Chapter 140: Rhongomyniad
Lightning raged.
Electricity surged in every direction, spreading like an enormous net above the deep valley ringed by endless snowcapped peaks. Thor's pale figure seemed to dissolve into the thunder itself. His heavy fist drove Mjolnir again and again into the storm spear in Rowe's hands.
He pressed closer step by step, tightening the noose of power.
From afar, Rowe looked like a beast caught in a trap. Still vicious. Still moving. Still refusing to fall. Yet the space he could claim was shrinking, inch by inch, as if his boots had sunk into a swamp that did not exist on any map.
Skaði noticed it, and her fingers curled into a tight fist.
A voice rose within her, sharp and amused.
Scathach.
"Should you not be happy?" Scathach said. "If he dies, you can return to Asgard."
Skaði answered at once, without hesitation.
"Even if I hate admitting it, if he dies, I die too."
"Oh my. Giving up already?"
"I am not giving up. I just do not want to die. Not like this. Not for nothing." Skaði drew a slow breath.
Of course she still did not accept Rowe. After so many years, an Asgardian god's sense of belonging did not shatter overnight.
And she still had an opening.
As long as she could reach Odin, she believed he would listen to her explanation.
Not because she trusted Odin with childish faith, but because Odin was the wise God King. He had hung himself upon the World Tree for seven days and seven nights to seize primordial wisdom. The Runes he created contained all things. A being like that would not be deceived by a Wild Hunt King who commanded giants and stole their strength.
But to see Odin, Rowe had to survive first.
Because if Rowe died, she would die with him.
That was Thor's nature.
He had once treated her with kindness, like a younger sister, but the moment they stood as enemies, mercy ceased to exist. War God was not a praise born from gentleness.
So Rowe must not die.
Scathach's voice slid in again.
"Want to help him?"
"Helping him is helping me."
"Then throw your spear high into the sky."
"Good."
With a single thought, Skaði lifted her hand. Her long sleeves swayed like clouds. Five slender fingers pinched at the air itself.
Shadows spread.
A crimson spear formed in her palm.
The Spear of Piercing Thorns.
A replica of Odin's meteor spear, Gungnir.
Skaði gripped it, and then hurled it forward.
At the same moment, Thor raised Mjolnir. Lightning condensed across the hammer's surface, swirling into a vortex like a churning galaxy. His tall divine body sprang into the air.
Like a meteor, he smashed down toward Rowe.
Fur along his cloak shook free like drifting dust.
Behind the mask, Rowe's face remained calm. Light and darkness alternated in his eyes, as if his gaze contained two skies.
The path was there.
He could feel it, right ahead.
But how did one walk a road no one had ever walked, when direction itself refused to take shape?
Even with monstrous computational power, the answer did not exist.
So he used the only tool left.
Human thought.
He had an idea.
If nothing interfered, he could make it real.
What a pity.
Rowe exhaled softly and drove the spear toward the descending Mjolnir. He was ready to manifest the Machina God form, to crush the gap through sheer specification.
Then a sharp sound ripped through the air.
A dark purple spear shot upward and struck Mjolnir head on.
Clash.
Collision.
Rowe froze.
He recognized that spear. It was Skaði's throw.
Yet in that same instant, he saw something else.
A purple figure, faint and swift, like a reflection stepping out of a mirror.
A valiant female warrior.
Similar to Skaði, yet clearly not her.
Scathach.
Rowe understood immediately.
Lightning hesitated for a heartbeat.
That spear could only hold Thor for one second.
But one second was enough.
In the next instant, the thunder crashed down again.
"Thanks," Rowe said.
"You are welcome."
The spear was smashed back toward the ground. The faint purple figure blurred, yet a voice seemed to echo alongside it, light as mockery and sharp as a blade.
Rowe tightened his grip on his spear and dragged it in a spiral.
The momentum changed.
Thor, holding Mjolnir, frowned deeply. The hammer was already falling. It could not be recalled, so he poured more power into it instead.
The cube on his chest and the cubes on his hands flared. Layers of lightning became so dense they turned almost pure black.
A mechanism of destruction moved within it, like a program executing a single command.
Lightning is the most terrifying force the human eye can witness in nature.
So it can naturally represent destruction.
