Chapter 104: Chapter 104: No More Negotiation
As the god of the deep sea, Ægir's vision was never his strong suit. Ironically, his eyes were among the most fragile parts of his body.
When he instinctively raised his arm to shield himself, the thunderous blast of lightning rippled out in a luminous ring from the point of impact—and in that instant, he regretted everything.
"AAAAAARGH—!"
The blue scales along his right arm flared, curled, and peeled away under the stimulation of divine lightning. His skin—built for the rigors of ocean warfare—instantly turned to charred blackened flesh, and the sheer nerve-shock made his arm flail violently outward on reflex.
Thor was thirty meters tall—hardly small. But in front of Ægir's hundred-meter frame, he was like a child.
One swipe of Ægir's massive arm sent the Thunder God flying like a cannonball. Thor, realizing he couldn't dodge in time, immediately shrank himself to reduce impact.
BOOM!
Thor crashed at a 30-degree angle into an undersea reef, shaking the surrounding seafloor like a minor quake.
But the Aesir assault wasn't over.
Another figure burst from the rainbow light—this time a burly, bearded god, slightly smaller than Thor at 25 meters tall.
He exhaled sharply and threw what looked, at first, like a giant toothpick.
No—that was just the illusion of scale.
As soon as the projectile left his hand, it expanded, transforming mid-air into a 40-meter short spear.
Before Ægir could react, the tip of the spear tore through space like it was piercing invisible glass—then it vanished.
It reappeared mid-flight—already inside Ægir's chest.
His three-meter-thick muscle, one-meter-thick dense dermis, and half-meter layer of blue armor-scale—all failed to stop it.
The massive divine spear passed straight through him.
It emerged from his back, drawing a long arc of radiant energy and flinging blue-black ichor and chunks of heart tissue into the sea.
"AAARRRGHH! You dare injure me—the Supreme One?!"
Ægir's enraged howl became the trigger for the Aesir's all-out assault.
The Supreme One?
Then what does that make our God-King?!
A surge of Aesir gods and their giant allies poured from the Bifrost, weapons raised, their feet pounding across the damp seabed as they stormed Ægir.
To be fair, Ægir was somewhat impressive.
Even deprived of the sea's blessing, he infused his monstrous sea creatures with bubbles of his divine water, letting them breathe and fight in open air.
Unfortunately…
This was land warfare.
A hundred sea monsters didn't compare to a single Aesir god.
A bizarre anglerfish hybrid—like a ten-meter fish with humanoid limbs—raised a trident, only to be cleaved down the middle by Týr, the war god, who swung a blazing golden sword from a distance.
Shing!
In a flash, the fish-thing was bisected cleanly from brow to belly. If one had superhuman eyes, they'd see the glow of the sword first tracing a vertical line between its eyes—then spreading downward.
Nearby, a massive crab over 40 meters wide rushed at Baldr, the god of light, its claws snapping.
But one flash from Baldr's divine bolt—and its shell turned molten. What looked like golden lava burst from its face before dissolving into a mist of glowing dust, gone with the wind.
Even Týr and Baldr—usually frontline gods—had come down to deal with the rabble.
There simply weren't enough powerful enemies to go around.
With Ægir and Rán already booked, Týr and Baldr didn't want to lower themselves like Víðarr, who was busy wrangling Ægir's nine daughters—the so-called Wave Maidens.
Those girls, all bearing snowy white skin and arms, deep-blue eyes, and dangerously enchanting figures, were now locked in desperate resistance. But it was no use. Every time they struck back, another divine ambush—another magical net—fell over their heads.
After just a few exchanges, only the strongest among them, Bylgja (Great Wave), was still holding out—barely. She would've been down already, if not for Máni, the gentle giant who worried he might accidentally kill her and so held back.
As for Rán, the sea goddess—
She was up against Hela.
When Rán saw a half-divine, half-deathly figure riding on a hundred-meter-long hellhound, she nearly screamed in terror.
Then came Hela's cold voice:
"Stealing souls from Helheim. That made you happy, didn't it?"
The tide had turned.
Had the ocean still been hers, Rán would have retaliated without hesitation.
But on land? Her powers were halved, at best.
She glanced around, saw her forces collapsing on all fronts, and grew hesitant. "We… we can compensate…"
"Good."
"You can atone with your soul."
Rán's expression darkened. "So there's no room for negotiation?"
"Negotiations ended," said Hela, "the moment you started killing ships flying the Aesir's banner."
Seated comfortably atop her hellhound Garmr, Hela raised a single finger.
Garmr charged.
Each stomp of his paws scorched the earth—his soul-fire burned at such a low temperature it could extinguish life itself. Just looking at him sapped Rán's will to fight.
In desperation, she cast out her infamous nets.
These were woven from the mutated silk of abyssal sea spiders—strong enough to snare entire ships.
But the moment they hit Garmr, they burst into blue flame.
The nets turned to ashes in seconds.
Not only had they failed to restrain the beast—they'd taken away her last chance to escape.
In a blur, Hela and her mount were on her.
Rán saw fangs coming from every direction—above, below, left, right. She couldn't even scream properly.
"Aaaaah!"
Even at fifty meters tall, half her body disappeared into Garmr's gaping jaws.
A gush of foul-smelling blue blood exploded from his mouth and splashed across her face.
It took her two full seconds to realize—it was her own.
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