"This… what is going on…?"
Surtur's eyes widened, his face full of disbelief.
He was the ruler of the kingdom of fire!
How could the power of flame betray him?
Hearing that, Odin frowned slightly. "What do you mean? Surtur, you don't know what's inside the temple?"
"Inside the temple?"
"…Nothing. This has always been my palace. Other than the pedestal of eternal flame… there was nothing."
Divine light flashed in Odin's single eye, as if it could pierce through Surtur. "Truly?"
"…"
Surtur's gigantic body trembled, as if struggling to remember something.
Suddenly, his magma pupils shrank—as though he recalled a detail he had overlooked!
"An egg! There is an egg!"
He shouted, "Thousands of years ago, when I hunted void beasts, I accidentally obtained an egg from a shattered cosmic singularity!
Its surface was smooth, and it was so tough that no matter how much force I used, I couldn't break it. Even twilight fire left no trace!
I thought it was dead, so I… placed it in the temple."
Surtur couldn't continue.
Shock and disbelief twisted his face.
Could the source of this vast power—the one causing visions of heaven and earth and stealing his authority over flame—
be that egg he had forgotten for thousands of years?
How could that be possible?
Odin's brow furrowed even deeper.
An egg?
Absurd.
He had fought across the Nine Realms and seen countless strange lives—star-devouring beasts, spirits born from black holes—
but no life could possess such terrifying power before it even hatched!
This was no mere energy output.
It was something that could crush the will and personality of all beings.
"Keep him under watch."
Odin ordered the Asgardian warriors behind him. Ignoring Surtur with Gungnir poised, he walked toward the Temple of Flame—the sanctuary worshiped by ten thousand fires.
The warriors behind him felt the solemn pressure emanating from the God-King at this moment. They lined up one after another, surrounding the heavily wounded Surtur, not daring even to breathe too loudly.
The temple gates stood open—like the gaping mouth of a giant that had decided to devour.
The closer Odin got, the more clearly he sensed the essence of that power:
Pure.
Divine.
If Surtur's twilight fire was turbid fire, mixed with destruction, sulfur, death, and countless negative concepts—
then the power within this temple was true fire, removing all impurities and leaving only two most primitive, core concepts:
Burning and Light!
It did not feel aggressive, yet it was more evolved than any aggressive flame.
Because it was not using flame.
It was flame itself.
The moment Odin stepped into the temple, he saw it.
In the deepest part of the temple, beside what had once been Surtur's throne, a golden egg about half a person tall floated silently in midair.
It was filled with brilliance. Its surface looked like spiraling galaxies, overflowing with a sacred, noble aura.
And the flame power of all Muspelheim had become a visible torrent, swallowed whole—
all drawn into the eggshell without even a trace leaking out.
That vast aura that had shaken Odin…
was erupting from this egg!
"Unexpected… it really is an egg…"
Odin stood frozen, his eyes blazing with fear and disbelief.
He could sense it: the energy aura of this egg was completely different from the chaos, wrath, and destruction of the entire fire realm.
It was sacred, creative, overflowing with light's charm.
It belonged neither to Muspelheim nor to any realm he knew!
At this moment, the God-King who had experienced hundreds of battles and witnessed countless cosmic miracles…
felt a storm rise in his heart like never before.
He had seen too many flames across the Nine Realms.
There was Surtur's Twilight Fire, said to be capable of triggering Ragnarok.
In his vault, there was the Eternal Flame, a wonder that could grant life.
But—
Compared to the aura released by the egg before him, none of those flames even qualified!
Whether it was twilight fire's final destiny or the eternal flame's authority over life, all of it seemed low-level before this aura!
Those were merely applications of specific flame rules—imitations of particular laws.
But what this egg symbolized was Origin!
It transcended elements, transcended rules, pointing directly at the most fundamental source of the universe…
Ultimate power!
It wasn't about using flame—
it was about defining flame!
…