Thor was struck by the sheer force of the sight before him.
Laufey, King of the Frost Giants, had also witnessed the scene, his eyes nearly bursting from rage.
The frost giants, now like lifeless puppets, had things writhing beneath their skin—shadows creeping and crawling, devouring their flesh and blood. Wherever the bulges moved, the flesh beneath instantly shriveled away.
It was as if countless flesh-eating insects gnawed beneath their skin, devouring them at terrifying speed.
In the blink of an eye, those towering frost giants were reduced to husks, their massive frames nothing but brittle skeletons wrapped in withered blue skin.
A gust of wind blew.
Their bodies collapsed at once, shattering into fragments that scattered across the ground like dry earth. Dust and debris filled the air.
"What... what did he just do!?" Thor felt his spine go cold, a chill far more dreadful than the frozen air around him.
He couldn't make sense of it. To him, Herman hadn't even moved. Yet before his very eyes, the frost giants had withered away into corpses, their life force gone in an instant.
Dozens of frost giants—each on par with Asgard's finest warriors.
Dead, without a sound, without resistance. The sight shook Thor more than watching Herman crush a frost giant's skull with a single punch ever had. He already knew Herman was strong, but this... this wasn't something physical strength could explain.
"Is it his divinity? Or something else?" Thor swallowed hard, relief creeping into him that Herman wasn't his enemy. If he could slaughter the frost giants silently, what would stop him from doing the same to an Asgardian like Thor?
Unthinkable. Unbearable. Thor shuddered, goosebumps crawling over his body as he stared at the horrific remains.
"You dare!" Laufey lay on the ground, his skull pinned beneath Herman's boot, yet he had watched the slaughter of his most trusted warriors with his own eyes.
They had been the hope of his people's return to glory.
Now, all gone.
"All gone! All gone!" Laufey hammered Herman's thigh with fists strong enough to move mountains, yet he couldn't make the man so much as flinch.
His violent thrashing left him gasping for air. Half his head burned to ash beneath the golden flames, only to be rebuilt again and again by layers of frost.
But his energy was almost gone. His massive body had dimmed, the color of his skin darker and lifeless compared to before.
"Hm?"
Herman pressed his foot harder. Laufey screamed in agony, his struggle weakening at once.
"Don't interrupt me while I study my spoils."
Herman turned his gaze to the Casket of Ancient Winters. His [Realm of the Dead] had remained in its embryonic form ever since he drew the [Lord of the Dead] identity.
That was always the way of the [All-Seeing Eye]—it only handed him a blank canvas, leaving Herman to fill in the rest.
The rank of the identity only seemed to decide the size and scope of that canvas. The true authority and strength it granted were another matter entirely.
"The Realm of Death... in the Marvel Universe."
Herman's eyes flickered with interest.
The Casket's power came from that very realm. Naturally, it could provide immense benefit to his [Realm of the Dead].
"It is the sacred relic of the Frost Giants! It is ours! You vile creature! You're no different from Odin—both of you greedy thieves!"
With his elite warriors dead and his conquering army destroyed, Laufey couldn't bear to lose the Casket as well.
Even under immense pain, he roared madly, stretching out his arm in desperation, clawing to seize the artifact held high in Herman's hand. His crazed expression showed he no longer cared whether he lived or died.
But no matter how desperately he reached, he couldn't touch it. Herman held it just out of reach, mocking him with its height.
"Didn't you say power is truth? I now hold power that crushes yours, yet you still won't accept my truth."
Herman weighed the Casket in his hand. He knew how much it meant to the Frost Giants.
"It never belonged to you in the first place. You stole it from someone else. Now it's in my hands, and that makes it mine."
His tone was calm, almost clinical.
And he was right.
The artifact had once been in the hands of the Frost Giants, but after their defeat, Odin had taken it.
What Laufey never admitted was that the Casket was never theirs to begin with. As a cosmic relic, they had only stumbled across it and claimed it by force—no different from what Herman was doing now.
