Gullveig widened her eyes, almost unable to believe what she had just heard.
It had been too long.
So long that she had almost forgotten she was once a goddess skilled in magic and alchemy.
Even after the fall of the Vanir gods, out of fear of being targeted by her old peers, she had clung desperately to Thalos—the greatest pillar of the Aesir—throwing herself into mastering dance in order to avoid being cast aside by Thalos for newer favors.
Who would have thought that one day she might stand on her own again?
"I will, Your Majesty!" Gullveig raised her hand and used a mysterious force to envelop the massive blob of venom. She conjured glass containers one after another to carefully store the deadly venom, potent enough to kill even gods.
Finally being entrusted with real work made her happy, though she also felt a bit conflicted. If she started working immediately, would she have no time to show off her painstakingly practiced "Eighteen Deadly Dances"?
Seeing through her little thoughts at a glance, Thalos waved at her from a distance: "Come on, keep the music going, keep dancing."
During the festivities, Freyja whispered to him, "Was that serpent also a chaos monster?"
"It is, and it isn't."
"How so?" Freyja asked coyly.
"If we leave it alone, it would grow to encircle Midgard and become the World Serpent, a true threat to Asgard. But now... it won't have that chance."
If it could merely grow large enough to fill a small sea, that would be Jörmungandr's limit in this world.
And if they developed an antidote to its venom, it would be no more than an oversized eel.
At that point, even if it rebelled, it wouldn't take Thor alone to kill it.
After three days cruising the seas, Thalos returned to Asgard.
He still wanted to wait and see if there was news of the death goddess Hel, but after giving birth to two apocalypse-level offspring, Angrboda's body was weakened, and for the time being, there was no new movement in her womb.
This left Thalos a bit regretful.
Still, it didn't stop him from sending his einherjar to search Niflheim for the whereabouts of Sköll.
About a month later, the report came back—they had found him.
"Ho? This is interesting."
Niflheim, the land of cold, damp fog.
It was a place surrounded by mountains.
Gale-force winds howled through the cliffs like knives, creating eerie, ghostly wails.
The winds in the valleys were strong, yet they didn't scatter the cold fog—instead, the fog seemed to flow on its own.
Amidst the mist, a black giant beast sprinted through. Each massive pawstep kicked up tons of sand and stones. The sheer force of its movement blew aside the dense mist, and with a dramatic leap, it pounced a hundred meters forward, easily killing a thick mist monster.
Just as Sköll was about to feast, he suddenly sensed danger and jerked his head up to the sky.
He instantly spotted a pair of enormous divine eyes within the clouds.
After a moment of stunned surprise, he forced down the pain from the sword embedded in his jaw and let out a deep, defiant roar.
He didn't recognize these eyes, yet with his extraordinary senses, he could feel a thread of destiny—a connection to the god who had killed his father and brother!
Enraged, Sköll leapt towards the sky. For a wolf the height of ten stories, a hundred-meter vertical leap was astonishing.
But it was ultimately laughable—he couldn't threaten Thalos, far away in Asgard, or even destroy the divine sight projection.
The foolish wolf, in desperation, started circling madly beneath the magic eyes.
"This intelligence..." Thalos chuckled.
Only now did he realize the hidden benefit of killing Fenrir: Sköll was at least one level dumber than his father. Otherwise, these brothers wouldn't have spent their lives chasing the sun and moon.
If Thalos had a cream pie in hand, he might've thrown it down just to tease the stupid wolf.
Indeed, Sköll wasn't worthy of being called a wolf—he was more like a dumb, vicious dog.
But a vicious dog, nonetheless.
No matter. Since he had found him, Thalos had a hundred ways to deal with him.
From the heavens, the divine eyes suddenly released a cascade of flashing runes.
Sköll instinctively tried to dodge, but the runes seemed alive, deftly changing course in midair, much faster than the wolf's evasions. In an instant, they all struck around his neck.
"Awuu!" Sköll let out a fearful cry as countless runes seared into his flesh, forming a massive black collar.
The collar fused with the cursed chain Gleipnir still around his neck, tightening mercilessly. Behind his head, hidden from his view, the slack chain began to rise toward the sky, gradually fading from sight.
No one knew that Thalos had seized the phantom end of the chain across dimensions.
The chain above Sköll's head disappeared.
It was as if nothing had happened. Sköll looked around in confusion and, seeing no change, his hunger drove him to leave in search of new prey.
Only Thalos, seated on the Supreme Throne, smiled faintly: "So this is the 'Wolf Calamity'? Rather laughable!"
When he had first transmigrated, Thalos had taken Ragnarok very seriously.
The kind of disaster that could wipe out an entire race—gods included—was no trivial matter.
But now, facing it directly, he realized: yes, it was terrifying, but nowhere near as bad as he had imagined.
After careful analysis, it was clear—ninety percent of the problem was Odin's fault!
In the epics, Odin barely ever left Asgard.
Monitoring the vast Nine Realms, he relied on only two ravens.
He dumped all disasters and crises onto Thor.
No matter how strong Thor was, he wasn't omnipotent—and there was only one Thor.
Odin didn't even bother sending his other sons.
Simply put, Odin was lazy.
Odin's typical four-stage handling of disasters:
First Stage: Claim that nothing is wrong.
Second Stage: Acknowledge something might be wrong, but do nothing.
Third Stage: Admit something should be done, but claim nothing can be done.
Fourth Stage: Admit action could have been taken, but now it's too late.
Odin was exactly the type to let a minor issue escalate through all four stages until it became an unmanageable catastrophe.
Seeing a god foolishly bring about his own death and the extinction of his people, Thalos felt nothing but contempt.
More and more, he felt he could no longer recognize such a foolish brother as his own.
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