Even a God King would hesitate to face this strike head on.
Rowe did not hesitate.
He dragged the spear, lifted the tip, and gathered storm upon it.
Then they collided.
The firmament shook without pause.
The earth's groan deepened.
At the point where divine weapons met, the divine layer covering the surface of the celestial body revealed thin, dark cracks. Invisible ripples spread outward like wrinkles on paper being smoothed flat again.
Lightning and storm were both pinned to that paper thin surface.
A single sharp point held back the falling hammer.
Thor's eyes widened.
Not because Rowe blocked him.
Not because Rowe pierced the encirclement of lightning through perfect timing and angle.
But because the way Rowe lifted the spear was not the way a spear should move.
It was the way a hammer moved.
The way Mjolnir moved.
"I have mastered your technique, Thor."
Rowe's voice echoed, deep and steady. Behind the mask, his eyes burned like fire.
He retreated several steps, robe snapping in the wind. As his cloak billowed, storms gathered along the spear's surface again, compressing, shaping, thickening, as if the spear itself was becoming a long hammer.
"This move."
"Strike Air."
It was a martial art that imitated Thor's power, then fused it with Rowe's own understanding, and finally became something new.
The air currents twisting along its surface resembled the lightning that converged upon Mjolnir's face.
Chaotic at a glance.
Yet every strand had purpose, whether for assault or for sealing, all aligned, all in order.
Thor's combat looked wild.
But the techniques hidden beneath it lived in details so fine they vanished under the spectacle of raw power.
The Norse were rugged. The Norse gods valued freedom. That never meant they were crude.
Thor's single hammer strike had been refined tens of millions of times.
Rowe's spear was no different now.
With his own comprehension, he gathered vast computational power into a single point, reaching the state where his movement followed his will without delay.
This way.
"This is more like it." Thor did not rage. He rejoiced. "Fighting with brute force alone is a beast's brawl. Savage grappling is what a wild ox does."
"Now you are worthy to be my opponent, King of the Wild Hunt."
Thor was a fanatic of battle.
A God of War.
A martial artist.
As his fighting spirit rose, the lightning coiling around him grew more violent and more explosive.
The god was joyful.
The god was also furious.
"Come, King of the Wild Hunt. Let us continue."
Thor raised Mjolnir again.
Hammer and spear separated.
The God of Thunder pulled back, not to retreat, but to gather greater power, to unveil the more terrifying authority of lightning.
He swung violently.
Thunder surged.
Silver white light gathered around him, forming a vast sea of lightning suspended in the sky.
That sea crushed everything within its range.
Dust.
Cloud.
Air currents.
Even the concept of sky where he stood.
Shattered concepts turned into pure energy, absorbed by the ethereal blue cubes on his body, converted into divine power, and fed back into even greater lightning.
Inner and outer, cycling without pause.
The lightning's territory expanded.
This was.
"Mjolnir, the Storm of Ten Thousand Thunders."
Thor lifted the hammer high. Behind the helmet, his eyes turned into flashing lightning.
Rowe's expression grew solemn.
Thor had begun to unleash his strongest.
Might and skill fused into one, the ultimate authority of the strongest War God among the Aesir.
So in the brief interval where his robe and cloak whipped in the light of countless thunders, Rowe tightened his grip on the storm spear and turned it slightly.
His eyes closed behind the mask.
The spear tip rose, pointing to the dome of the sky. A gentle breeze spread outward, carrying invisible ripples that swayed softly, as if stroking the world's skin.
Rowe's consciousness emptied.
As the King of Storms, he felt the world's breath.
The rotation of the stars.
With the Sword of Rupture he wielded, he drew close to this land covered by myth.
At least in this moment, the clash with Thor held no schemes. No hidden tools. No external leverage.
Only pure might.
Only pure technique.
So Rowe answered with everything he had gained in this battle.
It was respect.
And it was an opportunity.
Transformation is born under pressure.
And today, only Thor could create pressure heavy enough to force change in Rowe while he remained in human form.
So what should Rowe call his strongest?
Strip away Atlantis's Machina God power.
Strip away the celestial fortress body stolen from Cronus.
What remained?
Chains of Heaven.
The primal stellar rotation that birthed Ea.
