Alvin shook his head noncommittally. "The ruler of Hell?
Are you sure you've got that right? Mephisto, that old devil, isn't exactly easy to deal with. I don't think this little meatball could go toe-to-toe with him."
Frigga smiled and shook her head. "The Hell I'm talking about isn't the one in the Nine Realms. That place is actually called Muspelheim. Its environment just made people start calling it Hell."
As she spoke, Frigga patted Lucifer on the back and smiled. "The real Hell is right here!
The thirteen circles of Hell in Dante's Divine Comedy—a place that holds evil spirits and punishes sinful souls! (This has come up before: the devil once captured old Ghost Rider Carter Slade, and it appeared when Vanaheim fell.)"
Alvin stared at her in disbelief. "Why would the Immortals leave a Hell for Vanaheim, those treacherous bastards? And call it their 'last resort'?
I've always thought the Immortals rarely made mistakes, but they clearly misjudged Vanaheim."
Frigga's expression darkened slightly at Alvin's sharp words. "This World Stone is a sacred relic passed down through generations in Vanaheim...
Earth needs a place to hold sinful souls. They'll cleanse themselves of their sins in Hell, then return to the mortal world and dissipate into the heavens and earth."
Frigga spoke with some sadness. "I never understood the purpose of this World Stone...
But after Earth 'revived,' I realized that Earth's energy could nourish people's souls. If sinful souls had nowhere to go, they would wander among the living.
Those negative emotions could easily affect the way humans think.
It really was a 'path to life,' but for my brother Freyr, it was a 'path to death'!
He imagined he could remain above everyone forever. How could he accept becoming a caretaker of Hell?
So he would