If anything, the Frost Giants' method of seizing it had been far more brutal. One only had to look at how they treated other races to know the kind of people they truly were.
"No! No! You're lying! It's ours! It's mine!" Laufey, King of the Frost Giants, roared louder and louder, his voice breaking with madness.
His eyes were wild, reason long gone. The runes etched across his icy skin blazed at full overload, his entire body straining as he tried to wrest the Casket of Ancient Winters from Herman's grasp.
"You've lived so many years, and yet you still don't understand a simple truth? Only those with absolute power are worthy to possess the treasures of this world." Herman spoke calmly, almost instructively, as though reciting a law of the universe—but Laufey refused to listen.
"Thief! Thief! You and Odin are the same! Both of you are nothing but greedy, plundering thieves of the cosmos!" Laufey howled, his voice breaking into curses.
To the Frost Giants, the war of ages past had been Odin's fault. It was, in their eyes, his greed for the Casket that had sparked the conflict.
"Thieves? Is that what you call those stronger than you? Then what do you think the civilizations you once invaded called you?"
Herman sneered, curling his lip at the accusation. He had his own view of the truth.
He couldn't be certain whether the Frost Giants had sparked the war by invading Asgard's backyard—Earth.
But one thing he could say for sure: Odin never lusted after the Casket of Ancient Winters. Herman knew this even before he crossed into this universe, from the countless speculations of Marvel fans.
Everyone knew Odin's Vault contained an Infinity Gauntlet. Many claimed it was a fake, but that never made sense.
If it was fake, how could Thanos' gauntlet have been identical? And how did Thanos know the dwarves could forge it?
This was the puzzle that fans debated endlessly. Looking deeper into the lore, the answer was almost inevitable: Odin had owned the real gauntlet.
Because Odin was the one who forged it first.
He had once sought to gather the Infinity Stones before Thanos ever set out. His plan had been to use them to conquer realms beyond the Nine Realms.
The evidence was everywhere. The Space Stone was explicitly said to have been placed on Earth by Odin himself.
The Reality Stone, too, had passed into his hands as a war trophy. Two Infinity Stones ending up with Odin was no coincidence.
And there was more.
Look closely at the glow of the seal when Thanos sacrificed his beloved to gain the Soul Stone. That light was the same hue as the Bifröst of Asgard. That could not have been chance.
All the signs pointed in one direction: Odin had once tried to gather the Infinity Stones, and had even forged the gauntlet capable of unleashing their combined power.
Maybe he had even succeeded, creating his version of an ideal world—only to abandon it for reasons unknown.
"Perhaps it ties to Odin's shift, from a conqueror to the so-called peacemaker he is now..." Herman mused. It was only his own conjecture, combined with the analyses of fans from before his transmigration.
The real truth? Only Odin himself could know.
But one thing was undeniable: Odin had no desire to wield the Stones' power. He knew exactly what they could do, yet he chose to seal them away.
How could someone like that covet the Casket of Ancient Winters?
The Casket was indeed a relic of power—but compared to the Infinity Stones, it was nothing more than a toy car against a nuclear tank.
"The victor writes history. You need to learn to accept reality. Allow me to show you the true way this relic should be used."
Herman lifted the Casket high in one hand.
"No! You can't take it!"
Cornered at last, Laufey's runes blazed brighter than ever, his body surging with frigid power. He pushed his limits, clawing for one last chance.
"Hm?"
Herman felt the sudden change but wasn't the least surprised. He simply increased the divine fire flowing beneath his foot. Herman could channel that fire through any part of his body.
Any part.
"Ahhh!"
The frigid power within Laufey collapsed instantly. His entire head turned black like scorched charcoal. No matter how desperately he summoned his ice to resist, nothing could quench the divine fire consuming him.
"Haven't you figured it out yet? The reason I haven't killed you isn't because you're special—it's because I wanted an audience to keep me entertained."
Herman turned the Casket of Ancient Winters over in his palm, his voice calm and unhurried. Not far away, Thor raised a hand with a laugh.
"Am I not a worthy spectator?"
He even gave Herman a little wave.
