"Norse Mythology was real."
Azazel spoke in a slow, low voice, carefully building up the drama as he waited to see his old man's expression change.
James looked up at him with the weary patience one might reserve for a foolish child. "You don't need to tell me that. I know. Any news about that 'thing'?"
"Nothing. I searched all the locations you gave me. Apart from the local books I brought back and gave you before, I didn't find anything reliable. But—"
Azazel gave a sly grin, his tail swaying as he spoke as if expecting praise. "You might not understand, old man, but when I teleport, I enter some kind of strange space—or, well, a state. It's like being in a huge room full of transparent bubbles of different sizes. I can sense which bubble-spaces I can enter."
He sprawled across the leather sofa in the study, legs crossed, and continued, "Then I found a vast, deep underground space. Inside... tsk, tsk."
"Quit dragging it out and tell me."
"I'll take you there." As soon as the words left his mouth, black smoke surged around Azazel. He placed a hand on James's arm, and with another muffled thump, the two of them vanished from the study.
They appeared in a vast, empty underground cavern, silent as the grave. It stretched more than ten meters high, the temperature was bitterly cold, and an underground river, over ten meters wide, lay frozen solid.
James's eyes could adjust to the darkness underground. Azazel teleported twice more, returning with a lantern in his hand.
Its light revealed the cavern more clearly. A desolate, primeval air washed over them. The cavern was filled with layers of bodies, all the way to the horizon: corpses of giants with blue-black skin.
"Frost Giants from Jotunheim."