"Pfft."
Blood stained Odin's snowy-white beard, but the droplets quickly dispersed into flecks of gold and vanished.
Odin looked down at the bone fist embedded in his chest, its Hellfire blazing. His upper-body armor had been shattered in an instant.
The flaming skeleton, crowned with bone, smoked all over. With a series of hissing sounds, flesh, sinew, and veins began to grow back across his body, restoring James Howlett's imposing appearance.
"Old All-Father, you're built like a tank."
James's half-skeletal face twisted as he spoke, his jaw working. His hoarse, gravelly voice sounded unusually grating.
Odin's upper-body armor was in pieces, leaving bare the knotted muscles that looked like steel cables twisted together. Thick body hair covered his chest, back, and even his shoulders, as white as his hair and beard.
Whumm!
Mjolnir shot into Odin's hand. James stepped back, bracing his palm, then used the force of the hammer's blow to retreat to the far end of the hall.
"Ptooey!"
Odin smacked his lips a few times, savoring the taste of blood, then spat. A scorched, blackened fist-shaped mark had been left in the center of his chest.
He rolled his neck and hammered his chest several times, making the whole of Valaskjalf shudder with a thunderous rumble.
"Not bad! That was a fine punch, young man. You're every bit as strong as the giant Ymir. Again!"
Odin flung Gungnir into the palace ceiling, then turned the hammer over in his hand, his eyes alight with the excitement of remembering the old days.
Boom! A perfectly round explosion of flame shattered the golden floor tiles beneath them. James burst apart all over again, his flesh disintegrating as he charged in. His fist collided with Odin's hammer-wielding right hand.
The moment his flaming fist met Mjolnir, the pillars on both