But Herman ignored him completely.
"Fine, I'll just stand here and watch..." Thor forced a crooked smile, twirling Mjolnir in his hands to hide his awkwardness.
"If you've got the guts, then release me! Face me honorably in battle!" Laufey roared.
"I permit you only to watch with your eyes. Nothing more." Herman's tone was cold as he pressed his foot down harder.
Laufey tried to rise, but found his body crushed back into the ground by an invisible force far stronger than before.
This time, not just his head and neck—his entire body was immobilized. Herman's words echoed mercilessly in his mind.
Only to watch. Nothing else.
"You're mocking me!" Laufey bellowed in rage, his eyes bulging as he struggled pointlessly. He had no idea what sorcery Herman had bound him with this time.
His only relief was that without the divine fire scorching him, his shattered head quickly reformed under the chill of his icy power.
"Have you ever tried using it like this?" Herman asked softly. With one hand he lifted the Casket, and with the other, he drove his palm directly into its core.
A terrible force writhed inside. Boundless cold erupted from the artifact, flooding into Herman's body.
The deathly chill of the Marvel Universe's Realm of the Dead crawled up his arm, racing across his body until, in the space of a heartbeat, his entire form was dyed a frigid blue.
"What!?"
Laufey's eyes widened in disbelief.
Never, not in any age, had a Frost Giant dared attempt to absorb the Casket's core! It was pure suicide. Within it lay power strong enough to freeze the Nine Realms.
Even Thor, watching from nearby, was struck dumb with horror.
The fact that Herman could withstand the Casket's rays was already impossible to comprehend. But now, this mortal of Midgard—this man—was trying to absorb the Casket's entire essence.
"Your soul will be frozen into dust!" Laufey screamed, though his voice carried a flicker of desperate hope.
If Herman died from his own recklessness, then Laufey might yet escape this doomed fate, retreat to Jotunheim, and recover his strength.
But why here? Why in this barren Midgard wilderness would such a being exist?
"It's Odin! Odin's conspiracy! And Loki! Cursed Asgard! That wretched trickster—he's nothing but a conniving beast!" Laufey spat, his fury boiling over as he cursed them both.
"Hey! Laufey! Watch your tongue! I won't allow you to insult my brother!" Thor raised Mjolnir, his voice thunderous.
"Your brother!? He's nothing but a rat in the gutter! A scheming vermin, just like that old thief Odin!"
"I curse him! I curse him and you! May your whole family die wretched deaths!" Laufey's rage drowned out his reason.
"And this Midgard human too! He dares to steal the Casket's power—he will surely be consumed by its backlash!"
He turned to Herman again—only for his face to freeze in shock.
"No... No, it can't be! Our sacred relic!" Laufey's voice cracked as he stared in horror. The Casket of Ancient Winters had lost all its glow, and Herman stood there, eyes closed, his expression one of utter enjoyment. "What kind of monster are you!? How can you absorb a power meant to destroy all life!?"
Laufey's voice broke entirely, trembling with terror. His whole body shuddered with the weight of fear.
What kind of existence was he truly facing...?
"The power to destroy all life? Yes... that's true."
Herman opened his eyes. The golden radiance was gone, replaced by a deep, abyssal black. The coldness in his gaze was so absolute it seemed capable of freezing souls in place.
"But remember— I stand above all life. I hold dominion over both life and death."
He stepped forward slowly.
"No! Stay back! Spare me! Please, I beg you!" Laufey's eyes were wide with horror. He felt as though he were staring directly at Death itself.
"Rest easy. Just like the other Frost Giants, death will not be your end."
Herman raised his hand and drove it clean through Laufey's chest.
When he tore free a still-beating heart, the king's face froze in mid-expression. His massive body lost all color and toppled with a crash, shattering into icy shards mixed with frozen blue blood.
"That is only the beginning of your suffering."
In Herman's black eyes, a reflection took shape—a world drowned in misery.
There, in that vision, bitter winds howled, and countless Frost Giants wailed in endless torment.
...
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