Hell.
Beneath the pitch-black sky, crimson lava churned between fractured cliffs. Its oppressive red glow reflected off the dim clouds, staining the entire sky blood-red.
A figure pierced through space and stood atop the highest lava peak, six wings spread behind him. Michael's furnace-like eyes swept over his surroundings as golden radiance surged outward from him like a tide, as if a golden sun hung beneath the blood-red sky.
"Did you think hiding here would keep me from finding you?"
Michael snorted coldly and reached into the sky above him with a grasping motion. A phantom of a massive golden sword appeared in his hand, and he slashed it through the air at the towering lava peak before him!
A streak of golden light cut across heaven and earth in an instant. A thin golden line appeared on the dark-red mountain, followed by endless golden radiance erupting from within it. The entire peak exploded apart down the middle!
BOOM—!!
A muffled explosion swept black smoke and dust through the air. An old man in tattered divine robes emerged from beneath the shattered mountain, his face dark as he looked up at the hovering Michael.
The old man's left eye was incomparably deep, while his right eye was nothing but a hollow socket. Countless scarlet worms wriggled within it, forming a bizarre red eyeball.
"Odin?" Michael's gaze fell upon that red eyeball, and he frowned slightly. "No wonder I sensed a trace of a Lovecraftian Deity's aura... So you have already submitted to them."
A chill flashed through Odin's eyes as he spoke calmly. "They are them, and I am me. This is merely cooperation."
After escaping from Taoist Celestial Venerable and Vishnu, Odin had been unable to return to Asgard and had remained hidden within the ruins of Hell. He