Gilgamesh's Gate of Babylon, that seemingly endless collection.
No.
None of those.
His strongest was the road he had walked.
The great deeds etched into the age where gods vanished.
The brilliance that closed the myths of prior generations.
A special attack against mythology itself, against eras.
That was his most potent authority.
Rowe opened his eyes.
A light, prolonged wind gathered around his body.
In that moment, he perceived the world.
He perceived the membrane of the mythic realm.
Then ten thousand thunders roared, and Mjolnir spun.
Thor's power reached its peak.
"King of the Wild Hunt, let me, Thor, verify whether you can bear that name."
Thor hurled the hammer.
Thunder and lightning poured down like a bursting mountain flood, swallowing Rowe from above.
Before the heavens, Rowe's shadow looked small.
On the ground. Under the ground. In the sky.
Countless gods watched from afar, unseen, drawn to a clash between kings that had not appeared in nearly ten thousand years.
The firmament trembled.
The earth groaned.
Facing an impact like a stampede of ten thousand horses, Rowe only tightened his grip and released a stream of storm light from the spear tip.
Not the crimson primal storm.
Not the Sword of Rupture's power.
But a new storm born in that instant of comprehension.
It spiraled.
It diffused.
At its boundary, space folds appeared, then shattered. The sky that remained was still sky, yet it no longer felt like the same sky.
It was the true face of the stars, beneath the veil of the Age of Gods.
This spear was a line of brilliance, not dazzling, not ostentatious.
This spear did not display the earthshaking spectacle of Thor.
Yet it could end any myth.
This was.
"Rhongomyniad, the Spear That Shines at the End."
Rhongomyniad.
Rowe named it after the Holy Spear he knew.
It was the wind he extracted from the stars' true nature after perceiving the storm of this world.
Its meaning was deep.
Not dazzling, yet capable of shining in any era.
As he raised it, it spiraled open.
The world was enveloped by it.
Half the world, in that instant, collided with the sea of ten thousand thunders.
Overflowing light drowned all things.
Everything fell onto a painter's canvas, stripped of color with ruthless precision, leaving only lines and surfaces.
Clashing with the God of Thunder.
Drawing out the full might of Thor, stronger now after having once tasted death.
Whatever Rowe's true identity, from this moment forward, he would be etched into myth.
Not because of his origin.
But because of his name.
As the final collision approached, Thor stood at the heart of the thunder sea and stared toward the shadow above the brilliant spear.
"What is your name?"
Rowe looked down. Fur along his cloak fluttered. Behind the mask, golden fire held a trace of thought.
"Rowe."
He was Rowe.
The one illuminated by light.
The recorder of myths who crossed the world and left footsteps where no one could follow.
Thor grinned.
"I will remember that."
"My name is Thor."
"Firstborn son of Odin. Norse God of War. Wielder of thunder. Guardian god of farmers."
Those were the last words that echoed between heaven and earth.
They were also the words carved into the chapters of mythology.
"In the ancient Nibelungenlied, the King of the Wild Hunt once called himself Rowe. Later generations investigated this name's origin. After many certifications and comparisons, they reached one conclusion. The King of the Wild Hunt had a connection to, or was even the very same person as, the sage who appeared in Mesopotamian and Greek myths."
"It might be coincidence. Or perhaps in that distant age of myths, there truly was such a person who traveled everywhere, leaving different deeds behind, and thus became myth. Who knows."
A Study of World Mythology.
"Rowe."
Skaði, holding the fallen crimson spear, stared at the unbelievable battle high above and tightened her grip on the shaft.
She repeated the name that had echoed through heaven and earth, and forced herself to remember it.
She did not want to admit it, but she understood.
At least in appearance, Rowe's battle with Thor was fought to protect her.
She understood many things.
She knew Rowe was using her.
She knew he protected her not out of kindness, but because he did not want to lose her, the one who understood the Norse world, the one who carried secrets of the Aesir like a living archive.
The Snow Mountain Goddess was pure.
She was not foolish.
She knew.
Yet a strange thought still rose.
A strange emotion, born from seeing someone fight for her, from hearing someone stake themselves to keep her alive.
It refused to be suppressed.
Because this was humanity.
The human character a god must carry, if they want to remain a self instead of a function.
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