This was a primitive age—messages were shouted, and travel was done on foot.
With the average male frost giant sorely lacking in brainpower, gathering over a hundred of them scattered across the wild was a daunting task in itself.
It took the giants a full three days to finish assembling their scattered forces across the barren land. In contrast, the Aesir, whose average intelligence was considerably higher, completed their preparations in just one day.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
Dense, drum-like footsteps thundered across the earth.
When a group of giants, ranging from ten to twenty meters tall, marched together over the endless frozen landscape, the scene was utterly awe-inspiring.
Had there been writing at this time—or a historian present—this battle would surely have been immortalized in an epic.
Even in later ages, the Aesir had craftsmen and painters depict this great clash in murals adorning the halls of the god-king's palace, to be revered by all future generations of the Aesir.
The giant horde was like a mobile range of mountains. Their enormous bodies crushed every ancient tree in their path, leaving behind terrifying footprints, each easily a meter deep, in the hard-frozen ground.
Birds and beasts fled in panic. The land itself split open.
The sheer momentum of their advance made even Laufey's family, watching from the neighboring hill, grow anxious. The female giants standing behind them wore equally worried expressions.
They had betrayed the giants to support the Aesir. If the giants won today, these traitors would almost certainly be torn to pieces.
"Look!" Laufey pointed into the distance.
There, the giants seemed enraged. They began to run, raising clubs high above their heads, shouting coarse, half-intelligible curses and roars!
And the target of their furious chase was none other than a "small" giant—just over five meters tall.
Naturally, it was Loki.
A cold wind swept across the land, carrying Loki's utterly arrogant voice from afar:
"Hahaha! You dumb, ugly meat mountains! Just so you know, Thalos of the Aesir has stolen all your women! None of them will ever want you again! Go find a hole and bury yourselves!"
Rumors only last so long. The truth cuts deeper than any blade.
There was a reason Loki was so hated even within the Aesir.
His mouth was relentless. He practically radiated a taunting aura, one that effortlessly ignited rage in anyone who heard him.
With just a few sharp words, the traitor Loki had roused the fury of his kin.
Even more impressive? Despite his shorter height, Loki's stride frequency was insane. He was actually outrunning these twenty-meter-tall behemoths.
He ran ahead. The giants chased behind.
The earth trembled beneath the chaos. Just watching it made Laufey's heart clench.
And when she saw her precious son facing down the giants' snarling jaws without flinching, she actually muttered, awestruck, "My god... Loki is amazing!"
That made Thalos frown slightly.
Was it possible Loki was just pretending to be brave?
When it came to running for his life, Loki was a pro.
He seemed to be jogging slowly, always just on the verge of being caught and clubbed to death by the pursuing giants.
In reality, his real body had already gone invisible. What the giants were chasing was a phantom, a magical afterimage constantly taunting and luring them onward. Meanwhile, Loki subtly shifted directions, drawing the giants closer together.
It was like watching a shepherd dog drive a flock—this technique of manipulating enemy movement and adjusting their formation on the fly was something Loki was using for the first time, yet he executed it like he'd rehearsed it a hundred times.
Laufey was stunned.
Thalos had been the one to assign this role to Loki, yet even Laufey hadn't realized her son had this kind of talent!
Under the watchful eyes of Farbauti's family, Loki led over a hundred giants in an all-out, no-holds-barred sprint. In the chaos, some giants collided and smashed into each other, leaving themselves bloodied and dazed.
They roared, they cursed, they swung their clubs with lethal intent—all of it aimed at crushing the hated traitor Loki. His words had infuriated them so much they'd lost all sense of reason, blindly charging into unfamiliar terrain.
They never noticed they had entered a hard-to-escape basin.
At that moment, Thalos blew the signal horn.
Woooooo——wooooo——wooooo——
The deep, sonorous sound rang out like a trumpet from the heavens, as if announcing the cracking of the earth and the arrival of a new era for the Aesir.
At the high cliffs overlooking the basin's entrance, the frost giant Farbauti flexed every last muscle in his body. Thick, worm-like veins bulged across his arms and thighs.
With a mighty roar, he hurled down a boulder larger than himself—a ten-thousand-ton rock that crashed into the narrow forty-meter-wide entrance and sealed it shut.
Simultaneously, Laufey, her two sons, and a group of female giants used their clubs to smash open the wall of a nearby frozen lake.
The world of Ginnungagap had been forged when the fire giant Surtur swung his flaming sword and ignited the frozen wasteland, creating a world of ice and snow—a world that also held poisonous steam clouds, misty swamps, and frigid lakes brimming with ice-slush and toxic waters.
Now, tons of freezing water cascaded down into the basin like a waterfall of doom.
The sound alone—like heaven and earth crashing together—was enough to send panic surging through the hearts of the giants caught below.
Many of the dimwitted giants tried to flee. Others stood paralyzed, staring blankly at the approaching flood. Still others, consumed by rage, continued chasing the illusion of Loki.
Total chaos.
Meanwhile, the real Loki had already stumbled, panting, to the hundred-meter-wide basin exit.
There stood a man who, though small by comparison, seemed like a god standing tall enough to support the sky—Bor, the current King of the Aesir.
Seeing his nephew flawlessly complete the mission, the usually wooden Bor smiled for the first time: "Well done, Loki! Leave the rest to me!"
What had once been a united horde of giants was now a scattered mess.
Only a handful actually made it to Bor's position.
Bor roared, "DIE!"
With that thunderous shout, his divine form surged upward in size.
Ten meters. Twenty. Thirty!
He transformed into a titan the size of a ten-story building, completely blocking the only remaining exit from the basin.
Then, at the nearest charging giant—a twisted brute with a lopsided jaw—Bor hurled a stone the size of a truck cab.
BOOM!
The explosive crash sounded like a sonic boom—an absolutely devastating critical hit.
This wasn't just crushing a head like smashing a watermelon. Under Bor's divine might, the poor giant was blasted into "chunks"—a leg here, a torso there—so scattered you'd have a hard time finding enough to piece a body back together.
Faced with the stunned, furious, and desperate gazes of the remaining giants, Bor pounded his massive chest like a war drum and shouted the line his favorite son had taught him:
"Come on, come on! I'LL TAKE ON A HUNDRED!"