Reinhard felt Odin forcibly cut them off, as he gritted his teeth and his bronze-tipped fingers tightened on his weapons.

"It doesn't matter." Odin muttered, voice barely audible. The words carried finality despite their softness. "In the end, I am always grateful to them for being my parents and being there for me."

Whatever his origin, whether it was planned or coincidental, destined or chosen, they had raised him.

They had taught him, loved him in their different ways, and took care of him from the moment he was born till now.

That was real, regardless of the true reason or purpose.

Odin turned away from the scene.

His parents remained in conversation, unaware of his presence, and he left them to their moment, continuing his journey.

The landscape shifted with the ice formations growing larger and more ancient. He approached the heart of the realm, where the first throne stood, that massive seat carved by the original Frost Giant, the creator, Ymir.

He arrived.

The throne dominated the space as it was impossibly vast. And seated upon it, leaning back, was Ymir itself.

The First Ruler.

The Ancestor.

The being whose body contained the sweat that had birthed all lesser frost giants, whose existence defined what they were.

Odin looked up.

His transcended perception took in every detail, the way frost formed and reformed across its body. The patient's stillness marked its nature, the sense of fundamental importance that radiated from its presence.

Ymir gazed at the horizon, its white eyes reflecting distant light. When it spoke, its voice carried neither surprise nor anger.

"So Adumala really did die."

Odin fell silent, his crimson-blue-gold eyes fixed on the towering figure above. After a long moment, he nodded once.

Ymir displayed no reaction. Its massive form remained perfectly still, frost forming and reforming across its crystalline skin in endless patterns. Its white eyes continued gazing at the distant horizon as if Odin's confirmation meant nothing at all.

"You are working outside of Order and how things should be."

The words emerged flat, emotionless. A statement of fact rather than an accusation.

Odin's grip tightened on his weapons. The Void-Splinter Spear pulsed in his left hand. The First Flame's blade burned quietly in his right hand. "I don't care. I don't want to be a pawn to the universe. My world won't be bound to it."

"Many have said the same thing." Ymir's tone remained unchanged, neither sympathetic nor dismissive, just an empty acknowledgment. "Many have been proven wrong."

Odin's eyes narrowed. Reinhard felt confusion ripple through their shared consciousness. What did she mean? What others? When?

Ymir continued, its voice maintaining that same hollow quality. "This world has been reset many times. Each time things go off the Order."

The revelation made Reinhard tremble in shock, and then he felt Odin's mind reel, pieces clicking together with horrible clarity. The universe wasn't on its first attempt; this wasn't the beginning, it was another iteration in a cycle of failure and renewal.

Odin nodded slowly. "It's because of you… Any new variable that shows up, you squash it before commanding the universe to reset."

Ymir fell silent.

The pause stretched, filled only by the distant sound of wind across frozen plains, and finally, it nodded.

"If you know this..." Ymir tilted its massive head slightly, the first movement it had made since speaking. "Why do you rebel?"

Odin's stance shifted. His weapons came up slightly, muscles tensing beneath his skin. When he spoke, his voice carried absolute conviction.

"Because I made a promise to a friend to create our dream world. And for that to happen, I will overcome any obstacle."

"Any obstacles?" Ymir's head tilted further, the movement unnatural, mechanical. "Fine."

It paused, and the word hung in the frozen air.

"Then prove it."

Ymir stood, taking on the identity of battle.

The movement was simple, rising from a seated position, but the effect was cataclysmic.

Her aura exploded outward like a shockwave. Reinhard felt it crash through Odin's consciousness and felt his enhanced perception struggle to process what it encountered. The entire frozen realm shuddered, ice formations miles away cracked, and the ground split beneath accumulated pressure.

Snow lifted from the surface, suspended in mid-air by sheer presence.

But there was no roar, no sound of aggression or challenge.

Only deep silence that somehow made everything louder.

Odin could hear his own heartbeat, the complex rhythm of rivers flowing through his veins, the blood in his body. Could hear the frost reforming across Ymir's body, the icy structure crackling as it grew.

When Ymir's gaze landed on him, everything else ceased to matter.

Reinhard experienced it through Odin's perception and felt it once more. The feeling of being seen as a fundamental existence in the universe. It wasn't eyes meeting eyes, but it was the void itself becoming aware of a single point of consciousness.

The infinite noticing the finite and the eternal observing the momentary.

Before Odin stood not just Ymir, but every title she'd accumulated across failed iterations.

First Father of the Formless, the being who gave shape to what had none.

The Unshaped Titan, vast beyond measurement, beyond gender, and defined only by what she deems at the moment.

The First Womb, from whom all frost giants had emerged, and children born from unconscious creation.

He Who Births Without Thought, life springing forth without intention or desire.

The Mindless Architect of Chaos, building and destroying with equal lack of awareness.

And above all, the First Ruler. The being who held authority over reality's continuation, who could command reset, and who maintained the Order through ultimate power.

Odin's hands clenched around his weapons, and they responded to his will, their own auras erupting outward. The Void-Splinter Spear leaked darkness that ate at reality while the First Flame's blade blazed with heat that transcended temperature.

Inside him, the eleven rivers surged. Their essences mixed, creating power that defied categorization. Auðumbla's presence roared forth as her sacrifice, her will, her belief in his dream all manifested as golden light that wrapped around his form.

His aura clashed with Ymir's.

Where they met, reality screamed as ice formed and shattered simultaneously. Fire burned and froze in the same instant. Concepts became confused, unable to maintain coherent existence under the pressure of opposing fundamental forces.

"You, Ymir..." Odin's voice cut through the chaos. "No… More accurately, 'The One Who Should Not Exist, Yet Must.'"

Ymir's true form was a paradox given voice. A being whose very existence contradicted itself, necessary but wrong, essential but broken.

Reinhard felt Odin's awareness expand, understanding Ymir's nature completely. Her body was her weapon. Every cell, every molecule of her crystalline form was forged from the fundamental principle of preservation through stasis. Her flesh was harder than any material, stronger than any force.

Even the Void-Splinter Spear, which could wound concepts themselves, would struggle against her physical form. Only the First Flame's blade, the weapon that contained separation and transformation itself, could truly harm her.

Odin thrust forward.

Both weapons moved as one.

The spear aimed for Ymir's center while the blade carved an arc toward her side.

And then Ymir's fist blasted outward.

There was no technique or strategy. Just overwhelming physical might.

The attacks met, and they crashed into each other!

Pure absolute white erupted that consumed everything. Reinhard felt himself torn away from Odin's perspective, consciousness scattered by the sheer force of the collision. Sound became meaningless as his vision failed, and he lost track of where he was.

He tumbled through sensory chaos while catching glimpses of the battle in fragments that his mind struggled to assemble.

Odin's spear pierced through space itself, creating wounds in reality that Ymir's body fell through.

Ymir's fist connected with Odin's chest, the impact visible as a shockwave that rippled through his entire form.

The First Flame's blade cutting arcs of separation, dividing ice from ice, matter from matter, existence from existence.

Both combatants moved faster than thought, each exchange happening in compressed eternities.

Odin screams with effort and pain and determination, his voice carrying harmonics from eleven rivers flowing through him.

Ymir is silent, emotionless, her attacks carrying no malice or intent beyond simple execution.

The light gradually died down.

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