, certainly, much smaller.

Their bodies more lustrous and resistant than the purest crystal, extended, along with their wings, to dozens, some to hundreds of meters: very different from dragons, indeed, whose irises, even in the smallest existing specimens, were so large that countless stars could fit in them.

***************

Chapter 8, Part 3

"What?!" exclaimed a young man on the phone. "It's barely been a week since you left home, and now you're talking about marriage?!"

"Don't ask me," replied the devastatingly beautiful girl. "I was just as surprised..."

Something fell beside the bench she was sitting on. The wind whipped her hair to the side.

"Seriously, Lior...?" As she fixed her hair, she pocketed her phone. "What are you doing here? And looking like that too."

"Marriage...?" The young man straightened his clothes, which had been messed up by the wind during his flight, and sat beside the girl—his sister. "That's insane!"

"I know..."

"Who's the i***t marrying you?"

"What? ...Repeat that."

"No... I meant you never mentioned this before. I didn't even know you had a boyfriend."

"And I didn't."

"So who...?" Lior glanced around as people gathered around where they were. "Uh, Alyia, are you wearing your mask?" he asked.

"Seriously? You didn’t even look in the mirror after you woke up and just flew over here?"

"Oh, right... Your call hit me harder than I thought... I guess I forgot."

People stared at them with a look of desire, their longing to possess them clear in their eyes. Especially Lior. To those people, he didn’t appear human, or even like a man. To some, he was nothing more than a large, juicy piece of meat, something they'd do anything to have. To others, he was an enormous, gleaming treasure, the most precious of all, that should be kept away from everyone and protected forever.

Alyia sighed.

With a simple wave of her hand, the people around them collapsed, falling unconscious in seconds. In a snap, she and Lior were no longer in that small park.

Sighing, the boy looked ahead, admiring the view through the massive glass windows that spanned the front of the grand apartment they were now in. He walked across the room, heading toward its center.

"Now that I think about it... Did you say 'didn’t have'?" Lior lay on the large couch, crossing his legs and resting his head on Alyia's lap. "What do you mean by that?"

"Exactly what you're thinking. I have a boyfriend now."

"Is it the same guy from the marriage thing?"

"Yes." Alyia began gently running her fingers through Lior’s white hair, whose roots were showing black. "I was a bit curious about how he’d react when he saw me, and also about something else..."

"Even though the mask works, it doesn’t make us look hideous like you’re implying. Even with it on, you’d still be irresistible to 99.9% of the world’s population, so it’s not strange that he’s attracted to you."

"Really?" Alyia smiled. "Are you in that 99.9%?"

Grinning, Lior replied, "Why do you think I said 99.9%?"

"You..." she lightly tugged on her brother’s hair and sighed. "But it's not just about attraction... Well, when you see him in person, you’ll understand why I was curious."

Lior looked confused. He opened his eyes, studying Alyia, trying to grasp what she meant.

"And besides, I don’t think that marriage proposal was voluntary." she added.

"So you forced him to ask?"

"Don’t be stupid!" With her free hand, Alyia flicked Lior on the forehead, gradually turning his hair golden like hers, and even shifting his features to something more... ordinary. "I don’t know why, but every time he sees me, he seems to freeze up, like he can’t think straight. For me, the proposal was just a result of that."

"Did you see each other while you weren’t wearing the mask? That would explain his reaction."

"No. I had the mask on, and the first time we met, I was soaking wet, but even then, the effect was the same."

"I don’t get it. Does water make you uglier? Do you melt like ice? HaHa!"

"Are you serious?"

"Sorry, but..." Lior sat up and faced Alyia. "I still don’t understand how he went from someone who was apparently paralyzed to proposing marriage. And I'm also curious how you ended up with a boyfriend out of all this. I should've brought Teodoro along—he’s the mind reader, not me."

"The most powerful and capable man alive, huh... well, forget that. Go deal with that rat for me."

"No, it doesn't look like that's necessary. But since you clearly don’t want to go, I’ll open the door myself."

"...What’s he coming here for?"

"What do you think? You knocked out an entire park full of people."

"...He wouldn’t come all the way from China to Korea just for that. I thought you guys were busy. At least Teodoro seems to be."

Getting up from the couch, Lior walked across the room toward the large white door.

"Ah, long time no see, Yang Kai," he said as he opened it.

"We saw each other last week," replied the tall young man with long, spiked black hair. "And is this yours?" he asked, holding a limp, unconscious man by the neck.

"Seriously?"

"Just kidding." As the man’s neck was released, he began to vanish slowly as he fell toward the ground. "I came here for another reason. I need a little favor."