When he opened his eyes, he was not himself.

The world he saw burned red and black. Endless rivers of fire flowed like molten veins, curling through a land made of obsidian glass.

Mountains shimmered faintly under a heat that had existed before names. The air trembled with power, heavy and alive.

Reinhard found he was standing at the edge of that fiery world as Odin. The space between this realm and the frost one was a wide, shimmering expanse.

He could still sense the frost realm far behind, its chill whispering across his back, even as heat licked at his front.

He took a step forward.

The ground cracked beneath his foot, glass fracturing but not breaking. The firelight reflected against his pale skin, and for a moment, the flames seemed to bow in recognition.

He walked.

The rivers hissed around him, and the fields of black sang quietly as they shifted under his steps. Each breath filled his lungs with warmth so intense it hurt, but he kept moving, his gaze distant.

His thoughts churned like the molten rivers. The frost giants actions haunted him, their endless destruction, their lack of care, their refusal to nurture anything but ruin. He'd watched them tear apart what they built, watched them crush life under the excuse of survival.

They couldn't stop themselves.

He remembered their hollow eyes, their voices like cracking ice. They didn't understand growth, they only understood their desire and destruction.

And that thought brought bitterness to his tongue.

As Odin walked across the burning plain, he spoke softly to himself. "Always the same… they build, they destroy, they repeat. No thought beyond this."

He kicked at a shard of black rocks, sending it skittering down a molten slope.

"They destroy because that's all they can do."

The words stung more than he expected.

The flames around him pulsed brighter, reflecting his frustration. He laughed quietly, a short, weary sound that echoed against the molten rivers. "To think." He murmured. "The only realm they can't ruin… is the one that would burn them alive."

Odin stopped walking as the realization hit harder than it should have. His breath came out in a shaky sigh. "Is that it, then? The only way to stop destruction is to make the world deadly to the destroyers?"

For a moment, the flames went still.

Then, from deep within the ground, a voice whispered into his mind.

Of course, little spark.

Odin froze as those words didn't come from him, and there shouldn't be anything in this realm. He looked around, scanning the horizon, but he found nothing but fire, black rocks, and smoke.

No point in looking. The voice said again, faintly amused. You're standing on me.

Odin slowly lowered his gaze to the glowing ground beneath his feet. The rivers of fire pulsed, spreading light that moved like veins under transparent skin.

His throat went dry.

"Are you…" Odin began, his voice quiet, careful. "The will of this place?"

I suppose you can say that. The voice answered. Though, to be more specific, I am simply its guardian.

The ground began to shake.

Not the violent shaking of the frost realm's earthquake, but something deeper, a fundamental shift in reality itself. The rivers of magma responded first, their flowing courses bending away from where Odin stood.

They parted like curtains drawn back, revealing the black stone beneath. A deep rumble rose from far below, from depths that preceded the realm itself, from the molten core where fire was born and reborn in endless cycles.

Fire rolled outward in waves. The black rocks and ground shattered, not from force but from the sheer pressure of presence emerging from below. Fragments hung suspended in the superheated air before disintegrating into ash.

Odin stepped back, bronze-tipped fingers rising defensively. His crimson-blue eyes widened as something vast began to form before him.

The fire itself drew together, individual flames merged, thickening, and combining into something. They were shaped into limbs, massive appendages that dwarfed even Ymir's towering form. The magma rivers climbed upward, defying gravity, coiling around each other to form a torso of living flame and shadow.

The earth bent and reformed, stone flowing like water to accommodate the shape that demanded existence.

A Towering Black Being emerged.

Reinhard felt Odin's perception struggle with what he witnessed. The being was immense, so vast it made the surrounding mountains look like scattered ash at its feet. But that wasn't quite right.

Size was the wrong word, the wrong idea entirely, as this being didn't occupy space.

It defined what space was.

The realm around it seemed to learn its boundaries from the being's presence, adjusting reality to fit rather than the other way around. The sky itself curved, bending like light around a star, conforming to the being's form as if acknowledging its fundamental nature.

Its body was blacker than the space between stars, and yet, flecked across that impossible darkness, pinpoints of light moved and shimmered.

Within those lights, images flickered.

Odin saw himself as a child, sitting on Auðumbla's back, asking questions about the nature of existence.

He saw himself older, standing before assembled beings he didn't yet know.

He saw a great tree whose roots and branches connected countless realms. He saw battles, losses, victories, wisdom gained, and prices paid.

Past, present, and future all exist simultaneously within those cosmic specks.

Reinhard felt Odin groan, a sound torn from deep in his chest. Bronze fingers clutched at his head as visions overwhelmed him. The sheer volume of information, lifetimes compressed into seconds, possibilities branching out, causality folding back, all of it threatened to shatter his mind.

Then the being's eyes opened.

They were swirling flames, not with the aggressive heat of the fire realm, but with something ancient and patient. Deep flame that had watched creation unfold, that would watch its eventual dissolution with the same calm acceptance.

Odin blinked as he felt the memories he had seen before vanish. Then, when his vision cleared, the being had changed. Or perhaps Odin's perception had adjusted. The infinite had become merely immense, still towering, still vast, but at a scale he could comprehend.

The being now stood equal in height to Ymir herself, though its presence somehow still filled the entire realm.

"Who…" Odin breathed, voice low. "Who and what are you?"

The towering black being's voice rumbled like molten stone moving beneath the world.

I have no name. The Black Being said. And it matters not.

Its tone was calm, almost gentle.

You were wondering how the frost giants might change, were you not?

Odin frowned, wary but curious, and he nodded. "Yes… They're chaotic, yes, but not hopeless. There must be a way to-"

No.

The word made Odin freeze in confusion.

You cannot change them, little spark. It is impossible.

Odin's brow furrowed. "Impossible? That's absurd! They're stubborn, yes, but nothing is beyond change-"

They are more than stubborn. That being said, voices echo across the fire fields. They are reflections, or you could say small fragments of the realm from which they came.

Odin hesitated. "Reflections?"

The icy realm is not merely ice. The being gestured, and in the air around them, frost began to form despite the heat, perfect structures that refused to melt. It is the idea of stillness, preservation, and time made real. Its children cannot change, because to change would betray the principle that birthed them.

The words hit hard, leading Odin to tremble and stare.

"She told me about that…" Odin recalled Adumala words as he muttered. "Preservation, stillness, time…"

It all made sense now.

"No wonder." Odin whispered as his eyes grew distant. "No wonder they never change. They were made to never change or evolve. From the moment they were formed, their path was fixed."

Correct. The being's confirmation carried the weight of absolute truth. You cannot change what was never meant to change.

Silence fell between them.

The fire realm continued its chaotic dance of rivers flowing, pillars erupting, stone melting, and reforming.

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