Then Odin turned his attention to the bones.

They emerged from the split corpse, massive structures that had given Ymir form, that had supported her impossible size. He lifted them with his will, positioning them with precise care across the forming planet.

Some he drove deep, plunging them into the world's core, where they became foundations. Others he raised high, stacking them, fusing them, creating towers of bone that pierced upward.

These became mountains, great spines of the world that gave shape and structure to everything that would grow upon them.

The largest bones formed ranges that stretched across continents, while smaller ones became isolated peaks.

The tiniest fragments settled into the earth, becoming the mineral. Each bone carried within it the memory of giving form to awareness. Mountains formed from these bones would be places of significance, where the boundary between physical and spiritual thinned.

Odin's gaze lifted to Ymir's skull.

It hung up in the void, the skull that was massive beyond comprehension. Evenly split, it retained its shape, which was beautiful and unique. This was where Ymir's blank awareness had resided, where she had processed existence without understanding it.

He raised both hands, and his will focused with absolute precision.

The skull responded, beginning its own transformation. It expanded, growing larger, its curvature increasing until it dwarfed even the forming planet below. Odin lifted it higher, positioning it above the world he was creating.

Then he released it.

The skull settled into place, becoming the sky itself.

The first true sky that any world had ever known. Its inner surface, which had once contained Ymir's thoughts, now arced overhead in a vast dome. But it wasn't solid as Odin's power flowed through it, the bone became translucent, then transparent, and then transformed into something beyond material entirely.

Blue spread across it, with space itself being given form. The transformation continued, and within that blue, white wisps began forming. Clouds, born from the moisture of Ymir's final breath, mix with the sky-dome's nature.

Odin gestured, and four points of the skull solidified.

They became pillars that were invisible but fundamental, holding the sky in position. And with those four points established, something remarkable happened.

Direction formed.

The universe had existed in a void, where position was relative and arbitrary. But now, with the sky supported at four cardinal points, space organized itself around new concepts. North, where one pillar stood. South, opposite it. East and West are completing the cross.

This was the first time space had ever understood itself as having structure, a framework that beings could navigate.

A few hairs remained on Ymir's skull.

In life, they had sparse ice crystals more than actual hair. Now, as the transformation was completed, they began to fall, but Odin waved his hand, and the falling hairs slowed.

Each one expanded as it drifted downward toward the world below, and where they landed, they took root.

The first forests emerged.

Growing instantly from these primordial hairs. Trees shot upward, branches spreading wide, roots digging deep into the ground. Leaves unfurled, catching the light that filtered through the new sky.

But these were more than normal trees. The fruits that would eventually grow from these forests would nourish not just bodies, but minds and spirits.

In these primordial forests, silence would never be empty. The creaking of branches produced sounds that resonated with the universe's first attempts at understanding itself.

Creatures who would someday walk among these trees would find their own consciousness mysteriously expanded, their capacity for wonder enhanced simply by proximity.

Odin felt something else, a stirring from Ymir's remains. Her breath, the air that had moved through her massive lungs, was escaping.

He captured it with his will, guiding it downward. The breath touched the new world and began flowing, sweeping across oceans. It was rustling through newborn forests, moving around mountains, and it became the wind of the new world.

Finally, Odin turned his attention to something more abstract.

Ymir's voice.

She had barely used it in life as the words emerged flat and emotionless, communication without true connection. But the capacity for speech had existed within her, the fundamental ability to shape thought into sound.

He drew that capacity forth not as sound, but as potential. His hands moved in complex patterns, weaving the essence into the world itself. It spread across the forming reality, settling into the conscious earth, the living seas, the primordial forests.

This would become the gift of language. Every creature that would someday develop the ability to speak would be drawing on this foundation from Ymir.

Not just making sounds, but shaping consciousness into communicable form, creating bridges between individual awareness.

The world taking shape below was nearly complete. Mountains and seas and skies and forests all in their proper places, all carrying fragments of the First Ruler within them.

But Odin wasn't finished.

He closed his eyes, reaching inward.

Memories surfaced of his mother's patient teaching, harsh but loving. His father's direct challenges were followed by a warm celebration.

His brothers' different strengths, how they complemented each other. And above all, Adumula's gentle presence, her belief in his dreams, and her sacrifice.

He took those memories and transformed them into something fundamental. Not specific recollections, but the essence beneath them. The capacity to recognize another consciousness as significant. The ability to look at another being and feel connection, to desire their presence, to mourn their absence.

Love.

The power to love another conscious being and recognize in that love something sacred and profound.

He wove it into the world's foundation, not forcing it, but making it possible. Future creatures would have the capacity for this connection, the potential to form bonds that transcended mere cooperation or survival.

They could choose isolation if they wished, but the option for love would always exist.

And with love came its companion, which was changed. The willingness to transform oneself in response to another, to grow beyond previous limitations, to become more than one had been.

This was Odin's greatest gift to the new world, not just existence, but the possibility for that existence to evolve through connection.

The transformation neared completion. The world settled into its form, systems establishing themselves, natural laws finding their balance.

Odin opened his eyes and looked at what he'd created. Then he paused, a memory surfacing.

Adumula's voice echoed in his mind, one of their many conversations on her broad back. "I wonder if there are other realms out there." She'd said with that patient curiosity of hers. "Maybe one with even more ice, different from what we know. Wouldn't that be wonderful to see?"

A laugh escaped him, tinged with fond sadness. A faint smile touched his bloodied face.

His gaze shifted, taking in the realms that already existed. The Icy Realm where he'd been born, where frost giants still played their destructive games. The Fire Realm is chaotic and ever-changing. The Light Realm, with its beauty, and the Forest Realm, with its verdant chaos.

Four realms, separate and distinct.

"Then let's make more." Odin muttered, the smile widening slightly. "And combine the old ones. All nine realms together."

His hands rose again, and his will expanded to encompass everything. The new world he'd just created would be central, the middle realm, where life would flourish. But around it, connected to it, would be the others.

First, he looked toward the Icy Realm. The frost giants were still there, Bestla and Borr, Vili and Ve, all the others. He couldn't simply destroy them or leave them in a realm that would no longer exist as separate.

Odin waved his hand.

Every frost giant that was frozen in perfect stasis began to fade away. They were being moved and sealed away in a space where the transformation wouldn't affect them.

A temporary holding, somewhere beyond the realms being formed, where they would wait until all the realms were made.

The Icy Realm was now emptied, the Fire Realm went still, while the Light and Forest Realms awaited his touch.

Odin floated in the void, surrounded by the components of his vision. His weapons glowed with power while his body still bled from countless wounds.

But his eyes blazed with determination and purpose.

"Now then." Odin said softly, speaking to the universe itself, to Adumula's memory within him, to the future he was birthing. "How should we begin?"

Then everything froze before it shattered with Reinhard feeling himself beginning to wake up.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.