A pain beyond the flesh, rooted deep in the soul—extreme agony, confusion, disorientation, caught again and again between life and death.
James's mind had long since become a muddled haze. In his final moment of awareness, all he saw was a torrent of three-colored light surging toward him.
All-Father Odin wielded the most powerful Bifrost ever unleashed by Asgard in its thousands of years of history, sending James into the endless void of space—or perhaps some realm among countless dimensions.
Yet within the river of light that was the Bifrost, the burning figure still roared and fought with all his might. His wildly unstable energy tore through the lightfall's teleportation, and he tumbled away in an unknown direction.
Thud!
The ethereal music of Asgard had faded at some point, and half the Golden Palace had crumbled into ruin.
All-Father Odin's right knee slammed heavily against the ground. Leaning on Gungnir, he struggled to rise.
Dozens of charred fist marks and wounds seeped blood from his mighty Uru-forged body. The droplets quickly evaporated into golden mist, slowly dispersing in the light of the Realm Eternal's setting sun.
Thor and Loki supported their father on either side. The old king waved them off, then, with a slight tremble, handed Gungnir to Thor. Before he could speak, a gentle, unhurried voice said softly:
"Let me. You two go tidy this place up, Thor. Go wash your face first."
Odin's wife and the mother of Thor and Loki, Frigga, took her husband's bloodstained, rough hand. She glanced at her son's disheveled face, then casually gestured toward the heaps of rubble and broken walls in the Golden Palace.
She looked like a dignified woman in her forties, dressed in a simple, understated robe. Apart from a brass hairpin holding up her long hair, she wore